Walter Krivitsky was the first Soviet spymaster to defect to the West in 1937. He sought safety in the United States and found time to write his account of his defection and knowledge of Stalin’s many crimes. A classic text of espionage history last published in 1939.
Walter G. Krivistky was the pseudonym of Samuel Ginsberg was born in the Western Ukraine and spoke 6 languages. He joined the Bolshevik party and became part of the Cheka and later the GPU and NKVD based in The Hague in the Netherlands. During the great purges of 1937 he defected and arrived in the United States in 1938 with his wife and child. He wrote a series of articles published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1939-1940 that became the material for this book. Krivitsky was extensively debriefed by MI5 in London where he nearly unmasked Kim Philby and Donald Maclean. In February 1941 he was found dead in a hotel in Washington DC.