Case by Case: A U.S. Army Counterintelligence Agent in World War II

Melchior's WW II adventures as an Army counterintelligence agent in the European Theater of Operations included escorting a defecting German scientist through the lines and capturing a Nazi general. He admits that ``working constantly with informers and saboteurs, spies and war criminals, made it difficult not to become callous,'' and he doesn't hesitate to recount the bullying tactics he used to force prisoners to talk. Most of the displaced persons, fugitives, miscreants and war criminals he dealt with are presented here as thoroughly loathsome--either obsequious jellyfish or bristling with Nazi arrogance. Despite its disagreeable aspects, however, the memoir is engaging, especially when Melchior recalls the interrogation techniques he devised and the imaginative schemes by which Nazis tried to escape arrest or obtain preferential treatment. Melchior is the author of Order of Battle: Hitler's Werevolves. Photos. (Mar.)