David E. HoffmanRezensionen

True, and frightening. It takes place during the seventies and eighties, but has affected the country's security as recently as the new century. I am saddened by the reality of hostility in our world, and I wish it weren't so, but this story brought it home. I am grateful for the sacrifice this man made for our country, and I wonder what is going on today. But then , maybe I don't.

I listened to this book with Libby (11:54). I wonder how the author was able to gain access to all of the details in the book. I read this book as a test to see if Libby would allow me access to the entire book on my Lenovo laptop.

1/16/2016 (FEO)The ISBN number created a wrong author listing.

Could be a dry read for some; identifying with the Station officers and the spies is more critical to getting most benefit from the story, gleaning the human equation from all the "007" intrigue and operations. Also a valuable window into what tipped the scales during the Cold War and the economics thereof, as well as life of Soviet citizens in the 70s & 80s.

Frankly , I’d rather stick a fork in my leg than try and read this again.

Fantastic! It kept me on the edge of my seat.

Though politically informed, I am not particularly interested in political books in general, nor about Cuba in particular. My initial interest in this book stemmed from the accolades of its author. At first, the details of Cuban history confused me; then, it enlightened me; then, it moved me; finally, this book ended with my heart to yearn for the Cuban people. Hoffman weaves together many streams in this biography that centrally tells of one man’s crusade to have his children live in a free Cuba.

Although I pay close attention to American news, I did not know who Oswaldo Payá was before this book. I finished it admiring his character and wishing his efforts to succeed. Cuban freedom is a cause that seems like it should so obviously go forward, but the oppressive power of a few holds it back. Oswaldo and his family contended for this cause from within Cuba for his entire life. As portrayed by Hoffman, he never joined the Revolution and instead hoped that the Cuban people – not the US but the people – would take the primary voice to determine their own destiny. As such, this longing for freedom and self-determination speaks to the universal human condition.

Like many Cubans, Oswaldo’s search for freedom ran through the Roman Catholic church. He saw freedom as a gift from God. Though isolated from the rest of the world for much of his life, he searched his soul for how Cuban democracy should proceed. The Cuban secret police hounded and targeted him and his family for much of his life. Nonetheless, while working as a medical technologist, he continued leading the island’s movement with courage.

This movement was not without its successes. It delivered, several times, tens of thousands of signatures calling for free and fair elections along with social liberties. It advocated the adoption of principles from a prior Cuban constitution that was forgotten by the Castro regime. The visit of Pope John Paul II was a noteworthy highlight. Current unrest is still a dominant theme on the island.

Much violence, war, and loss reside in this book. I yearn for a good ending for this story, an ending filled with hope and freedom, yet the ending of this story remains relatively unwritten. As an American outsider, I cannot help but think the dictatorial regime in Cuba will meet its end, but raw, self-serving power seems to suppress its unpopular aura. Direct American intervention is not always wise; Oswaldo wanted Cuba to determine its own destiny, not the American giant to the north.

Many, particularly those in South Florida, will disagree with this or that in Oswaldo’s approach. Strategy can always be debated. Yet I hope – and I think Hoffman hopes – that this book will show Oswaldo’s character and enlighten the international community to the dignity his approach offers. I learned a lot from this book, and it taught me to cherish better the everyday value of freedom. Even in America, strong men can oppress – Fidel’s politics and American politics can seem eerily similar at spots. Oswaldo’s story teaches us all the value of democracy and human rights in very human terms. I’m grateful to Hoffman for sharing it.

Adolf Tolkachev was a chief designer at the Research Institute of Radio Engineering in Moscow who offered his services to the CIA's Moscow station in January of 1977. It took five attempts on Tolkachev's part to establish a contact that was reciprocated by the CIA which was gun shy of running an agent in the belly of the beast in Moscow. Finally, after he handed off documents on high priority Soviet R&D projects and future plans in fields such as avionics and radar that was vetted back in Langley, VA and graded as first class material did the agency engage with what turned out to be one of the greatest gold mines of US intelligence during the Cold War years spanning the end of the 1970's through the mid-80's. Ultimately, Tolkachev was blown by a US traitor, Edward Lee Howard, who was a CIA washout, but who had been at one time scheduled to report to Moscow station with the intention of using Howard as a case officer to run Russian spies from within the Soviet Union. The efforts by Tolkachev were responsible for saving billions of dollars in US military R&D and gave the American military a strategic advantage in fighter aircraft and missile capabilities that lasted right through the end of the 20th century.

David Hoffman has written an entertaining and informative page turner that relates the history of Tolkachev's work for the CIA from beginning to end. Along the way he introduces the reader to all the players at the American end including those who ran Moscow station and those who ran the agent directly. It was amazing at how successful the Americans were at maintaining personal contact over a period of half a dozen years without ever being detected by the KGB. The tradecraft employed by the CIA was painstaking, extremely well planned and cautious to an extreme in an effort to shield their prize agent from detection. The Prologue features a story about a Jack-in-the-Box tactic that I won't spoil for any potential future readers.

