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The Spy and the Traitor - Ben MacIntyre
I read this book over the last couple of days on ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sheron's recommendation as bedtime reading, which backfired occasionally because I couldn't actually fall asleep due to needing to know what happened next. I had already read a couple of MacIntyre's WWII books back when I went through my phase of Read All The WWII Spy Things that I got into via Agent Carter, and I had bought this and a couple of other MacIntyre books at some point that I never read. Anyway, sheron has been reading this recently and sending me excerpts. Example:
So obviously I had to read this book.
This is the story of Oleg Gordievsky, KGB station chief and spy for the British, but it's also about the waning days of the Cold War in the late 1970s through the mid-80s. I found it fascinating on that level alone, because the world I grew up in (born in 1976) was obviously very heavily shaped by the events of this time period, but it would be a few years yet before I was old enough to pay attention to the news or politics. So it's truly fascinating to see this as a window into events that created the life-shaping politics I actually did follow as a teen and young adult. And it's also simply a fast-paced, engaging, very readable story of relatable people getting caught up in world events and life-threatening danger. If parts of this were a spy novel, it would be almost too fantastic to be believed.
Especially MI6's objectively insane plan to smuggle Gordievsky out of Soviet Russia under the noses of the KGB using an incredibly complicated and ballsy 200-step Xanatos gambit that really should not have worked, but somehow did.
But in general, the entire book is a fascinating window on spycraft and politics of the period, with that particular mix of incredible coincidence, astounding stupidity, amazing competence and bravery that only real life can successfully pull off. Parts of it were a fascinating window on politics now, as well, like the repeated instances of the Americans, British, etc misreading Russian motivations, sometimes to the point of bringing the world to the brink of nuclear armageddon through signals that are being wildly misinterpreted on the other side. Gordievsky coaches Thatcher through an initial visit to Russia on how to send the correct signals to the Russians (demure, polished, respectful) to signal herself as someone who would be easy to deal with politically, which paves the way for a historic meeting between Gorbachev and Thatcher in the UK in which MI6 is effectively briefing both sides - information flows directly from the Home Office to Gordievsky, their spy at the KGB, who promptly translates and copies it and has his people give it to Gorbachev to know what the British are planning; meanwhile the same briefing notes are the ones the British are using, of course, with the addition of Gordievsky's insights into what the Russians are planning. No wonder everything went well: everyone is literally on the same page!
It's also a really interesting look at life in a particular era. All of the little tricks for passing messages and signals, from thumbtacks on windowsills to a carefully placed shopping bag; the absolute surveillance and informant culture of the Soviet spy state; the way that KGB operatives who went out into the Western world were stunned and intrigued by the world of comparative affluence and openness they encountered, and the KGB's various methods for stopping them from switching allegiance to the side that was by all evidence a much more pleasant place to live, including indoctrination and holding their families hostage...
Anyway, this book has it all - spycraft, interesting people, significance to modern politics - and it's told in a compulsively readable style that carried me easily through the book. I remember really liking his other books, not that I can even remember which ones I read (the only one I'm sure of is Double Cross) but I have at least one more of his Cold War era books that I haven't read yet, and I'm definitely looking forward to getting to it!
sheron's recommendation as bedtime reading, which backfired occasionally because I couldn't actually fall asleep due to needing to know what happened next. I had already read a couple of MacIntyre's WWII books back when I went through my phase of Read All The WWII Spy Things that I got into via Agent Carter, and I had bought this and a couple of other MacIntyre books at some point that I never read. Anyway, sheron has been reading this recently and sending me excerpts. Example:In the West, of course, blood is donated by members of the public. The only payment is a cookie, and sometimes a cup of juice. The Kremlin, however, assuming that capitalism penetrated every aspect of Western life, believed that a “blood bank” was, in fact, a bank, where blood could be bought and sold. No one in the KGB outstations dared to draw attention to this elemental misunderstanding. In a craven and hierarchical organization, the only thing more dangerous than revealing your own ignorance is to draw attention to the stupidity of the boss.
So obviously I had to read this book.
This is the story of Oleg Gordievsky, KGB station chief and spy for the British, but it's also about the waning days of the Cold War in the late 1970s through the mid-80s. I found it fascinating on that level alone, because the world I grew up in (born in 1976) was obviously very heavily shaped by the events of this time period, but it would be a few years yet before I was old enough to pay attention to the news or politics. So it's truly fascinating to see this as a window into events that created the life-shaping politics I actually did follow as a teen and young adult. And it's also simply a fast-paced, engaging, very readable story of relatable people getting caught up in world events and life-threatening danger. If parts of this were a spy novel, it would be almost too fantastic to be believed.
Especially MI6's objectively insane plan to smuggle Gordievsky out of Soviet Russia under the noses of the KGB using an incredibly complicated and ballsy 200-step Xanatos gambit that really should not have worked, but somehow did.
But in general, the entire book is a fascinating window on spycraft and politics of the period, with that particular mix of incredible coincidence, astounding stupidity, amazing competence and bravery that only real life can successfully pull off. Parts of it were a fascinating window on politics now, as well, like the repeated instances of the Americans, British, etc misreading Russian motivations, sometimes to the point of bringing the world to the brink of nuclear armageddon through signals that are being wildly misinterpreted on the other side. Gordievsky coaches Thatcher through an initial visit to Russia on how to send the correct signals to the Russians (demure, polished, respectful) to signal herself as someone who would be easy to deal with politically, which paves the way for a historic meeting between Gorbachev and Thatcher in the UK in which MI6 is effectively briefing both sides - information flows directly from the Home Office to Gordievsky, their spy at the KGB, who promptly translates and copies it and has his people give it to Gorbachev to know what the British are planning; meanwhile the same briefing notes are the ones the British are using, of course, with the addition of Gordievsky's insights into what the Russians are planning. No wonder everything went well: everyone is literally on the same page!
It's also a really interesting look at life in a particular era. All of the little tricks for passing messages and signals, from thumbtacks on windowsills to a carefully placed shopping bag; the absolute surveillance and informant culture of the Soviet spy state; the way that KGB operatives who went out into the Western world were stunned and intrigued by the world of comparative affluence and openness they encountered, and the KGB's various methods for stopping them from switching allegiance to the side that was by all evidence a much more pleasant place to live, including indoctrination and holding their families hostage...
Slight fandom implications
(I am not immune to the fact that this book is also relevant to thinking about my current fandoms - obviously it's an absolute hotbed of Biggles fic ideas, but heavily surveilled and controlled Soviet-era Russia is also relevant to Murderbot's far-future heavily surveilled dystopia, the CR, if with very different technology/methodology, so thinking about it from that perspective was interesting, too.)Anyway, this book has it all - spycraft, interesting people, significance to modern politics - and it's told in a compulsively readable style that carried me easily through the book. I remember really liking his other books, not that I can even remember which ones I read (the only one I'm sure of is Double Cross) but I have at least one more of his Cold War era books that I haven't read yet, and I'm definitely looking forward to getting to it!
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ETA: meant to say also, yes, this was my childhood political landscape too and all of these politicians and events were just background names for me; seeing how desperately close to the brink we were all that time is a little unnerving!
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Anyway, I love this one. Gordievsky's heroism (and occasional bone-headed decisions: hiking off to get a beer while trying to escape the country!), the KGB's absolutely wild misunderstandings of things like blood banks because no one in the lower echelons dared to explain, the bit where Gordievsky is briefing both sides (!!), the whole escape sequence - absolute gold.
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I particularly liked all the ways that the KGB was depicted as dysfunctional because it's both ringing completely true and also lending a lot of credibility to any future depictions I will have in fanfic or read in the books :D
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