Soviet Intelligence

In 1992 Vasili Mitrokhin defected to England and brought along an extensive archive of military intelligence from the Soviet Union. A career KGB officer who served as chief archivist for its foreign operations, Vasili Mitrokhin became disillusioned with the Soviet system and its constant repression of dissidents at home and abroad. Determined to preserve the truth, he secretly compiled a detailed record of the agency's worldwide espionage network...

Early in 1968, a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine sank in the waters off Hawaii, hundreds of miles closer to American shores than it should have been. Compelling evidence strongly suggests that the sub sank while attempting to fire a nuclear missile.

Politicians and pundits on both sides of the aisle have accused Russia of interfering with our elections and our intelligence agencies. But the war Russia is waging against America is very different from anything you have heard in the press, as Russian-born US intelligence expert Rebekah Koffler reveals. In Putin’s Playbook, Koffler details how Vladimir Putin is orchestrating a wide-ranging, multifaceted campaign to retake his country’s role as a superpower and to defeat America in the process.

Here is a gripping account of the major postwar trial of the Nazi hierarchy in World War II. The Nuremberg Trial brilliantly recreates the trial proceedings and offers a reasoned, often profound examination of the processes that created international law. From the whimpering of Kaltenbrunner and Ribbentrop on the stand to the icy coolness of Goering, each participant is vividly drawn.

From the dark days of World War II through the Cold War, Sergey A. Kondrashev was a major player in Russia’s notorious KGB espionage apparatus. Rising through its ranks through hard work and keen understanding of how the spy and political games are played, he “handled” American and British defectors, recruited Western operatives as double agents, served as a ranking officer at the East Berlin and Vienna KGB bureaus, and tackled special assignments from the Kremlin.

The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents...

In June 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Lyudmila Pavlichenko left her university studies and ignored the offer of a position as a nurse to become one of Soviet Russia's 2,000 female snipers. Less than a year later, she had 309 recorded kills, including 29 enemy sniper kills. She was withdrawn from active duty after being injured. She was also regarded as a key heroic figure for the war effort.

The Soviet Union is gone, but its ghostly traces remain, not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake. What was it really like to live in the USSR? What did it look, feel, smell, and sound like? In The Soviet Century, Karl Schlögel, one of the world's leading historians of the Soviet Union, presents a spellbinding epic that brings to life the everyday world of a unique lost civilization. A museum of—and travel guide to—the Soviet past, The Soviet Century explores in evocative detail both the largest and smallest aspects of life in the USSR.

During the last years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent some of its most elite troops to unfamiliar lands in Central Asia to fight a vaguely defined enemy, which eventually defeated their superior number with unconventional tactics. Although the Soviet leadership initially saw the invasion as a victory, many Russian soldiers came to view the war as a demoralizing and devastating defeat, the consequences of which had a substantial impact on the Soviet Union and its collapse.

The Rhodesian SAS was one of the world’s leading Special Forces units. Highly trained and motivated, they took the fight to the very heart of the two communist terrorist armies who were waging war on Rhodesia. Time and again, from the air, overland, and by boat across the great lakes and rivers, the SAS struck ZANLA and ZIPRA, causing massive losses and grievous damage to both organisations then disappearing to re-emerge where they were least expected. While all SAS missions defied the odds, some were truly breath-taking in terms of both their audacity and success. ‘The Rhodesian SAS at...

During the Cold War, the political leadership of the Soviet Union avidly sought intelligence about its main adversary, the United States. Although effective on an operational level, Soviet leaders and their intelligence chiefs fell short when it came to analyzing intelligence. There were, however, important changes over time. Ultimately the views of an enlightened Soviet leader, Gorbachev, trumped the ideological blinders of his predecessors and the intelligence service's dedication to an endless duel.

Beginning with the death of Stalin in 1953, the "sixties" era in the Soviet Union was just as vibrant and transformative as in the West. The ideological romanticism of the revolutionary years was revived, with renewed emphasis on egalitarianism, equality, and the building of a communist utopia. Mass terror was reined in, great victories were won in the space race, Stalinist cultural dogmas were challenged, and young people danced to jazz and rock and roll. Robert Hornsby examines this remarkable and surprising period.

At Sea Against the Soviet Fleet examines the critical transformation of naval intelligence during a pivotal era marked by the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict. Bryan Leese meticulously details how US Navy operational intelligence evolved to meet the complexities of modern naval warfare, particularly in response to the increasing threats posed by the Soviet Navy. This book begins by examining the Vietnam War and the institutionalization of shipboard operational intelligence, or what Navy intelligence calls Opintel.

Before the internet became widely known as a global tool for terrorists, one perceptive US citizen recognized its ominous potential. Armed with clear evidence of computer espionage, he began a highly personal quest to expose a hidden network of spies that threatened national security. But would the authorities back him up? Cliff Stoll's dramatic firsthand account is "a computer-age detective story, instantly fascinating [and] astonishingly gripping" - Smithsonian.

Stalking the Red Bear, for the first time ever, describes the action principally from the perspective of a commanding officer of a nuclear submarine during the Cold War - the one man aboard a sub who makes the critical decisions - taking us closer to the Soviet target than any work on submarine espionage has ever done before. This is the untold story of a covert submarine espionage operation against the Soviet Union during the Cold War as experienced by the commanding officer of an active submarine.

The “remarkable” story of America's secret post-WWII science programs (The Boston Globe), from the New York Times bestselling author of Area 51. In the chaos following World War II, the U.S. government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific...

A “devilishly fun” (New York Times Book Review) account of a deadly serious business: the undercover spies and the tactics they developed to survive the Cold War in Moscow, from legendary former-CIA operatives. Antonio Mendez and his future wife Jonna were CIA operatives working to spy on...

November 2009. Sergei Magnitsky is led to an isolation cell in a Moscow prison and beaten to death by eight police officers. His crime? To testify against the Russian Interior Ministry officials involved in a conspiracy to steal $230 million in taxes. Magnitsky’s brutal killing has remained uninvestigated to this day. Red Notice is a searing exposé of the Russian authorities responsible for the murder, slicing deep into the heart of the Kremlin to uncover its sordid truths.

THE STRANGEST COLD WAR HEIST YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF—AND IT REALLY HAPPENED. June 1962. An abandoned Soviet drifting ice station groans in the polar night. Two American operatives, half-frozen and hauling armfuls of secret gear, stare into a blizzard and pray they can hear engines. Their ride home isn’t a helicopter or submarine—it’s a lumbering World War II B‑17 that intends to snatch them off the ice with a balloon, a cable, and a V‑shaped hook. Miss once and they die. Hit it, and they’re yanked into the sky like human kites. Skyhooked: The Untold Shocking True Story of ...

The creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922 was one of the defining events of the 20th century. This new federation, created to embody the ideals of communism and the notion of rule by the people, was intended to be different from any other nation in the world. This utopian vision inspired people around the world, and soon, communism became an international movement. However, the history of the Soviet Union did not develop in the way its originators envisaged.