Some twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the topic of Russian spies in America has once again emerged at the forefront of American popular and historical discourse. Yesterday morning the NYTimes reported that 11 individuals had been accused by federal prosecutors of operating under false names, attempting to infiltrate "American policy making circles," and relaying information back to a Russian central intelligence.
The sheer amount of publicity that these spies have garnered, regardless of however serious a threat they actually pose to American security, warrants a re-examination of our country's long and troubled relationship with both the threat and the reality of Russian espionage. In 2009, the historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Khler published Spies, a monumental and authoritative work on the KGB's involvement in America. Based on KGB archives, specifically the research of former KGB operative and journalist Alexander Vassiliev, Spies is the definitive text on Russian espionage in America in the 20th century. "These official communications," the authors write in the preface, "are neither the conclusions nor guesses, sometimes inspired, sometimes incorrect, of counterespionage organizations dedicated to uncovering spies...Instead, they are the contemporaneous accounts of the successes and failures of the KGB by the KGB itself."
Spies was awarded ForWord Magazine's 2009 Book of the Year Award.
This morning the Wall Street Journal featured an op-ed by Haynes and Khler, in which the two authors situate the recent arrest in the context of the history of Russian espionage in America.
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