num_pages: 408
description: The most damaging spy network of the Cold Warthe infamous Cambridge Spy Ringwas comprised of several powerful and influential British citizensand one American, Michael Straight. Born to a wealthy New England family, Straight attended Cambridge University in the 1930s, and there he fell in with the notorious circle of young men working for Soviet intelligence Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, and Kim Philby, who was to become the most famous spy of the century.For the next several decades, Michael Straight led a secret life: While working at the State Department, he passed intelligence reports to a Russian agent; while running his family’s magazine, The New Republic, he funded several communist fronts; and while serving U.S. presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, he continued to meet with agents around the world.Despite Michael Straight’s 1963 confession” to the FBI that his covert activity ceased in 1941, investigative journalist and author Roland Perry has unearthed a different story. Incorporating material from exclusive interviews with Michael Straight, members of his family, and former KGB agents (Perry has been careful to corroborate all KGB-supplied information), as well as archival research from the CIA, FBI, and Soviet intelligence, Perry presents a full and complete portrait of Michael Straight, the last of the Cold War spies.
language: English
title: Last of the Cold War Spies: The Life of Michael Straight
titlecomplete: Last of the Cold War Spies: The Life of Michael Straight
genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Espionage, Historical
ratings_count: 22
publisher: Da Capo Press (Cambridge, MA)