Customer Reviews

Comrade J

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Wall and the Curtain are down as the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union break apart. However, Russia continued its espionage efforts in America even as Yeltsin and the West became allies of a sort. Pete Early (author of true espionages like FAMILY OF SPIES) provides the biography of Russian spy Sergei Tretyakov, code-named Comrade J, who ultimately defected to the West in 2000. In the late 1990s until he defected Tretyakov was assigned to the Russian embassy in New York; from there he led covert operations across the United States, but became disenchanted with Yeltsin and Putin, who he blames for saddling him with inept political cronies (sounds familiar) and a "corrupt political system" that made Communism seem pure. He also had a personal selfish rationale; desiring a better life for his daughter. Tretyakov became an American double agent before finally publicly defecting. The fascination with this memoir is with the more questionable allegations that Tretyakov makes in his numerous interviews with Pete Earley including accusations inside the State Department that probably brings smiles to Nixon and McCarthy; many as far as this reviewer knows have been verified by an independent third party. Well written and entreating with no shockers as Tretyakov's message is that Putin, after looking into the eyes of Bush to see his soul, believes America is no friend of Russia and reacts accordingly.

Harriet Klausner

Just about any average adult in the United States now knows that the only time politicians lie is when their lips are moving. The average adult also knows that a large portion of both private business and government, particularly those who speak to the press, often give, shall we say, misleading, incomplete, or not quite true summaries of whatever it is on the news that particular day. At best, it's their side of the story, told how they want to tell it, and relating how much they're willing to give you. In many cases, they're giving you disinformation. Disinformation is what ordinary people call lies.

All that said, I -- having spent many years working for various U.S. Government intelligence agencies, including NSA, both overseas and in the U.S. -- found Pete Earley's Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War to be very informative and revealing. In some cases, irritating and exasperating. Not with the facts as presented, not with the author, and not with the subject of the book -- Russian spymaster, defector, and double agent Sergei Tretyakov -- but with what the author and Tretyakov, code-named Comrade J, tell us about the sorry state of affairs within our own government.

Now for some specifics. First, an example of sorting out the truth. Early in the book, Tretyakov says, according to the author, "... Russian intelligence targeted President Clinton's deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott, and ran a carefully calculated campaign designed to manipulate him." Talbott, in a written reply, said, "... he knew that Mamedov was relaying all of their conversations ..." back to Russian intelligence.

The following paragraph says, "Just the same, the FBI took the accusations about Talbott seriously ... In 1999, FBI officials asked Secretary (of State) Albright not to share information with Talbott ..." Talbott, as then described, was tagged by the SVR, Russia's new name for the KGB, "... as a `specific unofficial contact' - a specific term that the SVR used to identify its most secret, highly placed intelligence sources." "Specific unofficial contact" also means a person who's passing classified, or inside, or both, information.

See what I mean? Obviously, there's a little more to the story in Untold Secrets, but nothing that would unmuddy the waters.

An example of self-serving words is this, when Earley was introduced by his "FBI contact" to Tretyakov: " `Our only purpose here today is to introduce you. We are not encouraging him to tell his story, nor are we discouraging him (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). He wanted to meet you and we agreed to facilitate it. We will have no part in your talks.' " All this verbiage in diplospeak means is, "He can spill his guts because we think it will serve our purposes."

Think back. When has the FBI or CIA or any of the alphabet soup agencies ever set up a meeting between a defector and a reporter, or writer, before they had their case built? Let me save you some time. The answer is never. If they don't have the defector in their pocket, whether it's with money (the usual way), or with threats (who knows?), or patriotism towards his new country (HA!), he flat does not speak to anybody. Often, the people "protecting" him don't let him see even his own family.

So where's the truth here? I sure as hell don't know. All I can do is guess, just like you.

On the very next page, Tretyakov is quoted. "As a people, you (Americans) are very naïve about Russia and its intentions. You believe because the Soviet Union no longer exists, Russia now is your friend. It isn't, and I can show how the SVR is trying to destroy the U.S. even today and even more than the KGB did during the Cold War." That is the Gospel according to Saint Tretyakov, and you can assuredly take it to the bank.

