Peter Tompkins (April 19, 1919 – January 23, 2007) was an American journalist,

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(OSS) spy in Rome, and best-selling author.

Biography

He was a war correspondent for the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the ''New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...

'' and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

during

. In 1943 he was recruited by the OSS and utilized as an

undercover agent To go "undercover" (that is, to go on an undercover operation) is to avoid detection by the object of one's observation, and especially to disguise one's own identity (or use an assumed identity) for the purposes of gaining the trust of an indi ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

in 1944. He worked closely with

Maurizio Giglio Maurizio Giglio (20 December 1920 - 24 March 1944) was an Italian soldier and policeman. In September 1943, during World War II, the Italian government concluded an armistice with the Allies. He thereafter transmitted military intelligence by ra ...

, an Italian policeman who was an OSS secret agent. In 1962 he published his diary, titled ''A Spy in Rome'' (

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

). His best-known books are '' The Secret Life of Plants'' (1973), '' Secrets of the Great Pyramid'' (1971; paperback reprint, 1997), and '' Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids'' (1976). His ''Secrets of the Great Pyramid'', ''Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids'' and ''The Magic of Obelisks'' have become classics of "

New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...

" literature. In 1977, he hosted a documentary film called ''Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle'', directed by

Donald Brittain Donald Code Brittain, (June 10, 1928 – July 21, 1989) was a film director and producer with the National Film Board of Canada. Career ''Fields of Sacrifice'' (1964) is considered Brittain's first major film as director. His other notable ...

References

External links

Associated Press obituary
''

International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...

'', January 24, 2007
2004 profile of Peter Tompkins in Italian magazine "The American."
at

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

Article on Spies in WWII by Tompkins
* * ''Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle'' on the Internet Archive American spies American male journalists People of the Office of Strategic Services 1919 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American journalists American expatriates in Italy {{US-journalist-1910s-stub