Good evening, and welcome to another edition of Inside the Cover.

I originally typed this script on the eve of the date of America's 250th birthday.

In some ways, I personally find thi to be a bittersweet anniversary, as best exemplifie in the following quotation: ‘In the United States, fascism is on the rise.

Libraries are under attack.

Some pundits are asking why universities bother with departments that don't just teach students to write code.

Violent bigotry is fashionable again, and for many people, the opportunity of politics is the opportunity to impose cruelty on others.

The admonition to remember has never been so important.

That quotation is from tonight's book, Book and Dagger by Doctor Elyse Graham.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

Doctor Graham is an historian and professor at Stony Brook University in New York.

She is a graduate of Princeton summa cum laude, MIT and Yale.

Book and Dagger which was copyrighted in 2024, is Graham's fourth book.

I found her to be a thoughtful insightful, gifted, delightful, and courageous writer, and I simply love this book.

The book is subtitled How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War Two, and that really says it all.

Graham provides a history of the genesis of the Office of Strategic Services the predecessor of today's CIA.

The OSS was begun in 1941 at the direction of President Roosevelt, and his first director was William Donovan, a lawyer by trainin and a war hero of World War One.

This book tells the story of Adele Kibre, who had earned a PhD in Lati from the University of Chicago, where she was employe at the time of her recruitment, landed in Stockholm, Sweden, in August of 1942.

Using the cover that she was purchasing books for the Library of Congress.

She actually used a lightweight Contax microfilm camera to acquire documents for the Inter-Departmental Committee for the Acquisition of Foreign Publications, a tiny component of the OSS.

Doctor Graham tells the story of Carleton Coon.

Coon was an anthropologist on the faculty at Harvard.

Koon went off to work for the OSS in North Africa.

He was involved in smuggling guns into Tangier prior to Operation Torch, and he also taught sabotage and covert operations to the locals.

The book also tells us of Sherman Kent, a history professor at Yale.

He was one of the very first professors to leave campus to work for U.S.

intelligence.

In the years to come, Kent would become the father of a new field called Intelligence Analysis, the intellectual foundation of the present day CIA.

Graham's book is well researched.

it tells an important stor of unsung heroes, each of whom contributed to the victory over fascism, tyranny and hate.

She also makes a strong case fo the importance of scholarship, the humanities, reading and learning for the sake of learning.

I spent 40 years of my professional life providing legal advice for public universities in three states.

We have a son who is an English professo at a public university in Texas.

A daughter in law who's an academic advisor at a private university in Texas, and a son who is a data analyst fo a public university in Colorado.

What they d and what they represent are near and dear to my heart.

In my view, Book and Dagger by Doctor Elise Graham is an important and necessary reminde that books, education, reading and learning are and will always be important bulwarks for democracy.

Book and Dagger is one of the most important books I've read in quite some time.

It is likely to find its way to my all time list.

I encourage you to read it.

Good night and see you next time here on Inside the Cover.