Sam Durell/Assignment is a series of detective mysteries by Edward S. Aarons who penned more than eighty novels between 1936 and 1975. The prolific Aarons wrote some of the novel sunder other pseudonyms that included Edward Ronns and Paul Ayres. In addition to his many short stories and novels he was also an active author that penned stories featured in Scarab and Detective Story Magazine. While Aarons wrote novels in several genres, he is for the most part known for the writing of spy thrillers for which the Assignment series is the most known and most popular. The Assignment series are set on location across tens of countries around the globe and have been translated into almost twenty languages. The star character of the Assignment series …show more content…
For college he went to Columbia University and then went on to work a variety of jobs that included fisherman, salesman, reporter among other jobs. He first decided to try his hand at writing when he got into a collegiate short story contest in 1933 which he won. He published his first ever novel Death in a Lighthouse in 1938 which became one of around 30 titles of thrillers and hard-boiled mysteries that he published under the pseudonym Edward Ronns. Many of the novels had Jerry Benedict the newspaper editorial cartoonist as the lead protagonist. In 1941, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Aarons joined the US military and served in the Coast Guard. After the end of the war, he went back to civilian life going back to Columbia from where he graduated with a bachelors in history and literature. Soon after, he was back to publishing the Edward Ronn novels that he did at a good clip of about two to three novels a year until 1962. Form 1955 he started penning the Assignment series under his own name and increased the number of works published a year with up to three novels featuring Sam Durrell published every year until his …show more content…
His grandfather prided himself as being among the last of the riverboat gamblers that looked at the world with unique keen eyes. Durell went to Yale in his late teens and from there joined the intelligence services having already become fluent in several languages. He went on to serve in World War II under the OSS, then to the Pentagon, the State Department and then to the CIA where he rose to K Section sub chief. Sam Durell is an imposing man at more than six feet tall with a lean waist, heavy shoulders, and long fingers that showed him a good gambler. His dark and thick hair and blue black eyes gave him a black look when he was thinking of something dangerous or when he was angry which he often is. His Cajun upbringing gave him an independent streak and a hot temper that surprising made him more effective in his assignments. While he is said to work for the CIA, technically he does not. His real organization is a highly secretive branch under the NSA that is headquartered in some nondescript offices in a residential area of Washington. He has risen to high rank within the organization as a survivor of countless assignments that have made him the enemy of countless foreign intelligence agencies. The dossiers with his name have for a long time been red tagged by the Chinese
I think everyone has wanted to be a Navy SEAL in one point of their life, but as they get older their dream of being the best of the best fades away. Marcus Luttrell has had that dream of being a SEAL since the age of seven, and his determination and will to survive the hardest training in military history, gave Luttrell the title of a Navy SEAL.
After graduation, he went to work for a blast furnace unit at a Ford Motor Company’ Rouge Plant. After working at Ford for five years Randall took a job with the United States Post Office as a clerk and letter carrier. In July of 1943, he was enlisted into the U.S. Army Air Corps, and served during World War II. After returning from the war, he went back to work to the post office. In 1949,while working in the post office he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in English and his Master’s degree in Library scien...
Born on September 23, 1953, Earl Edwin Pitts was a all-American, clean-cut citizen of the United States. Earl Edwin Pitts is a native of Urbana, Missouri, he has a Bachelors in Science Degree from Central Missouri State University, a Master's Degree from Webster College, and a law degree from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He served in the Army from 1975 to 1980. As a law school graduate and retired Army Captain (1), Earl Edwin Pitts had dreamed of working for the Federal Bureau of Investigations for two reasons, first to protect the United States and second, as a means of escaping his small town Missouri roots. On September 18, 1983 Earl Edwin Pitts joined the Federal Bureau of Investigations as a Special Agent taking the solemn oath of office and promising to support and defend the Constitution of the United States as well as to protect the secret information accessed during his tenure at the Federal Bureau of Investigations however, less than four years later, a disgruntled and angry Earl Edwin Pitts entered into a conspiracy with the Soviet Union to betray his country. Earl Edwin Pitts was a thirteen year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigations when he was caught selling information to the United States’ largest adversary; nine of those years were as a double agent. (2)
“The Best That Never Was” is a 30 for 30 documentaries ESPN produced about the life and career of Marcus Dupree. Almost every topic we have discussed in class this semester came together in this documentary. It had everything from racism, eligibility to ethical behavior by everyone involved in sport including agents. I will focus on these three issues in particular because I feel they have the most direct correlation between the film and classroom discussions. I will follow these up with my opinions of the movie and some of the key players.
