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Spymaster: My Thirty-two Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West |  | Author: Oleg Kalugin
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
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Seller: orphanbird
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 167954
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised Edition
Pages: 480
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0465014453
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.12092
EAN: 9780465014453
ASIN: 0465014453
Publication Date: March 3, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Oleg Kalugin oversaw the work of American spies, matched wits with the CIA, and became one of the youngest generals in KGB history. Even so, he grew increasingly disillusioned with the Soviet system. In 1990, he went public, exposing the intelligence agency’s shadowy methods. Revised and updated in the light of the KGB’s enduring presence in Russian politics, Spymaster is Kalugin’s impressively illuminating memoir of the final years of the Soviet Union.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
For The Most Part Very Interesting & Informative February 28, 2010
William R. Drake (Nevada City, CA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
SPYMASTER by Oleg Kalugin 2/27/10
This recently released book (c2009) is an autobiography of Kalugin, who spent 32 years in Soviet intelligence. As a young man he was a KGB agent sent to New York disguised as a Fulbright Scholar. During his second tour of duty in the US he took another "cover" in order to function as the director of political intelligence for Russia's Washington, DC "Resident" (the KGB director of spying for the region) for five years. At one point Kalugin became one of the "handlers" of the famous naval spy John Walker. In 1974, at age 40, he became the youngest general in the postwar history of the KGB. In 1970 he became the Deputy Chief of Foreign Counterintelligence. Three years later he was appointed the director for that branch of the KGB, a position he held for seven years. He became very critical of the KGB and a number of corrupt Communist leaders and aligned himself with the democracy movement during and after the Gorbachev era. Needless to say, he created quite a few enemies and during the Putin regime, while Kalugin was a temporary resident of the United States involved in business endeavors, he was tried in absentia for treason and sentenced to 15 years in prison. At that point he was granted political asylum in America. In August 2003 he became a U.S. citizen.
I have an interest in espionage and have read quite a few books on the subject. I found this book very well written and, for the most part, quite interesting and informative. There are many fascinating (to me) stories related to his experiences in his different roles. There are also areas where he fills in the gaps left by other books, for example, in regards to the famous British spy Kim Philby and his last years in Russia. Kalugin took an active interest in Philby's well-being and they became good friends. Another of the author's unique contributions relates to the democracy movement in Russia. Writing as an active participant in that movement, he gives his perception of events and people during the final years of the Soviet Union and the time after its demise.
There were parts of the second half of the book that got a little boring for me. In Chapter 7 ("Collision"), especially, I got tired of lengthy criticisms of KGB and Politburo officials that he had to deal with and/or that he had conflicts with, as he fell from grace within the KGB (even if some of that criticism might have been justified). I also got tired of all the negative descriptions, in the last part of the book, of those who opposed the efforts to change the Soviet Union (/Russia). As would be the tendency of most of us human beings, in these parts of the book, he presents himself in a positive light, justifying his behavior, while presenting those who opposed him or frustrated his desires in a very negative light.
To a degree he reflects the strong conditioning of those of us with "male egos". He has considerable disrespect for people who [due to their human conditioning] lack courage and he sympathized "with some of the married agents who described the disgust they felt at having to make love to unattractive older women" (p.197). Interestingly he maintained an intense distain for Russians who spied against, and/or defected from, their own country while looking at those who betrayed the West as spies and/or defectors as true heroes. This apparent contradiction was even the case after he became disenchanted with Russia and Communism. (He relates a dialogue he had with one Russian who defected to the West as follows: "'....You're scum....You're a traitor. Why did you do that, betray your own country?'" [p.234] He even seemed to be judgmental of KGB agent Alexander Orlov, who only defected to the West to avoid being a victim of Stalin's insane purges.)
For the most part I found Kalugin (or at least the Kalugin that is portrayed in the book as I perceived it) to be a pleasant, "descent," and at times sensitive, human being (for a KGB agent that is, who authorized "dirty tricks" against the West, etc). He was disturbed by assassinations, for example, and events like the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia helped erode the blind faith he once held in the Soviet system.
Is his story "true"? In general, our stories are not really true. They (we) are too subjective. We can only say that our stories reflect "our" truth. Each character in his book would tell the story a little (or a lot) differently. And as Anais Nin (apparently) said, "We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are." We meet the world with our projections. And what we react to most in others often reflects something within ourselves of which we are not conscious.
Some reviewers of this book on Amazon found it boring. Although this was my experience while reading parts of the book, I think that to some extent this depends on the reader. If one is really interested in this subject he/she will find it very informative and, for the most part, will probably find it interesting. It definitely contributes some fresh material to its subject matter. Overall, I enjoyed it.
 Snore September 9, 2009
Bruce Atlas (Whitestone, NY USA)
1 out of 16 found this review helpful
The book is boring and poorly written.
I read about 1/2 and then put it away in disgust. I'll finish it eventually, probably after I finish rearranging my sock drawer
Kalugin Dishes August 17, 2009
Paul E. Richardson (Montpelier, VT)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
It could be said that Oleg Kalugin's tale picks up where Andrew Meier's book, The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service, leaves off, at least chronologically: Kalugin began his spying career in the 1950s, participating in the very first exchange of students in 1958 (half the participants were spies like him, Kalugin asserts).
Kalugin masqueraded as a journalist, climbed the KGB ladder for two decades, became the youngest general in its history (in 1974) and reached its pinnacle as head of foreign counterintelligence (overseeing, among other things, the assassination of Bulgarian writer Georgy Markov), only to be railroaded by careerists and dullards (one of whom, Vladimir Kryuchkov, was a leader in the failed 1991 coup). He retired early from the KGB (in 1990) and joined the democratic movement, even getting elected to the Congress of People's Deputies on an anti-KGB stance.
Kalugin's book (originally published in 1994), has been reissued with a rather lackluster Epilogue (explaining his final break with the Kremlin and winning of US asylum, when, in 2002, the Putin government tried him for treason in absentia), yet the book itself is an engrossing chronicle of Soviet spycraft and intelligence gathering in the 1960s to 1980s.
As reviewed in Russian Life
Spymaster July 17, 2009
S. W. Moore (Portage, MI USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
For any member of the babyboom generation, Mr. Kalugin provides insight into the inner workings of our Cold War opponent particularly the KGB. The author tends to jump around the timeline but provides information never before known to those of us outside the intelligence field.
 Spymaster April 20, 2009
Plato Cacheris (Washington, DC)
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
A well-written exposure of Soviet espionage by one who was a major participant. Of interest was Kalugin's rehabilitation of Kim Philby.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
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