Gordon Corera

KGB:n pettänyt arkistonhoitaja tietää, miten maailman salaisimmat paperit varastetaan. Vasili Mitrohin värväytyi KGB:hen 1940-luvulla ja järkyttyi pian neuvostotiedustelun julmuudesta. Kun hiljainen agentti siirrettiin arkistoon, turvallisuuskoneiston väärinkäytösten laajuus paljastui hänelle. Pölyisiä asiakirjoja rakastava Mitrohin aloitti vuosikymmenten myyräntyön diktatuurin rikosten paljastamiseksi. Arkistonhoitajan länteen salakuljettamat tuhannet dokumentit ovat kylmän sodan tutkimuksen kullanarvoinen lähde. Mukaansatempaava tietokirja kertoo ensimmäistä kertaa koko tarinan Mitrohinin uskaliaasta vastarinnasta ja hengenvaarallisesta paosta.

From Bletchley Park to cyber-attacks in the twenty-first century, this is the untold story of computers and spies: past, present and future

The secret history of MI6 - from the Cold War to the present day. Published in hardback as THE ART OF BETRAYAL and fully updated for this edition.

The compulsively readable new book from The Rest is Classified host Gordon Corera. About how one man – Vasili Mitrokhin – turned first disaffected dissident and then traitor to the KGB, stealing the most secret Soviet archives and smuggling them to the West. How do you steal a library? Not just any library but the most secret, heavily guarded archive in the world. The answer is to be a librarian. To be so quiet, that no-one knows what you are up to as you toil undercover and deep amongst the files. The work goes on for decades but remains so low key, that even after your escape, aided by MI6, no-one even notices you are gone. The Spy in the Archive tells the remarkable story of how Vasili Mitrokhin – an introverted archivist who loved nothing more than dusty files – ended up changing the world. As the in-house archivist for the KGB, the secrets he was exposed to inside its walls turned him first into a dissident and then a spy, a traitor to his country but a man determined to expose the truth about the dark forces that had subverted Russia, forces still at work in the country today. Bestselling writer and historian Gordon Corera tells of the operation to extract this prized asset from Russia for the first time. It is an edge-of-the-seat thriller, with vivid flashbacks to Mitrokhin’s earlier time as a KGB idealist prepared to do what it took to serve the Soviet Union and his growing realisation that the communist state was imprisoning its own people. It is the story of what it was like to live in the Soviet Union, to raise a family and then of one man’s journey from the heart of the Soviet state to disillusion, betrayal and defection. At its heart is Mitrokhin’s determination to take on the most powerful institution in the world by revealing its darkest secrets. This is narrative non-fiction at its absolute best.

How do you steal a library? Not just any library but the most secret archive in the world. The answer is to be a librarian. To be so quiet, that no-one knows what you are up to as you toil undercover over decades and so low key, that even after your escape, aided by MI6, no-one even notices you are gone.

Hyytävän jännittävä tietokirja Putinin Venäjän vakoojista. Yhdysvalloissa pidätettiin kesällä 2010 vakoojia: Anna Chapman ja yhdeksän muuta agenttia olivat eläneet vuosikausia keräten tietoa Venäjän tiedustelupalvelulle. Pidätysoperaatio oli kuin toimintaelokuvasta. Monet pitivät ryhmää kylmän sodan jäänteenä, mutta Venäjä jatkaa edelleen aggressiivista vakoilua ja vaikutustyötä, mistä hätkähdyttävänä esimerkkinä on Sergei Skripalin myrkytys Englannissa vuonna 2018. Vakoojajahti kertoo trillerin tavoin vakoojista ja heidän metsästäjistään. Kirja päivittää käsityksemme vakoilusta kybertiedustelun ja vaalivilppien 2020-luvulle. Illegaalit agentit ovat keskellämme tänäänkin.

