Best of enemies : the last great spy story of the Cold War

Resource Information

The work Best of enemies : the last great spy story of the Cold War represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Manchester City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Best of enemies : the last great spy story of the Cold War

Title remainder

the last great spy story of the Cold War

Statement of responsibility

Gus Russo and Eric Dezenhall

Creator

• Russo, Gus

Contributor

• Dezenhall, Eric

Author

• Russo, Gus
• Dezenhall, Eric

Subject

• Espionage -- Soviet Union -- History
• Espionage -- United States -- History
• History
• Male friendship
• Male friendship
• Platt, Jack, 1936-2017
• Russia (Federation)
• Soviet Union
• Soviet Union, Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti -- Officials and employees -- Biography
• Biography
• Spies -- Russia (Federation) -- Biography
• Spies -- Soviet Union -- Biography
• Spies -- United States -- Biography
• United States
• United States, Central Intelligence Agency -- Officials and employees -- Biography
• Vasilenko, Gennady, 1941-
• Spies
• Employees
• Espionage

Genre

• History
• Biography

Language

eng

Summary

"The story of two Cold War spies - CIA agent Jack Platt and KGB agent Genya Vasilenko - and their improbable friendship at a time when they should have been anything but. In 1978, CIA maverick Jack Platt and KGB agent Gennady Vasilenko were new arrivals on the Washington, DC intelligence scene, with Jack working out of the CIA's counterintelligence office and Gennady out of the Soviet Embassy. Both men, already notorious iconoclasts within their respective agencies, were assigned to seduce the other into betraying his country in the urgent final days of the Cold War, but instead the men ended up becoming the best of friends-blood brothers. Theirs is a friendship that never should have happened, and their story is chock full of treachery, darkly comic misunderstandings, bureaucratic inanity, the Russian Mafia, and landmark intelligence breakthroughs of the past half century. In BEST OF ENEMIES, two espionage cowboys reveal how they became key behind-the-scenes players in solving some of the most celebrated spy stories of the twentieth century, including the crucial discovery of the Soviet mole Robert Hanssen, the 2010 Spy Swap which freed Gennady from Soviet imprisonment, and how Robert De Niro played a real-life role in helping Gennady stay alive during his incarceration in Russia after being falsely accused of spying for the Americans. Through their eyes, we see the distinctions between the Russian and American methods of conducting espionage and the painful birth of the new Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, dreams he can roll back to the ideals of the old USSR."--Provided by publisher

Biography type

collective biography

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

327.1247073092/2

Illustrations

• illustrations
• plates

Index

index present

LC call number

UB271.U5

LC item number

R87 2018

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography