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Summary: Sword and the Shield: Good history, meager journalism.
Review: This is an exciting time for lovers of espionage non-fiction. The Rosenberg Files, The Haunted Wood and Venona all take advantage of a new scholarship stimulated by the breakdown of the Iron Curtain. The problem with the above titles is that they only provide additional background and details on known espionage cases. All that is new is the quality of the writer's linking narrative, weaving disconnected facts into a coherent and reasonable pattern.The Sword and The Shield shares this feature. The reader is swamped with even more copious background information based on Mitrokhin's copious notes. And professor Andrew has the experienced historian's ability to organize and link the massive notes into a compelling portrait of shocking KGB penetration into every facet of Western Life. This book is superior in the amount of background detail, and I find it hard to imagine a more exhaustive study. But like "Venona" before it, the weakness of the book is the lack of many new revelations. There are some new facts (and these are used as juicy hooks on the dustcover) The book unmasks a octogenarian British woman and devoted Stalinist who provided the USSR with mounds of data on top secret alloys. We also find clues on hidden weapons caches around the world. The revelations about penetration into Martin Luther Kings inner circle are also news. But regarding other "revelations" I had this neagging reminisence that I read this somewhere before. For example, I am sure I read about the Soviet use of microwave technology against the American embassy in Time many years ago. This is not really new. The writers do not assist the reader in more clearly demarcating old and new. The reader who slyly noted that the new stuff is neatly summarized on the back cover is unfortunately correct. Another weakness is the focus on non-American operations. About one half of the book is devoted to KGB operations in Italy, France, Turkey, the Russian Orthodox Church etc. This is of little interest to American readers, although the commerical appeal of exposing traitors in multiple countries is a great marketing play. On a less cynical note, it is understandable that Mitrokhin would have an intense interest in operations against the Russian Orthodox Church, an institution central to the Russian soul. Readers who maintain a healthy skepticism about materials "leaked" from Soviet sources will wonder why Mitrokihn devoted so much note taking to known cases. As a sophisticated KGB officer (he was an archivist for god sakes!), he must have known there would be more interest in unsolved or unknown cases. Why waste so much time collecting yet more scraps on Philby? It would not be unreasonable to wonder whether this is yet another KGB ploy to fool the West into believing it was now an open society. A harmless way of doing this would be to throw away a few useless spies (who would prosecute an 88 year old nice English lady after so many years??) in exchange for grabbing Western "mind share". I tried to get a feel for his orgnaizaiton scheme and found myself unable to think of one. Did he pick files of convenience, those that were thrown on his desk? Did he have access to ALL the files? Was there greater scrutiny and documentation of who gazes at certain files or not at others? I was left with the feeling that Mitrokhin, indeed, only chose files that were relatively well know, with a few teasers thrown in. Overall, I liked the book because of its scope and superior linking narrative. But like any lover of Soviet era intelligence history, I wonder if I am reading true facts, or just another disinformation campaign. Enough with the KGB. Now if only somebody could get into the GRU archives.... M. Frank Greiffenstein, Ph.D.
Rating: 
Summary: A very engaging read.
Review: The Sword and the Shield purports to reveal evidence of the massive campaign of espionage and disinformation by the KGB against the west (and their own people). It's a good read of the activities that were employed against us and generally lays to rest the USSR's long heralded claims of pacificism and tolerance. Yet for all their aggressiveness, it is not hard to see why the Cold War ended in a western victory and not a Soviet. The key to any victory is to know your enemy and for all their great abiliies to collect intelligence on us, their weakness showed up that the Soviets were unable to adjust their worldview to understand us. The best example I can think of was the Soviet instistence in having their agents relay to them the signs of British and American agents working against the Soviets during WW2. When hearing there weren't any, the Soviets chose to doubt their agents! Talk about a "Don't confuse me with the facts" mentality. The Soviets seemed to reason that since they were doing it, then we must be doing the same. While the Soviets were able to employ a good many highly skilled and deicated agents, the dictatorship they worked for was uninterested in hearing anything than what they'd already imagined. When this mentality is extrapolated to the rest of the country and government ministries it becomes clear why the Soviet Union no longer exists as a political entity today and this book highlights it.
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Summary: James Bond in reality
Review: A very realistic insight of the hidden world that spies live in. I am huge Bond fan, and reading this book not only supports Bond's authenticity, but reveals its true nature of being a spy.
