The Sword and the Shield – The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB [Unabridged]

The Sword and the Shield is based on one of the most extraordinary intelligence coups of recent  times: a secret archive of top-level KGB documents smuggled out of the  Soviet Union which the FBI has described, after close examination, as  the "most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any  source." Its presence in the West represents a catastrophic hemorrhage  of the KGB's secrets and reveals for the first time the full extent of  its worldwide network. Vasili Mitrokhin, a secret dissident who worked  in the KGB archive, smuggled out copies of its most highly classified  files every day for twelve years. In 1992, a U.S. ally succeeded in  exfiltrating the KGB officer and his entire archive out of Moscow. The  archive covers the entire period from the Bolshevik Revolution to the  1980s and includes revelations concerning almost every country in the  world. But the KGB's main target, of course, was the United States.  Though there is top-secret material on almost every country in the  world, the United States is at the top of the list. As well as  containing many fascinating revelations, this is a major contribution to  the secret history of the twentieth century. Among the topics and  revelations explored are: The KGB's covert operations in the United  States and throughout the West, some of which remain dangerous today.  KGB files on Oswald and the JFK assassination that Boris Yeltsin almost  certainly has no intention of showing President Clinton. The KGB's  attempts to discredit civil rights leader in the 1960s, including its  infiltration of the inner circle of a key leader. The KGB's use of radio  intercept posts in New York and Washington, D.C., in the 1970s to  intercept high-level U.S. government communications. The KGB's attempts  to steal technological secrets from major U.S. aerospace and technology  corporations. KGB covert operations against former President Ronald  Reagan, which began five years before he became president. KGB spies who  successfully posed as U.S. citizens under a series of ingenious  disguises, including several who attained access to the upper echelons  of New York society.