The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB

A failed Soviet spy, consigned to processing files in a KGB archive, becomes disillusioned with the brutality of his own government and defects to the West in this arresting biography from journalist Corera (The Art of Betrayal). As a young man, Vasili Mitrokhin (1922–2004) joined the KGB filled with patriotic fervor. Yet after a career setback—he fumbled the handling of tensions surrounding a political uprising in Hungary during the 1956 Australian Olympics, where Soviet and Hungarian water polo players ended up brawling—he was consigned to the organization’s archives. There he came to regard the work of the KGB (and its precursor, the Cheka) as “pure filth.” He began an elaborate system of transcribing and encoding what he read and recreating it at home. Mitrokhin’s story is paralleled by that of the British and U.S. embassies and counterintelligence agencies’ reaction to the appearance of “a grubby, lean old man, unshaven and poorly dressed,” claiming to have vital information—including the names of KGB spies in their respective countries. Corera fascinatingly spotlights how the files, handed over in 1992, reveal important historical details about the early years of the Soviet Union, and he intriguingly tracks how Vladimir Putin’s KGB career unfolded alongside, but in a very different direction from, Mirokhin’s. Novelistic and deeply researched, this propulsive account is a must for readers with a taste for espionage. (Jan.)