Spies
Subtitle: the rise and fall of the KGB in America
By: John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev.
Contributors: Klehr, Harvey.; Vassiliev, Alexander.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 650
ISBN-13: 9780300123906
Subjects: Soviet Union. -- Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti -- History; Espionage, Soviet -- United States -- History; Spies -- Soviet Union -- History; Spies -- United States Union -- History
Description: "This stunning book, based on KGB archives that have never come to light before, provides the most complete account of Soviet espionage in America ever written. In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of Soviet intelligence operations against the United States. Years later, living in Britain, Vassiliev retrieved his extensive notebooks of transcribed documents from Moscow. With these notebooks John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have meticulously constructed a new, sometimes shocking, historical account. Along with general insights into espionage tactics and the motives of Americans who spied for Stalin, Spies resolves specific, long-seething controversies. The book confirms, among many other things, that Alger Hiss cooperated with Soviet intelligence over a long period of years, that journalist I.F. Stone worked on behalf of the KGB in the 1930s, and that Robert Oppenheimer was never recruited by Soviet intelligence. Spies also uncovers numerous American spies who were never even under suspicion and satisfyingly identifies the last unaccounted for American nuclear spies. Vassiliev tells the story of the notebooks and his own extraordinary life in a gripping introduction to the volume."--Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Alger Hiss : case closed; title: Enormous : the KGB attack on the Anglo-American atomic project; title: The journalist spies; title: Infiltration of the U.S. government; title: Infiltration of the Office of Strategic Services; title: The XY line : technical, scientific, and industrial espionage; title: American couriers and support personnel; title: Celebrities and obsessions; title: The kGB in America : strengths, weaknesses, and structural problems.