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Summary: Mitrokhin's Bona Fides Are Open to Question
Review: Students of old-school counterintelligence, as practiced by legendary CIA counterspy chief James Jesus Angleton, should regard this book and its author with arched brows. Mitrokhin was apparently given his bona fides by the CIA for exposing a KGB mole in the NSA, a fellow named Lipkin. As Lipkin had not had access to US secrets for 25 years, his exposure would have done little to damage SVR ops in the 1990s. The Lipkin revelation seems like classic "chicken feed." That Mitrokhin exposed a little old lady who passed documents in World War Two, is even less solid proof of his legitimacy. Yet this disclosure has been cited, too, as proof that Mitrokhin is a genuine defector. In the same way that the CIA has burned, destroyed, or segreated its most sensitive files (e.g., on Project BLUEBIRD, dealing with mind control in the 1960s), so too the KGB has surely dealt with its "family jewels." Thus, the net effect of Mitkrokhin's disclsoures may be to lull Western analysts into believing we now know most of what we need to know about the KGB. In fact, certain of Mitrokhin's disclsoures raise more questions than they answer. That the KGB tried to frame the CIA for JFK's assassination was argued long ago by Angleton. Mitrokhin's confirmation of this frame-up is welcomed. That Eleanor Roosevelt was brought into the operation, to give conspiracy theorist Mark Lane free publicity, should give pause. That the USSR was ready with the frame-up in its essential details (complete with allegations about the Hunt Brothers) within HOURS of JFK's death, should cause us to take up a deep breath.... Interestingly, Mitrokhin provides no confirmation of the revelations made by an earlier KGB defector, Anatoliy Golitsyn. Western intelligence services may have presusmed that if Golitsyn's claims about a long-term plot to defeat the West through "false liberalization" were valid, Mitrokhin would have obtained supporting evidence. That he has not, may finally convince our gullible leaders that the gates may be opened and the guard let down. Finally, the details of Mitrokhin's defection seem implausible. To enter a British Embassy within the Confederation of Indpendent States -- by the front door -- is to expose oneself, quite certainly, to the surveillance of the SVR. That the SVR did nothing to stop Mitrokhin from defecting with his "Archive," speaks more than the 40 volumes he is said to have brought West. The question is not whether Mitrokhin's disclosures are true -- they surely are. The question is why the SVR wants us to know all this stuff. A lot of little truths, to coat one big lie? Buy this book, and read it -- but through a Looking Glass, darkly.
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Summary: GREAT!!!!!!!!!
Review: This was the most in depth book about the KGB and their secrets i have ever read! Better than Khrushchev Remebers, better than Breaking With Moscow, better than Solo!!! A great look into KGB espionage.
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Summary: Interesting but only one side of the coin
Review: In a well-known scene in the movie "Casablanca," the corrupt prefect de police (played by Claude Raines) exclaims, as he announces the closing of Rick's Cafe, "I'm shocked, absolutely shocked, to find out that gambling is going on in here!" (At which point, the croupier brings him a fistful of money -- "Your winnings, M'sieur" -- which Louis stuffs in his pocket.) By the same token, as interesting as it is to read the fascinating details, should we really be "absolutely shocked" to find out that Soviet Russia spied on western countries, recruited local nationals as agents or spread misinformation through the media, academia, etc.? When will we get the other side of the coin in the form of an archive detailing the CIA's activities in Latin America, Europe and Africa? One suspects we will find out that "our" side did just about the same as the other side did: "Spy vs. Spy," for those who remember the Mad magazine comic strip. Now that the Cold War is over, shouldn't ALL the archives be opened? Or only those belonging to the losers?
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Summary: Full of fascinating details and explosive revelations.
Review: I strongly disagree with the bloke from Washington who thinks this book is boring. He must have A.D.D. or simply have lived far too long and seen far too much. "The Sword and the Shield" is full of fascinating details, revelations, entertaining and often slapstick stories, details on disinformation campaigns, and so on, and it covers the whole period from the Revolution right through to the end of the Cold War. There would seem to me enough material here for a full year of news reports. I've been following some of the stories, and it baffles me that no journalists so far have pressed the issue of why the CIA botched it again by turning Mitrokhin away, or why the press and the Clinton administration aren't pressing Yeltsin to come clean on the Oswald files and the arms caches allegedly buried in America. There is so much interesting stuff in here and fodder for on-going investigations. Sure, some of it has long been suspected, but here is confirmation unlike anything we've ever had. Boring? Hardly. This book performs a great service and very few books can boast that!
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Summary: Dull and over-hyped
Review: This author purports that this book is loaded with revealing and explosive [my words] material that would cause any agents still alive to be fearful of immediate arrest and prosecution. I do not think anything could be further from the truth. This book is heavy and boring reading except, perhaps, by the most determined of readers - those with an academic bent. The prose is stilted and vague. perhaps choppy is a better word; and ultimately lifeless. I am used to very detailed and cumbersome textural material and this ranks among the most unreadable. Every sentence is heavy with acronyms and dangling participles. The real "meat" of the text is bracket by extensive notes and appendicies or transcriptions that do little to elucidate the meaning of the prose. It is readily apparent that the author did not encounter any of the personages - and Mr. Andrews' analysis of the events, despite his lofty stature as a celebrated historian and author - is unable to portray this nearly 700 page book as anything more than surreal. I suspect, though I am no expert, that this book will beg rather than answer many questions. fully a third of the actual text is a re-gurgitation of historically known material about the Soviet Union prior to 1939. Nothing presented by the authors changed either my perception nor general understanding of the facts surrounding the conduct of Soviet internal and external espionage tactics. Save your money. Bruce A. Ades, Ph.D.
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Summary: Only half the story
Review: A very interesting insight into the methods used by one society to disrupt another. But the book and its publicity comes with the self-righteous feel of the victor. Perhaps when an American comes forward with similarly credible information we will get a fuller picture of the role intelligence agencies had in the Cold War era.
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Summary: BLOCKBUSTER EXPOSE OF THE KGB
Review: This book offers some truly dynamite revelations, and shows the mindset that prevailed within the "Evil Empire" during the height of the Cold War. You don't have to be into geopolitics to appreciate this read; if you've ever enjoyed James Bond, this is for you.
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