West, Nigel The Illegals: Double Lives of the Cold War's Most Secret Agents , London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993.

Illustrated by Plates, Charts & Diagrams.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo 0340572477 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Black cloth with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership inscription. Slight yellowing to pages. Photographs on plates, 254 pages clean and tight. At the end of the Cold War there were numerous espionage mysteries to be unravelled, and intelligence expert Nigel West has been granted access by the former spymasters of the KGB to delve into matters that, a very short time ago, seemed likely to remain classified forever. The most secret of secret agents are those known as `illegals', the committed professionals who adopt a carefully crafted false identity and live, apparently innocuously and sometimes for years, in a host community as an unsuspected mole. But who were these people, and what happened to them? Now, for the first time, we learn about the frontline warriors of the clandestine war, the men and women who underwent years of intensive training and tests and were trusted to adopt an alien lifestyle to run spy-rings in what were deemed hostile territories. A few, such as Colonel Abel and the Krogers, are household names, but West's meticulous research reveals startling new information about some familiar cases, and describes for the first time how the illegal networks operated, who controlled them, and what the British and American security agencies did to identify them. (Book ref. 124518)  £20.00

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