Rating: 
Summary: Much More To Be Seen
Review: As a former agent for Mr. Chang I must tell you that there is much more that happened.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring, boring
Review: If you read the news stories about this book you heard the most interesting stuff in it by far.
Rating: 
Summary: Europe Agape Over this Book
Review: This book is causing a sensation throughout Europe, and especially in England, where today MI 5 is being shaken by its revelations. Some of the characters in the book have been identified, including a former secretary who had been passing secrets to the Soviets for 40 years, according to the Times' articles, and a disgraced former Scotland Yard detective actiong as a Romeo Agent. Anyone who spied for the former Soviet Union between the revolution and 1992 is potentially in danger,according to experts who have reviewed the book. One of Mitrokhin's reasons for collaborating with Christopher Andrew, noted British espionage expert, in telling this story of espionage and perfidy is to to warn others who just might be tempted. This book can shake governments.
Rating: 
Summary: Jumps around, but a good source nonetheless
Review: Many of the assertions of this book have been revealed in other books, specifically those books dealing w/ the Venona taps. It is a strong history of the KGB, and at times quite revealing--not only in regards to the activities of the KGB, but also the reactions by Red-leaning Westerners. The USSR viewed the West as the enemy from day One of its Revolution. Lenin was more concerned about the American Relief workers--who were helping to end the Collectivist induced famine in Russia--being subversives, than he was concerned about the 5 million starving in his own country. Stalin viewed the Russian Civil War as a template to interpret the rest of the world, the West were the "Whites" and they had to be defeated. During the Nazi-Soviet pact, he was more suspicious of Churchill than he was of Hitler, and in fact interpreted rumors of Germany's "Barbarosa" as English Anti-Soviet Propaganda. The USSR infiltrated the U.S. and U.K. governments, while the US and UK barely had spy agencies formed yet alone spies in the USSR. If there is any book that shows who started the Cold War and who didn't want "Peaceful Coexistence" (hint, it was the Commies), it's this book. This is an excellent resource for parents to buy for their college age children, so that the youngsters have a resource to challenge their Anti-anti-Communist professors who are trying to indoctrinate the new students into the Che Guevarra T-shirt Club and ANSWER. Other good books would be, of course, the Black Book of Communism, a Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, Gulag, the Soviet World of American Communism, and for economic theory challenges to collectivism, Road to Serfdom by Hayek and Socialism by Von Mises. The historical revisisionism that preaches the decency of Communism and the USSR must be defeated. The book covers the span of the KGB from its torture of enemies in the 20s to its infiltration phase in the 30s/40s to its propaganda phase in the 60s/70s(using fake letters to discredit anti-Commie personalities or to incite race-based riots) to its Afghanistan/Poland phase in the 80s. One disturbing claim made in the book: Mitrokin suggests that the KGB stored caches of weapons and bombs in the United States in case of domestic revolution. Andrews only gives Mitrokin as the source. What happened to these caches? Were they removed in secret? Did Yeltsin tip off the U.S. to their existence in abandoned warehouses or fields in Detroit, NYC, Memphis, wherever they are? Are they still there? If true, this is very very...not good.
Rating:
Summary: Jumps around, but a good source nonetheless
Review: Many of the assertions of this book have been revealed in other books, specifically those books dealing w/ the Venona taps. It is a strong history of the KGB, and at times quite revealing--not only in regards to the activities of the KGB, but also the reactions by Red-leaning Westerners. The USSR viewed the West as the enemy from day One of its Revolution. Lenin was more concerned about the American Relief workers--who were helping to end the Collectivist induced famine in Russia--being subversives, than he was concerned about the 5 million starving in his own country. Stalin viewed the Russian Civil War as a template to interpret the rest of the world, the West were the "Whites" and they had to be defeated. During the Nazi-Soviet pact, he was more suspicious of Churchill than he was of Hitler, and in fact interpreted rumors of Germany's "Barbarosa" as English Anti-Soviet Propaganda. The USSR infiltrated the U.S. and U.K. governments, while the US and UK barely had spy agencies formed yet alone spies in the USSR. If there is any book that shows who started the Cold War and who didn't want "Peaceful Coexistence" (hint, it was the Commies), it's this book. This is an excellent resource for parents to buy for their college age children, so that the youngsters have a resource to challenge their Anti-anti-Communist professors who are trying to indoctrinate the new students into the Che Guevarra T-shirt Club and ANSWER. Other good books would be, of course, the Black Book of Communism, a Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, Gulag, the Soviet World of American Communism, and for economic theory challenges to collectivism, Road to Serfdom by Hayek and Socialism by Von Mises. The historical revisisionism that preaches the decency of Communism and the USSR must be defeated. The book covers the span of the KGB from its torture of enemies in the 20s to its infiltration phase in the 30s/40s to its propaganda phase in the 60s/70s(using fake letters to discredit anti-Commie personalities or to incite race-based riots) to its Afghanistan/Poland phase in the 80s. One disturbing claim made in the book: Mitrokin suggests that the KGB stored caches of weapons and bombs in the United States in case of domestic revolution. Andrews only gives Mitrokin as the source. What happened to these caches? Were they removed in secret? Did Yeltsin tip off the U.S. to their existence in abandoned warehouses or fields in Detroit, NYC, Memphis, wherever they are? Are they still there? If true, this is very very...not good.
Rating:
Summary: A brave man just passed on
Review: Vasili Mitrokhin just died at the age of 81 on January 23, 2004. His efforts exemplify why mafia-gang thugocracies, such as the KGB in the USSR, face an increasing decline in their individual spheres of dominance. Between the unblinkered analysis of men like Mitrokhin and the information explosion, the bad guys can't so easily get away with the big lie. This book, released in 1999, has received all the plaudis and criticisms of those pro and con; but, think about how it overlays today with the Islamic Jihadists of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the various iterations of the PLO and Hezzbollah? It's concurrent with all the spies, the secret infiltrators of our civil society, the disinformation campaigns, the complicity of a naive and blinkered media and academia, the anti-semitism, and the abundant anti-Americanism with its inherent rejection of the intellectual writings of the founding fathers, and of our constitutional republic. All the horrors that one imagined the communists of perpetrating are shown here, and more. Only brave and commited patriots like Ronald Reagan, the greatest president of the 20th century, and Vasili Mitrokhin have stood athwart the doorway of democracy and defended it against the barbarian hordes of the red menace. It's bewildering to understand the intransigence of those who would aver that Mitrokhin's archive is the result of a government forgery. Only in the delusional mind of a Noam Chomsky or one like him would you find such drivel. This is a book, and a subject, that needs more exposure. Perhaps Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel, or Peter "comrade" Jennings will take up the cudgel...? ....don't hold your breathe!
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