WWII Target: Altoona

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on WWII Target: Altoona The tale of the bold but fizzled 1942 Nazi plot to sabotage the Horseshoe Curve railroad landmark near Altoona, Pennsylvania, has been told in books and articles almost since the day the spy-thriller story began to unfold. First came a juvenile-fiction account in 1944 titled The Long Trains Roll by Stephen W. Meader. It recounts the story of Operation Pastorius, a wry allusion to the theme of...
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Into the Dark World of Catching Crooks, Culprits and Convicts: An Interview with Robert K. Wittman

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Into the Dark World of Catching Crooks, Culprits and Convicts: An Interview with Robert K. Wittman by Michael J. O’Malley III Robert King “Bob” Wittman in no way resembles the highly romanticized portrayals of FBI agents made famous over the decades by movie studios and television series. He is not the heavy-hitting, gang-busting, chain-smoking G-man, replete with fedora rakishly angled atop his head. Instead, he embodies the old-school preppy style – looking as though...
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September 11, 2001 FBI Artifacts

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on September 11, 2001 FBI Artifacts Nearly five years ago, on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the unthinkable had occurred: terrorists attacked the country’s financial and military centers at the World Trade Center in New York City and at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Western Pennsylvania was not immune and felt the direct impact with the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, in rural Somerset County,...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman, with John Shiffman published by Broadway Paperbacks, 2011; 324 pages, paper, $15.00 While employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Philadelphia, Robert King Wittman created and was senior investigator of the bureau’s Art Crime Team. He arrived in 1988 in Philadelphia, “home to two of the...
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