On the Wrong Side: My Life in the K. G. B.

A former KGB agent chronicles his life in the Soviet intelligence community, describing in detail the KGB foreign clandestine service, and explains how his disillusionment with the Soviet system led to his defection

In 1979 Levchenko, a KGB operative in Japan posing as a journalist, defected to the U.S. At his Washington debriefing he made certain revelations but refused to be an informer and implicate others, he maintains here. Readers will find he has little of moment to say, in any event, and what he does tell us focuses on his role in Japan recruiting supposedly high-level (unidentified) spies. Primarily, Levchenko's intent in this memoir is to present himself, in crude Cold War rhetoric, as a freedom-loving, religious person. But one wonders about a defector who abandons his wife and young son with unconcern, then has the temerity to express outraged surprise that his family is treated with suspicion back home in Moscow. Since gaining asylum in this country, Levchenko has worked as a consultant to special-interest groups and also lectures, yet he claims to live under cover, infear of the KGB. 30,000 first printing; $25,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.