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Christopher Andrew
Stanford University Press

Comrade Kryuchkov's Instructions: Top Secret Files on KGB Foreign Operations, 1975-1985

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AuthorChristopher Andrew
PublisherStanford University Press
PublishedFeb 01 1994
Book FormatPaperback
ISBN-139780804722285
Dimensions9.03 X 6.07 X 0.61 inches
Weight 0.83 pounds
BISAC
CategoriesHistory > Russia & the Former Soviet Union
LanguageEnglish

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Book Description

During the decade that culminated in the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, an avalanche of top secret documents poured out from KGB headquarters in Moscow to its residencies throughout the world. Oleg Gordievsky was a KGB colonel and Resident-designate in London in 1985 when he defected; it was later revealed that he had been working as a double agent for British intelligence since 1974, regularly risking his life by passing copies of KGB documents to the British. This volume is a revealing selection of this highly classified material, with an informative commentary by Christopher Andrew, based on joint analysis of the documents with Gordievsky. The book gives us a fascinating inside look at the workings and the thinking of the KGB, whose chairman was General V. A. Kryuchkov, later one of the leaders of the abortive coup against Gorbachev in August 1991. The documents range from somewhat comic instructions to sabotage the U.S. bicentennial to detailed methods for recruiting agents to orders concerning the KGB's largest peacetime intelligence operations, an attempt to secure information on President Reagan's (non-existent) preparations for a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. The book was first published in England in 1992 under the title Instructions from the Centre.

Author Bio

Professor Christopher Andrew is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University, teaching European history and international relations since the French Revolution. His research interests are Twentieth-century political history and international relations with particular reference to the role and influence of intelligence agencies.

Professor Andrew rose to prominence with his books on the KGB, most notably KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (1990) and The Mitrokhin Archive. Vol.1: The KGB in Europe and the West (1999), written in collaboration with former KGB officers Oleg Gordievsky and Vasili Mitrokhin respectively.

Owning to his expertise in the history of security and intelligence agencies, Professor Andrew was commissioned by the Security Service (MI5) to write the first authorized history of the Service, to mark its centenary in 2009.

To conduct his research for the book, Professor Andrew was given exclusive access to the Service's records and files. Defense of the Realm (2009) was very well received.

Professor Andrew is the Former Chairman of the Faculty of History, and in December 2010 he stepped down as President of Corpus Christi College.

Source: University of Cambridge

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