Articles & Blogs by Bayard & Holmes
Now Available! SPYCRAFT: Essentials
Bayard & Holmes We are proud to announce the birth of our new book baby, SPYCRAFT: Essentials. Now available on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, and in print at Amazon. What do the main intelligence agencies do and where do they operate? How do they recruit personnel? What are...
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Life in the Cold
Bayard & Holmes ~ Piper Bayard Independence Day was not the end of our fight for freedom, but only the beginning. Most of the men who signed our Declaration of Independence lost their fortunes and their lives in the fight. Yet that war did not seal America's freedom....
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Thank You, IRS, for Coming After Me
Bayard & Holmes ~ Piper Bayard The IRS came after me, and I’m smiling. Yes, smiling. No, I don’t enjoy paying taxes. In fact, I’m appalled by the way the government misappropriates or flat out pilfers half of what it takes, and then our “leaders” refuse to balance...
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AR-15 Facts Without Politics
Bayard & Holmes ~ Piper Bayard & Jay Holmes Big Media, Big Politics, and Big Business all profit financially and politically when they keep the public worked up in fear and/or outrage. They are not our friends. Let’s take some of their power back with a few facts. The...
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12 Strong–Movie Review
Bayard & Holmes ~ Piper Bayard & Jay Holmes Based on the best-selling book Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton, 12 Strong is the true story of the first US Army Special Forces team to go into Afghanistan to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaeda after the 9/11 terrorist attack...
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Flight of the Konkordski — The Rest of the Story
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes The Russian TU-144 jet, a.k.a. the Konkordski, was the Soviet version of the French/British Concorde. In Part One, Explosion of the TU-144, we looked at the apparent events at the 1973 Paris Air Show when the TU-144 exploded, killing its...
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Flight of the Konkordski — Where Andrei Tupolev Sat
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes In our last post, Explosion of the TU-144, we looked at the crash of the TU-144, a.k.a. the Konkordski, at the June 3, 1978 Paris Air Show, and we asked, “Why, on such an important day, did such an important plane flown by some of the...
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Flight of the Konkordski — Explosion of the TU-144
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes On a spring day in Paris on June 3, 1973, over 200,000 spectators at the Paris Air Show watched the new British/French Concorde Supersonic Transport perform a fly by followed by a fast, steep climb. A new age of Mach 2. passenger flights...
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Pilgrim on a Lonely Journey
Bayard & Holmes ~ Piper Bayard This is the week of the mass American pilgrimage. Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, is the day we Americans travel home. It is the one holiday we all share, no matter what our religion. The day when we gather as families. Some...
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There Are No “Boots,” Only Men and Women
Bayard & Holmes ~ Piper Bayard & Jay Holmes No one who serves is a "boot on the ground." That is a phrase for politicians and bean counters. Each is a man or woman, someone's child, spouse, sibling, lover, and friend. Each lives, loves, bleeds, and dies. Each commits...
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That Damned Berlin Wall
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes On a cold, January day in 1961, in a world chilled by the threat of nuclear Armageddon, I sat near a radio with my family and listened intently to the words of a man that my very young mind idolized. Even as a small child, it was not my...
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8th Annual Love-A-Spook Day — Honoring Analysts
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes Bayard & Holmes created Love-A-Spook Day eight years ago on October 31 to honor the contributions of those in the clandestine services. In previous Love-a-Spook Day articles, we have focused on remarkable individuals who have made great...
read moreBritish Drug Pushers in China — The Second Opium War
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes Last week, we began the sordid tale of the First Opium War, in which England pushed opium produced in India onto China to balance its trade deficit with that country. Today, we continue with the rest of the story. * * * * * *...
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British Drug Pushers in China — The First Opium War
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes China became involved in direct trade with Europe when the Portuguese established a trade center in Macau, China in 1557. Then, in 1565, Spain established a permanent colonial presence in the Philippine Islands and used it as a base for...
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A Flimsy Excuse for World War I
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes An intelligence agency ignored its own government and ordered an assassination. No, not in Pakistan.... On July 23, 1914, Austrian diplomat Baron Giesl von Gieslingen delivered an ultimatum to the government of Serbia. In response to the...
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Bringing Down the Cosa Nostra
Bayard & Holmes ~ Jay Holmes On July 19, 1992, Italian Anti-Mafia Task Force leader Judge Paolo Borsellino--one of the most important men in the history of Italy--and five police body guards*, were murdered by a car bomb in Palermo, Sicily. Their deaths would not be...
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