Between 1972 and 1984, Vasili Mitrokhin supervised the move of the KGB's entire archives, including all the files on the agency's deep-cover operatives, from Lubyanka to the new KGB headquarters at Yasenevo—all the while making notes and transcripts that he smuggled out and hid beneath his dacha floor. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Mitrokhin defected with his top-secret cache, described by the FBI as "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever achieved from any source." Supplementing Mitrokhin's archive of KGB secrets with material from other sources, Christopher Andrew here presents the most complete picture ever published of the KGB and its operations in the U.S. and Europe.
"The book is astounding…. Every page brims with the plots for a dozen movies and Robert Ludlum thrillers. Thanks to what they have done, no history of the last half of the Cold War can be written the same way again."—LATimes
