Customer Reviews

Through the Eyes of the Enemy: The Autobiography of Stanislav Lunev

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With the knowledge of one who spent most of his professional life in Russia's most secretive intelligence agency, Colonel Lunev provides a riveting and disturbing -- and very credible -- look at the GRU and how it has resisted the reforms that have swept its country.

Lunev provides an equally troubling yet compelling analysis of how the corruption of the Soviet system hijacked economic reform in Russia and turned the country into what President Yeltsin himself once called the "superpower of crime."

There are few books about the GRU. The best-known ones, written under the pseudonym Suvorov by a former GRU officer named Rezun who defected to the United Kingdom, are excellent works but many scholars suspect that they rest heavily on material provided by British intelligence. While this does not diminish the value of the Suvorov books, it does contrast with that of Lunev who, with the help of a co-author, offers a perspective completely unique to his exper! ience.

Suvorov's books remain valuable, because the GRU has changed little if at all, and its mission remains the same. But being written in the Soviet period, they lack the context of the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War as we knew it.

U.S. intelligence was slow to realize the depth of criminalization within Russia's government and its security and intelligence services, and American policymakers have yet to accept this fact. Policymakers are also reluctant to admit that Moscow has preserved the Soviet-built mechanisms to decapitate the civilian and military leadership of the United States in the event of crisis.

Lunev describes the situation lucidly. One cannot understand the situation in Russia today without reading this book.

J. Michael Waller, Ph.D. Author, "Secret Empire: The KGB In Russia Today" (Westview, 1994). Executive Editor, "Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization." Vice President, American Fore! ign Policy Council, Washington, D.C.

The book was a big disappointment! There is enough "good" information for perhaps a short magazine article. One gets the impression the author was trying to fill up the pages much the way we did when we had to write a 150-word essay in school.

I also question the validity of many of the so-called secrets he reveals. I've worked in the area of National Defense for many years. Much of what he claims as fact I seriously doubt is true. All-in-all the material should have been covered in about a 1000 word article.

A disappointment! A least it is a fast read - since there are only 172 pages of text.

The book was very disappointing. It lacks details and smacks of the GRU ego throughout. The accolades given the FBI and others makes it quite apparent who was involved in editing. Thus the lack of details, I assume. My recommendation to the author is to write another book but this time, tell the whole truth in detail - and don't let the government guys read and edit it first! Hell, it can't hurt - you have a price tag on your head anyway - maybe!

Being a resident of the Washington DC area I find the topics discussed in this book very disturbing. While DoD and counterintelligence budgets are being slashed by congress, the Russian Mafia lead empire formerly known as the USSR is spreading its influence throughout the world. All the while duping American companies into partnerships with the Russsian Mafia. The sad part is that in the name of economic reform and international trade we are rekindling the Cold war and fueling our own destruction. Let's pray that Russia can get some control over the mafia in the future. Perhaps this period in Russian history mirrors our own problems with the Mafia in the 30's. While their problems are quite different, our Counterintelligence activities need to be increased to counter the Industrial sabotage and legistlation needs to be introduced to place stricter monitoring on Russian-US corporate alliances.

One hopes that Colonel Lunev's debriefings to American intelligence agencies provided considerably more detail and verification than is contained in this book. In fact, there is not much to this book other than a fairly uninteresting account of his career in Soviet, now Russian, Military Intelligence, the GRU. The book might have an appeal to readers who have had no exposure to the world of intelligence. Those familiar with the subject will have gone over this turf many times with GRU defector/author Suvorov. Furthermore, one is prompted to ask why Lunev defected when at the time he was free to resign and walk out the door like a lot of his former colleagues. Lunev makes some startling accusations/revelations which can be summed up as: (1) the Russians still consider the US an enemy, (2) Yeltsin has lost control of the government to the Russian mafia, (3) and Russian organized crime is using the GRU espionage apparat as its tool, (4) the long arm of the GRU through its new masters extends more than ever deep into the U.S. In addition, Lunev implies that the Russians have continued to target American leadership for assassination in the event of conflict, plus infiltrating tactical nuclear weapons into U. S. territory. This is pretty serious stuff! Even if Russia currently is militarily prostrate, for Russian leadership to order or condone secret operations of STAVKA/GRU to be prepared to nuke Airforce One's offsite landing strip, makes Sadaam's statemanship appear to be graced with the highest degree of Ciceronian gravitas. Lunev opened the debate. He's put us on notice. We have to come up with a sober threat assessment in light of his revelations. Are the Russians as out of control as he claims? Has Forsythe's "Ikon" nightmare become a reality? Wake up, America!

After reading this book, I was struck with its lack of content.