The urgent, explosive story of Russia’s espionage efforts against the West from the Cold War to the present – including their interference in the 2016 presidential election. Like a scene from a le Carre novel or the TV drama The Americans, in the summer of 2010 a group of Russian deep cover sleeper agents were arrested. It was the culmination of a decade-long investigation, and ten people, including Anna Chapman, were swapped for four people held in Russia. At the time it was seen simply as a throwback to the Cold War. But that would prove to be a costly mistake. It was a sign that the Russian threat had never gone away and more importantly, it was shifting into a much more disruptive new phase. Today, the danger is clearer than ever following the poisoning in the UK of one of the spies who was swapped, Sergei Skripal, and the growing evidence of Russian interference in American life. In this meticulously researched and gripping, novelistic narrative, Gordon Corera uncovers the story of how Cold War spying has evolved – and indeed, is still very much with us. Russians Among Us describes for the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it reveals new information about today’s spies—as well as those trying to catch them and those trying to kill them.

With intrigue that rivals the best le Carr novels, Russians Among Us tells the explosive story of Russia's espionage efforts against the United States and the West--from the end of the Cold War to the present and the significant threat of hacking the 2020 electionSpies have long been a source of great fascination in the world of fiction, but sometimes the best spy stories happen in real life. Russians Among Us tells the full story of Putin's escalating espionage campaign in the West, the Russian 'deep cover' spies who penetrated the US and the years-long FBI hunt to capture them. This book also details the recruitment, running, and escape of one of the most important spies of modern times, a man who worked inside the heart of Russian intelligence. In this thrilling account Corera tracks not only the history, but the astonishing evolution of Russian espionage, including the use of 'cyber illegals' who continue to manipulate us today and pose a significant threat to the 2020 election. Like a scene from the TV drama The Americans, in the summer of 2010 a group of Russian deep cover sleeper agents were arrested. It was the culmination of a decade-long investigation, and ten people, including Anna Chapman, were swapped for four people held in Russia. At the time it was seen simply as a throwback to the Cold War. But that would prove to be a costly mistake. It was a sign that the Russian threat had never gone away and more importantly, it was shifting into a much more disruptive new phase. Today, the danger is clearer than ever following the poisoning in the UK of one of the spies who was swapped, Sergei Skripal, and the growing evidence of Russian interference in American life. Russians Among Us describes for the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it reveals new information about today's spies--as well as those trying to catch them and those trying to kill them.

With intrigue that rivals the best le Carr novels, Russians Among Us tells the explosive story of Russia's espionage efforts against the United States and the West--from the end of the Cold War to the present and the significant threat of hacking the 2020 electionSpies have long been a source of great fascination in the world of fiction, but sometimes the best spy stories happen in real life. Russians Among Us tells the full story of Putin's escalating espionage campaign in the West, the Russian 'deep cover' spies who penetrated the US and the years-long FBI hunt to capture them. This book also details the recruitment, running, and escape of one of the most important spies of modern times, a man who worked inside the heart of Russian intelligence. In this thrilling account Corera tracks not only the history, but the astonishing evolution of Russian espionage, including the use of 'cyber illegals' who continue to manipulate us today and pose a significant threat to the 2020 election. Like a scene from the TV drama The Americans, in the summer of 2010 a group of Russian deep cover sleeper agents were arrested. It was the culmination of a decade-long investigation, and ten people, including Anna Chapman, were swapped for four people held in Russia. At the time it was seen simply as a throwback to the Cold War. But that would prove to be a costly mistake. It was a sign that the Russian threat had never gone away and more importantly, it was shifting into a much more disruptive new phase. Today, the danger is clearer than ever following the poisoning in the UK of one of the spies who was swapped, Sergei Skripal, and the growing evidence of Russian interference in American life. Russians Among Us describes for the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it reveals new information about today's spies--as well as those trying to catch them and those trying to kill them.

