Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America |  | Authors: Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, Alexander Vassiliev
Publisher: Yale University Press
Category: Book
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 69080
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 704
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 2
ISBN: 0300123906
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.124707309045
EAN: 9780300123906
ASIN: 0300123906
Publication Date: May 26, 2009
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| • | ISBN13: 9780300123906 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
This stunning book, based on KGB archives that have never come to light before, provides the most complete account of Soviet espionage in America ever written. In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of Soviet intelligence operations against the United States. Years later, living in Britain, Vassiliev retrieved his extensive notebooks of transcribed documents from Moscow. With these notebooks John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have meticulously constructed a new, sometimes shocking, historical account. Along with general insights into espionage tactics and the motives of Americans who spied for Stalin, Spies resolves specific, long-seething controversies. The book confirms, among many other things, that Alger Hiss cooperated with Soviet intelligence over a long period of years, that journalist I. F. Stone worked on behalf of the KGB in the 1930s, and that Robert Oppenheimer was never recruited by Soviet intelligence. Spies also uncovers numerous American spies who were never even under suspicion and satisfyingly identifies the last unaccounted for American nuclear spies. Vassiliev tells the story of the notebooks and his own extraordinary life in a gripping introduction to the volume.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
Another 70 Soviet Agents from the 1930s and 40s Exposed October 29, 2009
David M. Dougherty (Arkansas)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This work is mistitled -- there has been no "Fall" of the KGB in America. Author Haynes and Klehr, well-known for their book presenting the evidence from the Venona Project, "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America", teamed up with former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev to present more evidence from Vassiliev's notebooks made while examining KGB archives immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union. The problem is that none of the Venona information or that from Vassiliev concerns on-going Russian operations and some of the greatest KGB coups have come in the last thirty-five years (Aldrich Ames, for example.)
The book contains much new information, supporting, extending, and clarifying the information gleaned through the Venona Project. It is well-organized, and easy to read, even if the successes of the subjects is appalling. There is much to learn here.
Reading this book one should come to the conclusion that it is hardly appropriate to smear Haynes and Klehr as is currently being attempted in some academic circles. Haynes and Klehr have found a building packed with Soviet and Russian spies working against the United States, but have hardly gotten beyond the foyer and the first two offices. Is there something these academicians do not want them to find, or are they just smearing H&K to blunt the exposures they might make? There are still hundreds of spies evident from the Venona messages who have not yet been identified from the 30s and 40s, and the KGB continually grew in size until 1989. Some Americans on the left would have us believe that the heyday of the KGB was in the 40s, (mostly because of the vast damage done by the atomic spies like the never-prosecuted Ted Hall, and the comprehensive penetration of Roosevelt's administration), and that spying by the KGB (& GRU) has abated. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for such an assertion. In fact, the evidence points to ever greater sophistication in the KGB, particularly by its extensive penetration of the CIA in the 1970s and 1980s. Even now as we speak, the successor to the KGB is continuing operations against the US.
To me, much of this book re-hashed cases that are closed with respect to the personnel being long confirmed as Soviet Agents. Yet, the left still campaigns for Hiss, White, the Rosenbergs, I.F. Stone, etc., and maintains their innocence. Having to reiterate over and over again the proofs of their guilt, both from evidence gathered by American agencies and from Soviet archives is becoming tiresome. At this point, I believe there that anyone who still believes these people were not Soviet agents also believe in the tooth fairy. Face it, McCarthy's numbers were essentially correct, regardless of the character of the person bringing forth those charges. GET OVER IT, and on with the exposure and prosecution of the Soviet/Russian agents still actively working against us. If nothing else, take a look at the members of the media who still revere Izzy Stone as their mentor and the man they would most like to emulate. Why are such persons still accorded great respect? The man they want to emulate was a paid Soviet Agent!
This book exposes by name another 70 Soviet agents from long ago. No doubt there are hundreds or thousands more still fearing the day when someone pulls their name out of a Soviet archive. Then they will have to rally leftist support of their great humanity and ideals and fight facts with lies and smears. Frankly, I do not wish them well. These people eat our bread, sleep in our beds, win our friendship, trust, and good offices, then betray us to a foreign power (& Americans, your brothers, fathers, and now mothers and sisters, die.) If there's a circle below the 7th one, they belong in it.
Buy and read this book, but then consider that there are probably ten times as many foreign agents working for Russia and even more hostile powers today than back in the 1930s and 1940s. Some are actively undermining the American economic system, some are stealing weapons and military secrets, some are agitating to give American assets to the UN and other foreign powers, some seek to weaken the United States by destroying its moral fiber and traditional values, some are doing business with America's enemies, some seek to pit Americans against Americans and create chaos. As we learned in the 1930s and 1940s, agents of foreign powers in the US government can be extraordinarily effective, particularly when they are not caught or exposed. And they are not always just spies gathering information. Take this book as a learning tool. Remember, every spy in this book did his spying for a country that was supposedly our ally and friend at the time. Some ally & friend.
Recommended to everyone.
 Excellent review of hundreds of important Americans' treasonable activities for the USSR September 13, 2009
Peter R. Hruby (Annapolis, MD USA)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The culmination of Harvey Klehr's [with other authors] review of KGB's very successful spying in the USA in a whole series of excellent books.
Excellent book....hard hitting..about time we heard the truth August 31, 2009
Kevin Laman
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a very good book about the large amount of traitors we had in the USA during the 1930's-1960's. It is well researched and written. I wish every college put it on their reading list for history classes.
 Boycott this Kindle edition! August 30, 2009
Jack Rice (California, USA)
3 out of 14 found this review helpful
This may be a great book, content-wise, but this Kindle price is outrageous. Kindle promotion makes us expect a $9.99 book price. (Doubtless, they work in a loophole, like "most" into the blurb.) But this is almost TWICE the price. This is breaking faith with Kindle owners, and Amazon should not be allowed to get away with it.
Politics, History, and Spies. July 31, 2009
William T. Duston (Missouri)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I can't seem to get enough of Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev, for some reason. This work, as well as any of their previous texts on this subject, are fascinating, and hard to put down.
A lot of Spies covers material that students of the period are aware of, with enough new material thrown in from Vassiliev's work to make a purchase of this worthwhile, and it ties in well with a read of any of Chris Andrew's texts.
However, for myself, the most interesting part of the book is Vassiliev's long intro. His discussion of his work in the Bureau in the 80s and 90s. Then how he feared for his safety after working on what would turn into "The Haunted Wood" and forced exodous. Later on his lawsuit and travails on the writing of that book over the Hiss case. When Vassiliev writes about the Hiss case being not about history, but politics, you sense that he has grasped what most students probably do not when their freshmen American History II professors blather on about the horrors of the McCarthy era. Mainly, that to acknowledge the fact that Soviet agents were at work at the highest levels of the Rossevelt Administration, means that McCarthy's accusations were not without merit.
I'd like to thank the three authors for giving us a great text that's just as much a page turner as any Clancy novel.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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