Best of enemies : the last great spy story of the Cold War / Gus Russo and Eric Dezenhall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Russo, Gus, author.

Dezenhall, Eric, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Platt, Jack, 1936-2017.

Platt, Jack.

Vasilenko, Gennady, 1941-.

Vasilenko, Gennady.

United States. Central Intelligence Agency--Officials and employees--Biography.

United States.

Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti--Officials and employees--Biography.

Soviet Union.

Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti.

United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

Spies--United States--Biography.

Spies.

Espionage.

History.

Russia (Federation).

Spies--Soviet Union--Biography.

Spies--Russia (Federation)--Biography.

Espionage--United States--History.

Espionage--Soviet Union--History.

Male friendship.

Employees.

Genre:

Biographies.

History.

Physical Description:

vi, 342 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Twelve, 2018.

Summary:

"The story of two Cold War spies - CIA agent Jack Platt and KGB agent Genya Vasilenko - and their improbable friendship at a time when they should have been anything but. In 1978, CIA maverick Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko were new arrivals on the Washington, DC intelligence scene, with Jack working out of the CIA's counterintelligence office and Gennady out of the Soviet Embassy. Both men, already notorious iconoclasts within their respective agencies, were assigned to seduce the other into betraying his country in the urgent final days of the Cold War, but instead the men ended up becoming the best of friends-blood brothers. Theirs is a friendship that never should have happened, and their story is chock full of treachery, darkly comic misunderstandings, bureaucratic inanity, the Russian Mafia, and landmark intelligence breakthroughs of the past half century. In BEST OF ENEMIES, two espionage cowboys reveal how they became key behind-the-scenes players in solving some of the most celebrated spy stories of the twentieth century, including the crucial discovery of the Soviet mole Robert Hanssen, the 2010 Spy Swap which freed Gennady from Soviet imprisonment, and how Robert De Niro played a real-life role in helping Gennady stay alive during his incarceration in Russia after being falsely accused of spying for the Americans. Through their eyes, we see the distinctions between the Russian and American methods of conducting espionage and the painful birth of the new Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, dreams he can roll back to the ideals of the old USSR."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Apprentice spies

All roads lead to Washington

Contact

Musketeers

The IOC

The quisling

Softly, softly, catchee monkey

Havana takedown

Sasha

An old enemy

A second reunion

Going public

A heavy box of caviar

Calm before the storm

You don't know me

The Gulag redux

Rest: the red button

End games.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [319]-321) and index.

ISBN:

9781538761311

1538761319

OCLC:

1019841610