The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“It is perfectly possible for two people to listen to the same words and hear entirely different things.”
Above sentence also applies to how the readers of this book decide whether Oleg Gordievsky and Aldrich Ames are actually 2 similar different people, the traitor for their home country or the hero for the other country. Until you find out more that the main difference of those 2 people are in what drove them to cross through the enemy line.
We learned that Oleg Gordievsky was raised from a typical KGB family. His father was a proud and devoted KGB agent and even his big brother started his career right. Oleg was also bright, athletic and fast in learn foreign language which brought him to work at KGB even before he graduated from the uni. Until this part, we wouldn’t believe what could make him betrayed his country. But then, when he witnessed himself how his country invaded Czechoslovakia, and learned how brutal was it on the innocent people, he snapped and turned his back from Soviet Union. He began to questioned all the doctrines he received since he was born.
That reason was entirely different with what drove Aldrich Ames. Ames became a traitor purely because of money. A heavy drinker and a whinner who was also stuck in an unhealthy second marriage. It seemed like he didn’t care that much about the “big dump” when he gave his handler a bundled of documents consisted of 25 spies, as long as he got the security and safety.
Up until 70%, we learned about a lot of facts in this book. Sometimes I needed to turn back to previous pages to remember who was who that was mentioned in a particular chapter, because Macintyre gave a very detail information about both side. I love the tense that I felt during the Gordievsky escapes by fleeing across Finnish border. We already know he survived, but it really is thrilling and I couldn’t put down my book from its detail narrations.
Funny thing about my experience reading this book is that, at first, I didn’t know I was reading a true espionage story. But then, after feeling like I was reading a serial of articles in a newspaper that I kept waiting each week, then googled about it, I just realized how real the story was. That’s when I started my awesome journey through all the details Macintyre pour into this book.
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