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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-nothing-quite-like-it-in-the-history-of-espionage-the-russian-spies-who-pretended-to-be-american-260063>
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Review: The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to
Infiltrate the West – Shaun Walker (Profile)
In the thrilling finale of the TV series
The Americans, set during the Reagan
administration, deep-cover KGB operatives Philip and Elizabeth Jennings are
faced with a difficult decision. Posing as an ordinary American married couple,
for decades they have raised children, filed tax returns and slipped
effortlessly into the rhythms and routines of everyday suburban existence in
Washington, D.C.
All the while, they’ve been spying – gathering intelligence and surreptitiously
feeding it to their communist masters in Soviet Moscow. Now, with the FBI
closing in and their cover on the brink of collapse, they must decide whether
to stay and face arrest or flee the country they’ve come to call home. There’s
also their teenage children to consider.
The story seemed too incredible to be true – but in fact it was based in part
on Donald Heathfield and Ann Foley, subsequently outed as Andrei Bezrukov and
Elena Vavilova, a Russian couple who had spent more than 20 years masquerading
as Canadians. At the time of their unmasking, they were living quietly in the
United States with Tim and Alex, their two sons.
A new book,
The Illegals, tells of a network of Russian agents operating
across the US, during the late 20th and early 21st centuries – including
Bezrukov and Vavilova. It opens with their dramatic 2010 arrest, part of ten
Russian spies (mostly illegals like them) detained by the FBI.
Author Shaun Walker, the
Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent,
draws on declassified archival material and first-hand interviews. The result
is an engrossing, eye-opening account of the secret world of the Soviet
“illegals programme”: embedded spies who lived surreptitiously in the West
without the safety blanket of diplomatic protection.
As Walker explains, “legals” were Russian operatives working under official
cover – as diplomats or embassy staff, privy to diplomatic immunity. By
contrast, “illegals” operated off the grid. They crept silently into Western
countries under false identities, often stolen from the dead. This made them
harder to detect, but left them far more vulnerable if exposed.
One of the most high-profile figures in the 2010 spy bust was Anna Chapman.
Unlike many other illegals, Chapman didn’t even bother to disguise her Russian
identity. Instead, as Walker recounts, she entered America using a British
passport – acquired through a brief marriage to a UK citizen – and worked as a
New York real estate broker.
Her photogenic looks and media-friendly persona made her the public face of the
scandal. After being deported, Chapman reinvented herself as a television host,
runway model and pro-Kremlin influencer."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
