The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB in the World: Pt. 2 by Christopher Andrew

Mitrokhin Archive #2

by Christopher Andrew

In 1992, MI6 exfiltrated Vasili Mitrokhin, the most senior activist in the KGB, who had been responsible for running the KGB archives. He had noted thousands of documents, described by the FBI as the greatest single cache of intelligence ever received by the West.' This archive resulted in many prosecutions, some of which are still ongoing. of Modern History at Cambridge and the world's leading intelligence scholar. Their first volume, The KGB in Europe and the West, revealed the extent of KGB penetration of what they called The Main Adversary and the existence of a previously unknown nuclear spy, Melita Norwood. The second volume, The KGB and the World, continues the revelations from the sublime to the absurd - which Third World leaders were in the pay of the KGB, precisely how extensive KGB penetration of foreign governments was, and how KGB agents were instructed to assess the spread of the influence of rival Chinese communism (by going round African capitals trying to count the changing number of posters of Mao Tse-tung in shops and public buildings...)

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Espionage, Politics, Russia, Military Fiction, India

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Christopher Maurice Andrew, FRHistS is an Emeritus Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Cambridge with an interest in international relations and in particular the history of intelligence services. (military.wikia.org)

Reviews

[Ashish Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest i have read only 2 chapters from this book which was related to India. Based on that i am giving 4 stars. Otherwise its a massive book and i don't know the political scenario of many countries of that time. For me those 2 Indian chapters were interesting. This book show how Soviet's KGB had so much influenced in Congress and Communist party of India and how they used to influenced India's decision to favour themselves. It was really interesting to see how Nehru, Krishna Menon, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were so highly influenced from Soviet. It was really scary, felt like how proxy government can work and how sold out our leaders can be.

[Gramarye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vasili Mitrokhin worked as an archivist for the KGB for the better part of his career, and spent over a decade copying and transcribing information from the files that passed through his hands. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he took some of the files with him to the newly independent state of Latvia, and managed to attract the attention of British intelligence. The files revealed an incomparable amount of information about the extent of KGB activity in the heyday of the Cold War -- and as a result, Mitrokhin's archive is often regarded as one of the greatest intelligence coups of all time.

The first volume of The Mitrokhin Archive dealt with KGB activity in the West, mostly in Europe and the United States. The Mitrokhin Archive II focuses on the rest of the world, most specifically on the 'Third World' nations that the Soviet Union regarded as likely locations in which to build socialist or communist states. The book is divided into sections on Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, with chapters focusing on either a specific country or time period for the KGB's activities. For instance, Mitrokhin and Andrew devote two chapters to India, one of the premier targets for KGB activity, pointing out the extent to which the KGB promoted Indira Gandhi's paranoia that the CIA and various other Western intelligence services were plotting to depose or murder her. The Soviet war of attrition in Afghanistan also gets two chapters of coverage, attempting to untangle the complicated connections between various factions and rival groups in the late 1970s through the 1980s. Other countries and regions also receive a careful study, with some intriguing revelations:

- Soviet espionage in China after the Sino-Soviet split was made all but impossible by the fact that the Chinese secret police knew all the identities of the KGB's agents in the PRC and proceeded to kill them all off -- a lesson on why it's not always good to share everything with your allies
- Attempts to spy on China by way of Japan ran into problems when the Japanese Communist Party chose to ally itself ideologically with Beijing
- The KGB was actually involved in starting and spreading the urban legend about Latin American children being kidnapped and killed to provide donated organs for rich Americans.

I'm not entirely certain if it's a reflection on the fact that I'm not as 'genned up' on Third World Cold War history as I thought I was, but I found the second volume to be a little less readable than the first. It may simply be that I'm not as familiar with the names and events mentioned and discussed, in which case I could probably come back to it after a little outside reading and find that it makes more sense to me. Just a bit of qualification that might explain why I preferred the first volume to the second.

Vasili Mitrokhin died in 2004, shortly after the publication of the first volume of The Mitrokhin Archive, the work that he and historian Christopher Andrew. Andrew completed this second volume on his own, working with Mitrokhin's original notes. There has been some controversy over the archive, particularly from scholars who question Mitrokhin's credibility. How, they ask, could someone who never managed to rise above a middling rank in the KGB manage to evade the strict security surrounding the archives and spend the better part of his career making notes on extremely sensitive case files? When I think about some of the real-life spy stories that have shown up in the press since the late 1980s, I'm a little more inclined to take Mitrokhin's archive at face value. But even if it's exposed as a fraud at some point in the future, the Mitrokhin Archive would still be a great set of books to show just how engrossing a fraud can be.