Mr. Lunev had an interesting life in the GRU, though I'm sure his description would be somewhat less positive. Nevertheless, this book gives us a good idea of what drives a defector to seek asylum --- dissatisfaction.

More than anything, this book is an insight not so much into what was and is going on in the old Soviet Union as what is going on inside Mr. Lunev. If you take the information he offers and move on to the next resource, you will find it a useful minor reference in the search for the truth.

This is a review of THROUGH THE EYES OF THE ENEMY by Stanislav Lunev with Ira Winkler. Mine is the hard cover edition published in 1998 by Regnery in Washington, DC. The book is attractively bound and 172 pages long, not counting useful 5 page index.

Stanislav Lunev was in the FBI's Witness Protection Program at the time this book was published. He was a Colonel in the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie, or GRU, at the time of his defection to the US. Ira Winkler is an American with a background in intelligence operations and the author of CORPORATE ESPIONAGE.

He assisted Lunev when the Colonel decided to publish a brief memoir. Lunev had survived cancer and felt obliged to provide his adopted country with a wake up call. It's a frightening call.

Lunev warns America that Russia doesn't consider the Cold War to be over even though the Soviet Union collapsed. America still remains the primary enemy and still faces challenges from the GRU and its elite Spetznatz forces who, with the KGB, have demonstrated the ability to operate successfully inside the United States and who have access to an alarming array of weapons, including weapons of mass destruction, some of which are pre-positioned on US soil awaiting activation.

These include nuclear weapons which Colonel Lunev explains on page 24 "are not merely for deterrence; they are to be used..." Had the Cuban Missile Crisis led to war, Lunev assures the reader that they would have used in accordance with "Soviet and Russian military doctrine."

The GRU has a record of success in the US. Lunev writes on p. 28 that "It was the GRU, not the KGB, for example, who recruited the rings of spies that stole the technology of the Manhattan Project."

It was also the GRU which "funded every major antiwar group [during the war in Vietnam]" Colonel Lunev assures us on p. 170. "Any antiwar activists who claim otherwise are sadly naive.... the Soviet Union pumped more than twice as much money into the antiwar campaign [in the United States] as it did to North Vietnamese military and economic support. The success for the GRU was that not only did their influence help win the Vietnam War [for the Communists], but they tore apart the entire social fabric of the United States and made military service a mark of shame." In other words, the hostility returning American soldiers faced, ranging from labels such as "baby killer" to actual assault, such as being spit on, was facilitated by the GRU.

Lunev was the highest ranking military officer to defect to the United States and he explains that his homeland vanished into the morass of gang activity known collectively as "the Russian mafia." He warns America that 26 of these gangs, supported with all the assets of a superpower, now operate inside the USA.
We need to wake up.

Lunev and Winkler write well enough and the challenges they describe are more frightening than anything dreamed up by Tom Clancy or other novelists. This book was a quick read and full of information that every American needs to know.

I gave it five stars. If you're interested in current events, you'll find it hard to put down even if it does keep you awake at night.

It's hard to argue whether or not Lunev wrote this book. There's no reason for him not to have. But he wasn't needed; it's devoid of anything that he could have uniquely said. The book is full of little tactics that anyone would account for in a simulation. All you learn is that the Soviets had established the possibility for operations on US soil. From a strategic perspective, once you start flinging nukes at each other it doesn't much matter what you do to someone's water supply. Terrorist operations can only provoke war; if you want to knock out the ones waging the war, you have to go for the heavily defended military officers. The military has been granted much insulation from what happens in the civilian population. When it comes to fullblown war, politicians are only a secondary objective, to hit morale.

The warning probably isn't worth it. Killing the politicians off just makes the US military more efficient.

This book really isn't information. ! From the perspective of the people writing it, it's to keep us on our toes, to make us see that the world is even scarier. No doubt some country is thinking right now about launching a nuke from Russia with the intent that the US and Russia will no longer be competitors. So if the publishers of this book are lying, I still find their lies completely reasonable.

I read this book with a open mind and my heart is telling me the Spy here should not have the right to defect to our country . Lunev in my mind is still a Spy and always will be a Spy ! The only thing the reader learns is , that Lunev is a Spy ! I was counting on learning more about weapons etc in Russia . I think Lunev is lying to keep his stay in the US . We have enough problems of our own . The FBI , CIA ,NSA , and many more should be ashamed of the way they do bussiness with Russia . All they do is bring in more problems for us . You can read this book if you have a couple of hours to waste on reading about how a Russian Spy is now Spying on the US with the help of our government . Lunev should have a good life now and I wish him the best . I only hope and pray that Lunev keeps his wish for the U.S to have it's freedom .

Before you get sucked in by this book, read up on the shennanigans of the CIA since WWII...you'll understand then who this author truly works for...