page_title: Alexander Vassiliev
section_title: Emigration
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Vassiliev / Biography / Emigration
caption_attribution_description: English: Astronaut Photo of London, United Kingdom taken from the International Space Station (ISS) during Expedition 23 on May 22, 2010.
context_page_description: Alexander Vassiliev is a Russian journalist, writer, and espionage historian living in London who is a subject matter expert in the Soviet KGB and Russian SVR. A former officer in the Soviet Committee for State Security, he is known for his two books based upon KGB archival documents: Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, co-authored with John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, and The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America: the Stalin Era, co-authored with Allen Weinstein.
context_section_description: Feeling a communist-nationalist restoration somewhat likely and their own safety tenuous, Alexander Vassiliev and his wife Elena decided to emigrate to Great Britain in 1996, leaving his precious notebooks with trusted friends for safekeeping rather than risking losing them to inquisitive officials at the airport. Copies of his draft chapters for The Haunted Wood were transferred to computer disks and some key documents were transcribed prior to their leaving. The resulting book based upon these materials was published in the United States by Random House in 1999.
  The years 2001 to 2003 were filled with two legal actions related to The Haunted Wood. After losing his cases in June 2003, Vassiliev took some time away from the bitter subject which had taken the last ten years of his life.
caption: Satellite view of inner London, whither Vassiliev emigrated
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