Sleeping with the FBI

Sleeping with the FBI is a spellbinding drama which takes you inside the risky and seductive world of double agents, double-dealing and international intrigue. This is the true story of Richard Miller, a short, fat, middle-aged FBI agent with an affinity for sex in his government car.
Miller badly needed to redeem a mediocre career highlighted by suspensions for "unacceptable obesity," selling Amway products out of the tailgate of his FBI car, stealing candy from 7-Eleven, leaving the keys of the FBI office in the door all night and losing the agency's credit card. Working on his own, rarely advising his colleagues of his undercover work, Miller positioned himself for what he believed would be the break of his career: becoming the first agent to penetrate the KGB's spy network as a double agent.
Richard Miller embraced, as his penetration agent of the KGB and in bed, Svetlana Ogorodnikova, an alcoholic FBI informant.
Aleksandr Grishin, the shrewd 36-year-old superspy, masterminded KGB activities on the West Coast. Miller, consigned to the agency's Los Angeles pasture for his failures, like most of his comrades on the Russian squad, could neither speak nor read Russian.
Grishin set Miller up for the sting of his life, creating damaging evidence that the FBI used against its own agent. Shortly after Miller and Svetlana were arrested for espionage, there was a cork-popping celebration at KGB offices in San Francisco to toast Grishin, whose victory earned him a lofty promotion in Moscow.
Sleeping with the FBI, the all-too-human drama of espionage, deceit, sex and ineptitude in the final days of the Cold War, illustrates the continuing need for a Congressional investigation of a system that still largely relies on untrained sleuths like Richard William Miller.

Special Agent Richard William Miller, a member in bad standing with the FBI's Los Angeles office, was short, fat, addicted to candy bars--and sold Amway products on company time. Though ludicrously incompetent, he dreamed of becoming the first FBI agent to penetrate the KGB. At the core of his scheme was an affair with addled, heavy-drinking Svetlana Ogorodnikova, whom he naively believed would pave the way for his infiltration into the Soviet spy network. But he made the mistake of not telling his superiors what he was up to, and on October 3, 1984, Miller was arrested and charged with espionage. His lawyer characterized him in court as "Inspector Clouseau played by Jackie Gleason," and the not-unsympathetic judge, while sentencing him to 20 years, recommended early parole. Based on FBI files, trial testimony, and interviews with the principals, the book is a sometimes hilarious, often poignant account of the FBI's clumsy handling of the case of a foolish man blinded by love and the prospect of becoming a star in the counterespionage firmament. Howe is the author of The Hunt for Tokyo Rose. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.