My arrogant opinions about politics, culture, science fiction, and whatever else I feel like talking about.

A Book Recommendation

        Spies, The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev.  Vassiliev cowrote The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America--The Stalin Era, a task for which he was uniquely qualified — for Vassiliev was a KGB agent with access to many of the official KGB files, and the project was OK'd by the new Foreign Intelligence Service.  I liked The Haunted Wood, but most of its content I already knew from other sources.

        Well, it turns out that Vassiliev, when looking at the files, copied down extensive material on KGB agent identities and operations in a series of notebooks.  He didn't have the notebooks available when he cowrote The Haunted Wood, but he has since gotten them out of Russia, and they reveal an extraordinary amount of new information, as well as confirming info on old controversies. If you're a 'truth about espionage' junky, as I am, this book is for you.

        Oh, if you're Wikipedia, this book is most emphatically NOT for you, or for anyone else.  References to it that I've added to Wikipedia pages keep getting deleted.  Apparently, while Wikipedia information must be verifiable, it can't be both verifiable and in disagreement with the prejudices of the people running the site.

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        And the angel said unto them, "Be not afraid!  For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is inaugurated this day in the city of George a Saviour, which is B. Hussein Obama the President."  And since then, everything has been perfect.   (The Gospel According to CNN, Chapter 2, verses 8-11.)

Posted by: saintonge at 18:38 | link | comments
and now for somthng compltly dif