Tolkachev was a remarkable individual. He was dedicated for ideological reasons to inflicting the maximum harm on the Soviet Union in an aggressive time span. He was incredibly productive given the pressure of the risks that he ran to obtain the intelligence requested by his customer. His demands in return were relatively modest all things considered - money, to be sure, but not nearly an approximation of what his product was worth, consumer electronics and drafting materials for his teenage son along with Western music and books primarily by Soviet dissidents such as Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.

As mentioned above Tolkachev was ultimately betrayed by an-ex CIA employee who had access to enough material from the Soviet desk at CIA to enable the KGB to arrest, try and execute him for his treason. Edward Lee Howard managed to escape to the Soviet Union using some of the tradecraft learned at the CIA to evade his FBI monitors. There was, in one respect, a happy ending to the saga. According to Russian police authorities, Howard died at the age of 50 in July of 2002 following a fall at his home in the Soviet Union and was cremated at the request of his next of kin. We can only hope that this is the truth.

For those who enjoy tales of real world espionage or those who are interested in chapters from the history of the Cold War, Hoffman's book is highly recommended.

A great book for Cold War historians. Similar to "One Minute to Midnight" in that it's amazing in hindsight to realize how much the US and USSR misunderstood each other. Hoffman writes that the USSR concealed massive biological and chemical weapons programs that only came to light recently even though they denied having these programs. His writing about these weapons and the nuclear weapons that were basically left lying around when the USSR dissolved is scary...almost to the point where it's remarkable we're still around at all. Makes great points about Reagan and Gorbachev not being nearly as deal-making on strategic arms as we believe.

This was a well researched and very detailed description of the war footing, politics, nuclear arsenals and hidden programs for weapons of mass destruction of the U.S.S.R. during the cold war period. It contains extensive descriptions of the Soviet leaders and key players during the period, however I would have been more satisfied if the details were condensed a little more.

Remember the Cold War, when people were driven to stand against demagoguery? A Soviet radar engineer saw America as an alternative, and became our most productive spy. Sure there was cash involved, but Adolf Tolkachev sought it mostly to keep score. At times he seemed just as satisfied to be paid in Led Zeppelin cassettes or decent drafting pencils--good thing too, because Langley was slow-walking the money. Now largely declassified, the CIA tradecraft details are fascinating: A mini spy camera was no match for a sturdy Pentax clamped to a chair, and a cardboard flat spook was an actual surveillance decoy. Still, Tolkachev's intelligence proved to be a game-changer in U.S. air defenses. If cyberwar works this way, God help us.

Written as thrilling as a spy novel, although bound by the requirements of historical accuracy. Author combines journalistic research with compelling dramatic style. The story created the twists, but his style created the drama and flow, particularly the interrelated incidents

non fiction. Cold War and subsequent proliferation of WMDs.

Holy crap, this is some serious shit.

A heartbreaking story. If all your population wants to do is escape from and/or destroy their own homeland it should give you an idea of how horrible your country is. This is something that is completely lost on another country today when their own citizens escape for fear of their lives for whistle-blowing.

Serviceable, readable, but nothing to get too excited about regards the writing - but the story is fascinating and moving in a distant kind of way. Some of the action is very in-depth, but so, so much of the story is just the thinnest surface.

The very well-researched and clearly-written story of how the Moscow CIA station operated in the 1970s and 80s, focusing mainly on one valuable source. Adolf Tolkachev was “stubborn and determined” to damage the Soviet Union by passing highly classified information about Soviet aircraft weapon systems and capabilities. The engineer copied and photographed a multitude of documents over the years and insisted on face-to-face meetings to hand them over.

There are a lot of intriguing descriptions of tradecraft and the difficulty of operating under the eye of the KGB. There’s not really a dull moment in the book.

I am always a bit wary of publishers’ blurbs that assert that a new non-fiction book tells a story more fascinating than fiction, but one of the encomia splattered over this book describes is as ‘non-fiction as rich and resonant as a spy novel by John le Carre or Graham Greene’, and that claim seems more than justified in this case.

David E Hoffman is a renowned journalist, whose account of the end of the Cold War arms race, The Dead Hand, won the Pullitzer Prize. In this book he directs his forensic research skills to the story of Aldolf Tolkachev, a Russian military engineer, who volunteered his services as an espionage agent, and who throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s fed a vast amount of highly valuable intelligence to the Americans.

