Spies, Lies, and Exile by Simon Kuper

Spies, Lies, and Exile by Simon Kuper

Fascinating, rich, and probing . . . a beguiling and endlessly interesting portrait--The Wall Street Journal

For fans of John le Carr and Ben Macintyre, an exclusive first-person account of one of the Cold War's most notorious spies

Kuper provides a different and valuable perspective, humane and informative. If the definition of a psychopath is someone who refuses to accept the consequences of his actions, does George fit the definition? There he sits, admitting it was all for nothing, but has no regrets. Or does he? --John le Carr

Few Cold War spy stories approach the sheer daring and treachery of George Blake's.

After fighting in the Dutch resistance during World War I, Blake joined the British spy agency MI6 and was stationed in Seoul. Taken prisoner after the North Korean army overran his post in 1950, Blake later returned to England to a hero's welcome, carrying a dark secret: while in a communist prison camp in North Korea, he had secretly switched sides to the KGB after reading Karl Marx's Das Kapital.

As a Soviet double agent, Blake betrayed uncounted western spying operations--including the storied Berlin Tunnel, the most expensive covert project ever undertaken by the CIA and MI6. Blake exposed hundreds of western agents, forty of whom were likely executed. After his unmasking and arrest, he received, for that time, the longest sentence in modern British history--only to make a dramatic escape to the Soviet Union in 1966, five years into his forty-two-year sentence. He left his wife, three children, and a stunned country behind.

Much of Blake's career existed inside the hall of mirrors that was the Cold War, especially following his sensational escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison. Veteran journalist Simon Kuper tracked Blake to his dacha outside Moscow, where the aging spy agreed to be interviewed for this unprecedented account of Cold War espionage. Following the master spy's death in Moscow at age ninety-eight on December 26, 2020, Kuper is finally able to set the record straight.

Kuper, Simon: - Simon Kuper is a British author and journalist for the Financial Times. Kuper was born in Uganda to South African parents in 1969, and moved to the Netherlands as a child. He studied history and German at Oxford University, and attended Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar. He has written for The Observer, The Times, and The Guardian and also writes regularly for Dutch newspapers. He lives in Paris with his family.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781620973752
ISBN 10	1620973758
Title	Spies, Lies, and Exile
Author	Simon Kuper
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	The New Press
Year published	2021-06-24
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable