BILL MILLS
Agent of the Iron Cross
The Race to Capture German Saboteur-Assassin Lothar Witzke During World War I
Agent of the Iron Cross is a “gripping saga… Devotees of cloak-and-dagger intrigue will revel in this thrilling and complex account” — Publishers Weekly
On January 30, 1918, a young man “with the appearance of a well-educated, debonair foreigner” arrived at the U.S. customs station in Nogales, Arizona, located on the border with Mexico. After politely informing the customs inspector that he had come to complete his draft registration questionnaire and meet a friend in San Francisco, he was approved to cross the border into the United States. Lothar Witzke, the most dangerous German agent in the western hemisphere had reached his destination. His assignment: launch a campaign of sabotage, insurrection, and murder to destabilize the American home front.
The terror campaign would be devastating - unless it could be stopped by U.S. counterintelligence.
The Witzke mission was the intelligence game played at its highest level - a plan for destruction on a massive scale, violent insurrection, and assassination, complete with master spies and double agents, diabolical sabotage devices, secret codes, and invisible ink.
Meticulously researched and written in the style of an adventure novel, Agent of the Iron Cross is the first detailed account of this legendary espionage operation.
The Estrada Plot
How the FBI Captured a Secret Army and Stopped the Invasion of Mexico
“A well-documented and fascinating read… Without access to modern high-tech surveillance tools, these early FBI agents used informants, paper trails, and gumshoe detective skills to stop Estrada’s secret army.”
— Nancy Savage, executive director, Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI
In 1926 the Mexican government of Plutarco Elías Calles sparked widespread discontent by enacting policies to redistribute private land and restrict religion. Plots to overthrow the administration ran rampant. At his home in Hollywood, California, exiled General Enrique Estrada saw a golden opportunity to overthrow Calles and seize power. With a cadre of experienced officers – exiled generals like himself, Estrada organized a secret army of invasion. The conspirators amassed a stockpile of rifles, machine guns, and ammunition, constructed armored vehicles, and contracted the manufacture of attack aircraft. From the teeming barrios of Los Angeles to the farm country of the Imperial Valley, hundreds of migrants were recruited for the underground army. By August they were ready to strike…
The only obstacle in Estrada’s path was the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation. Although years of neglect had eroded the organization’s effectiveness, a new director, young J. Edgar Hoover was turning things around, transforming the Bureau into a force of bright young men schooled in the methods of scientific law enforcement. In a race against time, the agents pitted old-school legwork against Estrada’s determination. Full of drama and intrigue, The Estrada Plot is the last great “untold story” of the early FBI.
Treacherous Passage
Germany’s Secret Plot Against the United States in Mexico During World War I
“Mills relates a story so strange, and with characters so bizarre, it might well be a Graham Greene novel—and yet the events he describes actually did take place. Mexico in 1917 was a nation riddled with spies, conspirators, corrupt officials and soldiers of fortune… Although the United States ultimately managed to confound Germany’s mix of Mexican machinations, the story remains compelling.” —Robert Guttman, HISTORYNET
"A lively read… not only a good cloak and dagger tale, but also throws further light on the still-not fully documented German efforts to carry on covert operations against the United States during the Great War." — A. A. Nofi, Strategy Page
While the Great War raged across the trench-lined battlefields of Europe, a hidden conflict took place in the distant hinterlands of the turbulent Mexican republic, where German officials and secret service operatives plotted to bring war to the United States through an array of schemes and subterfuges.
Treacherous Passage tells the true story of the most audacious of these operations: the German plot to launch clandestine sea raiders from the Mexican port of Mazatlán to disrupt Allied merchant shipping in the Pacific. The scheme led to a desperate struggle between German and American secret agents in Mexico. German consul Frederick Unger, the director of a powerful German trading house,
plotted to obtain a salvaged Mexican gunboat to supply U-boats operating off Mexico and to seize a hapless tramp schooner to help hunt Allied merchantmen.
Unger’s efforts were opposed by a colorful array of individuals, including a trusted member of the German secret service in Mexico who was also the top American spy, the U.S. State Department’s senior office in Mazatlán, the hard-charging commander of a navy gunboat, and a draft-dodging American informant in the enemy camp. Full of drama and intrigue, Treacherous Passage is the first complete account of the daring German attempts to raid Allied shipping from Mexico in 1918.
The League
The True Story of Average Americans on the Hunt for WWI Spies
“Hush hush reading… Can recommend the new book The League: The True Story of Average Americans on the Hunt for WWI Spies by Bill Mills” — World War 1 Historical Association
Two weeks before the U.S. entered World War I, a Chicago advertising executive visited the offices of the Department of Justice and presented the government with a bold plan - organize the country’s businessmen into a secret force of volunteer agents to ferret out and investigate enemy activities. The idea received quick approval and caught on like wildfire. Soon thousands of volunteers in every major industry, trade and profession were on the alert nationwide, maintaining surveillance and investigating cases for the Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation. In time they would grow to become 250,000 strong. How this private secret service organization would be used to support the U.S. war program and protect the home front, preventing sabotage, hunting enemy agents, enforcing wartime regulations – and policing the loyalty of American citizens, is the story of the American Protective League.
From a running gun battle on the streets of Philadelphia, to protecting the Ford Motor Company Highland Park plant from sabotage, to the hunt for the radical bomber that attacked the Federal Building in Chicago, The League is a fascinating true story that will not soon be forgotten.
- Bill Mills author espionage books -
