Weinstein, the author of the definitive book on the Hiss-Chambers
case (Perjury, 1978), and Vassiliev, a former KGB officer turned
journalist, have very effectively raided the KGB archives to gather
the fullest account to date of Soviet espionage in the US up to the
'50s. Their account reflects not only much of what happened but
also the strategies and apprehensions of the spymasters -
apprehensions not only about their operations but about their
lives, as Stalin's purges eliminated many of the most competent
officers. Indeed, one of the surprises is not only the high quality
of Soviet personnel up to this time but the extent to which the
purges, the defection of Chambers and of courier Elizabeth Bentley,
and enhanced counterintelligence virtually crippled much of the
Soviet operation in the 1945 - 47 period. The New Deal period had
brought to Washington a number of able sympathizers, moving, like
Laurence Duggan and Alger Hiss at the State Department, Harry
Dexter White and Nathan Gregory Silvermaster at Treasury, Duncan
Lee and Donald Wheeler at OSS, and Lauchlin Currie at the White
House, into positions of ever increasing responsibility. The sheer
volume of reports flowing out of the Treasury is extraordinary, and
the work of Klaus Fuchs, the atomic spy, is in a class of its own.
Of Robert Oppenheimer, the authors note that he is named in one
report as "a secret member of the compatriot organization (the
American Communist Party)" but that "this cannot be independently
corroborated" and that the evidence suggests that he "never agreed
to become a source of information for the Soviets, as some recent
writers have suggested." The authors note that this book cannot be
definitive. They didn't have access to all KGB files or any GRU
files, nor British or American archives. But it is the most able,
careful and comprehensive account we are likely to have for a long
time to come. (Kirkus Reviews)
Drawing upon previously secret KGB records released exclusively to Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood reveals for the first time the riveting story of Soviet espionage's "golden age" in the United States, from the 1930s through the early cold war.
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