Seize Spy Handler: Memoir Of A KGB Officer: The True Story Of The Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen And Aldrich Ames Imagined By Victor Cherkashin Format Brochure

memoir that touches on a lot of compelling aspects of KGB counterintelligence, particularly in the twilight of the Soviet Empire, The writing, however, was a bit dull and the narrative was a bit discombobulated, The author is the KGB agent that, among many, ran Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, A couple of things in the book struck me despite the fact that the author was a very high ranking KGB agent he could not get good housing.
when posted in Moscow he was in am sq, apartment with his wife, his son and his wife, and his daughter, Secondly, Ames and Hanssen greviously depleted the ranks of KGB agents spying in America by revealing the double agents, The Soviets summarily exicuted KGB agents selling information to CIA or FBI agents, The CIA and FBI missed oh so many clues that Ames and Hanssen were double agents but the culture of the two organizations made it difficult for managers to conceive that an agent would spy for the Soviets.


Interesting book,
one thing that caught my eye, Aldrich Ames was partly motivated to spy because he was angry how the CIA was lying to Congress about the threat the Soviet Union posed to the US.

It did that to get MORE MONEY,

Also the author makes the point that most of the spying was just a game of trying to recruit agents to spy on the other side and uncovering "moles" the other side has.


The CIA has probably cost overTRILLION dollars in the lastyears,
and we have nothing of value to show for it.


Russia is not a credible threat to us, or anyone else,

WHY ARE WE WASTING MONEY ON THIS GAME

The author gives brief details of many types of technology each side used.
A lot of amazing science/technology here,
Being that I didn't know anything about the subject, Victor Cherkashin, going into this book I found that I was slowly drawn into his ploys and exploits taking place overyears international espionage.
This book was sufficiently detailed and vague, broad and deep, to keep a mildly interested person like myself turning the pages, Good read.

Good read, Seemed like the account of an ex KGB director wanting to clear his name of some allegations, Said through a nice story, Very interesting read. It reads almost like a spy thriller, but its real, As an American, its also interesting to read about these events from another viewpoint sometimes we can be overly myopic, How could this book miss a KGB officer tells all from the Russian point of view about all of the happenings of the cold war and beyond.
Victor Cherkasin afteryears of work is cynical about the benefits to be

derived from the expense of the spy game and this assessment fits right into my belief system.
In America we have had the Russian spy, Kim Philby sitting at the top of American intelligence and later Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames on the inside of the FBI and CIA sharing our deepest secrets with the Russians.
America has many spy's implanted in the Russian society sharing Russia's deepest secrets, so what has been accomplished
The book states unequivocally that Russia was not involved in the assassination of JFK, Russian intelligence saw Lee Harvey Oswald as a kook! yet, the book is silent on Russian theories about that assassination.
Reminds me of Sherlock Holmes observation of the barking dog!
At the end of this book, Cherkasin, tells us that the American invasion of Iraq, was not about WMD but about Oil! He also states that the CIA was not consulted on the matter and had no blame for providing false information on WMD.
This of course, is contrary to the American spin that blames the CIA for a failure in intelligence gathering, On this point, you have to agree with the Russian observation, As Cherkasin states, we had people on the ground identifying sights to be destroyed after and during the invasion, so why wasn't the lack of WMD's identified earlyon Cherkasin is right, the American people were told a lie by its government.

Another interesting point is the stated reason for writing the book, Cherkasin says, that he wrote the book because of the accusations made about him after his retirement, Namely, that he betrayed the mole Aldrich Ames, He denies this yet, contends that it was another Russian spy who betrayed Ames, I have recently finished reading "Circle of Treason" written by CIA officers who claim it was their investigation over a number of years that dug out the mole Ames, who do you believe
One final thought about this remarkable book, Cherkasin repeatedly talks about his pension, yet, he states in the final analysis that it amounted to practically nothing Cherkasin while a KGB officer was also a bureaucrat, he took vacations, he talked about his pension, he worked the bureaucracy to get a better apartment for his family, and a dacha for his vacations and retirement.
So in many ways, he was just a government employee putting in hisyears of service, For some reason, and maybe because I put inyears of government service and had many of the same thoughts, this resonated with me, maybe Russians and Americans are a lot alike, we just spy on each other! I recommend this book to anyone who likes the genre of spying.
This book does a fantastic job of telling a story of cold war espionage from a very different angle than I've heard before: from a Soviet intelligence officer who still thinks that system was the best one.
The majority of the book is him walking through his experience in the KGB and in that talking about some of the more interesting cases Ames, Hanssen he worked on.
Hearing both his perspective on those cases, as well as the tradecraft involved, was incredibly interesting and well worth the read,

The end of the book was focused on his grievances with the KGB beurocracy and the fall of the Soviet Union and was much less interesting.


The most interesting detail of the book to me is the author's perspective on exactly what intelligence was and accomplished, He asserts multiple times that, rather than actually serving the goals of the state, most of what the spy agencies accomplished in the Cold War was really just hunting other spies.
He additionally talks about information they get from defectors never as an intelligence success but solely as lucky breaks, I'm still mulling over how much truth there is in either of these assertions, my instinct is that both have some truth but are exaggerated, but it was very interesting hearing those arguments from someone who had been so much on the inside of the intelligence game.
Not only did I find this interesting just because of the Aldrich Ames/Robert Hanssen connection but also from what the perspective of a KGB agent during the cold war.
Never really thought about what life was life from that perspective, He painted a portrait of hard work under poor paying conditions, but a true, loyalist to his government, And when the iron curtain fell I actually felt bad for him, . . he wrote as though to be torn apart by it, Was pleasantly surprised by this book, Very good and extremely interesting, Very interesting look at the KGB and the Year of the Spy from the Russian side of the aisle, Cherkashin provides an excellent overview of his time in the KGB, He avoids the pitfalls of other intelligence memoirs that try to impress the reader by revealing some profound insight or by inflating their own accomplishments.
Cherkashin realizes that it is simply enough for a good memoir to say what happened while providing enough outside context to allow the reader to understand the individual's place in history.


One insight of Cherkashin's memoir is that the spyvsspy world of the KGB and CIA was very much dictated by realistic assumptions about national and human character.
In Cherkashin's account, appealing to ideology was never as successful as simple entrapment or bribing of intelligence officers on either side of the Cold War.
Cherkashin also rightly points out that recruiting and running clandestine intelligence officers rarely provides highlevel insight the kind that would shape nationallevel decision making into the adversary that a reasonable observer could not otherwise discern.
Although Cherkashin does not get into it, what makes a good intelligence service is its ability to process and analyze information from multiple sources to inform decision making.
What Cherkashin does provide an example of is how oftentimes petty bureaucratic rivalries lead nationallevel decision makers to overvalue, dismiss, or make up their own raw information or intelligence judgments.


Perhaps the most important lesson of Cherkashin is that an intelligence service, and a country itself, are best served by spies and political leaders who act professionally and according to their values.
The Soviet Union ultimately collapsed as the KGB promoted weak leaders and its value system collapsed, At its lowest, the US failed internationally when policy makers ignored intelligence and promoted unprofessional people to high positions, As the US confronts adversaries in the future, its intelligence officers and policy makers should take heed of these lessons, .