[Barry Sierer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The world is going our way” is an eye catching but not applicable, title. Despite some tactical and operational successes, most of the third world was never really going “their” way as time eventually revealed. With a few exceptions, the KGB did not change the strategic picture for the Soviet Union.

One of the major handicaps for the KGB seemed to be over-riding need to lie and/or brag to their bosses about events that they were tracking, as well as the effectiveness of their own operations. While the operatives on the ground grasped the situations they were dealing with, they frequently could not pass on critical information to their superiors who insisted on seeing the world through their own distorted prism.

A few surprises were revealed by Mitrokhin and Andrew. One was the difficult relationship the KGB had with “allied” communist parties across the globe. While I was not shocked that the Soviets would subordinate the priorities of other communist parties to Soviet interests, I was surprised by what seemed to be how little influence the KGB had over other Communist parties. Oddly enough in some cases, the KGB seemed to have more productive (but often covert) relationships with Pro-western leaders rather than their own ideological allies.

The KGB did have some successes in India and Bangladesh. One of the most notable areas of success that seems to be relevant today is their skill in “disinformation”. These operations were frequently carried out with such skill that they actually managed to get some of the more obstinate subjects they dealt with executed by their own colleagues based on bogus charges generated by the KGB. The most important factor in the success of this type of operation was to make the target (the person they were trying to convince) believe something that is largely in line with what they already believe, such as passing on tales of bogus CIA activities to Indira Gandhi who was already profoundly suspicious of the Agency.

While the stories are fascinating, it is hard to say how well the book’s information is substantiated. Much of the information seems to be only based on Mitrokhin’s notes. This book may make an interesting start to a journey into the workings of the KGB but I would check what you find against other information.

[Varmint · Rating 4 out of 5]

amazing how many of these things were known, or at least suspected at the time.

wish andrews were a better writer. every revelation has is presented in the same flat tone.

[Amit Bagaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indian readers must read Chapters 17 & 18 to learn how much KGB controlled the Indian Government from the 1950s to 1984.

[Paul Mamani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This second volume of the post-war history of the KGB-based on the ""Mitrokhin Archive"" of secret documents purloined by the late co-author, a KGB dissident-surveys the Soviet spy agency's skullduggery in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Historian Andrew portrays Russian policy toward the Third World as largely the creation of the KGB, which hoped that the spread of Soviet influence and revolutionary upheavals would make these regions the decisive Cold War battleground. The Cuban Revolution inspired these ambitions, and by 1980, after the American defeat in Vietnam and with leftist regimes installed in Nicaragua and Grenada, Cuban troops fighting in Africa and Russian forces occupying Afghanistan, both American and Soviet officials saw communism on the march. Still, in Andrew's account, Soviet initiatives-with a few exceptions, like the Afghanistan intervention-seem cautious, reactive and uncomfortably dependent on fickle client regimes; wary of confronting the United States, Russia often exerted a restraining influence on local allies. Andrew's engaging, occasionally gossipy narrative provides new evidence of Soviet sponsorship of Latin American insurgencies and Palestinian terrorists, along with details of KGB spycraft and dirty tricks. The world-wide communist conspiracy he depicts was far from a juggernaut, but he sheds new light on the hidden history of the Cold War.

[TS Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

From approximately 1961 to 1989, the KGB dominated Soviet foreign policy thinking and convinced successive Soviet leaders that the key to success in the struggle against the Main Adversary (i.e. the US) was providing support to anti-imperialist movements in the Third World and promoting communism there. This was a ruinously expensive and ultimately failed strategy, whose main achievement was remaining secret: Soviet subversion around the world remains little-known, while America's own leaders have castigated the infinitely more mundane CIA since the 1970s, often for planning to do things it did not actually do. Thus many Americans wrongly believe the CIA shot JFK, while most Russians remain proud of the brutal KGB, which unlike the CIA retained a very active cadre of professional assassins. "The KGB's grand strategy failed chiefly because the Soviet system failed," Andrew writes, but he adds that "the KGB, so far from being the victim of a failed system, was at the heart of its most monstrous abuses." The most disturbing thing about contemporary Russian historiography is that it denies this and re-imagines the KGB as a bold, successful, ideologically-driven organization. Perhaps it is necessary, given that an ex-KGB man once again leads Russia.

