Columbia Broadcasting System Inc - The tunnels: escapes under the Berlin Wall and the historic films the JFK White House tried to kill

The greatest strength of The Tunnels is in the details.Days after finishing the book I could not escape one of Mitchells imagesof a hat with a small hole in it landing softly on the Western side of the border while its owners dead body fell back into the East, waiting for the guards to hurry it out of sight. For those who see walls as the answer to policy problems, this book serves as a stark reminder that barriers can never cut people off entirely but only succeed in driving them underground.

Nicholas Kulish, New York Times Book Review

Shows the trade-off behind the scenes at one of the most pivotal moments in the standoff between the United States and the Soviet UnionA fascinating and complex picture of the interplay between politics and media in the Cold War era.

Stephanie Kirchner, Washington Post

Every hour of my year in East Berlin1963/64the escape tunnels beneath our feet were being dug. This is their story: those who dug them, those who used them, and those who betrayed them to the Stasi. Fascinatingand it is all true.

Frederick Forsyth, author of The Odessa File and The Day of the Jackal

A story with so much inherent drama it sounds far-fetched even for a Hollywood thrillerMitchell tells a kaleidoscopic cold war story from 1962, recreating a world seemingly on the edge of a third world war.

The Guardian

Fascinating and deeply researchedMitchells book provides a welcome reminder of the ingenuity and courage that people can display when politics and walls separate them from loved ones and a better life. But its also a testament to just how forcefully even ostensibly liberal administrations can suppress the media.

Christian Science Monitor

A terrific new book about a heretofore obscure episode regarding the wall in 1962. A must for all the JFK fans.

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

The Tunnels is one of the great untold stories of the Cold War. Brilliantly researched and told with great flair, Greg Mitchells nonfiction narrative reads like the best spy thriller, something le Carr might have imagined. Easily the best book Ive read all year.

Alex Kershaw, author of Avenue of Spies

Vividly describes the harrowing conditions under which strong young men based in West Berlin dug the tunnelsMitchells interviews with the tunnelers, couriers and escapees put a human face on this dramatic experience.These are heart-racing tales, and Mitchellauthor of several books on U.S. politics and historynarrates them with emotion and evocative detail.The political and media angles in The Tunnels are indeed intriguing.The intense drama and risks involved for the tunnelers and the escapees offer a compelling context for todays refugee crisis.

Hope Harrison, Washington Post Book World

When you have read the last page of Greg Mitchells The Tunnels you will close the bookbut not until then.

Alan Furst, author of A Hero of France and Night Soldiers

Greg Mitchell has written a riveting story focusing on one of the most powerful documentaries ever broadcast on television, NBCs The Tunnel. Those of us who saw it that December night in 1962 have never forgotten the experience. Now Mitchell, an exemplary journalist, goes beyond what the cameras saw, deep into the political dynamics of Cold War Berlin. John le Carr couldnt have done it better.

Bill Moyers

Thrilling and meticulously documentedMitchell masterfully guides the reader through a labyrinth of details, intertwining the narratives to show how the tunnelers, the NBC crew (led by correspondent Piers Anderton) and the politicians played their parts on the stage of history.A fitting tribute to the brave men and women who did all they could to tear down the Wall.

Dallas Morning News

Greg Mitchell has written a book about a time in the early 1960s when two groups of diggers built tunnels that were filmed and financed by U.S. television networks, who wanted to turn acts of daring into primetime specials. But when the U.S. government discovered those projects, the Kennedy administration moved to suppress them.

Scott Simon, NPR Weekend Edition

Mitchell delivers a gripping, blow-by-blow account of one grueling dig and dramatic rescue.Mitchells tense, fascinating account reveals how the U.S. undermined a freedom struggle for the sake of diplomacy.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

This is not just an exciting escape narrative, but also an extraordinarily revealing political thriller, centering on ruthless government attempts to control what the public gets to see. Mitchell presents us with a radically changed perspective on one of the Cold Wars most dramatic episodes. His book is both priceless as history and just about impossible to beat for sheer narrative gripa rare achievement.

Frederick Taylor, author of The Berlin Wall and Dresden

Eye-opening and an exhilarating read. Not knowing who made it out of the East, and who was arrested, or worse, kept me glued to this book until the last page. The involvement of the Stasi, two American TV networks, and Americas State Department contribute to the historical perspective of this important work.

Antonio Mendez, coauthor of Argo

The author ably captures the dedication of the men and women trying to get family, friends, and complete strangers to freedom.A gripping page-turner that thrills like fiction.

Kirkus Reviews

Greg Mitchell is the best kind of historian, a true storyteller. The Tunnels is a gripping tale about heroic individuals defying an authoritarian state at a critical moment in the Cold War. A brilliantly told thrillerbut all true.

Kai Bird, author of The Good Spy

Mitchell deftly navigates the mad months of 196162 when East Berlin was trying to wall off the West, Cuba was turning deep Red, John Kennedy was getting his presidential sea legs, and the world seemed bound for hell in a nuclear handbasket.Mitchell closes his energetic and illuminating narrative by noting that, after jousting with NBC and CBS, Kennedy ordered up Project Mockingbird, a domestic CIA program aimed at reporters and foreshadowing so many other aspects of the American future.

American History

The Tunnels uncovers an unexplored underworld of Cold War intrigue. As nuclear tensions grip Berlin, a whole realm of heroes and villains, of plot and counterplot, unfolds beneath the surface of the city. True historical drama.

Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars

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