Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America |  | Authors: Haynes, Mr. John Earl, Klehr, Mr. Harvey, Vassiliev, Alexander
Publisher: Yale University Press
Category: eBooks
This item is no longer available
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 34971
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 704
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.124707309045
ASIN: B00243HJC8
Publication Date: May 26, 2009
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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 16
 None so blind as those that will not see (or something like that). July 17, 2010
The Pie Faced Prince (Los Angeles, CA USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a book about liars and deceivers. A history (circa World War II)of people who lied and deceived others - and themselves - in the service of a foreign nation whose objective was to radically change the political landscape of America by force if necessary. This is not a romantic (in the classical sense) book about James Bond thrills. This is about dirty, little, lying weasels who stabbed their fellow Americans in the back. How they could reconcile their mawkish philosophical motivations with progressive idealism after the Nazis and the Soviets made a bloody agreement to attack Poland is beyond me. Next to them, Joe McCarthy is a saint.
One unresolved issue that the authors did not tackle was the question why so many educated jewish people spied for the USSR on a country that provided them with refuge from ancient European prejudices, and a good life? Admittedly, this is a topic in itself for a book. Vassiliev, a coauthor whose translations of KGB documents made the book possible, thinks the spies were heroes of the USSR. Maybe, but they are not my heroes.
Finally, the book is not an easy read. It has a very large cast of characters and is extensively footnoted. If you follow every footnote as you read along then you will surely go mad. Take my advice and flip through the footnotes after you plow through nearly 600 pages of text,with no illustrations or photos to break the monotony.
But make no mistake, this is an important historical document. I highly recommend it.
Necessary realignment of history June 25, 2010
San Fernando Curt (Los Angeles)
One of the great tragedies of the blacklist/McCarthy era is the false impression that injustices committed by officials like HUAC committeemen and the Wisconsin senator were based on lies - that suggestions Washington and the federal government at large were riddled with Soviet agents was ugly fraud and defamation which we've been encouraged, through relentless academic and media apologias, to consider tragicomic nonsense. The Venona transcripts, the KGB archives (for the brief period they were opened in the post-Soviet '90s) and material such as "Spies..." have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that impression itself is the real fabrication, and that Soviet infiltration of American government (and media) was frighteningly extensive.
Books such as "Spies..." provide a necessary antidote to this decades-long anti-history. Alger Hiss, Julius Rosenberg and many others, long portrayed as innocent victims of a fanatical witch hunt, turn out to be exactly what charges against them spelled out.
Reaction to this book is notable commentary on how resilient is the myth that anti-Communist crusades were silly atrocities. Many critics have denounced its evidence (providing no contradictory proof, of course), but mostly it's been energetically ignored. The jarring historical realignment provided by "Spies..." is to be dropped down the memory hole, apparently. It's doubtful we'll see many guilt-trip miniseries, documentaries and commentaries about its findings.
HUAC was too shrill and cavalier with people's lives, and McCarthy was a drunk only interested in the issue's political advantages. But the spies WERE here... And they were feeding secrets to the KGB when Stalin, who murdered millions, was in charge of the USSR. Who's sillier - those who were frightened of Soviet Communism, or those who would have turned the country over to it?
Who's scarier?
Case (almost) closed June 20, 2010
Raymond De Mourot Gil (France)
"Spies - The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America", by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev represents an almost definitive account of Soviet espionage in the 1930s and 1940s. Its new information is mostly based on the notebooks of Alexander Vassiliev, a former KGB officer, who in the Yeltsin years was allowed to peruse the NKVD/MGB/KGB files on this eventful period, which ranges from the thirties to WW II and the sternest years of the Cold War, for a joint project with Crown Publishers. The project was abandoned because of the publisher's demise and Vassiliev flew to the UK, with his notebooks. To anyone who still had doubts on Alger Hiss's culpability, as well as on Laurence Duggan's and Harry Dexter White's, this book should constitute an eye-opener. Among the revelations, notable is that of Congressman Samuel Dickstein's venal but ineffective spying for Soviet intelligence. One can only regret that GRU (military intelligence) files have remained out of bounds, since these would shed a fuller light on Alger Hiss's espionage activities: Hiss had indeed been for several years a GRU source, before being turned over to Soviet civilian intelligence.
Excellent info on early Soviet spying, could use an editor April 16, 2010
Stephen J. Snyder (Lancaster, Texas United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Early Soviet spying in the United States was more than Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers. More than the Rosenbergs and David Greenglass. More than Klaus Fuchs.
The duo of American authors, relying largely on Vassilev's near-exhaustive research, show just how extensive this spying was in the 1930s and 40s, some of the areas it penetrated besides the Manhattan Project and more.
If you ever doubted the snooping of Hiss, or Harry Dexter White, this book goes even deeper than Venona. If you want to learn a bit about the amount of military espionage Julius Rosenberg and some fellow engineering recruits did, it's here.
At the same time, the book has a few issues.
One is the subhead. No, the KGB did not "fall," at least not permanently. And, some of its successes in the 1960s and later were almost as big as in the 1940s.
Second, the material in this book gets a bit numbing at tmies with real names and KGB handles intertwined and other things without more organization. In short, it reads like one of its authors is a librarian with the Library of Congress.
I would have written this much differently. Throw out a full chapter devoted to Hiss. He's guilty, and you're not going to convince any fellow travelers otherwise. Rather, make an opening chapter a chronological one, starting with the work of Amtorg before the US diplomatically recognized the USSR. Then a chapter on Manhattan Project spying. Then, a chapter on non-Manhattan military espionage. Then, one on non-military industrial espionage, as in the XY line. Then one on government spies, dropping Hiss in here. Combine the "couriers/support" chapter with more on how the CPUSA was involved. And, in the conclusion, without going into too many details, note how the KGB would go on to "rise" again, and why.
In other words, this is a good book. But, primarily due to poor writing and editing, it falls a fair degree short of being a great one.
Another 70 Soviet Agents from the 1930s and 40s Exposed October 29, 2009
David M. Dougherty (Arkansas)
2 out of 4 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.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
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