Operation Chaos

From a political cult to the heart of the Washington establishment - the bizarre and untold story of how the CIA tried to infiltrate a radical group of US military deserters during the Cold War. Stockholm, 1968. A thousand American deserters and draft-resisters are arriving to escape the war in Vietnam. They're young, they're radical, and they want to start a revolution. The Swedes treat them like pop stars - but the CIA is determined to stop all that. It's a job for the deep-cover men of Operation Chaos and their allies - agents who know how to infiltrate organizations and destroy them from inside. Within months, the GIs have turned their fire on one another, and the group dissolves into interrogations and recriminations. When Matthew Sweet began investigating this story, he thought the madness was over. He was wrong. Instead, he became the confidant of an eccentric and traumatized group of survivors - each with his own intricate theory about the traitors in their midst. All Sweet has to do is discover the truth . . . and stay sane. Reminiscent of Jon Ronson's The Men who Stare at Goats and as compelling as Ben McIntyre's Agent Zigzag, in Operation Chaos Matthew Sweet's fascinating journey of discovery sheds new light on one of the great untold tales of the Cold War, where the facts are wilder than any work of fiction.

Operation Chaos tells the real-life thrilling story of a group of US military deserters who found asylum in Sweden during the Vietnam War - one of the great untold tales of the Cold War, where the facts are wilder than any work of fiction. 'A remarkable story of subterfuge and brainwashing that few Hollywood scriptwriters could have made up' Simon Heffer, author of The Age of DecadenceIn 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, an exodus begins. A thousand American deserters and draft-resisters escape the brutal fighting for the calm shores of Stockholm. These defectors are young, radical and want to start a revolution. The Swedes treat their new guests like rock stars - but the CIA is going to put a stop to that.It's a job for the deep-cover men of Operation Chaos and their allies - agents who know how to invade radical organizations and crush them from the inside. And within a few months, the GIs have turned on each other - and the interrogations and recriminations begin. A gripping espionage story filled with a host of extraordinary and unbelievable plays, Operation Chaos is the incredible but true account of the men who left the war, how they betrayed each other and how they became lost in a world where anything seemed possible - even the idea that the CIA had secretly programmed them to kill their friends.