The thrilling true story of Lt. Col. Pyotr Popov, the first agent the CIA recruited within the Soviet intelligence service. Reads like the best of le Carre -- but fact.
William Hood, author of Mole, was CIA Operations Chief in Vienna in 1952 when he helped recruit Major Pyotr Popov, Americaโs first double agent in Soviet Military intelligence. Mole is Hoodโs account of Popovโs four years working for the CIA, ending in 1956 when he was uncovered and returned to Moscow for interrogation in the cellars of Lubyanka Prison โ kept alive to see if he could be doubled again, or executed. His fate was never known. This intimate, firsthand account of Cold War espionage is told with the mounting tension of a good spy novel. Hood shows the human side of betrayal โ the motives, the resentments. โWhat type of government grinds down its own people,โ Popov says of Stalinist Russia. Hood writes : โPopov ran breathtaking โ in retrospect, almost insane, risks. Although he loved his wife and children he was hopelessly devoted to a randomly acquired mistress.โ Popov betrayed Russian agents in Europe, described the Sovietโs new tactical nuclear weaponsโ command structure, and gave the CIA a priceless look at the Sovietโs use of โillegals,โ spies embedded in the U.S. without diplomatic cover.