My Ten Years as a Counterspy

The format is approximately 5.75 inches by 8.5 inches. [8], 248 pages. The dust jacket is taped to the boards. The dust jacket has wear, tears (some repaired with tape), and soiling. Some endpaper discoloration. Boris Morros (January 1, 1891 January 8, 1963) was an American Communist Party member, Soviet agent, and FBI double agent. He also worked at Paramount Pictures, where he produced films as well as supervising their music department. In 1934, he was enlisted as a Soviet spy, following which time Vasily Zarubin became his first contact in 1936. The mysterious "Mr. Guver" letter, sent to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in 1943 from an anonymous source, named Morros as an agent working with Soviet intelligence and identified Elizabeth Zarubina as Morros' contact. In December 1943, Zarubina drove with Morros to Connecticut, where they met with Alfred Stern and his wife Martha Dodd Stern. Soviet intelligence wanted to use an investment from the Sterns in Morros' sheet music company to serve as cover for espionage. The Sterns invested $130,000 in the Boris Morros Music Company. In 1947, Morros became a counterspy for the FBI. He reported on Jack Soble and members of the Soble spy ring, while also passing low-level secrets and misinformation back to Moscow. Morros' codename in Soviet intelligence and the Venona files was "FROST." As a double-agent for the FBI, Morros solicited funds from the MGB (the Soviet intelligence service) to create a U.S. television network. Like the Boris Morros Music Company, but the MGB never funded the venture. Charles Samuels (September 15, 1902, in Brooklyn, New York April 27, 1982, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico) was an American journalist, and writer best known for his biographies of celebrities, He penned as-told-to autobiographies for Buster Keaton (My Wonderful World of Slapstick) and Ethel Waters (His Eye is on the Sparrow) which was a best seller. Among his other books were Magnificent Rube: The Life and Gaudy Times of Tex Rickard and The King: A Biography of Clark Gable. Samuels began his career as a sports and feature writer with the Brooklyn Eagle in 1923. His book with Boris Morros, My Ten Years as a Counterspy was made into the film, Man on a String (1960), starring Ernest Borgnine. The title of another, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, about Evelyn Nesbit, was used in the 1955 movie. He was the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe award (now called the Edgar Award) in 1957 for Night Fell on Georgia (written with his wife Louise Samuels). Samuels, who wrote thousands of magazine and newspaper articles, also helped write the newspaper columns of Ben Hecht and Billy Rose. He was the New York City Editor of Paramount News. Derived from a Kirkus review: In February of 1957 the Justice Department announced that, for ten years, the Hollywood producer and impresario, Boris Morros, had been a counterspy for the FBI. His story -- an extended scenario, written in collaboration, manifests the nimble virtuosity which characterized his undercover operations. He was born in Russia in 1895, was a concert cellist at the age of 8, left in 1922 and became music director for the Paramount theatres in New York. In 1935 he went to Hollywood for Paramount, at which time, and later in 1939, he was approached by a Russian agent. Under pressure of threat to his family in Russia he agreed to become part of a spy network carrying information to the NKVD. He served as the business cover for Jack Soble, Alfred K. Stern, Martha Dodd, the daughter of ex-ambassador William E. Dodd, finally on July 14, 1947 (Bastille Day) he informed the FBI of the procedures. He was asked by the FBI to maintain his contacts: his constant shuffling between New York, Hollywood, Paris, Vienna, Moscow, for movie and T.V. rights, provided the perfect cover-up -- for both sides. His assignments for the Russians? Providing dossiers to "get something on" John Foster Dulles, Governor Dewey, Senator Benton, Senator Helen Douglas, Cardinal Spellma.…