The Haunted Wood Soviet Espionage in America--The Stalin Era [Paperback]

Drawing upon previously secret KGB records released exclusively to Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood reveals for the first time the riveting story of Soviet espionage's "golden age" in the United States, from the 1930s through the early cold war."Indispensable....Here is definitive evidence, a small arsenal of smoking guns, documenting the clandestine work of 58 American agents....The evidence presented in The Haunted Wood ends the old did-they-or-didn't-they debate--."--Los Angeles Times

"A new look at what communist spies were really up to in this country before and during World War II--."--The New York Times

"Packed with plenty of intriguing characters and cloak-and-dagger tales of secrecy, subversion and betrayal."--Publishers WeeklyAllen Weinstein is founder and president of The Center for Democracy. His books include Freedom and Crisis: An American History and Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Alexander Vassilyev is a Russian journalist. He is a former KGB agent and lives in Western Europe.Tucked into a quiet side street a few blocks from Moscow's notorious Lubyanka prison and the grimy buildings of the Soviet Union's KGB stands an unmarked four-story house, until recently the Press Bureau of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (or SVR). From 1994 to 1996, my Russian co-author, Alexander Vassiliev, and I pursued research on The Haunted Wood in this sanctum of secrets through a unique 1993 agreement between Random House and the SVR's "old boy" organization of former KGB agents, the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers (ARIO).

In return for payments made to that group, the SVR agreed to permit Vassiliev, a journalist who had once worked for Soviet intelligence, and me substantial and exclusive access to Stalin-era operational files of the KGB and its predecessor agencies.

Our contract allowed Vassiliev, who had retired frl“Y