The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill

"Fascinating--and it is all true!" -- FREDERICK FORSYTH, author The Day of the Jackal

Washington Post: "A fascinating and complex picture of the interplay between politics and media in the Cold War era."

Hailed by The New York Times Book Review, Alan Furst, Bill Moyers, Alex Kershaw, Kai Bird, and more.

A thrilling Cold War narrative exploring two harrowing attempts to rescue East Germans by tunneling beneath the Berlin Wall, the U.S. television networks who financed and filmed them, and the Kennedy administration's unprecedented attempt to suppress both films.

In the summer of 1962, one year after East German Communists built the Berlin Wall, a group of daring young West Germans came up with a plan. They would risk prison, Stasi torture, even death to liberate friends, lovers, and strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. Among the tunnelers and escape helpers were a legendary cyclist, an American student from Stanford, and an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English Channel.

Then two U.S. television networks, NBC and CBS, heard about the secret projects, and raced to be first to air a spectacular "inside tunnel" special on the human will for freedom. The networks funded two separate tunnels in return for exclusive rights to film the escapes. In response, President John F. Kennedy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, wary of anything that might raise tensions and force a military confrontation with the Soviets, maneuvered to quash both documentaries.