Farewell
The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Morey
About this listen
1981: Ronald Reagan’s inauguration marks a new escalation in the United States’ Cold War with the USSR. Months later, François Mitterrand is elected president of France with the support of the French Communist Party. The predicted tension between these two men, however, is immediately defused when Mitterrand gives Reagan the Farewell dossier, a file he would later call "one of the greatest spy cases of the 20th century".
Vladimir Ippolitovich Vetrov, a promising technical student, joins the KGB to work as a spy. Following a couple of murky incidents, however, Vetrov is removed from the field and placed at a desk as an analyst. Soon, burdened by a troubled marriage and frustrated at a failing career, Vetrov turns to alcohol. Desperate and in need of redemption, in 1980 he offers his services to the DST, the French counterintelligence service. Thus Agent Farewell is born. Soon he is sneaking files and photographing sensitive documents, keeping the West informed of the USSR’s plans - right in the heart of KGB headquarters.
The most complete account of these dramatic events ever recorded, Kostin and Raynaud’s thorough investigation is a fascinating tour de force. Probing further into Vetrov’s psychological profile than ever before, they provide groundbreaking insight into the man whose life helped hasten the end of the Cold War.
©2009 Editions Robert Laffont, S.A., Paris; translation copyright 2011, Amazon Content Services LLC (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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The Skripal Files is a remarkable and definitive account of Sergei Skripal’s story, which lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal’s first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War.
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Facinating story and very relevant
- By Sheri on 06-25-24
By: Mark Urban
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A Spy Among Friends
- Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Who was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time.
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The narrator is incorrectly identified.
- By Greenlake DD on 07-30-14
By: Ben Macintyre
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Enemies of the People
- My Family's Journey to America
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In this true-life thriller, Kati Marton draws on her skill as an investigative reporter to discover who her journalist parents really were---and how they survived the Nazis in Budapest and imprisonment by the Soviets during the Cold War.
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Couldn't stop listening
- By Jane on 04-09-10
By: Kati Marton
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The Art of Betrayal
- The Secret History of MI6 - Life and Death in the British Secret Service
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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From Berlin to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the stories of the agents on the front lines of British intelligence. And the truth is often more remarkable than fiction.
MI6 has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Gordon Corera provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.
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Good details but lacks thorough research
- By Unapologetic on 09-06-17
By: Gordon Corera
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A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich
- By: Lucas Delattre
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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A work of remarkable scholarship that moves with the swift pace of a John le Carre thriller, A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich is a chilling addition to the literature of espionage. In 1943, a young official named Fritz Kolbe from the German foreign ministry arranged to meet with Allen Dulles, then an OSS officer in Switzerland and later the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
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100% very good
- By Coco on 06-11-07
By: Lucas Delattre
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Agent M
- The Lives and Spies of MI5's Maxwell Knight
- By: Henry Hemming
- Narrated by: Henry Hemming
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The fascinating, improbable true story of Maxwell Knight - the great MI5 spymaster and inspiration for the James Bond character M. Maxwell Knight was perhaps the greatest spymaster in history. He did more than anyone in his era to combat the rising threat of fascism in Britain during World War II, in spite of his own history inside this movement. He was also truly eccentric - a thrice-married jazz aficionado who kept a menagerie of exotic pets - and almost totally unqualified for espionage. Yet he had a gift for turning practically anyone into a fearless secret agent.
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Outstanding in every way!
- By Grace O'Malley on 07-18-22
By: Henry Hemming
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Death of a Dissident
- The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB
- By: Alex Goldfarb, Marina Litvinenko
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Abridged
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The November 2006 assassination of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko, who was poisoned by the rare radioactive element polonium, caused an international sensation. Within a few short weeks, the fit 43-year-old lay gaunt, bald, and dying in a hospital, the victim of a "tiny nuclear bomb". Suspicions swirled around Russia's FSB, the successor to the KGB, and the Putin regime.
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Very interesting and scary...
