Special Tasks; The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness--A Soviet Spymaster

Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1994. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxiii, [1], 509, [1] pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Appendices. Index. Foreword by Robert Conquest. Lieutenant General Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov (July 7, 1907 - September 26, 1996) was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general. He became involved in several famous episodes, including the assassination of Leon Trotsky in 1940, the Soviet espionage program which obtained information about the atomic bomb from the Manhattan Project, and Operation Scherhorn, a Soviet deception operation against the Germans in 1944. His autobiography, Special Tasks, published in 1994, made him well known outside the USSR, and provided a detailed look at Soviet intelligence and Soviet internal politics during his years at the top. According to KGB archives, Pavel Sudoplatov directed the secretive Administration for Special Tasks. This department was responsible for kidnapping, assassination, sabotage, and guerrilla warfare during World War II, it also set up illegal networks in the United States and Western Europe, and, most crucially, carried out atomic espionage in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Pavel Sudoplatov served the KGB for over 50 years, at one point controlling more than 20, 000 guerrillas, moles, and spies. But his involvement with the most nefarious Soviet activities made Sudoplatov an unwanted witness, and he was arrested in 1953. Despite torture and solitary confinement he refused to "confess, " disavowing any criminal actions. He spent 15 years in prison, and 20 more in rehabilitation. This is an astonishing memoir and a singular historical document of a man who knew and did too much for the Soviet empire.