_Spymaster_
by Tennent H. Bagley
read by Bronson Pinchot
While taking part in a television special focused on major players in
the international intelligence apparatus East and West, retired CIA
officer Tennent H. Bagley found himself drawn to a former KGB officer,
Sergey A. Kondrashev, whose operations often mirrored those of the
American. When Kondrashev decided to write his memoirs, he turned to
Bagley for help in putting the work more into the vernacular of
American English. Putin's administration in Russia eventually decided
that the work revealed too much in spite of the fact that the Soviet
Union had failed, so Bagley kept his notes on the work until both
Kondrashev and his wife were dead and in the end told Kondrashev's
story mostly from Bagley's point of view, now and then quoting directly
from Kondrashev's own manuscript to add to the immediacy of the Russian
spy's revelations.
A fascinating book that gives an intimate view of what it took to
survive the Stalin, Krushev, Gorbachev, and Andropov administrations,
and how in the end the Soviet Republic fell as the Helsinki Accord
undermined the Communist dictatorships. Often Kondrashev himself was
amazed that his immediate bosses would be subject to purges while he
somehow was spared, an even remarkable feat when we realize that his
grandfather was considered a nobleman under the Czars.
Got this on sale from Audible, and I'm so glad I did.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise
cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
