This is a True story of how government personnel ran an airline out of business.

From the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to 9/11 and beyond, this riveting case study examines the history of American terror attacks. To many Americans, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, seemed to usher in a new era in which we faced a new kind of threat. But in truth, terrorist attacks had always been a part of American life. This book chronicles thirty-seven such assaults on American soil from the end of the Civil War into the twenty-first century. Author Joseph T. McCann covers the most infamous attacks as well as obscure yet important events. Using a narrative case-study format, Terrorism on American Soil provides detailed accounts of the perpetrators, their motives, and the social and political context in which the events took place. Taken together, these accounts reveal important lessons about the changing nature of terrorism in America; our evolving methods for coping with it; and the psychological, political, and legal principles that help us understand it.

In 1942, Hitler's Nazi regime trained eight operatives for a mission to infiltrate America and do devastating damage to its infrastructure. It was a plot that proved historically remarkable for two reasons: the surprising extent of its success and the astounding nature of its failure. Soon after two U-Boats packed with explosives arrived on America's shores–one on Long Island, one in Florida–it became clear that the incompetence of the eight saboteurs was matched only by that of American authorities. In fact, had one of the saboteurs not tipped them off, the FBI might never have caught the plot's perpetrators–though a dozen witnesses saw a submarine moored on Long Island. As told by Michael Dobbs, the story of the botched mission and a subsequent trial by military tribunal, resulting in the swift execution of six saboteurs, offers great insight into the tenor of the country--and the state of American intelligence--during World War II and becomes what is perhaps a cautionary tale for our times.