Spy Handler, Memoir of a KGB Officer: The True Story of the Soviet Agent Who Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames - Hardcover

Feifer, Gregory; Cherkashin, Victor

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465009689 ISBN 13: 9780465009688

Publisher: Basic Books, 2004

Synopsis

In a memoir that reads like a real-life John Le Carre novel, we learn the secrets of the senior KGB officer who recruited and handled two of America's most dangerous traitors - Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen - and whose forty-year career spanned four continents Victor Cherkashin's incredible career in the KGB spanned thirty-eight years, from Stalin's death in 1953 to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In this riveting memoir, Cherkashin provides a remarkable insider's view of the KGB's prolonged conflict with the United States, spanning his recruitment through his rising career in counter-intelligence to his prime spot as the KGB's number-two man at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Victor Cherkashin's story will shed stark new light on the KGB's inner workings over four decades and reveal new details about its major cases. Playing a central role in global espionage through most of the Cold War, Cherkashin's career was rich in episode and drama. He took part in some of the highest profile cases, including tracking down U.S. and British spies around the world. He was posted to stations in the U.S., Australia, India, and Lebanon and travelled the globe for operations in England, Europe, and the Middle East. But it was in 1985, known as 'the Year of the Spy', that Cherkashin scored two of the biggest coups of the Cold War. In April of that year, Cherkashin recruited disgruntled CIA officer Aldrich Ames, and became his principal handler. Refuting and clarifying other published versions, Cherkashin will offer the most complete account on how and why Ames turned against his country. As with Ames, Cherkashin will also reveal new details about Robert Hanssen's recruitment and later exposure, as only he can. He will also address the evidence that suggests that there is an undiscovered KGB spy - another Hanssen or Ames - still at large. Spy Handler will be a major addition to Cold War history, told by one of its key participants. For the first time, Victor Cherkashin's Spy Handler will reveal: * The never-before-told full account of how Aldrich Ames - the most dangerous spy in CIA history - was recruited in 1985 and handled, as well as new information about his motives, information that contrasts with Ames's public image in the United States as a mediocre intelligence officer and an alcoholic. * The first full account of Hanssen's 1985 recruitment, which began when the FBI officer sent a letter to the KGB addressed to Cherkashin himself. Hanssen soon became the KGB's greatest asset, deemed more important than even Ames. * The full account of the bizarre 1985 'redefection' of KGB officer Vitaly Yurchenko, who defected to the United States before returning to Moscow, claiming to have been kidnapped and drugged by the CIA. * The KGB's operations in Beirut during the mid-1960s, when Lebanon was heating up as the new Cold War frontline in an increasingly dangerous Middle East standoff between the KGB and the CIA. * New information about the 1986 arrest of Soviet military intelligence General Dmitri Polyakov, who, as agent TOPHAT, supplied the FBI and CIA with more information on the Red Army than any other single source over the course of three decades of espionage. * The real account of the 1985 exposure of Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB's station chief in London and a spy for British SIS intelligence. Gordievsky was recalled to Russia and interrogated, but was snatched away from KGB surveillance on the streets of Moscow during a daring SIS rescue operation. Until now, it's been assumed that Ames betrayed him. In fact, it wasn't Ames.

About this title

About the Author:

Victor Cherkashin, a retired KGB colonel, was awarded the prestigious Order of Lenin. During his four decades working for the KGB, he was stationed at various times in West Germany, India, Australia, Lebanon, and Washington, D.C. Following his retirement, he began a private security company in Russia, which he still runs. He lives in Moscow. Gregory Feifer holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Russian Studies from Harvard. A former Radio Free Europe Moscow correspondent, Feifer lived in Russia from 1998 to 2003. He covered Russian politics for a number of publications, including the Moscow Times, World Policy Journal, and Agence France-Presse.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0465009689
• ISBN 13: 9780465009688
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352