The fascinating, untold story of how British intelligence secretly used homing pigeons as part of a clandestine espionage operation to gather information, communicate, and coordinate with members of the Resistance to defeat the Nazis in occupied Europe during World War II. Between 1941 and 1944, British intelligence dropped sixteen thousand homing pigeons in an arc across Nazi-occupied Europe, from Bordeaux, France to Copenhagen, Denmark, as part of a spy operation code-named Columba. Returning to MI14, the secret government branch in charge of the "Special Pigeon Service," the birds carried messages that offered a glimpse of life under the Germans in rural France, Holland, and Belgium. Written on tiny pieces of rice paper tucked into canisters and tied to the birds' legs, these messages were sometimes comic, often tragic, and occasionally invaluable--reporting details of German troop movements and fortifications, new Nazi weapons, radar systems, and even the deployment of the feared V-1 and V-2 rockets used to terrorize London. The people who sent these messages were not trained spies. They were ordinary men and women willing to risk their lives in the name of freedom, including the "Leopold Vindictive" network--a small group of Belgian villagers led by an extraordinary priest named Joseph Raskin. The intelligence Raskin sent back by pigeon proved so valuable that it reached Churchill and MI6 parachuted agents behind enemy lines to assist him. Gordon Corera uses declassified documents and extensive original research to tell the story of the Operation Columba and the Secret Pigeon Service for the first time. A powerful tale of wartime espionage, bitter rivalries, extraordinary courage, astonishing betrayal, harrowing tragedy, and a quirky, quarrelsome band of spy masters and their special mission, Operation Columba opens a fascinating new chapter in the annals of World War II. It is ultimately, the story of how, in one of the darkest and most dangerous times in history, under threat of death, people bravely chose to resist.

Gordon Corera uses declassified documents and extensive original research to tell the story of MI14(d) and the Secret Pigeon Service for the first time. â?? This is an amazing storyâ?? Simon Mayo, BBC Radio 2

A. Q. Khan was the world's leading black market dealer in nuclear technology, described by a former CIA Director as "at least as dangerous as Osama Bin Laden." Here for the first time is the riveting, inside story of the rise and fall of A. Q. Khan and his role in the devastating spread of nuclear technology over the last thirty years. Drawing on exclusive interviews with key players in Islamabad, London, and Washington, as well as with members of Khan's own network, BBC journalist Gordon Corera paints a truly unsettling picture of the nuclear arms bazaar. Corera reveals how Khan operated within a world of shadowy deals amongst rogue states and how his privileged position in Pakistan protected his unique and deadly business empire. Brimming with revelations, the book provides new insight into Iran's nuclear ambitions, how the CIA and MI6 penetrated and ultimately broke Khan's network, and how they persuaded Pakistan's President to arrest a national hero. The book also illuminates the high-wire dealings with Muammar Gadaffi which led to Libya's renunciation of nuclear weapons.

"Shopping for Bombs" presents the first detailed account of the emergence of Pakistan's nuclear hero A. Q. Khan as the world's leading black market salesman of nuclear weapons technology. It reveals the inside story of how he sold the most dangerous technology in the world to some of the world's most dangerous states, including Iran, North Korea and Libya and how he talked to many more. In doing so it presents a detailed insight into Tehran's nuclear ambitions and how A. Q. Khan allowed countries to shave years off the time needed to acquire nuclear weapons. The book, which is based on reporting and access to officials at the highest levels in Islamabad, London and Washington, reveals what was known of A. Q. Khan's activities by Western governments and how he was eventually put out of business by an effective harnessing of intelligence and diplomacy and a careful navigating of America's difficult relationship with Pakistan. It also provides the inside story on the deal to disarm Libya of its weapons of mass destruction and the critical role this played in dealing with Khan. The spread of nuclear weapons technology presents what must be the greatest security challenge of our time, and the story of A. Q. Khan opens a unique window allowing us to see just how difficult it is becoming to prevent a new nuclear arms race, a race which Khan himself will have done more than any other individual to promote.