The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the celebrated author of Operation Mincement and The Siege comes the thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War.
“The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction
If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation’s communism as both criminal and philistine.
He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union’s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States’s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky’s name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain’s obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.
Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky’s nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre has crafted an electrifying account of an international hero. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, The Spy and the Traitor brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man’s hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.
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Uncovers the true story behind the Cold War’s most intrepid female spy Chronicles the extraordinary story of what happened after British officials planted a dead body behind enemy lines during WWII Fall into this gripping tale of loyalty, love, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal, based on recently declassified World War II files The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force—Britain’s Special Air Force The untold story of one of the greatest deceptions of World War II, and of the extraordinary spies who achieved it The unbelievable true story of Kim Philby, the Cold War’s most infamous spy
Publisher : Crown
Publication date : August 6, 2019
Edition : Reprint
Language : English
Print length : 384 pages
ISBN-10 : 1101904216
ISBN-13 : 978-1101904213
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.88 x 8 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #2,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1 in Espionage True Accounts #2 in Intelligence & Espionage History #4 in Political Intelligence
Customer Reviews: 4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars (35,761) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Original price was: $20.00.$8.33Current price is: $8.33.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the celebrated author of Operation Mincement and The Siege comes the thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War.
“The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction
If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation’s communism as both criminal and philistine.
He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union’s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States’s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky’s name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain’s obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.
Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky’s nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre has crafted an electrifying account of an international hero. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, The Spy and the Traitor brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man’s hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.
From the Publisher
Add to Cart
Add to Cart
Add to Cart
Add to Cart
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Add to Cart
Customer Reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars 6,315
4.5 out of 5 stars 6,546
4.5 out of 5 stars 7,028
4.6 out of 5 stars 11,201
4.4 out of 5 stars 5,414
4.5 out of 5 stars 12,785
Price
$22.40$22.40 $10.61$10.61 $11.55$11.55 $13.50$13.50 $11.00$11.00 $8.56$8.56
Uncovers the true story behind the Cold War’s most intrepid female spy Chronicles the extraordinary story of what happened after British officials planted a dead body behind enemy lines during WWII Fall into this gripping tale of loyalty, love, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal, based on recently declassified World War II files The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force—Britain’s Special Air Force The untold story of one of the greatest deceptions of World War II, and of the extraordinary spies who achieved it The unbelievable true story of Kim Philby, the Cold War’s most infamous spy
Publisher : Crown
Publication date : August 6, 2019
Edition : Reprint
Language : English
Print length : 384 pages
ISBN-10 : 1101904216
ISBN-13 : 978-1101904213
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.88 x 8 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #2,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1 in Espionage True Accounts #2 in Intelligence & Espionage History #4 in Political Intelligence
Customer Reviews: 4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars (35,761) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
7 reviews for The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
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Laurence R. Bachmann –
Splendid history & a gripping read
The Spy and The Traitor is touted in its subhead as “the greatest espionage story ever told.” That isn’t just publisher hype. The real events and the story of Oleg Gordievsky, KGB officer and diplomat reads like something from a John LeCarre or Robert Ludlum story…except it’s true and marvelously documented. Raised by a father and older brother who both served devotedly and unquestioningly in the KGB (dad worked through Stalin’s purges and survived in the KGB’s precursor agency). Loyalty to the service then would seem to be a given–betraying the agency and its million members (you read that right) would be like sabotaging the family’s business. Yet events and history continue to flummox human expectations.First the invasion of Hungary, then the erection of the Berlin Wall (which Gordievsky was present to see) and finally the brutal crushing of the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia all drove this KGB officer further and further away from the party. Exposure to the West in Copenhagen and later in London provided a first hand taste of liberty and freedom. It served as the final push into the eager and eternally grateful arms of his M16 handlers. The double agent provided them with not merely a trove of concrete information but invaluable insight into the workings of the KGB and planning of the Soviet Leadership. It is no exaggeration to say Gordievsky was our Kim Philby. The details of these meetings, contacts, “drops”, etc. and how spies operated from the end WWII until the dissolution of the Soviet empire is fascinating and novelistic in the telling. Gordievsky’s escape or “exfiltration” from the USSR by M16 is nothing short of breathtaking–a Bourne Identity moment.Best of all though is the historical and moral context that gives readers a perspective of events’ meanings. Ben McIntyre is a masterful storyteller and detailed chronicler. He thoroughly but concisely points out the import and value of Grodievsky’s insights–particularly warning the Brits and thereby the Americans that the Soviet leader Yuri Andropov genuinely believed the West was intent upon a first nuclear strike. Appreciating that paranoia can be as perilous as animus, first Thatcher and then Reagan worked to assuage Soviet fears. It was Gordievsky who prepped both sides for successful summits in the 80s and it was he who counseled wisely to neither disband nor include the USSR in the SDI or Star Wars initiative. Rather, ratchet up the pressure and they would go bankrupt trying to keep up, which is precisely what happened.Gordievsky certainly didn’t single handedly end the cold war–there were dozens of events and officials who played a significant role. But Oleg Gordievsky was surely in the first rank of those who made a valuable contribution earning the appreciation of Reagan, Thatcher, the CIA, M16 and yes, QEII (the monarch, not the ocean liner). Best of all, McIntryre doesn’t put a patriotic gloss on his subject’s behavior. What Gordievsky did was of enormous benefit to democracy and the West but it destroyed his marriage, implicated his wife and children as well as family and friends who all paid some price for his defection. In short, his actions both saved and ruined lives and the choices he made can be rightfully regarded as both morally defensible and appalling or enraging to those who knew him. Unsurprisingly, his marriage failed and most Russian friends regard him with disdain and disgust. In the western intelligence community he is a hero.This is terrific, important history and a wonderfully well-told tale. Enjoy!
