Another huge Soviet advantage was that they played the long game. “They don’t think in terms of quarters, the way we do. They think in terms of years, even decades.” In testament to that approach, it wasn’t until many years later that the Western powers realized the Soviets had used the open-city status of Berlin in the early postwar years to flood the West with thousands of “sleeper agents”; some were never activated, while others remained dormant until called to service in the 1960s or even 1970s.
