alexz
01-31-2008, 07:14 PM
The contentious memoir of a former senior KGB defector raises a time-honoured dilemma: spies can spin great yarns, but should we believe them?
Released last Tuesday in Canada, Comrade J: the Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War, has triggered outrage in Russia, shock at the United Nations and speculation in espionage circles in the United States, where the subject of the book, former senior operative Sergei Tretyakov, became one of the high-est-level Russian turncoats when he defected in 2000.
In Canada, where Mr. Tretyakov's treacherous career began, Comrade J is now blockaded at the border because of unstated legal issues. On its debut day, Toronto-based publisher Penguin sent an e-mail to the National Post, saying, "We have temporarily suspended shipments into Canada to allow time to evaluate the legal ramifications, under Canadian law, of speculations about the book that have arisen in the Canadian market."
While dozens of copies remain on bookshelves across the country, Canadians can read about Mr. Tretyakov allegedly recruiting an Ottawa nuclear-arms expert, code-named Arthur, who later became a high-ranking official in the International Atomic Energy Agency. They can find out how Mr. Tretyakov -- and embassy intriguers -- claimed to have roped in a sitting MP, a federal bureaucrat and a few arms experts before he moved to New York to spy on the United States and the UN.
Russian authorities have dismissed the book as "self-advertising based on treason."
Part of the difficulty of these cloak-and-dagger confessionals is that potentially innocent people could be implicated without any way of cleaning off the taint. In the meantime, their colleagues are left to defend them.
Take, for instance, the case of Arthur. According to Comrade J (whose name is taken from his own handle, Jean), Arthur spies for the Russians while serving as a "senior verification expert," keeping track of the weapons of nuclear powers for the IAEA. Arthur's biography closely hues to that of the Canadian nuclear-proliferation expert Tarif Rauf. Both worked for the Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament in Ottawa, then went to the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and both wound up in powerful positions at the IAEA.
"Mr. Rauf is a fine civil servant and we treat these allegations as baseless," said agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.
A Sovietologist with a PhD from the University of Toronto, Mr. Rauf was also defended by his former boss. "I always regarded him to be a very talented and dedicated staff person," said William Potter, the director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at California's Monterey Institute of International Studies, the think-tank where Mr. Rauf worked for seven years until 2002.
Earlier this week, a belittling review of the book ran in the Washington Post, the alma mater of Comrade J's author, Pete Earley.
"The real value of Sergei Tretyakov's saga lies less in his scattershot claims and innuendoes than in his sharp and gossipy insider's view of the KGB [and its successor] SVR's training, methods, foibles and tricks," writes David Wise, a noted chronicler of the upturned-collar-and-briefcase crowd.
Despite the criticism, the book comes with serious bona fides. Mr. Earley is a New York Times best-selling author and built his reputation by writing books about American turncoats Aldrich Ames and John Walker Jr.
"I know Pete, and he is a pretty thorough investigative journalist," said Peter Earnest, a 35-year CIA veteran who, like his Russian counterpart, spent most of his time in clandestine service. "This book is carefully written. There isn't a discordant note," said Mr. Earnest, who is executive director of the International Spy Museum and past president of the Association for Former Intelligence Officers.
Perhaps on the strength of Mr. Earley's previous work, the FBI approached Mr. Earley to write about Mr. Tretyakov.
Espionage authors and former intelligence officers say that defector tell-alls are a tricky business. To rise to the top, or near there, a spy must exaggerate claims, and once he is in the hands of his new benefactors, he cannot backtrack because he would expose himself as a fraud.
The same quandary follows when he sits down to reveal his tricks of the trade to an author, and both are on the line to deliver a sensational, headline-grabbing book.
Much of the controversy in Canada is focused on former Progressive Conservative MP Alex Kindy. The only Canadian operative whom the book calls by name, Dr. Kindy is the subject of allegations that he took money and gave information to the Russians.
Perhaps best known for his opposition to the Goods and Services Tax in 1991, Dr. Kindy was kicked out of the Tory caucus and allegedly accepted $10,000 in cash from one of Mr. Tretyakov's operatives before his unsuccessful 1993 run as an independent.
According to the book, he received "at least two more payments of $5,000 each" for information that mostly regarded Ukraine, where he sometimes travelled and whose nationalist ambitions concerned Russia. The Polish-born Dr. Kindy could not be reached for comment, nor did he answer the author's request for comment.
His former secretary, however, rose to his defence yesterday, as did MP David Kilgour, a fellow former Conservative from Alberta.
"I would be very, very surprised if Alex Kindy was a spy for any country. Certainly Russia would be the last candidate on the list," Mr. Kilgour said.
Another major question mark in the book is the portrayal of Arthur. Described in the book as a nuclear-arms expert at the IAEA who disdains the United States, the operative is a key asset to the Russian cause and helps him with classified information about the Star Wars weapon system.
Mr. Tretyakov told the author, "I know that he is still employed at the agency and I have no reason to believe he has stopped working for Russian intelligence."
Whether or not Arthur is Mr. Rauf, why would Mr. Tretyakov turn to a nuclear-arms expert to analyze a space-weaponry program? Neither the author nor Mr. Tretyakov were available for comment.
Mr. Tretyakov turned double-agent in 1997 after his mother, his closest living relative in Russia, passed away. Citing a loss of faith in post-Soviet Russia, he spent three years turning over secrets to the United States before defecting.
Since Mr. Tretyakov changed sides, the U.S. government has set his family up.
His wife likes to paint and drive her Porsche, and he enjoys watching television shows such as Seinfeld and driving his Lexus.
Despite the luxuries, he told the author: "I don't care about money. No publisher alive has enough money to pay me for what I know. I am worth millions because I am Russian intelligence."