Tretyakov goes on to give up the SVR, the old KGB, family jewels about a number of UN officials who were in Russia's pocket, and some who still are. He names a few Canadians who were regular sources of Comrade J, and who've never been outed. He clears up some anomalies that U.S. intelligence has wondered about, but were never able to pin down. He was a double agent for several years before he defected, turning over thousands of SVR Top Secret cables, the highest classification possible, and hundreds of SVR reports, also Top Secret. He relates how and when a Russian spy inside the UN siphoned off as much as a half-billion dollars meant for starving Iraqi women and children before Saddam's fall, and was given an award for it by Vladimir Putin, because he lined quite a few pockets, including possibly Putin's, in the process.

In addition, Tretyakov tells how the USSR had once intended to rid itself of nuclear and chemical waste by taking them to a remote Arctic island and destroying them by setting off a nuclear bomb. (!!) He tells how some people had given the businessman who was arranging this disposal a nuclear weapon, because they couldn't pay him. And he tells how all of this was endorsed by the Kremlin. I could go on for another couple of paragraphs, but I urge you to read Untold Secrets for yourself. Some of you will say I told you so. Others will be amazed. And some of you may feel bound to do something about it.

Gripes. Earley makes a couple of minor mistakes, for instance incorrectly saying that the KGB and SVR always called their operatives intelligence "officers," while the CIA called theirs intelligence "agents." [CIA operatives are called officers; the people who spy for them are called agents.] He also leaves a few gaps in parts of his narrative which leave the reader guessing as to the outcome. I can excuse the minor mistakes, since Earley was first a reporter, then an author, and not necessarily knowledgeable about intelligence. The holes in the story, however, should have been addressed, either by him or his editor. Many didn't seem to be germane to Tretyakov's story, for the most part, so I can see how they could have been overlooked. But since they were brought up, they should have been seen through, or readers should have been told they're unanswerable, at least for now. Many of them look like they could have been cleared up with as little as an additional sentence or two.

My big gripes, however, are the lack of a glossary and an index. Untold Secrets is a complicated read, especially for those without a background in intelligence. A glossary would have made looking up the uncommonly used and heard terms and acronyms a simple matter, and would have been an even simpler matter to include. The author is good about explaining acronyms and uncommon terms the first time they're used, but after that you're on your own. There's no glossary to look them up in, and there's no index to refer to.

The index in a book of this complexity is absolutely essential. Again, Earley explains who a person is and his connections the first time he introduces that person. Later references, particularly in a book of this length and one that tells us a gripping, but convoluted and complicated story, again leave you on your own. If you don't recall the particulars of the person, place or event that's brought up a second or third time, then you have two choices. Forget it, which could mean a gap in your comprehension, or go through it again, page by page, trying to locate the original reference. The absences of the index and the glossary are major shortcomings. Particularly nowadays, when, in creating the index, you don't have to do much beyond hitting the "Find" key and let the machine do most of the rest of your work for you.

All that said, however, I still highly recommend Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War to anybody's who interested in the future of the country, or an otherwise untold part of the recent past. Or to anybody who's interested in a good spy yarn. A good, true spy yarn, that is. After all, Tretyakov is still, by far, the most important spy ever to come over. The last chapter pretty much summarizes his importance.

One last thing. Remember when I scoffed about a spy defecting because of patriotism towards his new country (HA!)? I may have to change my mind on that.

Peter Earley's "Comrade J" details in commendable detail the career of the Soviet/Russian intelligence officer Sergei Tretyakov, who became the senior Russian operative in New York City in the 1990s. While being a CIA-controlled source. Due to legal restrictions, even the barest details of Tretyakov's defection to (or recruitment by) American Intelligence are absent from the book. Instead, Earley's account concentrates upon Tetrakov's intelligence activities that reached a peak after the end of the Cold War. This is a book that names names and points fingers at persons who, wittingly or not, became resources in the Soviet/Russian battle against American interests. The book is not particularly heavy in the day-to-day detail of how espionage operations are conducted (although there are nonetheless some interesting bits and pieces) but does provide a tolerably comprehensive picture of the scope of Russian Intelligence activities against the US even after the two nations theoretically were no longer enemeies.

The book is very good... It's exactly what you imagine when you read the synopse. It's a real tale of an ex-KGB secret agent (or so it seems), and it shows how a spy life may be, somtimes, hard to conciliate with personal lfe.

It's much worth what it costs.

