The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year Drawing on previously classified CIA documents and on interviews with firsthand participants, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting and a riveting true story of intrigue in the final years of the Cold War.
 
It was the height of the Cold War, and a dangerous time to be stationed in the Soviet Union. One evening, while the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station was filling his gas tank, a stranger approached and dropped a note into the car. The chief, suspicious of a KGB trap, ignored the overture. But the man had made up his mind. His attempts to establish contact with the CIA would be rebuffed four times before he thrust upon them an envelope whose contents would stun U.S. intelligence. In the years that followed, that man, Adolf Tolkachev, became one of the most valuable spies ever for the U.S. But these activities posed an enormous personal threat to Tolkachev and his American handlers. They had clandestine meetings in parks and on street corners, and used spy cameras, props, and private codes, eluding the ever-present KGB in its own backyard—until a shocking betrayal put them all at risk. 



1120551069
The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year Drawing on previously classified CIA documents and on interviews with firsthand participants, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting and a riveting true story of intrigue in the final years of the Cold War.
 
It was the height of the Cold War, and a dangerous time to be stationed in the Soviet Union. One evening, while the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station was filling his gas tank, a stranger approached and dropped a note into the car. The chief, suspicious of a KGB trap, ignored the overture. But the man had made up his mind. His attempts to establish contact with the CIA would be rebuffed four times before he thrust upon them an envelope whose contents would stun U.S. intelligence. In the years that followed, that man, Adolf Tolkachev, became one of the most valuable spies ever for the U.S. But these activities posed an enormous personal threat to Tolkachev and his American handlers. They had clandestine meetings in parks and on street corners, and used spy cameras, props, and private codes, eluding the ever-present KGB in its own backyard—until a shocking betrayal put them all at risk. 



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The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

by David E. Hoffman
The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

by David E. Hoffman

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Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year Drawing on previously classified CIA documents and on interviews with firsthand participants, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting and a riveting true story of intrigue in the final years of the Cold War.
 
It was the height of the Cold War, and a dangerous time to be stationed in the Soviet Union. One evening, while the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station was filling his gas tank, a stranger approached and dropped a note into the car. The chief, suspicious of a KGB trap, ignored the overture. But the man had made up his mind. His attempts to establish contact with the CIA would be rebuffed four times before he thrust upon them an envelope whose contents would stun U.S. intelligence. In the years that followed, that man, Adolf Tolkachev, became one of the most valuable spies ever for the U.S. But these activities posed an enormous personal threat to Tolkachev and his American handlers. They had clandestine meetings in parks and on street corners, and used spy cameras, props, and private codes, eluding the ever-present KGB in its own backyard—until a shocking betrayal put them all at risk. 




Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780345805973
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 05/10/2016
Pages: 432
Sales rank: 82,322
Product dimensions: 5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

David E. Hoffman is a contributing editor at The Washington Post and a correspondent for PBS’s flagship investigative series, Frontline. He is the author of The Oligarchs and of The Dead Hand, about the end of the Cold War arms race, and winner of a Pulitzer Prize. He lives with his wife in Maryland.

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Excerpted from "The Billion Dollar Spy"
by .
Copyright © 2016 David E. Hoffman.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Map xiv

Prologue 1

1 Out of the Wilderness 5

2 Moscow Station 26

3 A Man Called Sphere 37

4 "Finally I Have Reached You" 50

5 "A Dissident at Heart" 66

6 Six Figures 76

7 Spy Camera 85

8 Windfalls and Hazards 94

9 The Billion Dollar Spy 115

10 Flight of Utopia 122

11 Going Black 138

12 Devices and Desires 148

13 Tormented by the Past 162

14 "Everything Is Dangerous" 178

15 Not Caught Alive 198

18 Seeds of Betrayal 208

17 Vanquish 217

18 Selling Out 226

19 Without Warning 230

20 On the Run 240

21 "For Freedom" 246

Epilogue 249

A Note on the Intelligence 259

Acknowledgments 263

Notes 267

Index 299

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