[Ishani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, fancy covert operations, forged documents, poisoning ears etc. were all very movie like to me.
And then I read this book !

What is written is very difficult to believe and yet you know that all these are true. It is unfathomable to see the extent to which a country could go and did go for its expansion of ideology and for it's eternal belief on a single policy. Everyone should read this book to understand that most of the 1st & 2nd world countries are in one way or the other related to the catastrophies happening around in this era. The blame can't ever go to only CIA or KGB.

All the more alarming was how such a vast and diverse country in India was infiltrated so much and so easily, promoting it to be the biggest base of operations for KGB during Cold War. How we were completely played by KGB and how the leaders, ministers, intelligence officers and even the leader of the nation were abosolutely none but mere puppets.

In short, nations were risked, citizens were betrayed, news medias were bought and madness ruled, as much in India as in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Would have rated it 5 but for the codenames in the book.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

A KGB archivist dropped loads of documents in the lap of Andrew, and this is the second volume that sprang from the new information. The book is incredibly informative. It's dense and about 500 pages, so be prepared to invest some time.

It's broken into four categories: Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. It ebbs and flows, largely based on how interesting the narrative of the country in question is.

I would give it 5 stars but to the degree Andrew editorializes (which isn't very much) it seems a bit out of place and distracting. He's anti-Soviet/pro-Western and at times it goes too far, in my opinion. He implies, for example, that had the Soviet-aligned nations of Africa embraced the free market as had some East Asian countries, they could have had similar growth rates through the 70s and 80s. That seems remarkably simplistic, especially when it's embedded in a book that consistently (and admirably) resists generalizations.

Overall, however, I'd say any history buff would love the book, especially if they have time on their hands.

[Walt O'Hara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mitrokhin Archive was an amazing intelligence coup for the West. Christopher Andrew extends and amplifies the material encompassed within the archive to focus upon the counterintelligence efforts of the KGB both in Europe (vol. 1, the Sword and the Shield) and in the Third World (depicted here in vol. 2, The World was Going our Way). I consider the two volume set to be one of the finest Cold War era intelligence histories written. Andrews enjoyed unparalleled access to the Mitrokhin Archive and has crafted a wonderful, detailed and engaging narrative of KGB operations.

[Jintong Shi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The KGB was a mighty intelligence machine that can determine the fate of any Third World country during the Cold War. The KGB used active measures to discredit American diplomatic missions and unwelcome politicians, armed guerrillas and rebels, used Swallow to seduce officials, etc.

Yet, behind the facade of the KGB, the Soviet still failed and the KGB was shoved into history.

Karma is a bitch.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This example to never underestimate people like librarians, cause they can know more than all secret agents. The book shows also that actions of KGB or other intelligence institutions work in not very visible ways.

[Alexander Somers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm rating the research quality 5, the writing 3.
We cannot expect all writers to have the research and writing qualities guys like Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn or Vasily Semyonovich Grossman have.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this infinitely fascinating. It was well organized and well written

[Leon Jester · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the Mitrokhin archives. Excellent.

[Tommy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inosfar as the source can be trusted, this insider's view of Soviet foreign policy helps put U.S. Cold War policy in the Third World in perspective.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really fascinating details on Cold War espionage (and wishful thinking!)

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting overview of Soviet intelligence activity during the Cold War in the 'Third World' (that is, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East). It complements a prior volume which focused on Soviet intelligence activity during the same period in Europe.

The primary source for this book, a highly illegal private archive of KGB documents compiled by Vasili Mitrokhin in the 1970s and 1980s, is remarkable and probably the best publicly available resource for learning about Soviet spying between the 1940s and the 1980s. From it, Christopher Andrews has made a readable and well-organised history.

[Yaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides a good summary of the KGB efforts in South America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa based on primary sources. Though written in a dry, information dense, professional tone I still find its tales of KGB adventures fascinating, and even amusing at times (for instance when a KGB honeypot ensnares a Japanese diplomat for a second time, and the Japanese diplomat complains to his handler 'now I'll never get rid of you.'

