Blackford Oakes novels

When the Queen's life is threatened, it takes a remarkable CIA agent to save her Blackford Oakes has never been afraid of obeying orders. During the war, it's what kept him alive. When he leaves the air force for Yale, Oakes is studious, temperate, and polite. He knows how to follow rules-but he also knows the secret to breaking them: Never tell a little lie when a big lie will do. He's exactly the man the CIA is looking for. Just before Oakes graduates,...

Blackford Oakes dodges KGB spies and Hungarian freedom fighters while trying to stop Sputnik The students of Budapest rise up against the Soviets with the assurance that the West will help them fight. Instead, 200 Russian tanks roll across the Hungarian border, sweeping the resistance aside. It's a heartbreaking setback for democracy in Eastern Europe-and a pain in the neck for Blackford Oakes. Trapped in Budapest when the fighting breaks out, this...

Blackford Oakes makes a deal with the underground to save the city of Berlin President Kennedy is sailing off Cape Cod when the Secret Service tells him they have to return to shore. This can only mean one thing: crisis. The president sails back to Hyannis Port as fast as possible, and upon stepping off the dock, his worst fears are realized. The Communists have cut Berlin in half. Kennedy will not let this stand; Germany is too important to be divided...

Blackford Oakes hunts for a mole inside MI6 after a catastrophe in Albania Albania may be a small nation, but it's about to become the front line of the Cold War. In hopes of toppling the brutal Communist regime that controls the country, the British intelligence service has handpicked an elite group of Albanian freedom fighters to be molded into commandos by Blackford Oakes, the CIA's all-purpose warrior. With the help of MI6's most ruthless clandestine...

Blackford Oakes takes to the jungle to bolster the American presence in Vietnam It starts with a naked president. Blackford Oakes, the most elegant spy in the CIA, meets Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House swimming pool, and has no choice but to accept the president's invitation to skinny-dip. Even naked, Johnson is all business, lambasting Oakes and the CIA for allowing the continued infiltration of guerillas into South Vietnam. Johnson demands...

Debonair superspy Blackford Oakes takes on one last mission in the rollicking conclusion to a beloved espionage series by William F. Buckley. Blackford "Blackie" Oakes is the greatest spy in American history, but he's no longer allowed behind enemy lines. As the former director of covert operations for the CIA, he knows too much to risk falling into enemy hands. But something has come up that requires him to go farther behind the Iron Curtain than...