A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year It was the height of the Cold War, and a dangerous time to be stationed in the Soviet Union. One evening, while the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station was filling his gas tank, a stranger approached and dropped a note into the car. The chief, suspicious of a KGB trap, ignored the overture. But the man had made up his mind. His attempts to establish contact with the CIA would be rebuffed four times before he thrust upon them an envelope whose contents would stun U.S. intelligence. In the years that followed, that man, Adolf Tolkachev, became one of the most valuable spies ever for the U.S. But these activities posed an enormous personal threat to Tolkachev and his American handlers. They had clandestine meetings in parks and on street corners, and used spy cameras, props, and private codes, eluding the ever-present KGB in its own backyard—until a shocking betrayal put them all at risk. Drawing on previously classified CIA documents and on interviews with firsthand participants, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting and a riveting true story of intrigue in the final years of the Cold War.

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

History

Hoffman, David E.

Americas

Anchor

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history The Dead Hand comes the riveting story of a spy who cracked open the Soviet military research establishment and a penetrating portrait of the CIA’s Moscow station, an outpost of daring espionage in the last years of the Cold War While driving out of the American embassy in Moscow on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station heard a knock on his car window. A man on the curb handed him an envelope whose contents stunned U.S. intelligence: details of top-secret Soviet research and developments in military technology that were totally unknown to the United States. In the years that followed, the man, Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer in a Soviet military design bureau, used his high-level access to hand over tens of thousands of pages of technical secrets. His revelations allowed America to reshape its weapons systems to defeat Soviet radar on the ground and in the air, giving the United States near total superiority in the skies over Europe. One of the most valuable spies to work for the United States in the four decades of global confrontation with the Soviet Union, Tolkachev took enormous personal risks—but so did the Americans. The CIA had long struggled to recruit and run agents in Moscow, and Tolkachev was a singular breakthrough. Using spy cameras and secret codes as well as face-to-face meetings in parks and on street corners, Tolkachev and his handlers succeeded for years in eluding the feared KGB in its own backyard, until the day came when a shocking betrayal put them all at risk. Drawing on previously secret documents obtained from the CIA and on interviews with participants, David Hoffman has created an unprecedented and poignant portrait of Tolkachev, a man motivated by the depredations of the Soviet state to master the craft of spying against his own country. Stirring, unpredictable, and at times unbearably tense, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting that unfolds like an espionage thriller.

DOUBLEDAY

Presents the story of a valuable CIA spy in the Soviet Union while also looking at the contributions of the agency's Moscow station in the final years of the Cold War.

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal (Thorndike Press Large Print Popular and Narrative Nonfiction)

Thorndike Press

David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals. Before perestroika, these men were normal Soviet citizens, stuck in a dead-end system, claustrophobic apartments, and long bread lines. But as Communism loosened, they found gaps in the economy and reaped huge fortunes by getting their hands on fast money. They were entrepreneurs. As the government weakened and their businesses flourished, they grew greedier. Now the stakes were higher. The state was auctioning off its own assets to the highest bidder. The tycoons go on wild borrowing sprees, taking billions of dollars from gullible western lenders. Meanwhile, Russia is building up a debt bomb. When the ruble finally collapses and Russia defaults, the tycoons try to save themselves by hiding their assets and running for cover. They turn against each other as each one faces a stark choice--annihilate or be annihilated. The story of the old Russia was spies, dissidents, and missiles. This is the new Russia, where civil society and the rule of law have little or no meaning.

The Oligarchs: Wealth And Power In The New Russia

Business & Money

Economics

PublicAffairs

In this saga of brilliant triumphs and magnificent failures, David E. Hoffman, the former Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, sheds light on the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men— Alexander Smolensky, Yuri Luzhkov, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and Vladimir Gusinsky—Hoffman shows how a rapacious, unruly capitalism was born out of the ashes of Soviet communism.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal [Paperback] Hoffman, David E.

Billion Dollar Spy

Leaders & Notable People

Icon Books

The Dead Hand: Reagan, Gorbachev and the Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race

Icon Books Ltd.

Focusing on six of Russia's most feared power brokers - the oligarchs, David Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals. Before perestroika, these men were normal Soviet citizens, stuck in a dead-end system, claustrophobic apartments, and long bread lines. But as Communism loosened, they found gaps in the economy and reaped huge fortunes by getting their hands on fast money. They were entrepreneurs. As the government weakened and their businesses flourished, they grew greedier. Now the stakes were higher. The state was auctioning off its own assets to the highest bidder. The tycoons went on wild borrowing sprees, taking billions of dollars from gullible Western leaders. Meanwhile, Russia was building up a debt bomb. When the ruble finally collapsed and Russia defaulted, the tycoons tried to save themselves by hiding their assets and running for cover. They turned on one another as each one faced a stark choice - annihilate or be annihilated.

The Oligarchs

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter David E. Hoffman comes the riveting biography of Oswaldo Payá, a dissident who dared to defy Fidel Castro, inspiring thousands of Cubans to fight for democracy.\nOswaldo Payá was seven years old when Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, promising to create a “free, democratic, and just Cuba.” But Castro instead created an authoritarian regime with little tolerance of free speech or thought. His secret police were trained to crush dissent by East Germany’s ruthless Stasi.\nThroughout Cuba’s 20th century history, the dream of democracy was often just within reach, only to be dashed by dictatorship and revived again by a new generation. Payá inherited this dream and it became his life’s work. As a teenager in Communist Cuba, he led a protest against the Soviet-led shattering of the Prague Spring. Before long, he was sent to Castro’s forced labor camps. Payá later became a leading voice of opposition and formed a pro-democracy movement. A devoted Catholic, he championed a simple, bedrock belief that rights are bestowed by God, and not the state. Every day, he witnessed these rights trampled in Cuba. He could not stay silent.\nPayá’s most daring challenge to the Cuban government was the Varela Project, a one-page citizen petition demanding free speech, a free press, freedom of association, freedom of belief, private enterprise, free elections and freedom for political prisoners. More than 35,000 people signed the Varela Project, an extraordinary outpouring of protest—with nothing more than pen and paper—against Castro’s decades of despotism. The regime responded by ignoring the petition, arresting dozens of Payá’s followers and sending them to prison for many years. After receiving multiple death threats, Payá was killed in a suspicious car wreck on a remote country road.\nPulitzer Prize–winning reporter David E. Hoffman returns with an epic portrait of a lone individual who had the courage, faith, and persistence to struggle for democracy against an unforgiving dictator. At its heart, Give Me Liberty is a sweeping account of one country’s tragic and continuing struggle for its freedom.

Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba

Community & Culture

Simon&Schuster

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hoffman, David E.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hoffman, David E.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hoffman, David E.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal (Thorndike Press Large Print Popular and Narrative Nonfiction)

The Oligarchs: Wealth And Power In The New Russia

The Oligarchs: Wealth And Power In The New Russia

Billion Dollar Spy

The Dead Hand: Reagan, Gorbachev and the Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race

The Oligarchs

Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba

Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba