Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century

Short Review: Farewell was a Russian KGB agent that leaked thousands of pages of secret documents to the French. Arguably this leaked information (and its use by Reagan and his security team) did more to bring down the Soviet Union than any other single action. The documents opened up the full extent of USSR's espionage and technical secrets. This allow the US to feed the USSR false research leads and force them into an arms race that the USSR could not afford.

The book is very detailed and not incredibly well written. 1/2 is background on Farewell and those around him. The other half is discussion of what really went on and how it was all done. It was worth reading, but it could have been a better book. Shows that real spycraft is just as weird as some of the John le Carré novels. And at the same time very boring.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/farewell/