Topics of Interest

American Spies presents the stunning histories of more than forty Americans who spied against their country during the past six decades. Michael Sulick, former head of the CIA's clandestine service, illustrates through these stories--some familiar, others much less well known--the common threads in the spy cases and the evolution of American attitudes toward espionage since the onset of the Cold War. After highlighting the accounts of many who have spied for traditional adversaries such as Russian and Chinese intelligence services, Sulick shows how spy hunters today confront a far broader spectrum of threats not only from hostile states but also substate groups, including those conducting cyberespionage. Sulick reveals six fundamental elements of espionage in these stories: the motivations that drove them to spy; their access and the secrets they betrayed; their tradecraft, i.e., the techniques of concealing their espionage; their exposure; their punishment; and, finally, the damage they inflicted on America's national security.

American Spies presents the stunning histories of more than forty Americans who spied against their country during the past six decades. Michael Sulick, former head of the CIA's clandestine service, illustrates through these stories--some familiar, others much less well known--the common threads in the spy cases and the evolution of American attitudes toward espionage since the onset of the Cold War. After highlighting the accounts of many who have spied for traditional adversaries such as Russian and Chinese intelligence services, Sulick shows how spy hunters today confront a far broader spectrum of threats not only from hostile states but also substate groups, including those conducting cyberespionage. Sulick reveals six fundamental elements of espionage in these stories: the motivations that drove them to spy; their access and the secrets they betrayed; their tradecraft, i.e., the techniques of concealing their espionage; their exposure; their punishment; and, finally, the damage they inflicted on America's national security.

The nineteenth century is no more. We find in the century that The Song Is Ended but the Melody Lingers on. We can see...that espionage not only continues but continues at a rate that is greater than what we have experienced in the past. While counterintelligence has continued to improve, we have been unable to eliminate the threat because the nations that oppose us have also increased and improved their intelligence against us. I seriously doubt that we have the patriotic motivation to help counterintelligence in stopping espionage. This saddens me, but since I am now in my eighty-sixth year, all I can leave you with is a phrase that has been part of our original national heritage: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

The ImPerfect Spy is the inside story of George Trofimoff, an American civil servant and army reserve colonel, convicted in 2001 of spying for the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. It is a story of betrayal, greed, and treachery at an almost incomprehensible level. It begins with Trofimoff's early years as a Russian refuge living in pre-World War II Germany, and continues throughout the remarkable series of coincidences that converged to give him a new life and made him an American citizen. It follows Trofimoff's life as he advanced in the American intelligence community through positions of increasing responsibility, and his unlikely recruitment by a Russian Orthodox Priest, Trofimoff's step-brother, as a spy for the Soviet Union. It ends with his arrest, trial, and conviction for espionage.

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.