- By A. M. on 03-21-15
By: Alex Goldfarb, and others
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Hunting Evil
- The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice
- By: Guy Walters
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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From its haunting chronicle of the monstrous mass murders the Nazis perpetrated and the murky details of their postwar existence to the challenges of hunting them down, Hunting Evil is a monumental work of nonfiction written with the pacing and intrigue of a thriller.
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Eye-opening and riveting
- By Ellen on 10-20-10
By: Guy Walters
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Missing Man
- The American Spy Who Vanished in Iran
- By: Barry Meier
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In late 2013, Americans were shocked to learn that a former FBI agent turned private investigator who disappeared in Iran in 2007 was there on a mission for the CIA. The missing man, Robert Levinson, appeared in pictures dressed like a Guantánamo prisoner and pleaded in a video for help from the United States.
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Important story
- By Richard F. Callahan on 08-03-16
By: Barry Meier
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The Spy Who Was Left Behind
- By: Michael Pullara
- Narrated by: Michael Pullara
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 8, 1993, a single bullet to the head killed Freddie Woodruff, the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Within hours, police had a suspect - a vodka-soaked village bumpkin named Anzor Sharmaidze. A tidy explanation quickly followed: It was a tragic accident. US diplomats hailed Georgia’s swift work. Yet the bullet that killed Woodruff was never found, and key witnesses have since retracted their testimony, saying they were beaten and forced to identify Sharmaidze. But if he didn’t do it, who did?
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great book needs a hires narrator
- By Blake Dahl on 11-17-18
By: Michael Pullara
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Sisters in Resistance
- How a German Spy, a Banker's Wife, and Mussolini's Daughter Outwitted the Nazis
- By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1944, Benito Mussolini's daughter, Edda, gave Hitler and her father an ultimatum: release her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, from prison, or risk her leaking her husband's journals to the press. To avoid the peril of exposing Nazi lies, Hitler and Mussolini hunted for the diaries for months, determined to destroy them. Hilde Beetz, a German spy, was deployed to seduce Ciano to learn the diaries' location and take them from Edda. Drawing from in‑depth research and first-person interviews, Mazzeo gives listeners a riveting look into this little‑known moment in history.
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Fascinating WW2 account of women in resistance
- By lgmichael on 10-30-23
By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
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A Man of Honor
- The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno
- By: Joseph Bonanno
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Joseph Bonanno found his future amid the whiskey-running, riotous streets of Prohibition America in 1924, when he illegally entered the United States to pursue his dreams. By the age of only 26, Bonanno became a don. He eventually took over the New York underworld, igniting the "Castellammarese War", one of the bloodiest Family battles ever to hit New York City.
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A must read
- By E. Orlando on 05-03-17
By: Joseph Bonanno
What listeners say about Farewell
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Hans Rigelman
- 10-15-18
KGB Spy Helps Take Down Soviet Union
Great documentary and analysis of a Russian agent who fed secrets to the west during the early 1980s. His actions along with the political and economic climate at the time helped the US and its allies win the Cold War.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Angela Dugan
- 10-18-18
History book
It reads too much like a history book. Found myself lost and would have to rewind.
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- Zephyr
- 02-09-15
Interesting read
This book is interesting and informative for what it is. The manifold questions and uncertain areas of the narrative are treated exceptional well by the author. Competing hypotheses and conjectures are laid out well and leave no uncertainty in the reader about the uncertainty of the points being made. I would like to have had more in depth analysis on geopolitical ramifications of the information leak. The author focuses on the affair itself and the actors involved, leaving as secondary the before and after analysis of the global scene. That was the authors choice and the book reflects that.
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2 people found this helpful
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- That'll Do
- 01-25-18
What a Story!
What did you love best about Farewell?
I was amazed at how this spy pulled off such a long term operation and the affects on the US, Russia, and Europe.
Have you listened to any of Arthur Morey’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
This was my first Arthur Morey performance but surely not the last.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
This is a LONG book, so no way you will be able to listen in one sitting. It did get a little tedious because of the length.
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1 person found this helpful
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- lgh
- 04-28-18
interesting story
Interesting story. Found the back and forth in time distracting, but not so much that it turned me off.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Adam Shields
- 09-10-13
Real spy tradecraft is as odd as fictional
Farewell is the code name of one of the most important spy stories of the 20th century. A Russian KGB agent, frustrated with his treatment by the KGB, turned over thousands of pages of documents to the French secret service (the FBI equivalent, not the CIA equivalent) and was perhaps more responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union than any other single person.
