The Sword and the Shield
The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
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Narrated by:
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Charles Stransky
About this listen
Supplementing this trove of KGB secrets with extensive research in other archives, published and unpublished, Christopher Andrew has written an extraordinary book which forces you to acknowledge that there was indeed an enemy - and that he was very much in our midst.
Revelations from The Sword and the Shield:
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- Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 30 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes, and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.
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Better read than listened to
- By B. In -t Veld on 03-25-17
By: Max Hastings
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Stalin, Volume I
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- By: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
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Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
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A Covert Action
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- By: Seth G. Jones
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- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
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In this gripping narrative history, Seth G. Jones reveals the CIA's involvement in a landmark victory for democracy during the Cold War. In 1983, while Soviet- backed Polish prime minister Wojciech Jaruzelski worked to crush a budding opposition movement through martial law, the CIA launched a sophisticated intelligence campaign supporting dissident groups. With President Ronald Reagan's support, American funds bankrolled clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, and information warfare. This initiative, code-named QRHELPFUL, proved vital in establishing a free and democratic Poland.
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A passionate true story
- By Chris Cembrzynski on 02-15-19
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The Brothers
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John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the backdrop ofAmerican culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?
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A duel biography
- By Jean on 09-26-14
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Chain of Command
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- Narrated by: Peter Friedman
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers, and outraged the Bush Administration, with his stories in The New Yorker magazine, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from that clear morning in September to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq?
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Absolutely Fantastic
- By Nicholas on 10-12-04
By: Seymour M. Hersh
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The War Conspiracy
- JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War
- By: Peter Dale Scott
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- Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins
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A remarkable analysis linking the assassination of JFK and 9/11, and how both events were used to influence war policy. Peter Dale Scott examines the many ways in which war policy has been driven by “accidents” and other events in the field, in some cases despite moves toward peace that were directed by presidents. This book explores the “deep politics” that exerts a profound but too-little-understood effect on national policy outside the control of traditional democratic processes.
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data dump on every rabbit hole
- By Shawn R. Veltheim on 12-20-18
By: Peter Dale Scott
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JFK and the Unspeakable
- Why He Died and Why It Matters
- By: James W. Douglass
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
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At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrified by the specter of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs and toward a policy of lasting peace. But to the military and intelligence agencies in the United States, who were committed to winning the Cold War at any cost, Kennedy's change of heart was a direct threat to their power and influence.
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One Book EVERY AMERICAN Needs to Read
- By Peter on 06-09-12
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Ghost Wars
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- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 26 hrs and 48 mins
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The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan. With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.
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An Exceptional Accomplishment
- By Joe on 11-08-13
By: Steve Coll
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What listeners say about The Sword and the Shield
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Yee Bernard James
- 12-27-03
a must follow up to
For anyone who loved "The Company" by Robert Littell. The sword and the shield is a must read/listen.
A fine record of the other company.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Sasha
- 03-08-19
learned more than I thought
a very unusual but fascinating book that I would encourage anybody to read. it is very interesting to listen to the history of the KGB from someone who has an inside view
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- POPOGIGIO
- 12-13-22
Interesting and sometimes enthralling
First point- this is an abridged version of the original text.
Second point-It gives the active listener a very good overview.
Third point- I would say that somethings were not expounded on due to the nature of classification of material.
Forth point- excellent reference for research papers and a starting point for some more in depth research of certain events.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Keyvan
- 04-26-10
Enriching Book Astounishing Reading
Great narrator, great story, but for those folks who suggested The Company is the same kind of book, I disagree. This book is fact base and everything is real. The Company is fiction and all made up. My only regret is this audiobook is not unabridged.
In point of fact I think abridge book should be allowed unless the author himself cut it.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Ryan Tossell
- 05-20-18
If you are looking for Cold War and James Bond ...
... type stories, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for an accurate history of the KGB, then this is a solid book.
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Overall
- John R. Brown
- 09-06-03
Great History - Great Spy Story
Vasili Mitrokhin was an archivist for the KGB. For several years, he reviewed files as they were moved to a new building. He began to secretly copy information from the files and take it home. Security was surprisingly lax and he became bold. Eventually, he had six crates of notes and quotes. After the fall of the Soviet Union, British intelligence exfiltrated him and his family in exchange for access to his files.
In this book, he names names. Hundreds of names. For instance, he names an employee of M.W. Kellogg in Houston, whom no one ever suspected of being a Soviet agent. He names key members of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.
But saying that he names names is understating the importance of this book.
Beginning in the 1930's and continuing into the late 1980's, he describes Soviet tradecraft and the work of master spys, cutouts, agents, and persons compromised. For instance, the provides the Soviet side of the recuiment and running of the Kim Phily Five, the Alger Hiss matter, the Rosenbergs, etc.
HE EVEN IDENTIFIES SASHA, a Soviet mole who did much damage (although the CIA's hunt for SASHA may have been even more damaging than Sasha's own work - and the skeptics amoung us question whether there was another Sasha).
If this were fiction, it would be a pretty good book. As non-fiction, it is a must read for anyone who wants to know what really happened in the cold war and how close we came to losing to the Soviets.
About 20% of the information in this book is incorporated into Robert Littel's novel, THE COMPANY.
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Larry
- 12-24-05
Exposed! The KGB was evil!
Well. Here's a revelation. The KGB and it's predecessors was an instrument of terror in the hands of paranoid tyrants. The good information that they produced that indicated that the U.S was not interested in empire buiiding was discarded and messengers shot. The survivors then, with new understanding, painted the U.S. and its allies as greedy power hungry hegemonists intent on invading mother Russia and received medals. All of this from the KGB's own archives through the bravery and dedication to truth of one minor file clerk, Vasily Mitroken. This is a first rate read for anyone who survived the Fifties.
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4 people found this helpful