The Stormbirds: Soviet Postwar Defectors

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Based on research that includes interviews with several defectors, Brook-Shepherd tells the sagas of the 12 most prominent Soviet diplomatic and military-intelligence officers who have sought asylum in the West since 1945. Family background, character and motivation for defection are the author's primary interests. Yuri Rastvorov, for example, regarded defection as a way to fulfill his hedonistic dreams (as well as escape his detested wife); Oleg Penkovsky acted from an ambition to become the greatest spy in history. Brook-Shepherd ( The Storm Petrels ) argues convincingly that Penkovsky, suspected by experts in the West of being a KGB ``stool pigeon,'' was a genuine defector. Gracefully written and distinguished by its clarity of thought, the book speculates little and documents much. (Aug.)

Library Journal

Spy enthusiasts will relish Brook-Shepherd's descriptions of assassinations by Parker pen and radioactive coffee and of midnight stabbings and airport confrontations. Brook-Shepherd also offers some startling information--such as when one defector reveals that a NATO exercise in 1983 nearly caused the Soviets to launch a nuclear strike. The author suggests that most Soviet spies defected only when some personal or professional crisis exacerbated long-standing doubts about poverty and repression in the Soviet Union. Why, of the thousands of Soviet agents posted abroad, only 40 or so have chosen to defect since World War II is left unexplained. The author also misunderstands the importance of spying, whose revelations are less significant than the way the intelligence agencies for both sides have poisoned U.S.-Soviet relations.-- Mark C. Carnes, Barnard Coll., Columbia