Baer Robert. The Fourth Man. The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia

Hachette Books, 2022. — 261 p.The explosive, never-before-told story of the thrilling hunt for a KGB spy in the top ranks of the CIA, revealing how spies blinded the US to the rise of Putin and Russia’s dangerous future, from New York Times bestselling author and former CIA officer Robert Baer. We think we know all the Cold War’s greatest spy stories. The tales of America’s greatest traitors have been told over and over. However, the biggest story of them all remains untold—until now. Rumors have long swirled of another mole in American intelligence, one perhaps more damaging than all the others combined. Perhaps the greatest traitor in American history, perhaps a Russian ruse to tear the CIA apart, or perhaps nothing more than a bogeyman, he is often referred to as the Fourth Man. Blowing the lid off the biggest spy story in decades, Robert Baer tells the full, gripping story for the first time. After arrest of KGB spy Aldrich Ames, the CIA launched another investigation to make sure there wasn't another double agent in its ranks. Led by three of the CIA’s best spy hunters, women who devoted their lives to counterintelligence, its existence was known only to a few. They began methodically investigating their own bosses and colleagues, turning up loose threads, suspicious activity, and shocking intelligence from the CIA’s best Russian asset. In the end, they came to a startling conclusion that, whether true or not, would shake American intelligence to its core, setting the stage for a cat-and-mouse game with enormous geopolitical stakes. Spies and moles may seem like bygone cold war history, but with Russia again a misunderstood belligerent power, the skeletons America would rather keep hidden are emerging, and as Robert Baer shows in this thrilling masterwork of investigative reporting, they matter as much now as ever.In 1991, the KGB was broken up into several agencies. Most important, its foreign intelligence apparatus was separated from counterintelligence. But for simplicity’s sake, I’ll often slip into calling the KGB successor organizations simply the KGB, as many Russians do. The KGB is a way of thinking as much as it is an organization. It’s just as I’ll toggle between Russians and Soviets, as this story jumps back and forth chronologically across the fall of the USSR. In the same spirit, I’ll do my best to avoid the usual bureaucratic alphabet soup that comes with spy books. As for references, two books about the KGB and American mole hunting were indispensable for keeping the facts and dates straight in my head: Milt Bearden and Jim Risen’s The Main Enemy and Sandy Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille’s Circle of Treason. As for my sources, many prefer to remain anonymous, if for no other reason than the Fourth Man is still the subject of an ongoing criminal espionage investigation. I tried to reach all the main players; though, as I’ll get into, many refused to talk about it. For every nonpublic piece of information, I did my best to get at least two corroborating sources. Finally, this story is about the CIA’s hunt for the Fourth Man rather than the FBI’s—though I will scratch the surface of the latter. It’s a story I hope someone else can someday reveal in full. There are many complicated threads to follow, and Baer weaves them all expertly into a compelling picture of Russian spycraft and American complacency. Everyone at the CIA should read this book, as should every responsible citizen. Our country would be a lot safer if they did.