thomas butler –
A thriller, even if you know the ending!
An excellent read on several levels: a dramatic spy story, a real thriller; very informative about the history and methods of cold-war spying; an intensely personal study in the psychology of a competitive, perhaps adrenaline-addicted, patriotic Russian spy who becomes disillusioned with the socio-political system in which he grew up.Two things I want to note in particular. First, MacIntyre does an excellent job of helping us to understand what the psychological toll can be on the psyche of a double agent: long, mundane weeks of waiting between “information drops” and other spy business while carrying on in a seemingly “normal” day job with family, and then days of sustained tension and real (or often imagined!) danger: you never know in this clandestine business whose side your associates and supposed allies are really on. You trust no one and you spend a lot of time thinking about your level of exposure: who is watching or listening and tailing you, and why and when; and what will likely happen to you if you get caught (and it is never good, especially for the Soviet double-crosser). Even though you are a good guy, you have to be ready to lie to everybody, including family, and be really good at it. The spy business and marriage with children don’t really go together, but they are often an unofficial prerequisite to rising in the ranks of spydom: there was no fairy-tale ending to this dramatic story.The second point is the stark difference I saw between the methods, motivations and imagination of the British vs. the Soviet spy services. The Soviets had, by far, the largest espionage network in the world, but the British had the best. The Soviets tortured their own spies if they suspected them of duplicity. The Brits, predictably, were much more civil, even with their own traitors. The British were indeed alert for and would relentlessly pursue the identity of a suspected mole in their midst, but they did not engender the widespread, ongoing paranoia that infected Stalin’s secret police and the later KGB, who routinely tortured and murdered their own traitors. Cooperation and trust we’re hard to come by among the “comrades” in the Soviet service. There was more genuine subsidiarity among the British spy units: inventive solutions to problem could be worked out at a more local level and thus there were more creative and effective responses, with more “team playing.” Finally, the British were more subtle and “invisible” when tailing suspects than were the Soviet “thugs,” who were easy to spot by the trained eye. I think most of the differences I’ve mentioned are attributable to the philosophical and moral differences between the free, Western, socio-political ideology and the totalitarian, communistic, amoral system of economic determinism. What we believe about human freedom and dignity determines how we behave.The author doesn’t necessarily lay out, or even intend, all these observations as explicitly as I have, but he clearly “roots for the right side” in his narrative. At the finish, I was proud to be “on the right side of history.”
MR2020 –
What is incredible about this true-life spy story is that you can read it like a classic novel, as it never slows its pace. This captivating espionage tale is a real page-turner. What struck me most in this book is how likeable the main character really is.
Cory Thibeau –
This is a great book that I have found myself thinking of even after I’m done reading it. In fact, I remember it as if I was watching a TV seriesIt was a great story and history lesson. It is well written so you don’t have to know any of the history, context or entities to enjoy it.Highly recommendThere really isn’t anything in this book that parents need to be concerned about. But here are a couple brief mentionings of more adult nature:-there is brief historical mention that Russia would torture and kill traitor spies-there is brief mention of main character buying pornography from a store (for plot purposes)Book was in great shape when it arrived with no damage
Mr. Tim Marsh –
A fascinating and gripping read from cover to cover, all the more so because it is a true story that reads like fiction. A must read for anyone interested in the spy genre.
Valerio F. –
Un ottimo libro, scritto come fosse un romanzo di genere anche se è cronaca, e un po’ storia.
Peter –
This is a brilliant book about a man who wanted to better humanity and decided to do it by betraying his own country through his position as a senior KGB officer.Oleg Gordievsky was a KGB officer who was born into a family where his father was also an officer. He joined the KGB and found that his beliefs in the USSR faltered, and he wanted to betray them in order for a better way of life for people rather than himself as he didn’t seem interested in giving secrets in exchange for money unlike others detailed in the book.Eventually he was found out, and the story really becomes gripping at this stage.The author tells a story that I really enjoyed and built the suspense to a high level, one could really feel for Gordievsky with the pressure he was under and the things that he did in order to get the job done.The whole story could be made into a movie or TV series.