The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold WarNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. “The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets. Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations. |
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the spring of 1970, a young British intelligence officer was leafing through a “personal file” that had recently arrived from Canada. Geoffrey Guscott was slightly built, bespectacled, multilingual, highly intelligent, and dogged.
the spring of 1970, a young British intelligence officer was leafing through a “personal file” that had recently arrived from Canada. Geoffrey Guscott was slightly built, bespectacled, multilingual, highly intelligent, and dogged.
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The file on Guscott's desk, code-named DANICEK, concerned the recent defection of a junior officer named Stanislaw Kaplan from the Czech intelligence service. Kaplan had taken a holiday in Bulgaria soon after the Prague Spring.
The file on Guscott's desk, code-named DANICEK, concerned the recent defection of a junior officer named Stanislaw Kaplan from the Czech intelligence service. Kaplan had taken a holiday in Bulgaria soon after the Prague Spring.
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On September 24, 1971, the British government ejected 105 Soviet intelligence officers, the largest expulsion of spies in history. The mass eviction, code-named Operation FOOT, had been brewing for some time. Like the Danes, the British ...
On September 24, 1971, the British government ejected 105 Soviet intelligence officers, the largest expulsion of spies in history. The mass eviction, code-named Operation FOOT, had been brewing for some time. Like the Danes, the British ...
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... Gordievsky would be returning to Copenhagen as second secretary at the Soviet embassy; in reality, he was now a political-intelligence officer of the KGB's First Chief Directorate —the post formerly occupied by Mikhail Lyubimov.
... Gordievsky would be returning to Copenhagen as second secretary at the Soviet embassy; in reality, he was now a political-intelligence officer of the KGB's First Chief Directorate —the post formerly occupied by Mikhail Lyubimov.
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Ţú hefur náđ skođunarhámarki fyrir ţessa bók.
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LibraryThing Review
Umsögn notanda - brenzi - LibraryThingThis is the story of KGB secret agent Oleg Gordievsky, who was turned by MI6 during the Cold War and escaped from Russia in 1985, leaving behind his wife and three children to deal with the KGB on ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
Umsögn notanda - Eyejaybee - LibraryThingThis book tells the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer who, after suffering one disillusionment too many, allowed himself to be turned as a double agent for MI6. His story is fascinating, not ... Read full review
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The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War Ben Macintyre Engin sýnishorn í bođi - 2018 |
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War Ben Macintyre Engin sýnishorn í bođi - 2018 |
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War Ben Macintyre Engin sýnishorn í bođi - 2019 |
Common terms and phrases
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Bókfrćđilegar upplýsingar
| Titill | The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War |
| Höfundur | Ben Macintyre |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Útgefandi | Crown, 2018 |
| ISBN | 1101904208, 9781101904206 |
| Length | 384 síđur |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |