What is the novel (not Charm School) about a US town in Russia for training spies?
Sergei Tretyakov, the Comrade J of this fascinating book’s title, was Russia’s top spy in America from 1995 to 2000. During his more than 120 hours speaking with author Peter Earley, the New York-based Tretyakov describes exactly how Russian intelligence (the SVR) successfully recruited intelligence sources inside the UN and the United States, and used this intelligence to undermine American interests. Tretyakov, for example, tells Earley exactly how the SVR infiltrated the UN’s Oil-for-Food program, created to help the Iraqi people, and stole half a billion dollars from it, money that went directly to Russia’s ruling oligarchy. Tretyakov also recruited UN diplomats from Germany, Turkey, and Sweden to garner secret intelligence that helped damage American interests. Tretyakov ultimately grew disillusioned serving Russia’s corrupt, money-grubbing leadership. He felt his work no longer served the Russian people, but only undemocratic strongmen like Presidents Yeltsin and Putin: “it becam
