Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War
Battleground Berlinis the product of an  unprecedented collaboration between two veteran intelligence  officers--one with the CIA, the other with the KGB--who worked on  opposite sides in postwar Berlin. With the help of journalist  George Bailey, they have told what will likely stand as the  definitive account of those remarkable years. The KGB had the  advantage of existing, in one form or another, since the Russian  Revolution, while the CIA was a fledgling agency. But KGB agents  and analysts were under chronic pressure to twist their  intelligence reports for political reasons, which evened the  scales somewhat.Armed with information from numerous interviews, access to  previously secret documents (many reproduced in the book),  extensive research, and their own recollections, the authors roam  the existing Cold War literature, correcting lies and false  conclusions, putting rumors to rest, and exposing ignorance--in  short, setting the record straight. They provide definitive  accounts of many key episodes, including the double defection of  Otto John, the head of West German counterespionage, and the  famous tunnel incident of 1955-56, in which an American tunnel  into the Soviet sector was exposed by a highly placed informant  and then "discovered" in an elaborate ploy to protect  the agent.Battleground Berlinis a remarkable amalgam. It  is a fascinating, sometimes gripping spy story, complete with safe  houses, forged identities, double agents, and street-corner  rendezvous; it is also a scrupulously researched piece of  historical scholarship and analysis.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.