Spymaster: Startling Cold War Revelations of a Soviet KGB Chief

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From the dark days of World War II through the Cold War, Sergey A. Kondrashev was a major player in Russias 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.

During a 1994 television program about former spymasters, Kondrashev met and began a close friendship with a former foe, exCIA officer Tennent H. Pete Bagley, whom the Russian asked to help write his memoirs.

Because Bagley knew so about much of Kondrashevs career (they had been on opposite sides in several operations), his penetrating questions and insights reveal slices of never-revealed espionage history that rival anything found in the pages of Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, or John le Carr: chilling tales of surviving Stalins purges while superiors and colleagues did not, of plotting to reveal the Berlin Tunnel, of quelling the Hungarian Revolution and Prague Spring independence movements, and of assisting in arranging the final disposition of the corpses of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. Kondrashev also details equally fascinating KGB propaganda and disinformation efforts that shaped Western attitudes throughout the Cold War.

Because publication of these memoirs was banned by Putins regime, Bagley promised Kondrashev to have them published in the West. They are now available to all who are fascinated by vivid tales of international intrigue.

Reviews

Bagley skillfully condenses the bulk of Kondrashev s interviews and stories. . . The author portrays in riveting detail the spy s considerable ascent from managing successful counterintelligence decoding operations to dexterously handling traitorous high-level moles. . . A respectful, introspective expose of a great emissary who became a friend. --Kirkus Reviews
Fans of spy nonfiction, prepare to get giddy with excitement. Not only does this book draw on the previously unpublished memoirs of a veteran Russian intelligence operative, Sergey Kondrashev, it's written by a veteran CIA operative. . . . Although the inner workings of Cold War-era Russian intelligence have been written about before, mostly in spy novels, this may be most readers' first exposure to this material in a real-world setting. Kondrashev's adventures--including his key role in the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution and his relationship with George Blake, the MI6 agent who, in the 1950s, was secretly passing information to the KGB--don't spring from a writer's imagination. This stuff actually happened. A rare glimpse behind the closed doors of Russian intelligence. --Booklist
Bagley's informed commentary adds penetrating insight and context. . . . Spymaster is in many ways a fitting and worthy sequel to Bagley's earlier, acclaimed Spy Wars. As Putin's Russia slips steadily deeper into its KGB pedigree, Spymaster is a required and welcome read.. --Dr. John J. Dziak, author of Chekisty: A History of the KGB
Bagley grasps the unique opportunity to not only spill classified spy secrets and disinformation schemes, but also to posthumously venerate a world-class spymaster. A respectful, introspective expose of a great emissary who became a friend. --Kirkus Reviews
With his Spymaster, Pete Bagley has produced the scintillating stuff of espionage history. This page-turner is a must read for anyone who wants the inside story behind the Cold War's most important spy games. --Frederick Kempe, author of Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth
Tennent Bagley's Spymaster is the single most revealing book about espionage to emerge from the Cold War. --Edward Jay Epstein, author of Deception: The Invisible War Between The KGB and the CIA

Author Bio

Tennent H. Bagley served for twenty-two years in the Central Intelligence Agency, where he handled spies and defectors in the clandestine services division before becoming chief of Soviet bloc counterintelligence. The author of Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, Bagley lives in Brussels, Belgium.