The field of spy fiction seems polarised either by the technology-strewn James Bond end of the spectrum, with marvellous gadgets designed to help capture the raw intelligence, or the slow, methodical approach dependent upon painstaking human endeavour, as in the world that le Carre has created in which the individual is paramount, and any hi-tech device is a rare boon, often more trouble than it is worth. This non-fictional account seems to encompass both aspects in equal measrures.

There is no hint of Bond- or Bourne-like derring-do, but over the years during which Tolkachev continued to mine the rich seam of military intelligence, he was supplied with a succession of exceptionally innovative cameras with which to capture the documents that came his way. These devices were certainly absolutely at the cutting edge of innovation at the time, and enabled Tolkachev to photograph literally hundreds, or evens thousands, of documents over the years.

He wasn’t just copying any old files, either. Tolkachev had access to immensely significant papers covering the Soviets’ efforts to enhance their radar capacity. Indeed, in the early days, the quality of intelligence that he was offering was so impressive that it almost served to convince the Americans that he was a plant.

Indeed, the Americans seemed reluctant to take him on. During the 1960 ans 1970 there had been a series of failures emanating from Moscow Station, the CIA enclave within the American Embassy, and its activities designed to recruit loval agents had more or less ceased. Tolkachev himself tracked down various American Embassy staff and contacted them, passing on documents as a sample of what e might provide. It was, however, almost two years before he was ‘formally’ recruited as an agent. Thereafter he proved to be the most prolific source of high quality intelligence that the Americans had. The title of the book is a reference (almost certainly an underestimation) of the sums of funding that he is believe d to have saved the American defence industry as the information he yielded enabled the Americans to focus their research and development into areas where the Russians were weak.

The book has certainly been exhaustively researched, but the tone is never oppressive or heavily laden. As the blurbs suggest, the story does indeed read like a well written thriller. Highly entertaining and also highly informative.

rom the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history The Dead Hand comes the riveting story of a spy who cracked open the Soviet military research establishment and a penetrating portrait of the CIA’s Moscow station, an outpost of daring espionage in the last years of the Cold War

I received this book through the GoodReads first reads program.

As many of you likely know, I've been on a bit of a James Bond kick this year and have been studiously reading through the canon. My favorite of the books, and films, for some time has been [b: From Russia With Love|414982|From Russia With Love|Colleen Coble|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387734275s/414982.jpg|404184]. How could I resist a peek into the real Cold War, then, and all of the complex espionage techniques utilized? Why even try to resist?

[a: David E. Hoffman|544275|David E. Hoffman|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1215660730p2/544275.jpg] has painted a beautiful picture of the difficulties of espionage in Moscow during the Cold War. He meticulously documents different techniques used to elude the KGB, the gadgets that made spywork possible, and the manifold difficulties that come from such a tense environment that relies almost exclusively upon the human element. Equipment malfunctions, and unfortunately, people do too.

The book was extremely interesting, and the history quite dense. While I agree with several of the other reviewers in thinking that the book could have been structured a bit better in terms of Tolkachev's motives being revealed, it was still a very powerful story. I was continually struck by the variety of people the CIA employed, the level of technology they had at their disposal, and just how difficult it was to truly "go black" during that time.

[b: The Billion Dollar Spy|23463183|The Billion Dollar Spy A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal|David E. Hoffman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1428686782s/23463183.jpg|42913846] does a wonderful job of showing the human element of spying and what motivates a person to defect. It's remarkable how much damage a single driven individual can do.

Very good read. Factual book about one of the most useful spies inside the USSR. Learned a lot.

Good. but not as good as his last one - The Dead Hand. Of course that one won a prize. This one told some neat stories about cold War spy efforts against the Russians. Some of the stories I knew, others were new to me. The story was fast paced and well told. Gave some good insight on the methods used.

Joy's review: The pretty incredible story of probably the most productive spy America has ever had. Operating in Moscow at the height of the cold war, Tolkachev passed literally billions of dollars worth of secrets to the US. Spoiler: it does not end well for him. I could have used a bit more context and a bit less of model numbers of airplanes and such, but still a gripping story.½

Fantastic! It kept me on the edge of my seat.

The Billion Dollar Spy is a wonderful non-fiction account of one of the greatest espionage assets ever developed by the US. It's well-written, albeit dryly in most cases, but moves along at a good pace. Unlike most fiction, a happy ending isn't in the cards, but the real life examples provided in the epilogue of the fruits of Adolf Tolkachev's clandestine labors in effect served that purpose.

As a lifelong lover of spy fiction, it's always a pleasure to read good non-fiction on the subject. The fiction may be a little more fun to experience, but the real stuff brings it all into sharper focus.

This is a fascinating example of how the world of espionage worked in the Cold War era. The scale of what was accomplished is incredible and far beyond what you'd normally see in a novel. It's well worth the investment of a little time to experience a description of how the way-behind-the-scenes spy world worked in an era that many are still familiar with. I recommend it highly.