About this item
"MacArthur's Spies reads like Casablanca set in the Pacific, filled with brave and daring characters caught up in the intrigue of war - and the best part is that it's all true!" - Tom Maier, author of Masters of SexA thrilling story of espionage, daring and deception set in the exotic landscape of occupied Manila during World War II. On January 2, 1942, Japanese troops marched into Manila unopposed by U.S. forces. Manila was a strategic port, a romantic American outpost and a jewel of a city. Tokyo saw its conquest of the Philippines as the key in its plan to control all of Asia, including Australia. Thousands of soldiers surrendered and were sent on the notorious eighty-mile Bataan Death March. But thousands of other Filipinos and Americans refused to surrender and hid in the Luzon hills above Bataan and Manila. MacArthur's Spies is the story of three of them, and how they successfully foiled the Japanese for more than two years, sabotaging Japanese efforts and preparing the way for MacArthur's return. From a jungle hideout, Colonel John Boone, an enlisted American soldier, led an insurgent force of Filipino fighters who infiltrated Manila as workers and servants to stage demolitions and attacks. "Chick" Parsons, an American businessman, polo player, and expatriate in Manila, was also a U.S. Navy intelligence officer. He escaped in the guise of a Panamanian diplomat, and returned as MacArthur's spymaster, coordinating the guerrilla efforts with the planned Allied invasion. And, finally, there was Claire Phillips, an itinerant American torch singer with many names and almost as many husbands. Her nightclub in Manila served as a cover for supplying food to Americans in the hills and to thousands of prisoners of war. She and the men and women who worked with her gathered information from the collaborating Filipino businessmen; the homesick, English-speaking Japanese officers; and the spies who mingled in the crowd. Readers of Alan Furst and Ben Macintyre - and anyone who loves Casablanca - will relish this true tale of heroism when it counted the most.
About the Author
PETER EISNER, an award-winning foreign correspondent, has been an editor and reporter at the Washington Post, Newsday and the Associated Press. Eisner was correspondent and consulting producer at the PBS programs Newshour Weekend and World Focus and was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy Award in 2010.
His latest book, MacArthur's Spies, is a thrilling story of espionage, daring and deception set in the exotic landscape of occupied Manila during World War II.
PRAISE FOR MACARTHUR'S SPIES
"Peter Eisner does a masterful job of telling a colorful, largely unknown story. A sultry nightclub owner in Manila and a businessman who used his cover as a Central American consul to spy on the Japanese are just two members of a fabulous cast of characters that could have come straight from a Graham Greene novel." -Lynne Olson, author of Citizens of London and Last Hope Island.
"MacArthur's Spies reads like Casablanca set in the Pacific, filled with brave and daring characters caught up in the intrigue of war - and the best part is that it's all true! This is a spy story about Claire Phillips, a remarkable woman who, through her own cunning and considerable charm with the men in her life, manages to survive - a triumph of the human spirit." - Thomas Maier, author of Masters of Sex and When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys.
Eisner's previous books include:
THE POPE'S LAST CRUSADE, the story of the lesser-known Pope Pius XI, who served before World War Two and engaged an American Jesuit journalist to help him oppose Hitler, Mussolini and anti-Semitism. The book was a History Book Club and Catholic Book Club monthly selection.
THE FREEDOM LINE, a page-turning story that traces the life of Robert Grimes, a 20-year-old American B-17 pilot whose plane was shot down over Belgium on Oct. 20, 1943. Freedom Line won the Christophers Award.
THE ITALIAN LETTER, with co-author Knut Royce, which traces fraudulent U.S. intelligence prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, historic insights for a greater understanding of the Iraq War and how the United States got there.
Eisner was deputy foreign editor and Washington, D.C, political editor with the Washington Post from 2003-2007. Earlier he was foreign editor and senior foreign correspondent of Newsday and was the managing director of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based watchdog organization.
