The Mitrokhin Archive II - The KGB in the World - No Cost Library

The Mitrokhin Archive II - The KGB in the World

   Author(s): Christopher Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin  

Publisher: Penguin, Year: 2018        

                                   

 Description:

'Two of the greatest security coups in the past few years'

KGB agent Vasili Mitrokhin lost his life over years shielding top-secret information from Russian secret service files beneath his family dacha. He took what the FBI called 'the most comprehensive and detailed information ever obtained from any source' with him when he was exfiltrated to the West. The result is this superb bestselling book.

'Co-authored by Christopher Andrew and the renegade Soviet Archivist himself in a brilliant partnership ... It is a genuinely multinational exposé with big KGB penetrations around The Times in the Western World

'This story of malevolent spymasters, complex marketing craft and dead-eyed tragedy reads like a cold war book'

'Feeling ... Spectator's most insightful and thorough analysis of Soviet political intrigues


Sunday Telegraph 'The most comprehensive addition to the subject ever published'

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Book Review:

Intelligence historian Andrew had previously written with Oleg Gordievsky, a famous defector on the KGB. His coauthor was this time an archivist of the KGB from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. A clandestine dissident, Mitrokhin took notes on the papers that passed through his hands, and in the early 1990s he fled to the West with cartons of information that formed the basis of this novel. Their teamwork results in a dense and exceptional work. The authors are coy about naming some western soviet spies; others were compromised by Mitrokhin a few years ago. There are no big surprises here; that the Soviets tried to disrupt western power networks, systematically carried out assassinations through the early 1960s, and maniacally marginalized religious groups should not scare readers. But the weight of detail and the good retelling of well-known stories, such as Soviet British spies recruiting in the 1930s, make for a interesting reading. Among the more interesting conclusions is that the layers of fear, propaganda, and sycophancy created by the Soviet leadership never allowed much of the invaluable information generated by Soviet spies.