Earley's book is a well written biography of one of Russia's leading and well-placed spies in Canada and the U.S. who defected to the United States bringing a great deal of valuable intelligence with him. The CIA and FBI will not openly confirm the details of Tretyakov's story, and because of the defection, traveling to Russia would submit the author to a risk to his own safety. Earley is therefore forced to relate the story in more of a "Sergei says" manner to avoid appearing to stand behind the details related in the book. While this style makes the book less than gripping, it is nonetheless fascinating.

I found the look into Russia, particularly since the dismantling of the Soviet Union, to be absorbing and chilling. I don't believe that the American public has had an opportunity to see the true effect of the swift political changes in Russia. We have been lulled into a false sense that Russia is now an ally, which could not be farther from the truth if what Sergei says is accurate. Although the author could not verify much of the information, the story rings true and Earley has made efforts to confirm many details as an indication of the truthfulness of his subject.

The book is an easy read and presents a view of the new Russia which is seldom presented in the media. I recommend it for anyone interested in national security or international relations.

John Barron's Operation Solo (1996) provided an excellent account of a Cold War era Soviet who became an informant for the U.S.; this is a more modern example, concerning a senior KGB officer whose exploits continued into the Yeltsin and Putin eras. The extent of Russian post-Soviet espionage on the U.S. is underappreciated and this is a sell-written corrective.

Comrade J is an interesting, straightforward biography of one of the highest level KGB spies to defect to the US, and one who did so after the fall of the Berlin Wall, bringing insider perspective into both the defunct Soviet Union and current state of Russia under Putin with him. As such this is a very timely and topical book, and one that shines a light on a underappreciated area most Americans have cast in the shadow of apathy after the end of the Cold War. The most striking imports of the book are that, according to Sergei Tretyakov (the defector), little has changed in Russia since the dissolution of the USSR, that America, NATO and China remain the number 1 through 3 stated enemies of Russia, respectively, and the astonishing level of thugocracy/kleptocracy of the post Soviet "democratic" regimes, with Putin being the worst so far.

Sergei was born into a KGB family and thus much of his life was pre-determined. Growing up in the Soviet Union as one of the "lucky" several million who were Communist Party members (and thus slightly more privileged in a bifurcated, repressed, and politicized society) he bore witness to the corruption and depravity that ultimate, totalitarian state power unleashes. The largest lesson was to never question the communist party, and to always blindly support it. This went to the point of, Orwell 1984-like, being intentionally ignorant of the party's evident lies and blunders. Sergei relates a story of a woman typist for a senior politburo member, of literally several dozen. When the politburo member asked all the assembled typists if any remembered a report which one of them had typed up and if she could recite the details to him as he had already delivered it and forgot all the important points due to a night of heavy drinking this woman stepped forward and, thinking she was a good worker, debriefed the politburo member in full from her memory. She was taken out of the room and never seen or heard from again. The politburo member had not forgotten anything about the report nor had he been drinking the night before. The message was clear: do your job, don't ask questions, don't remember any details that can show contradictions in party actions or failures. The party brutally enforced this backwards standard since it was clear even to those within the Soviet Union how poorly they were faring and how the party's only interest was maintaining its own power.

Nonetheless Sergei was a patriot and was genuinely committed to defending his homeland. He briefly grew up in Iran as part of the KGB mission there which his parents were attached to and where he was able to contrast life outside the Soviet Union. But at the time it had little effect on him despite his father's wishes to have him grow up abroad as much as possible so he could enjoy some greater freedom than he would in the USSR. When the time came he joined the KGB eagerly, following in his mother's and grandmother's footsteps, and his intelligence and hard work ethic allowed him to raise through the ranks. The sections on his training as a KGB operative, and the frankly cruel power games his superiors played on him and his fellow classmates, is a fascinating looking into how the KGB groomed its agents. With so much unbridled power in the Soviet Government one had to be politically nimble and astute to survive and climb its slippery ladder. Toiling through menial jobs at first Sergei finally received assignment to Ottawa in Canada, a testing ground for agents to eventually go spy in America.