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=275291
Released last Tuesday in Canada, Comrade J: the Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War, has triggered outrage in Russia, shock at the United Nations and speculation in espionage circles in the United States, where the subject of the book, former senior operative Sergei Tretyakov, became one of the high-est-level Russian turncoats when he defected in 2000.
In Canada, where Mr. Tretyakov's treacherous career began, Comrade J is now blockaded at the border because of unstated legal issues. On its debut day, Toronto-based publisher Penguin sent an e-mail to the National Post, saying, "We have temporarily suspended shipments into Canada to allow time to evaluate the legal ramifications, under Canadian law, of speculations about the book that have arisen in the Canadian market."
While dozens of copies remain on bookshelves across the country, Canadians can read about Mr. Tretyakov allegedly recruiting an Ottawa nuclear-arms expert, code-named Arthur, who later became a high-ranking official in the International Atomic Energy Agency. They can find out how Mr. Tretyakov -- and embassy intriguers -- claimed to have roped in a sitting MP, a federal bureaucrat and a few arms experts before he moved to New York to spy on the United States and the UN.
Russian authorities have dismissed the book as "self-advertising based on treason."
Part of the difficulty of these cloak-and-dagger confessionals is that potentially innocent people could be implicated without any way of cleaning off the taint. In the meantime, their colleagues are left to defend them.
Take, for instance, the case of Arthur. According to Comrade J (whose name is taken from his own handle, Jean), Arthur spies for the Russians while serving as a "senior verification expert," keeping track of the weapons of nuclear powers for the IAEA. Arthur's biography closely hues to that of the Canadian nuclear-proliferation expert Tarif Rauf. Both worked for the Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament in Ottawa, then went to the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and both wound up in powerful positions at the IAEA.
"Mr. Rauf is a fine civil servant and we treat these allegations as baseless," said agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.
A Sovietologist with a PhD from the University of Toronto, Mr. Rauf was also defended by his former boss. "I always regarded him to be a very talented and dedicated staff person," said William Potter, the director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at California's Monterey Institute of International Studies, the think-tank where Mr. Rauf worked for seven years until 2002.
Earlier this week, a belittling review of the book ran in the Washington Post, the alma mater of Comrade J's author, Pete Earley.
"The real value of Sergei Tretyakov's saga lies less in his scattershot claims and innuendoes than in his sharp and gossipy insider's view of the KGB [and its successor] SVR's training, methods, foibles and tricks," writes David Wise, a noted chronicler of the upturned-collar-and-briefcase crowd.
Despite the criticism, the book comes with serious bona fides. Mr. Earley is a New York Times best-selling author and built his reputation by writing books about American turncoats Aldrich Ames and John Walker Jr.
"I know Pete, and he is a pretty thorough investigative journalist," said Peter Earnest, a 35-year CIA veteran who, like his Russian counterpart, spent most of his time in clandestine service. "This book is carefully written. There isn't a discordant note," said Mr. Earnest, who is executive director of the International Spy Museum and past president of the Association for Former Intelligence Officers.
Perhaps on the strength of Mr. Earley's previous work, the FBI approached Mr. Earley to write about Mr. Tretyakov.
Espionage authors and former intelligence officers say that defector tell-alls are a tricky business. To rise to the top, or near there, a spy must exaggerate claims, and once he is in the hands of his new benefactors, he cannot backtrack because he would expose himself as a fraud.
The same quandary follows when he sits down to reveal his tricks of the trade to an author, and both are on the line to deliver a sensational, headline-grabbing book.
Much of the controversy in Canada is focused on former Progressive Conservative MP Alex Kindy. The only Canadian operative whom the book calls by name, Dr. Kindy is the subject of allegations that he took money and gave information to the Russians.
Perhaps best known for his opposition to the Goods and Services Tax in 1991, Dr. Kindy was kicked out of the Tory caucus and allegedly accepted $10,000 in cash from one of Mr. Tretyakov's operatives before his unsuccessful 1993 run as an independent.
According to the book, he received "at least two more payments of $5,000 each" for information that mostly regarded Ukraine, where he sometimes travelled and whose nationalist ambitions concerned Russia. The Polish-born Dr. Kindy could not be reached for comment, nor did he answer the author's request for comment.
His former secretary, however, rose to his defence yesterday, as did MP David Kilgour, a fellow former Conservative from Alberta.
"I would be very, very surprised if Alex Kindy was a spy for any country. Certainly Russia would be the last candidate on the list," Mr. Kilgour said.
Another major question mark in the book is the portrayal of Arthur. Described in the book as a nuclear-arms expert at the IAEA who disdains the United States, the operative is a key asset to the Russian cause and helps him with classified information about the Star Wars weapon system.
Mr. Tretyakov told the author, "I know that he is still employed at the agency and I have no reason to believe he has stopped working for Russian intelligence."
Whether or not Arthur is Mr. Rauf, why would Mr. Tretyakov turn to a nuclear-arms expert to analyze a space-weaponry program? Neither the author nor Mr. Tretyakov were available for comment.
Mr. Tretyakov turned double-agent in 1997 after his mother, his closest living relative in Russia, passed away. Citing a loss of faith in post-Soviet Russia, he spent three years turning over secrets to the United States before defecting.
Since Mr. Tretyakov changed sides, the U.S. government has set his family up.
His wife likes to paint and drive her Porsche, and he enjoys watching television shows such as Seinfeld and driving his Lexus.
Despite the luxuries, he told the author: "I don't care about money. No publisher alive has enough money to pay me for what I know. I am worth millions because I am Russian intelligence."
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=275291