The sword and the shield
Subtitle: the Mitrokhin archive and the secret history of the KGB
By: Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin.
Contributors: Mitrokhin, Vasili, 1922-
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 700
Subjects: Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti -- History; Intelligence service -- Soviet Union -- History; Secret service -- Soviet Union -- History; Soviet Union -- Foreign relations
Description: "The Sword and the Shield gives us by far the most complete picture we have ever had of the KGB and its operations in the United States and Europe. It is based on an unprecedented, top-secret archive described by the FBI as "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever achieved from any source.""--BOOK JACKET.

"In 1992 the British Secret Intelligence Service exfiltrated from Russia a defector whose presence in the West has remained secret until the publication of this book. Vasili Mitrokhin worked for almost thirty years in the foreign intelligence archives of the KGB. In 1972 he was made responsible for moving these entire archives, including all the files on the KGB's deep-cover operatives, to new headquarters just outside Moscow.

He was congratulated by the head of foreign intelligence, Vladimir Kryuchkov (later the ringleader of the 1991 Moscow coup), for his success in transferring the archives and his "irreproachable service to the state security authorities.""--BOOK JACKET.

"Unknown to Kryuchkov, however, Mitrokhin spent over a decade making notes and transcripts of these highly classified files which, at enormous personal risk, he smuggled daily out of the archives and kept beneath his dacha floor. No one who spied for the Soviet Union at any point between the Bolshevik Revolution and the 1980s can now be sure that his or her secrets are safe."--BOOK JACKET.

"Christopher Andrew has had exclusive access to both Mitrokhin and his archive, which is now in Britain. Supplementing this treasure trove of KGB secrets with extensive research in other archives, published and unpublished sources, he has written an extraordinary book which forces us to acknowledge that there was indeed an enemy - and that he was very much in our midst."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.