The main takeaway I got from the book is how depressing the Cold War was for the Soviet Union. Repeatedly a country-Egypt, Chile, Ethiopia, Cuba-would flip to the Soviet Union side only to flip back after expanding considerable resources or become economic basketcases and drains on the Soviet Union's resources. Ultimately, though tactically competent the KGB was unable to change that broad strategic picture.

My observations

(0) The KGB seemed to operate in five modes. One was partnering closely with allied intelligence services to setup machines of state repression.

The other was propaganda. This often looked like subsidizing newspapers and useful political parties. And creating fake intelligence either to distribute directly to leadership or to place in newspapers. Often the KGB would break into embassies or otherwise seize true intelligence, and use that for the forgeries.

Propaganda seemed to be most effective when disseminated directly to leadership. Particularly in the Middle East where the Soviets would claim to have intel that someone they disliked was plotting a coup or something nefarious. And then the allied state security would kill that person.

The KGB also collected intelligence, this was often colored by political considerations back home (for instance Project Ryan obsessively collected intel on an American first strike on the hunch of Andropov)

Finally the KGB coordinated communist and other allied political parties. But often faced a dillema of whether to sell out the communist regime in order to cultivate closer relations with "progressive" or "anti-imperalist" leaders who didn't want rival centers of power.

(1) China was a disaster for the KGB. In a show of unity Stalin revealed the identity of all intelligence assets in China. When Mao turned against Khrushchev the entire Soviet spy network was destroyed. In the paranoid conditions of the Cultural Revolution nothing was reestablished.

(Soviet attempts to do so bordered on comedy. One agent was caught trying to buy a discontinued brand of cigarettes. Others tried to trek across deserts to enter China. East Asiatic Soviets were smuggled out of the boot of embassy cars so they could walk around and read Maoist propaganda signs).

While America was the "Main Adversary" China became a "Major Adversary" and much KGB resources were spent trying to blunt Maoism. Intense competition ensued for the loyalty of foreign communist parties, particularly in Japan and South America.

In US conventional history Nixon is portrayed as a genius for driving a wedge between the Soviet Union and China in Andrew's telling the opportunity was ripe and practically begging to be taken.

Which highlights a flaw in the "domino theory," gaining allies was subtractive not additive for the Soviet Union. Not only by causing leadership struggles within communism but also when wars broke out between proxies the Soviet Union was forced to choose sides (Syria vs the PLO; Ethiopia vs Somalia).

(2) The Soviet Union valued Castro for his ability to sway the Third World movement, and in general the younger vibes he brought to communism. But he and Che advocated for heterodox views (guerrilla warfare was possible everywhere). This led to conflict because the Soviet Union didn't want to cross certain red lines in Latin America in deference to America's lenient attitude towards crushing the Hungary uprising. The tension between Castro and the Soviet Union grew more pronounced under Gorbachev's dovish regime.

In general the preferred Soviet playbook was communist/socialist takeover -> KGB training of security service/nationalization media -> totalitarian state. That worked in Cuba, but failed in Argentina and Bolivia both because of lack of commitment of the leadership and in Argentina a split between socialists/communists in the security services.

Guerrilla/terrorism was a mixed bag. The Soviet Union tried to train guerillas in Mexico to raid the US but that failed. The Sandistas in Nicaragua succeeded, but eventually the Contras led to an interim agreement to hold free elections, which the communists lost.

(3) Japan. Lots of successful industrial espionage. But ultimately the Soviet economy was too weak to capitalize on it.

Initially the communist party was very useful. But eventually it turned Mao-ist.

The Soviet Union was very successful at placing news stories in Japanese papers, but it barely moved the needle on Japanese public opinion (the Soviets wanted them to normalize relations without returning the islands occupied since WW2).

(4) India/Pakistan. The Soviet Union did a great job of penetrating India. Cultivating a very close relationship with Indira Gandhi. Getting a friendship treaty signed. Aligning political parties to get desired outcomes.

It was less successful in Pakistan. Where one of its key goals was to remove Zia in order to lessen pressure on Aghanistan

(5) Israel. Intellgience was hamstrung by closing the Soviet embessy. Tried to smuggle agents in through refugee program. But everyone turned against the Soviet Union upon emigrating. Generally obsessed with Zionism

Lots of succesful feeding of false intel.

Not great relations with PLO. Especially after Syria vs PLO conflict

Sold out Iraqi communist party to get better relations with Saddam Huessien

[Kashish Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkably detailed.

Whilst the history of this book is beyond belief, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who is unaware of modern history, especially the 20th century. The book is packed with details and references that might be difficult to comprehend.

