A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit

In June 1949, the US and British governments secretly agreed to mount a joint covert action operation to overthrow the communist government in Albania. The top-secret plan would use exiled dissidents to conduct subversive intelligence, paramilitary and propaganda operations to foment an uprising against Albania's authoritarian ruler Enver Hoxha. The Albanian operation is a vital but misunderstood part of Cold War history. A Rich Harvest of Bitter Fruit explains how the West, it its first secret attempt to subvert a communist state behind the iron curtain, ultimately backed away from trying to bring down Hoxha's regime. Instead, Albania was the test case of anti-communist covert action where the West served its apprenticeship before rolling out this capability on a global scale. Drawing on a range of material and primary sources, this is the first book to take an international look at this crucial flashpoint and incorporate the motives and actions of all four major actors - the Anglo-Americans, the Communist powers, Albania's regional neighbours, and the Albanian rebels themselves. A tale of subterfuge, secrecy and skulduggery, this is a compulsively readable and fascinating examination of one of the most important, and least examined, major flashpoints of the Cold War.