The Invisible Spy: Churchill’s Rockefeller Center Spy Ring and America’s First Secret Agent of World War II

The untold World War II story of a former soccer player turned White House confidant, who worked with Churchill's secret agents in New York City to carry out the largest-ever foreign espionage operation inside the United States, and inspired the James Bond character of Ian Fleming, a fan of Ben McIntyre and Eric Larson.Ernest Cuneo, a strong and intelligent young Italian-American, was a football player at Columbia University, an Ivy League university, and joined the old Brooklyn Dodgers in the NFL, before becoming a city council lawyer and an assistant in President Roosevelt's “advisor group.” He was paid by Walter Winchell, the national radio columnist, and mingled with celebrities and influencers. But his work as a spy was kept secret, hidden in broad daylight.During this period, a close friendship arose between Cuneo and British spy Ian Fleming, and he helped inspire Fleming to write James Bond novels. She also began an affair with Margaret Watson, one of Churchill's clients at the Rockefeller Center, a beautiful Canadian woman with a photographic memory perfect for espionage work.In one nighttime attack, Watson was nearly strangled to death by a Nazi assassin inside a dormitory near the Rockefeller Center. Kunio's transformation from an American football athlete to a high-profile intelligence broker and politically influential figure is one of the greatest yet untold stories of American espionage. He has remained “invisible” in the public eye - until now, with this look revealing his life.Thomas Meyer, best-selling author and producer of the hit television series Mafia Spies and Sex Masters, offers little-known tales of the Rockefeller Center espionage operation and the origins of the CIA.The Invisible Spy weaves Kunio's extraordinary personal story with insights into many of the 20th century's leading figures, including Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and later John F. Kennedy. Filled with captivating events and characters, this book reveals how Kunio, as the first American spy of World War II, helped the British launch a covert campaign against Nazi conspirators hiding in America, a spy war of which many were unaware.