Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies: A History of Spies and Espionage

This book is non-fiction by Janet Wyman Coleman, and its about famous spies in world, such as Whitaker Chambers who was a Time Magazine journalist, and a spy for the Soviet Union. This book teaches you the history of spies and spying. One thing that was interesting was that the first American spy was George Washington. He knew that the only way to beat the British was to spy on them because the British had better trained men, better weapons, and a lot more men then the Americans. George Washington found out that the British were going to invade Rhode Island, and to prevent this from happening George Washington wrote a fake letter saying that he was going to invade New York. He gave it to one of his secret agents and told him to give it to the British general. When the British read this they changed direction and went back to New York while the Americans headed to Rhode Island.

There was another story about the Navajos during World War II. Philip Johnston read an article about how during World War I Canada used Native Americans as code talkers. So he told the military and they recruited Navajo Indians to be code talkers, because they have a very complex language. One word can mean different things depending on the pitch of the word. They were trained in San Diego and went to battle. When the Japanese tapped the message they couldn't transcribe it or decode it. One Japanese code breaker said that he thought he was listening to gibberish.
This book talks about spies, and how to spy also, and it shows pictures of people and spy gadgets. in chronological order throughout history. I love this book because it is easy to read and you learn interesting things on every page.