Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History [Hardcover]

Leona Schecter (Author), Jerrold Schecter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

In the last decade of the twentieth century, newly opened classified archives revealed a series of “sacred secrets” that survivors of the Cold War had sworn to carry to their graves. These revelations have challenged our understanding of significant historical events. In Sacred Secrets, Jerrold and Leona Schecter add documents recently obtained in Russia and information from original interviews to cast new light on the reasons for the attack on Pearl Harbor, atomic espionage, Alger Hiss, McCarthyism, and the Rosenberg case, among others. The Schecters also reveal details of their own exposure to the world of sacred secrets.

From Sacred Secrets, the reader emerges with a startling awareness of the profound influence that an aggressive Soviet intelligence service exerted on U.S. domestic and foreign policy. We now know, for example, that Harry Dexter White, the chief architect of the U.S. economic policy that proved so provocative to Japan and contributed to its decision to attack Pearl Harbor, was a Soviet intelligence asset committed to deflecting Japan’s aggressive aims away from the Soviet Union. The Schecters provide the missing pieces of historical puzzles, demonstrate the importance of long-forgotten memoirs, rehabilitate reputations, and condemn others, rewriting recent U.S. history.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Former Time editor Jerrold Schechter and historian Leona Schechter mine the Soviet archives and U.S. documents declassified in the 1990s, most notably the famed Venona intercepts meant to decrypt Soviet messages, in an effort to shed light on some Cold War mysteries and assess the impact of Soviet espionage on U.S. foreign policy. The usual suspects the Rosenbergs, Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, and Whittaker Chambers all put in appearances. The book is a touch oversold, however. While it adds some details to the historical literature, little new ground is actually broken. The Schechters do a good job, for instance, in clearing up the riddle of who started the Korean War. (Kim Il Sung did; Stalin agreed, fearing that a resurgent Japan would resume its bid for dominance on the Korean peninsula and thus menace the Communist bloc.) Such insights make the book worthwhile. Yet overall, it is less a path-breaking work than an incremental addition to the Cold War literature pioneered by Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes's Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. Recommended for all academic collections. James R. Holmes, Ph.D. candidate, Fletcher Sch. of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts Univ., Medford, MA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Leona Schecter is a historian and a literary agent. With Pavel and Anatoli Sudoplatov, the Schecters wrote Special Tasks, the milestone book of KGB revelations. The Schecters are married and live in Washington, D.C.

Jerrold Schecter is a historian, a journalist, and an award-winning author. He spent eighteen years with Time, including service as the bureau chief in Tokyo and in Moscow, as the White House correspondent, and as a diplomatic editor. He also served on the National Security Council for the Carter administration. He is the author of or collaborator on eight books, including Khrushchev Remembers: The Glastnost Tapes and The Spy Who Saved the World.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.; 1st edition (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574883275
• ISBN-13: 978-1574883275
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,916,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars American Espionage Reality, June 29, 2002

By 

Nigel East - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History (Hardcover)

