MONDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2024
CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR
FIRST HOUR
9-915
1/4 The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain Hardcover by Matthew Longo (Author)
In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists organized a picnic on the border of Hungary and Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnic―it was located on the dangerous militarized frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumor, thousands of East German “vacationers” packed Hungarian campgrounds, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents. The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War history: hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West.
Drawing on dozens of original interviews―including Hungarian activists and border guards, East German refugees, Stasi secret police, and the last Communist prime minister of Hungary―Matthew Longo tells a gripping and revelatory tale of the unraveling of the Iron Curtain and the birth of a new world order. Just a few months after the Picnic, the Berlin Wall fell, and the freedom for which the activists and refugees had abandoned their homes, risked imprisonment, sacrificed jobs, family, and friends, was suddenly available to everyone. But were they really free? And why, three decades since the Iron Curtain was torn down, have so many sought once again to build walls?
Cinematically told, The Picnic recovers a time when it seemed possible for the world to change. With insight and panache, Longo explores the opportunities taken―and the opportunities we failed to take―in that pivotal moment
915-930
2/4 The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain Hardcover by Matthew Longo (Author)
930-945
3/4 The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain Hardcover by Matthew Longo (Author)
945-1000
4/4 The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain Hardcover by Matthew Longo (Author)
SECOND HOUR (first hour of Sisterhood from 1/18)
10-1015
1/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023 18
by Liza Mundy (Author)
Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency’s secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA’s shrewdest operatives.
They were unlikely spies—and that’s exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA’s critical archives—first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn’t see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda—though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside.
After the 9/11 attacks, more women joined the agency as a new job, targeter, came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape—an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA’s successful effort to track down bin Laden in his Pakistani compound.
Propelled by the same meticulous reporting and vivid storytelling that infused Code Girls, The Sisterhood offers a riveting new perspective on history, revealing how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, and how their silencing made the world more dangerous.
1015-1030
2/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023 by Liza Mundy (Author)
1030-1045
3/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023 by Liza Mundy (Author)
1045-1100
4/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023 by Liza Mundy (Author)
THIRD HOUR (second hour of Sisterhood, from 1/19)
5/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023
by Liza Mundy (Author)
Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency’s secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA’s shrewdest operatives.
They were unlikely spies—and that’s exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA’s critical archives—first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn’t see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda—though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside.
After the 9/11 attacks, more women joined the agency as a new job, targeter, came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape—an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA’s successful effort to track down bin Laden in his Pakistani compound.
Propelled by the same meticulous reporting and vivid storytelling that infused Code Girls, The Sisterhood offers a riveting new perspective on history, revealing how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, and how their silencing made the world more dangerous.
1115-1130
6/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023
by Liza Mundy (Author)
1130-1145
7/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023
by Liza Mundy (Author)
1145-1200
8/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023
by Liza Mundy (Author)
FOURTH HOUR
12-1215
1/4: Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars Hardcover – May 23, 2023 by Brett Forrest (Author)
When Billy Reilly vanished, his parents embarked on a desperate search for answers. Was their son’s disappearance connected to his mysterious work for the FBI, or was it a personal quest gone wrong? Only when Wall Street Journal reporter Brett Forrest embarks on his own investigation does a picture emerge: of the FBI's exploitation of US citizens through a secretive intelligence program, a young man's lust for adventure within the world's conflicts, and the costs of a rising clash between Moscow and Washington.
Sept. 11th roused Billy Reilly's curiosity for religions, war, and the world and its people beyond his small town near Detroit. Online, Billy taught himself Arabic and Russian. His passions led him into jihadi Internet forums, attracting the interest of the FBI.
An amateur drawn into professional intelligence, Billy became a Confidential Human Source, one of thousands of civilians who assist FBI agents with investigative work, often at great hazard and with little recourse. When Russia stirred rebellion in Ukraine, Billy set out to make his mark.
In Russia, Billy's communications dropped. His parents, frantic, asked the FBI for help but struggled to find answers. Grasping for clues, the Reilly family turned to Brett Forrest. Commencing a quest of his own, Forrest applied years' worth of research, along with decades of extensive experience in Russia, illuminating the inner workings of the national-security machine that enmeshed Billy and his family, picking up the lost son's trail.
A masterwork of reporting, composed like a thriller, blending political maneuvering and international espionage, Lost Son illustrates one man's coming of age amid new global dangers.
1215-1230
2/4: Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars Hardcover – May 23, 2023 by Brett Forrest (Author)
1230-1245
3/4: Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars Hardcover – May 23, 2023 by Brett Forrest (Author)
1245-100 AM
4/4: Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI's Secret Wars Hardcover – May 23, 2023 by Brett Forrest (Author)