Book and Dagger

As World War II began, the U.S. faced an urgent need for an intelligence agency, leading to the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to today’s CIA. To staff this new agency quickly, the government turned to academia, recruiting unexpected spies — literature professors, historians, and librarians. In Book and Dagger (Ecco), Graham uncovers the hidden lives of these scholars-turned-operatives, including literature professor Joseph Curtiss, who flipped German spies; history professor Sherman Kent, who became a top intelligence analyst; and librarian Adele Kibre, who smuggled secret documents from Stockholm. Drawing on personal stories and declassified files, Graham reveals a gripping tale of how these academics helped defeat the Nazis and reshape postwar higher education.