Historians are still writing about megalomaniacs who attempted to conquer the world by force and subversion in order to impose their ideology on society. HITLER and STALIN come quickly to mind. And while both employed intelligence operations to further their objectives, only the Soviet Union systematically integrated espionage, deception, and terror to advance its worldwide foreign policy and maintain domestic security. Many books have been written describing the operations, the personnel, and the organizations-KGB and GRU-involved. Jerrold and Leona SCHECTER have written one, Special Tasks, the story of KGB officer Pavel SUDOPLATOV. And Jerrold SCHECTER co-authored another with former KGB officer Peter DERIABIN, The Spy Who Saved The World, the story of GRU Colonel Oleg PENKOVSKY. But not until Sacred Secrets has the emphasis shifted to the impact of intelligence operations on the history of two societies-the United States and the Soviet Union.
We learn that a KGB agent of influence in the American government shaped American the policy that led to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. And, despite pledges to the contrary, the Soviet Union spied on its American ally throughout WWII using agents recruited from the American Communist Party. Robert OPENHEIMER was one such source as the letter to NKGB Chairman BERIA reproduced in the book, makes clear. Furthermore, as was their way, after the war the Soviets were largely successful in blaming America for not giving them the war time secrets desired outright, so spies wouldn't be necessary-it was America's fault. At first, many Americans either supported this view or denied that any serious espionage had even occurred. The FBI knew them to be wrong-disillusioned defectors had made that clear. But their evidence could not at first be made public. The most valuable revelations-contained in broken KGB codes-would not surface for 50 years. Liberal doubts and right-wing certainty-both wrong-became part of the daily news diet in the 1940s and 50s. But once aroused, using straight forward counter-espionage techniques and the results of government cryptanalysis, the FBI shut down the Soviet networks and ended the era of the ideological spy.
Scared Secrets makes clear that despite these losses, Moscow did not end its espionage program after WWII. In fact, it quickly attempted to reestablish its illegal networks and in later years it took advantage of the greed-incentive made attractive by American walk-ins from WALKER to HANSSEN, with many in between. America had its own Cold War successes and the SCHECTERS describe several including a new twist on the acquisition of the KRUSHCHEV secret speech-interesting despite their use of the oxymoron defector-in-place. In the end, America's technological prowess overcame the Soviet espionage and military threat, bankrupting the Soviet Union in the process-America won the Cold War. Sacred Secrets documents well these often ironic contradictions.
The SCHECTERS make a persuasive case that, contrary to the moral relativism advocates of the political-left, the United States did not start the Cold War or force the Soviet Union to do so. Would America's post WWII policies have been different had Soviet espionage and subversion in America not been so politically oriented and active? Read Sacred Secrets for the answer.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hidden agendas and secrets of the Cold War, January 10, 2003

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History (Hardcover)

Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History by historians Jerrold and Leona Schecter is an informed and informative examination of the hidden agendas and secrets of the Cold War, and an impressive study of the pervasive influence that Soviet intelligence operations exacted upon American politics, economics, and more, ranging from Pearl Harbor through Star Wars. An intriguing, compelling, articulate analysis, Sacred Secrets is highly recommended reading for students of Soviet and U.S. Cold War political history, international studies, cryptography, and intelligence operations.

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor sourcing, poor research, September 17, 2003

By 

Merle L. Pribbenow (Falls Church, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sacred Secrets: How Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History (Hardcover)

In the interests of honesty and fairness, I will state at the outset that my evaluation of this book is based solely on the several pages of the book devoted to the Vietnam War, since that is my one and only area of expertise. The information the Schecters' provide in other sections of the book on Soviet operations and agents in the West may be outstanding and exactly on target for all I know, but in light of what is contained in the pages devoted to Vietnam, I fear that is not the case. The entire section on Vietnam consisted of what are clearly anecdotal stories and rumors from Soviet sources. The only sourcing provided in the endnotes for any of the information in these pages is "confidential source," which is meaningless. The first anecdote in the section, about a Soviet missile officer who shot down three U.S. jets with one missile on 24 July 1965, captured and interrogated the pilots, and personally murdered one of them, is ludicrous. Both Soviet and Vietnamese records (publicly available) state clearly that Soviet missile personnel manned the launch sites that fired that day, which was the first day that surface-to-air missiles were used during the Vietnam War. However, if the Schecters had done even the most rudimentary research, they would have found that only ONE U.S. aircraft was shot down by surface-to-air missiles on 24 July 1965 day (the other two U.S. aircraft lost that day were hit over Laos, hundreds of miles from the surface-to-air missile sites), and that only two (not three) aircrewmen were lost that day. The fact that the Schecters did not even check the U.S. loss records, which are public and available on the internet and in books as well as in government archives, does not say much for their diligence, and it certainly calls into question just how reliable the rest of the information presented in this book really is.