Washington Station: My Life as a KGB Spy in America - Hardcover

Shvets, Yuri

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671883976 ISBN 13: 9780671883973

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1995

Synopsis

The autobiographical story of a KGB spy sent to Washington to recruit Americans as Soviet agents also reveals the identity of "Socrates"--the former top State Department-White House advisor he actually enlisted

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Russian

From Booklist:

When CIA officer Ames was caught last spring, rumours abounded of other spies at high levels--an ex-White House aide was also passing information to the Soviets, according to a contemporaneous New York Times article. Shvets reveals here everything but that man's real name. The informant taught at Harvard, worked for Carter, hated Reagan, moved in Dukakis circles, and was hard-pressed for cash--a vulnerable target for the KGB in the mid-1980s. It was Shvets' task to identify and reel in such malcontents in the American capital, where the KGB officer posed as a TASS journalist. Imbued with professional pride in the guile and blandishments he used to identify and persuade "Socrates" to cooperate, Shvets, nevertheless, is contemptuous about the value of human intelligence. In his view, it was worthless except as currency in KGB office and career politics, but his position against spying is contradicted by the case of "Bill." "Bill" was a star agent, all the more spectacular because he was a lowly janitor, but one who cleaned the DC offices of defense contractors. Shvets claims that "Bill" supplied 50 percent of all technical intelligence collected by the KGB in 1982--rather a vindication than condemnation of secret intelligence gathering. The world's second-oldest profession is not apt to go away because of Shvets' criticisms, revelatory as they are about the infighting and incompetence in his department of the KGB. Rather, interest in espionage may increase with his regalements of the cloak-and-dagger methods for defeating surveillance and the recruiting and running of these two agents. Since "Socrates" is under FBI investigation, libraries can back-up breaking news with this intriguing memoir of intrigue. Gilbert Taylor

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0671883976
• ISBN 13: 9780671883973
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304