| During
the Cold War a number of high-ranking Soviet citizens spied
for the CIA, providing the United States with valuable information
while putting themselves and their families in great danger.
In this book a seasoned CIA field operator and station chief
looks at what drove these agents to betray their own country.
Unlike many authors who write about spies, John Hart knows
the espionage profession firsthand, and his penetrating analysis
of the motivations involved is based on top-secret operational
files. Four major Soviet agents — Yuri Nosenko, the
dissident KGB agent who disclosed the bugs in the American
Embassy in Moscow and claimed the KGB had no connection to
the assassination of President Kennedy; Oleg Penkovsky, one
of the West’s most important agents who was eventually
executed by the Soviets; and Pyotr Popov and Mikhail —
are examined in depth, and the cases of six others are discussed.
The stories of each reveal a great deal about the realities
of the intelligence craft.
Hart became so
intrigued with the reasons behind the agents’ spying
activities that he asked then-CIA director Richard Helms for
time off to investigate the cases. For a full year he searched
for common denominators in the personalities of these Soviet
moles that would explain their willingness to take such life-threatening
risks. He had complete access to their operational files,
including psychological profiles. He studied not only documentation
of the material the agents provided but also their own accounts
of their thoughts and emotions when they divulged secrets
that could damage their homeland. Every reader with a penchant
for good spy stories will appreciate this behind-the-headlines
look at what makes spies tick.
John Limond Hart joined the CIA in 1948,
serving as chief of operations in Korea, Thailand, Morocco,
and Vietnam, managing operations against China and Cuba, and
heading CIA operations in Western Europe from 1968 to 1971.
He died in 2002.
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