The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. “The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets. Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.

Ben Macintyre has written a fantastic factual book, [b:The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War 37542581 The Spy and the Traitor The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War Ben Macintyre https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1522906662l/37542581.SY75.jpg 59145602] , which reads like a thriller novel which you simply cannot put down. The book is a testament to the significant contribution Oleg Gordievsky made to ensuring the Cold War remained without escalation into all out war and helped ensure effective diplomatic relationships could be established between the USSR and NATO allies. Ben Macintyre has diligently researched the subject matter drawing on open source information, first hand accounts and other documents in order to develop a coherent story that immerses the reader into the various situations Oleg Gordievsky found himself in. The story provides a roller coaster of emotions providing a visceral glimpse into the Cold cold war spy world where the stakes are at their highest.This fascinating novel is worth putting on your reading list , I am certain you will not be disappointed.

An engaging read about a KGB agent who fed secrets to the British for over a decade. I like how a lot of this is both thrilling and rather mundane compared to a Hollywood “spy” story and the details of things like how the British were able to use the information he gave them without giving him away and things like how little miscommunications or inconveniences can derail a plan are really interesting.

I believe this author has written a few other real-life spy books so I'll probably check another one out in the near future.

The morality of betraying one's own nation depends on which side you're on. To the West Oleg Gordievsky is a hero who played a part in the eventual dismantling of a totalitarian regime. To the Russians he was a traitor who destroyed his own nation and his countrymen's way of life. Sure, it was a life of limited freedom but it was theirs. To quote Gordievsky's former colleague, “has the world become safer since the end of Communism?” (As I'm writing this, Russia is one month into their invasion of Ukraine...so the answer is probably, “No”).

I've read some of Ben Macintyre books before but this by far is the best mainly because I live through that era and never knew how close we were to WWIII just because an old paranoid in the Kremlin was convinced the West was going to attack first and soon. It was Gordievsky's informing his MI6 handlers that managed to cool down the rhetoric and dial back the Doomsday Clock away from ‘midnight' (nuclear annihilation).

I've seen Oleg Gordievsky before in documentaries but reading Macintyre's detail retelling of the life of the man codenamed SUNBEAM and later NOCTON, his motivations to betray his Motherland and his eventual escape to Britain is better than any documentary could do.

The third and final part of the book is best. Before the age of the internet, GPS and all the things we take for granted today, escaping from 1980s Russia involved old-school running away from your KGB tail, sending coded signals physically and actually hitching a ride from passing trucks to get to your rendezvous point before hiding in a car's boot to be smuggled over the border to Finland!

Gordievsky paid a lot for his betrayal though. His marriage crumbled, his friends in the KGB hate him and he never saw nor contact his mother and sister again. But he saw himself as on the side of good since he didn't do it for the money but genuinely preferred the Western style democracy over autocratic socialism.

30 years on the KGB still has him on their hitlist.