Having said that, it's an eye-opener and you can't help but truly appreciate the work Vasili Mitrokhin had put in and the magnitude of the risk it involved in making this possible.

[Chris]

Did not finish. Wanted to read this over a beach vacation, but it didn’t grab me. Lots of names and dates from a primary source. Author seemed primarily focused on getting original reporting out and secondarily focused on an overall story. Not a negative criticism, just wasn’t for good vacation reading. I’d read more if I was writing something about the time.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 5 out of 5]

This history book a continuation of "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive & the Secret History of the KGB" with a focus on the attempt by the Soviet Union to bring Communism to the Third World. Although reading "The Sword and the Shield" would be helpful, it has been a number of years since I read it, yet I had no problem following along with this book.

Probably the USSR's only success in the Third World was Cuba. Thereafter, the Soviet's policy seemed to be trying to duplicate that same success throughout Latin America. It would work for a time, but then everything would fall apart. A lot of this was due to bad information getting to the decisionmakers. Garbage in. Garbage out. The Soviet Union tended to lie to itself because when it got bad news it tended to punish the messenger. These "messengers" knew this and although they didn't exactly lie to their leaders they often put the best face on the facts rather than a realistic one or simply remained silent.

The other problem seemed to be that the Soviet's would most often choose Party purity over practicality. Thus they would back leaders in countries that said the right things (from a communist point of view) rather than backing someone who was less pure but more likely to hold the Party factions together.

I have read Tom Clancy thrillers and wondered how realistically Clancy portrayed the Soviet Union in such books as "The Hunt for Red October," "Red Rabbit" and "Red Storm Rising." The Soviets in these novels were so foolishly blinded by their political prejudices that they seemed cartoonish, but in fact, Clancy was not too far off the mark.

This history book is good writing as well as good information. I will probably read it again although maybe not all of it, just the sections that interest me. Each section can be read independent of order.

[Ben Gerber · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book of the year. Recommended.

The KGB enjoyed some tactical victories. They bewitched Indira Gandhi, Ahmed Touré, Hafez al-Assad, other leaders, and millions of Latin Americans, Africans, and Asians with lurid black propaganda and forged CIA & USD plots. They achieved a tremendously deep and enduring infiltration of the Indian government and press. They were aided throughout by Sino-American heavy-handedness, bungling, and at times awful PR (esp. with regard to race relations).

The title reflects, according to Andrew, the genuine sentiments of Soviet officials from the 1960s to 1980s, particularly the period from ~1975 to ~1983 - that the USA was withdrawing from the 3rd world and the Soviets were poised to sweep everything. But by the 1970s USSR provided no credible economic model, and in 1979 became bogged down in Afghanistan, and the rest of the story is well known.

Andrew goes region by region detailing KGB operations in depth, his otherwise fine writing strewn with so many acronyms that I wore out the binding flipping to the index. Would it have been too much to spell out "Communist Party of" etc.? At the worst of times the book felt repetitive - the KGB made contacts in X country, spread forgeries, began to suspect their clients, ad nauseum. Probably an unavoidable problem given the subject matter but thought I should say it, since it could prove frustrating. Not a lot of "spicy" details (honeypots, assassinations, dramatic confrontations), but plenty of fascinating anecdotes about how those in Soviet intel saw themselves and the world in the Brezhnev era.

Highly critical of the USSR, likewise of America's postwar inaction on race, heavy-handed interventions (Chile, Vietnam, Iran), and late opposition to apartheid. The narrative paints the USSR as sclerotic & decaying, though not especially cruel when compared some of their gleefully vicious partners (like Taraki's Afghanistan or the Derg).

I enjoyed this book. I am very conservative with the number of stars I give (there is a disturbing star-inflation on this site, that seems to compel people to mark anything they enjoyed as a five), so take this as a very strong recommendation. Especially to late modernists and people interested in the Cold War.

[Review Before Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

You must be knowing about world war. When it started, ended, who participated, who lost or won. We know about the institutions that were formed after world war. The new world order where we live today.But what we don't know is is the history of cold war. We know that the biggest power USA and USSR were driving forces. It started in 1960 and ended with the disintegration of USSR. So, what happened between 1960 to 1991?