Soviet spies were not James Bond like agents who snuck around in wetsuits with camera watches to snap photos of secret documents. They had diplomatic covers and tried to recruit, slowly, carefully and with a very false but exuberantly faked friendship, contacts who would give them verbal information and secret documents hopefully later in the relationship. Most contacts didn't even know they were spying for the KGB. Those that did, and started providing the most useful information, eventually just fell into it, because they knew they could be blackmailed if they stopped spying. They were also paid for their information, but usually a pittance relative to the information's worth. All the time KGB agents had to avoid counterintelligence operatives, who tried to ferret out the under cover diplomats from the real ones, and thus snuff out the flow of information back to Moscow. After glowing success in Ottawa, Sergei was eventually given a high level position in Manhattan, and was able to move his wife and daughter to New York with him.

The type of contacts the KGB was able to recruit is an interesting mix. Largely they were ideologically sympathetic people (leftists) from academia, non-government organizations in particular, and government bureaucracies. The KGB not only received information but fed propaganda to its contacts. The most successful KGB propaganda operation according to Sergei was the seeding of the scientifically untenable concept of Nuclear Winter, most notably to Carl Sagan. Sergei also claims that the KGB was so sly about how they did this that the people receiving propaganda either didn't know its origin (i.e. KGB political intelligence head-quarters in Moscow), or legitimately believed outright fabrications and thus passed them along with whole-hearted earnestness. The KGB also successfully recruited a small handful of desperate conservative politicians, bribing them for the most part. Sergei also claims that the KGB recruited several high ranking Clinton officials who gave them information and who received propaganda.

The chapters on exactly what were happening inside Russia as the USSR collapsed are also fascinating and have a rare clarity relative to popular accounts. The result was a casting off of one form of oppression, but the ushering in of thuggish, corrupt, drunken oligarchs who rule Russia greedily and irresponsibly. But the nature of Russian intelligence operations didn't change. America was still the number one enemy, and Sergei's marching orders remained essentially unchanged. After visiting Russia on a trip from Manhattan, post-USSR, Sergei witnessed a descent into chaos. He and his family made up their mind. Disgusted by men like Yeltsin, and especially Putin whom he paints as a complete megalomaniac, he wanted to offer his family the chance for a free and prosperous life in America.

This book is very anecdotal by nature and not an overview of politics between Russia and the US, but it has a lot of important information on Russian intelligence methods and objectives and the current state of Russia, which have a direct bearing on this issue. Highly recommended, especially in light of Russia's recent invasion of Georgia and the "Return of History."

Tretyakov was a career spy who honored his motherland and the KGB who was responsible for protecting it. Over time, though, he came to see the contradictions in the Soviet system and the corruption of those in the highest positions of power. This only worsened when the Soviet system broke apart. The book chronicles the author's development as an independent thinker. It is not idealogical. He is simply a patriot who realizes that his patriotism has become misplaced.

The story also reminds us that the world is a rough place, and is full of powerful people who don't follow the same rules we do. This is especially clear in the account of the Iraq Oil-for-Food program, which may have been the biggest international con of all time.

This book is a biography of a Russian KGB/SVR officer. It has interesting behind-the-scenes coverages of a number of international events that either the KGB or SVR had significant roles. I found the book very interesting and read it in one evening.

Strengths: good coverage of the life of a KGB/SVR officer and his experiences. The book generally has good flow and adequate depth of coverage. Very exciting sections that implicate US and foreign officials for roles in spying. The best section discussed historical events that demonstrated corruption at the leadership levels in Russia.

Weaknesses: it appears the officer exaggerates some of his experiences. There are a number of sections that left me confused as to what happened, i.e., some details were clearly been absent. A number of sections did appear censored. Some of the historical details on Russian corruption were clearly exaggerated, but conveyed the spirit to the reader.

Recommended for: those that have an interest in contemporary Russian events, foreign affairs, intelligence, KGB, SVR, CIA, etc...

In its genre, this book is one of the best, and it is so good because of the subject. In "Comrade J", the author tells the story of Sergei Tretyakov, a Russian SVR officer who reached the rank of deputy rezident in New York City. This book recounts Sergei's career, stories of individuals recruited to spy for the Russians, and gives an interesting insiders account of how Russian spies actually operate. Apparently, the Russians still view the U.S. as the "Main Enemy", followed by NATO, and then China. Sergei claims the Russian intelligence threat is greater today than during the Cold War. With Russia asserting itself on the world stage once more, this book makes for even more timely reading.