Richard Immerman bookends his monograph, The Hidden Hand: A Brief History of the CIA, with reflections on the role of public expectations in the shaping of the CIA’s image, both externally and internally. In-between, Immerman attempts to reconcile the antagonism between the CIA’s actions and its fundamental task. Stated otherwise, Immerman reveals a history of the “competition between covert, particularly paramilitary operations, and its core mission of collection and analysis.” Immerman, who currently serves as a Professor of History at Temple University, has held multiple positions within the intelligence network which has granted him access to privy material. He identifies his main questions in regard to the CIA as: What it does and has
Prados, John. Safe for Democracy The Secret Wars of the CIA. Chicago, IL: Ivan R Dee, Publisher, 2006.
When he was fifteen years old, his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years, he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career.
“President Bush has stated that about a hundred detainees were held under the Central Intelligence Agency secret detention program, about a third of whom were questioned using “enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA has a way of very publicly blowing their cover seeming to pop up wherever turmoil, and political problems arise. The CIA exists to prevent threats, its operations involve covert actions or spying through various means to gather critical intelligence data. The CIA dates back to 1947. The qualifications and skills are above average. The job of the CIA is to anticipate and quickly assess rapidly evolving international developments and their impact, both positive and negative, on US policy concerns. When researching the career of
Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.
In the poem “Determination” written by Stephen Dobyns, the poet gives an account of a man finally beginning to prepare to write his first novel after the many “tedious years” he endured of “doing the taxes of strangers” (19-20). Typically, this would be a respected occasion, and the poet emulates this idea to some extent. However, he also strategically employs a multifaceted tone regarding the actions of the character in the poem. Looking past the deferential, celebratory tone that lies on the surface of the poem, demonstrated through the thoughts of the speaker, the tone of the poet himself is dismissive and detached. By means of certain poetic devices and other literary techniques, the poet conveys his attitude toward the character in the
knowledge of the CIA and who would later would be involved in the clash between the
The DIA started in 1958. The organizational structure of the DoD and U.S. foreign intelligence came to a new shape with the establishment of DIA. It was Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, who came up with the concept of DIA in 1961. DIA gathers human source intelligence, analyzes technical intelligence, distributes intelligence/reports to the intelligence agencies, provides advice and support to the Joint Chiefs of Staff with foreign military intelligence, and provides military intelligence to combatant commands as its operational functions. A DIA director is supposed to be a three-star military general and DIA is believed to have employed at least 7,500 staff worldwide today. The DIA is a defense intelligence agency that prevents strategic surprises and delivers a decision advantage to warfighters, defense planners, and to policymakers. This paper will try to evaluate DIA’s role in US national security in present condition of massive budget deficits and increased congressional oversight, plus the intelligence capabilities of the Regional Combatant Commanders and the individual services like CIA and NSA.
The Central Intelligence Agency The CIA is one of the U.S. foreign intelligence agencies, responsible for getting and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. government. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense Department's Defense Intelligence Agency comprise the other two. Its headquarters is in Langley, Virginia, across the Potomac River from D.C. The Agency, created in 1947 by President Harry S. Trueman, is a descendant of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of World War 2. The OSS was dissolved in October 1945 but William J. Jonavan, the creator of the OSS, had submitted a proposal to President Roosevelt in 1944.
Tillyard, E. M. W. "The Secret Agent Reconsidered." Conrad: A Collection of Critical Essays. Comp. Marvin Mudrick. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966. 103-110.
Tidd, J. M. (2008). From revolution to reform: A brief history of U.S. intelligence. The SAIS