Summary of Gordon Corera's Russians Among Us

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The small band of Western spies in Moscow had learned to trust their instincts. They sensed something strange in the air on Sunday, as hard-liners seized power in a coup. The country’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had been detained in the Crimea.
#2 In Moscow, the head of the First Chief Directorate, Leonid Shebarshin, was not one of the plotters. He had warned the new political leaders about the main enemy: the United States. He was frustrated that no one was listening.
#3 The KGB had two spies inside the American intelligence community. The American spy had been active for more than a decade but not even the KGB knew his real name. The pair were not the only spies the KGB had in America.
#4 The CIA officers sent out to spy on the coup began reporting back to their superiors. They realized their KGB minders were absent, and for the first time, they took the risk of meeting contacts quickly on street corners without the usual careful preparation.

Sujets

• Général
• International relations

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 26 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669366492
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Gordon Corera's Russians Among Us
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15 Insights from Chapter 16 Insights from Chapter 17 Insights from Chapter 18 Insights from Chapter 19 Insights from Chapter 20 Insights from Chapter 21 Insights from Chapter 22 Insights from Chapter 23 Insights from Chapter 24 Insights from Chapter 25 Insights from Chapter 26 Insights from Chapter 27 Insights from Chapter 28
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The small band of Western spies in Moscow had learned to trust their instincts. They sensed something strange in the air on Sunday, as hard-liners seized power in a coup. The country’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, had been detained in the Crimea.

#2

In Moscow, the head of the First Chief Directorate, Leonid Shebarshin, was not one of the plotters. He had warned the new political leaders about the main enemy: the United States. He was frustrated that no one was listening.

#3

The KGB had two spies inside the American intelligence community. The American spy had been active for more than a decade but not even the KGB knew his real name. The pair were not the only spies the KGB had in America.

#4

The CIA officers sent out to spy on the coup began reporting back to their superiors. They realized their KGB minders were absent, and for the first time, they took the risk of meeting contacts quickly on street corners without the usual careful preparation.

#5

In August 1991, protesters in Moscow took down the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the KGB, and replaced it with a statue of Lenin. The next day, staff at KGB headquarters were ordered to seal the doors.

#6

The CIA had been working against the Soviet Union for years, and in August 1991, their team on the ground sent cables detailing the coup in Moscow. But many officers had spent their entire career working against the Soviet target, and they were not sure how to deal with the new Russia.

#7

As the coup collapsed, Bearden summoned one of his officers into his office. Mike Sulick was a Bronx-born former marine who had served in Vietnam and had a PhD in Russian studies. He would eventually rise to be the head of the CIA’s clandestine service and a central figure in the intelligence war with Russia.

#8

The handover of the plans by their new boss stunned the hardened operatives of the KGB. They thought it was madness. The KGB was dead, but it would rise again as something else.

#9

On December 26, 1991, a married couple sat in a hotel room in Buffalo and watched as the flag of the Soviet Union was lowered for the last time. They wept. They had developed a nasty skin inflammation, and they were far away from home. Their long-term target was the KGB, but they felt alone.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The KGB would steal someone’s identity from a cemetery, and create a fake life for them. They would then provide backstories and evidence to support the claim that the person was who they said they were.

#2

For long-term penetration, the strong preference was always to get hold of real documents rather than rely on fakes. This meant becoming a dead double – stealing an identity of someone deceased and then using it to build a set of genuine documents.

#3

The preference was to send out couples, so that if one person fell in love with a local, they would not have to constantly hide the truth from them or risk telling them that they were not who they said they were.

#4

The couple was approached by the KGB, and they agreed to become spies in order to prevent another Great War like the one in World War II. They were the soldiers of the invisible front.

#5

After they were married, Bezrukov and Vavilova went to Moscow to train to be illegals. It took around four years and a million dollars, but they were able to look like Englishmen or Spaniards.

#6

The KGB began a push for a new generation of homegrown illegals in the mid-1950s. They never quite matched their predecessors, although there were some successes. The Americans and British have never really repaid the favor of sending their own long-term agents into Russia posing as citizens of a third country.

#7

Illegals were used to do the things that regular spies could not. They were able to get deep into their opponent’s society, which allowed them to understand their adversary and meet people who would not engage with a Russian.

#8

The training of undercover agents was similar to that of a child leaving home. It was like sending a child out into the world. There was always trepidation when an agent was sent abroad, like sending a child out into the world.

#9

The most difficult emotional experience for Bezrukov and Vavilova was leaving their parents behind. They had to fabricate a story about going to Australia. The couple was also afraid that if they were caught, they would never be allowed to return to Russia.
Insights from Chapter 3

#1

The couple met at a monument in Canada in 1987, and their legend was born. But the truth was that they were already a married couple, and had met at a monument to start their relationship.

#2

The couple had a difficult decision to make when they realized they were going to have a child: should they have children, and if so, how should they raise them. They knew that if chaos arose in Russia, their cover could be blown and they would be exposed.

#3

In the first few months after the coup, the focus of the SVR was on illegals. The end of the Cold War had not been a time to relax for Directorate S. Rather it was a time to double down on intelligence.

#4

The defection of Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist, in 1992 revealed the names of many illegals operating in the West. The scale of the disaster became clear, and the SVR knew it would have to rebuild its deep cover networks by sending out even more new illegals.

#5

In Britain, the CIA and MI6 found themselves in a strange new world.