Spymaster: startling Cold War revelations of a Soviet KGB Chief

Description

Breaking American ciphers-and starting a war -- Two views of culture -- Target: the American embassy -- Inside a deadly purge -- Into foreign intelligence-and England -- A mole and a tunnel -- "Why do you need all those people here?" -- A unique look at the Hungarian revolution -- Spy center Vienna -- The KGB's Nazi underground -- Richard Sorge redux -- Organizing to disinform -- Active measures -- "How could CIA ever have believed in that man?" -- The top hat paradox -- Prague spring at the Politburo -- Other places -- The irony of Helsinki -- Watching it end.;From the dark days of World War II through the Cold War, Sergey A. Kondrashev was a major player in Russia's notorious KGB espionage apparatus. Rising through its ranks through hard work and keen understanding of how the spy and political games are played, he "handled" American and British defectors, recruited Western operatives as double agents, served as a ranking officer at the East Berlin and Vienna KGB bureaus, and tackled special assignments from the Kremlin. Because the author knew so much about Kondrashev's career (they had been on opposite sides in several operations), his penetrating questions and insights reveal slices of espionage history.