The most detailed study of Soviet military-industrial espionage during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s--spying aimed specifically at acquiring restricted information and materials relating to American industry, technology, and science.

American Spies presents the stunning histories of more than forty Americans who spied against their country during the past six decades, offering insight into America's vulnerability to espionage along the way. Now available in paperback, with a new preface that brings the conversation up to the present, American Spies is as relevant as ever.

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When the United States established diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in 1933, it did more than normalize relations with the new Bolshevik state—it opened the door to a parade of Russian spies. In the 1930s and 1940s, Soviet engineers and technicians, under the guise of international cooperation, reaped a rich harvest of intelligence from our industrial plants. Factory layouts, aircraft blueprints, fuel formulas—all were grist for the Soviet espionage mill. And that, as Katherine Sibley shows, was just the beginning. While most historians date the onset of the Cold War with American fears of Soviet global domination after World War II, Sibley shows that it actually began during the war itself. The uncovering of atomic espionage in 1943 in particular not only led to increased surveillance of our ostensible Russian allies but also underscored a growing distrust of the Soviet Union that would eventually morph into full-blown hostility. Meticulously documented through exhaustive new research in American and Soviet archives, Sibley's book provides the most detailed study of Soviet military-industrial espionage to date, revealing that the United States knew much more about Soviet operations than previously acknowledged. She tells of spies like Steve Nelson and Clarence Hiskey, who passed on information about the Manhattan Project; moles within the federal government like Nathan Silvermaster; and Soviet agents like Andrei Schevchenko, who pressed defense workers to divulge high tech secrets. At the same time, as Sibley shows, hundreds of other Red agents went completely undetected. It was only through the revelations of defectors, and the postwar cracking of Soviet codes, that we began to fully understand these breaches in our national security. Sibley describes how our response to this wartime espionage shaped a generation of Red-baiting—triggering loyalty programs, blacklists, and the infamous HUAC hearings—and how it has clouded U.S.-Russian relations down to the present day. She also reviews recent cases—John Walker, Jr., Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen—that demonstrate how Russian efforts to gain American secrets continues well into our present times. For Cold War-watchers and spy aficionados alike, Sibley's work spells out what we actually knew about communist espionage and suggests how and why that knowledge should also shape our understanding of intelligence in the Age of Terrorism.

“American Spy updates the espionage thriller with blazing originality.”—Entertainment Weekly “There has never been anything like it.”—Marlon James, GQ “So much fun . . . Like the best of John le Carré, it’s extremely tough to put down.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • Entertainment Weekly • Esquire • BuzzFeed • Vulture • Real Simple • Good Housekeeping • The New York Public Library What if your sense of duty required you to betray the man you love? It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes. Yes, even though she secretly admires the work Sankara is doing for his country. Yes, even though she is still grieving the mysterious death of her sister, whose example led Marie to this career path in the first place. Yes, even though a furious part of her suspects she’s being offered the job because of her appearance and not her talent. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American. Inspired by true events—Thomas Sankara is known as “Africa’s Che Guevara”—American Spy knits together a gripping spy thriller, a heartbreaking family drama, and a passionate romance. This is a face of the Cold War you’ve never seen before, and it introduces a powerful new literary voice. NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD • Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize “Spy fiction plus allegory, and a splash of pan-Africanism. What could go wrong? As it happens, very little. Clever, bracing, darkly funny, and really, really good.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates “Inspired by real events, this espionage thriller ticks all the right boxes, delivering a sexually charged interrogation of both politics and race.”—Esquire “Echoing the stoic cynicism of Hurston and Ellison, and the verve of Conan Doyle, American Spy lays our complicities—political, racial, and sexual—bare. Packed with unforgettable characters, it’s a stunning book, timely as it is timeless.”—Paul Beatty, Man Booker Prizewinning author of The Sellout

Can you keep a secret? Maybe you can, but the United States government cannot. Since the birth of the country, nations large and small, from Russia and China to Ghana and Ecuador, have stolen the most precious secrets of the United States. Written by Michael Sulick, former director of CIA’s clandestine service, Spying in America presents a history of more than thirty espionage cases inside the United States. These cases include Americans who spied against their country, spies from both the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War, and foreign agents who ran operations on American soil. Some of the stories are familiar, such as those of Benedict Arnold and Julius Rosenberg, while others, though less well known, are equally fascinating. From the American Revolution, through the Civil War and two World Wars, to the atomic age of the Manhattan Project, Sulick details the lives of those who have betrayed America’s secrets. In each case he focuses on the motivations that drove these individuals to spy, their access and the secrets they betrayed, their tradecraft or techniques for concealing their espionage, their exposure and punishment, and the damage they ultimately inflicted on America’s national security. Spying in America serves as the perfect introduction to the early history of espionage in America. Sulick’s unique experience as a senior intelligence officer is evident as he skillfully guides the reader through these cases of intrigue, deftly illustrating the evolution of American awareness about espionage and the fitful development of American counterespionage leading up to the Cold War.

An ex-Soviet KGB agent details his primary mission to work undercover in the United States for over a decade and discusses his change of allegiance and defection from the KGB. --Publisher's description.