The Spy Who Changed History (Signed 1st Edition)

Svetlana Lokhova

ISBN 10: 0008238111 / ISBN 13: 9780008238117

Published by Collins, 2018

About this Item

Black boards with silver titles to the spine. Clean pages and firm binding. Dust Jacket is not price clipped. Signed and dated by the author to the half title page. A rare signature. 1st print. Professional seller. All pictures are of the actual book that is for sale. Books are dispatched in cardboard packaging and dust jackets are placed in removable protective covers. Seller Inventory # 15657

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Spy Who Changed History (Signed 1st ...

Publisher: Collins

Publication Date: 2018

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

‘A superbly researched and groundbreaking account of Soviet espionage in the Thirties … remarkable’ 5* review, Telegraph

On the trail of Soviet infiltrator Agent Blériot, in this bestseller, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a thrilling journey through Stalin’s most audacious intelligence operation.

On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education.

Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America’s vital secrets to help close the USSR’s yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky’s destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world.

Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin’s fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky’s espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes.

In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin’s most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky’s life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes.

About the Author:

Svetlana Lokhova is a By-Fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge. Her groundbreaking Master's dissertation on the founder of the Soviet intelligence service, Felix Dzerzhinsky led her to uncover a number of the most important archival discoveries made in recent years. She has worked extensively on the ‘Mitrokhin Archive’ and was until recently a Fellow of the Cambridge [UK] Security Initiative jointly chaired by the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, and Professor Christopher Andrew, former Official Historian of the MI5. The Spy Who Changed History is her first book.