The story really is both incredible and fairly simple. Vladimir Ippolitovitch Vetrov, a talented athlete, a good student and a handsome young man is recruited to the KGB. He is trained as a foreign operative and serves two terms outside of Russia. But because of some of the problems of the KGB and some of Vetrov’s own problems he gets called back to Moscow and ends up as a technical analyst.
Frustrated by his lack of importance and the lack of respect he feels he is getting, he decides to become an informant and contact the French DST. Working with a French secret service he is first given a handler (a businessman that is close, but not a spy) and then a single agent. But it may have been the very lack of tradecraft that allows Vetrov to sneak out hugely important technical details of the Soviet infrastructure, military and spy systems.
This information was then used by Reagan and his security team to double down on the USSR. The US both increased our military expenditure (to try and force the USSR into spending more than it was capable of spending to keep up) and fed bad information to the USSR on areas that the US knew were research dead ends.
It is a fascinating story, but not the best written one. Farewell was originally written in French and then translated and updated into English. The translation I think is probably pretty good, but like a real spy story it is big on details and angles and short on action. So nearly half of the book is focused on Vetrov history, his relationship with his wife, his mistress, his son, and his early work experience. And then right about half way through the book, finally the main action occurs and the rest of the book is spent dissecting what happened and why.
Part of me really is fascinated by the story and the almost excruciating detail. But the other half of me just wanted them to get to the conclusion and be done. I think it showed lots of the problems of the Russian system (both the KGB and the Russian system of government that encouraged the paranoia and mistrust.) But also it showed the problems of spying in general. It is the paradox of the spy world that the agencies have to trust their spies because they literally cannot completely police the spies to make sure that they are not turning sides.
It is also interesting to see that what was important in the end was not the military strength or the spy tradecraft, but the research and economic issues. (It feels like a similar story to Al Capone, it was the accounting that brought Capone down.)
This is a story that I recommend with some strong caveats. It feels long and overly detailed because it is long and overly detailed. It is not a great book, but it is interesting.
(originally posted on my blog, Bookwi.se)
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8 people found this helpful
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- William E. Hendry
- 04-17-16
Top Knotch Documentary True Spy Thriller
What did you love best about Farewell?
Incredible detail and history of the spy culture between the KGB and French Intel that became the essential ingredient which brought down the USSR. Do not miss this!
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No. Too much to process in one sitting.
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5 people found this helpful
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- DS
- 12-28-12
ESPIONAGE GEEKS TAKE NOTICE
All espionage geeks will love this and foreign policy wonks will have to acknowledge the indispensable role played by the espionage services. For every intelligence fiasco there is a 'Farewell" and we should all be grateful for the latter and forgive the former.
The lesson that I thought was most interesting is that this only succeeded because the French handlers DIDN'T use spy craft, which the KGB would certainly have noticed. Really good book but extremely detailed and, thus, long. But if you're interested in the craft (or lack thereof) and the psychology of treason this is the book for you.
The fact that history often hinges on the acts of unknown individuals unrelated to the "leaders" strutting their stuff on history's stage is an irony that is inescapable. This true story is the proof. Great listen.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Jeremy
- 02-05-15
So well written! But too much credit to Reagan
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. It's a very easy to understand yet detailed work...
What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)
There is no ending as such... Just a very slow and long burning fire!
Which scene was your favorite?
The scenes in Canada...
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Just Who is this Man in Moscow!?
Any additional comments?
Would have been better without the "Reagan knew what he was doing all along and the SDI was a good use of money...
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2 people found this helpful
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- Homero
- 03-13-13
Great story but narrator ruined it.
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
I started reading the book and enjoyed it so much that I thought buying the audio version would be a good idea so I could listen in the car. Wrong! The narrator has a monotone voice and almost sounds like a robot. I tried listening to it for about a week but the narrator was so unbearable that I just went back to reading.
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5 people found this helpful