Oleg Gordievsky on Spy Wars: “…it could not have been published at a better time…”
In a new review recently published in The Spectator, Oleg Gordievsky calls Spy Wars, “. . .perhaps the most amazing non-fiction spy book that has ever appeared during or after the Cold War. There is little doubt that all intelligence historians interested in the past 50 years of espionage games played by the CIA and the KGB will read it as we did—in one take. . .”
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Tennent H. Bagley’s Spy Wars breaks open the mysterious case of KGB officer Yuri Nosenko’s defection to the United States in 1963. Was Nosenko a bona fide defector with first-hand knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald, or was he a master of deceit, still loyal to the KGB? Bagley, the CIA officer who handled the case, at last uncovers the truth.
Spy Wars, just released by Yale University Press was chosen by William Safire in the New York Times to be the publishing sleeper-seller of the year for 2007.
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In his Spectator review Gordievsky continues, “. . .Dr. Bagley is one of the most respected and knowledgeable experts on Soviet espionage, a former high-ranking CIA officer who devoted more than 20 years of his life to fighting communism and its agents. . . . Dr. Bagley is certainly the greatest expert on the Nosenko case . . . and it was he who devoted 30 years of his post-CIA life to an attempt to prove that he was right and the Agency was wrong. Has he succeeded? A new generation of intelligence historians, analysts and operatives, who must read this very exciting book, will have to answer this. . .”
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky is a former Soviet KGB colonel and bureau chief in London who defected to the United Kingdom in 1985. He is the highest ranking KGB defector ever.
To read the full article, click here.
Why was the book signing and talk to be given by Mr. Tennant Bagley in Washington, D.C. on 28 June, 2007 precipitately cancelled? Invited to attend this session (by me)were a friend and acquaintence of James Jesus Angleton (though not a colleague), and a Soviet Illegal, mentioned in the book. I anticipated that this would have led to an extremely lively, forthcoming and enlightening discussion. Does the plot thicken or mere obfuscation prevail? Ah, was the rationale for the cancellation that there was no one there to present the case for “the other side”? At a book signing? Well then, an interesting precedent has been set. wm