The disintegration of the USSR is inextricably entwined and intimately related to the life and times, failures and accomplishments, paradoxes and contradictions of the courageous Russian who is the subject of this book — a man with tenacious clarity of purpose and the steely determination to carry on through and accomplish his goal at any price.

The Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations by Richard C. S. Trahair was published by Greenwood Press, (Westport, Connecticut) in 2004. It is 473 pages. It consists of nearly 300 A to Z entries of both spies and secret operations as the main text in 350 pages. There are the usual introductions, as well as a useful Chronology (1917-2003), Glossary, and Index, contained in pages 351 to 473.

Recently I read the book Tiger Trap (2012) by espionage writer David Wise. It is a scary but at the same time an astounding and critically needed book, as Americans know very little about the espionage activities of China in the United States.

KGB — The Secret Work of the Soviet Secret Agents by John Barron (Reader's Digest Press, 1974) is a classic KGB espionage saga set during the Cold War!

This is a seminal book and monumental  work on the history, the (then) current methods, organization, goals, of Soviet espionage — i.e.,  KGB foreign intelligence with its First Chief Directorate — and internal security operations — i.e., the Second Chief Directorate.(1)

Passport to Assassination: The Never-Before-Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him by Oleg Nechiporenko is a disappointing book for an intriguing subject!

In the book, Castro's Secrets — The CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine (2012), author Brian Latell, a professor, scholar, and retired CIA officer who had been active in foreign intelligence for 35 years, relies extensively on information provided by half a dozen Cuban defectors and several retired CIA officers.

Operation Barbarossa — A Re-Enactment 70 Years Later

SPECIAL BULLETIN  — from Radio Berlin a Special Report!
June 22, 2011   7:00 AM

We are sorry to interrupt your programming. It is the German Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, speaking:

"...At this moment a march is taking place that for its extent, compares with the greatest the world has ever seen. I have decided again to place the fate and future of the Reich and our people in the hands of the soldiers..."

Mr. Epstein's books are always fascinating and enlightening. He has done this repeatedly with his tomes, Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald (1978) and Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer (1996). He repeats his superb performance with Deception: The Invisible War Between the CIA and the KGB (1989).

This a great book for history buffs and World War II aficionados. The author, Louis C. Kilzer, a respected journalist who has twice earned a Pulitzer Prize, has written an intriguing book. I must respectfully disagree with the unfavorable Amazon book reviews that have been posted so far in this forum, and so I am adding my contrarian view's nickel's worth. This book reads like a suspense, historic novel, fast-paced and well written.

This is a great book, and once again I must disagree respectfully with the average reviewer in the case of one of Louis Kilzer's books! Incidentally, I don't know Mr. Kilzer personally, but I do know of his journalistic accomplishments and salute him for this and for writing yet another very remarkable book, Churchill's Deception: The Dark Secret That Destroyed Nazi Germany!

When the American POWs returned from captivity in Vietnam, military authorities noticed there were no amputees. At the time, this puzzled the experts. With over 2000 men in captivity, one would expect at least a few amputees. But in light of what is known about the Soviet human experimental program, it now makes a lot more sense. Most likely, these men were used either for military experiments or for training young surgeons. As in North Korea, once the procedures were completed the "experimental subjects" were killed and their bodies incinerated.

Something is rotten in Washington's corridors of power. And we aren't talking about lying about sultry sex (and alleged private matters that may or may not be high crimes and misdemeanors), but corruption in the highest circles of our government --- the Departments of Navy, Justice, Defense, Commerce, culminating with bribery and potential treason involving the President and Vice President of the United States.

In the early 1950s, U.S. intelligence concluded that the KGB, Soviet intelligence, was working hard to develop "mind control" and behavior modification drugs. Supporting evidence included the public "confessions" of numerous high-ranking communist officials, the high-profile trial in Hungary of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, who appeared to have been drugged as he confessed to treasonous crimes, and the unusual behavior of American POWs during the Korean War.

Sometimes in history, events of enormous brutality involving large numbers of people can be successfully kept secret from the general public for long periods of time. For example, in the case of Operation Keelhaul following World War II, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were forcibly sent back to the Soviet Union by the United States and British governments to a certain death or enslavement in labor camps. It wasn't until Julius Epstein finally exposed this event that the world learned of this atrocity.

The U.S. owes a great debt of gratitude to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who after ten years of painstaking intelligence work finally led to the location in Pakistan and death of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011.

This is the second time I have read and perused this magnificent book — and what a momentous and timely book it is! The book reads much like a cliffhanger spy novel, though its nonfiction and its information is true and disturbing. The message is as timely today as it was in 2007 when it was first published.

Robert Eringer's book, Ruse — Undercover with FBI counterintelligence (2007), is a hell of a suspenseful ride! A good patriotic hustler, who risks his life for country and justice, Eringer goes after traitor Edward Lee Howard in post-communist Russia, assists in the capture of notorious killer Ira Einhorn in France, hoodwinks die-hard communist KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov in Moscow, and plays the Great Game skillfully with Cuban Intelligence in Washington and Havana.