 
 

The first volume of The Mitrokhin Archive managed KGB action in the West, for the most part in Europe and the United States. The Mitrokhin Archive II spotlights on the remainder of the world, most explicitly on the 'Third World' countries that the Soviet Union viewed as likely areas where to assemble communist or socialist states.

Mitrokhin archives was never a bestseller but it shocked the world. Cold war wasn't the fight for military supremacy but this was a technology and ideological warfare. The book is separated into areas on Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, with parts zeroing in on either a particular country or time span for the KGB's exercises.

USSR was a socialist society and USA believed in capitalism. The  cold war saw the involvement of third world Nations. Both the superpower tried to superimpose their ideology on  the world. 

Mitrokhin archives volume2 is the story of of USSR practices in same direction.

You must have heard the famous activists like Fidel Castro and other activists in Latin America and cuba.Here you will get to know the background story. The dirty politics, the financial support, spying, manipulation. If you are are a part of  these third world nation that has an influence of socialist ideology then your believes may get real bad hit.


https://www.reviewbeforeread.com/2021...

[Russel Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressive synopsis of Soviet machinations in the developing word between the end of WWII and the fall of the Soviet Union. It drives home the point that for all the soul-searching about CIA misdeeds around the globe the KGB had at least as large a role, and often a larger budget, in causing mayhem in many of the same regions. It was just as exploitative, at least as ruthless, and much less likely - then or now - to be blamed for what it did. For instance, it is impossible to imagine the last three decades of Afghan, Ethiopian, or Somali history without Soviet ministrations, and yet only the Afghan one is really pinned on the KGB. Perhaps an unwillingness to reckon with that legacy plays at least a part in this version of Russia’s imperialist dreams.

I did not realize the extent to which the Soviet Union inspired and facilitated Palestinian terrorism. Also instructive was the role of the KGB in pulling the strings of the NAM as well as “independent” organizations like CISPES.

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

In depth coverage from KGB archives of the Soviet's attempts to completely dominant the entire world through many means-propaganda, assassinations, blackmail, coups and war. Each world region was covered in depth and showed either strengths or weaknesses in each place. This book lacked a great deal of coverage of other events, relying just on the archives. What is interesting is this showed the competition between the Soviets and the Chinese to dominate Africa and South America. The US generally looked at the competition as solely between the US and the Soviets. Anyone who has been to South America or Africa knows the Chinese are still out to dominate and the Russians are not so much as at the level of the Soviets.

[Aman SharmaJii · Rating 4 out of 5]

TBH, I only read few chapter where india is included in the book, at the time I was reading the book I use to check the political scenario if India that what happen at the same time in India, and its really shocking that our Prime Minister is kind of doll for KGB & SOVIET UNION. This book will also give you the motive behind the murder of our fearless Prime Minister "Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri ji". How nation and their agencies work I got to know from there. An must read book for every Indian, this book will give you idea about how the political scenario we see and actual one are different and also how politician's are so corrupted that they could even sell the India to other country just for money. Jay Hind.

[Ulysses · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review based on the two Chapters named "Special Relation with India"

Post 1947 India became the play ground of CIA and KGB, and the so-called champions of democracy such as Congress and Communists were selling the country to the KGB.

Names like Neheru, Krishna Menon, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Romesh Chandra, Promode Dasgupto were all sold out Devils.

As per the account given in Mitrokhin Archives , Indira Gandhi nationalised banks (1970) and Coal Mining (1973) under the manipulative influence of KGB whose goal was to propagate their ideology throughout the world and India was their most important field of operations. CPI was staunchly carrying out the agenda of USSR.

[b bb bbbb bbbbbbbb · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's dry- a kind of bland recitation of information most of the time. Yet also easy to keep reading. The dirtbag meddling in the affairs and stability of other countries by soviet (and other countries) leadership and intelligence services isn't much of a surprise, but it is depressing. The US antics get a very light touch in this volume, even though their machinations are contextually important and relevant. Due to the nature of the leaked material much of it will probably not be corroborated by other sources, so it it should be read with a skeptical eye.

[Rui Barbosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Que banho de história! A explicação de muitas das decisões e reações históricas vistas na perspectiva sempre na penunbra da espionagem e contra-informação. Desde a I Guerra Mundial até ao terrorismo islâmico, com forte visão dos serviços secretos ocidentais, mas também soviéticos, sem deixar escapar uma visão chinesa ou israelita que é a capacidade destes serviços e a sua orientação.
A não perder!