This is a very interesting story of a Navy officer assigned to the U.S. Military Liaison Mission in East Germany in the early 1960s. The role of the USMLM was to provide a direct line of coordination between the Soviet forces in the DDR and U.S. forces in West Germany. However, this mission rapidly changed from its WWII intent to an opportunity to collect intelligence between the Iron Curtain. Fahey shares tales of derring-do with the Stasi and close calls with the Soviet Army as he traveled throughout the DDR taking photographs and finding important material... when he wasn't being shot at.
If the book has a weakness it is the repetition in a few places regarding certain aspects of the job and the overuse of the phrase "license to spy." The book could have been edited a little more tightly. I am glad, however, to have read this book as there are so few books on the topic of the MLMs. I had a friend once who was in the USMLM in the 1980s and he managed to get beaten up by Soviet soldiers. I personally recall the Soviet Military Liaison Mission stationed in Frankfurt a.m. and the SMLM cards we were issued in 1985 and our special instructions... but that would be a different story.
Illustrated with black and white photos.
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