The Kindle title is not currently available for purchase

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

Edward Lucas

Follow

Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West Kindle Edition

by Edward Lucas (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

132

See all formats and editions

________________________________

'Putin [and] his friends ... are gangsters on a scale that makes Al Capone or the Corleones seem small-time ... Lucas is right to castigate our folly in treating all this so lightly.' - Max Hastings, Sunday Times

'This important book is a sequel to the author's last indictment of the Putin regime, The New Cold War, which came out four years ago. Deception is, if anything, even more devastating.' - Standpoint

'Urgent and heartfelt.' - The Times

_____________________________________

From the capture of Sidney Reilly, the 'Ace of Spies', by Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1925, to the deportation from the USA of Anna Chapman, the 'Redhead under the Bed', in 2010, Kremlin and Western spymasters have battled for supremacy for nearly a century.

In Deception Edward Lucas uncovers the real story of Chapman and her colleagues in Britain and America, unveiling their clandestine missions and the spy-hunt that led to their downfall. It reveals unknown triumphs and disasters of Western intelligence in the Cold War, providing the background to the new world of industrial and political espionage. To tell the story of post-Soviet espionage, Lucas draws on exclusive interviews with Russia's top NATO spy, Herman Simm, and unveils the horrific treatment of a Moscow lawyer who dared to challenge the ruling criminal syndicate there.

Once the threat from Moscow was international communism; now it comes from the siloviki, Russia's ruthless 'men of power'.

Print length

385 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date

March 1, 2012
File size

3151 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Report an issue with this product or seller

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Mr. Romney's smug critics might laugh a bit less once they read Deception, Edward Lucas's riveting follow-up to his prescient2008 book on Russia…. Mr. Lucas's account of his jailhouse interview with [Herman] Simm is one of the highlights of Deception, as is his meticulous reconstruction of the way the SVR recruited, ran and ultimately abandoned the Estonian. One depressing conclusion from reading Deception is that Russians are much better than their Western counterparts at the spy business. Another is that, even now, the West doesn't much seem to care that its secrets are being pilfered by a regime that wishes us ill…. Anyone who imagines that Mr. Obama's ‘reset' has done much to change that picture should read this sobering book.” ―Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal

“Lucas's account is a masterful achievement, blending first-class reporting with the flare of John le Carré and Daniel Silva.” ―C.C. Lovett, CHOICE

About the Author

Edward Lucas covered Eastern Europe for The Economist for over twenty years, witnessing the end of the last Cold War, the parting of the Iron Curtain, and, as the Moscow bureau chief, covered Boris Yeltsin's reign and Vladimir Putin's rise to power. He is the author of The New Cold War; Cyberphobia: Identity, Trust, Security and the Internet; and Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West. He lives in London, England.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00746TV4O
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Publishing; 1st edition (March 1, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 1, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3151 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 385 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 080271157X

Best Sellers Rank: #1,844,360 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #599 in Biographies of Espionage
- #951 in Russian & Soviet Politics
- #1,317 in Intelligence & Espionage (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
132

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Edward Lucas

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Edward Lucas is a senior editor at the Economist. A former foreign correspondent with 30 years' experience in Russian and east European affairs, he is the author of, among other publications, Deception (2011), which deals with east-west espionage, and The New Cold War (2008), which gave warning of the threat posed by Vladimir Putin's Russia. He is a non-resident fellow at CEPA, a think-tank in Washington, DC. He lives in London and is married to the writer Cristina Odone. He tweets as @edwardlucas. For more details, see edwardlucas.com/about

Customer reviews

4 out of 5

132 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

John

must read for people interested in the Baltic states

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2012

Verified Purchase

People who follow events in the Baltic states in English have a great source in Edward Lucas.

His articles in The Economist, where he is a senior editor, have long provided a view of the Baltics and Russia that is closer to reality than the whitewashed articles in other publications. The view would be closer still if Lucas didn't fear baseless "libel" lawsuits in the UK and elsewhere.

I enjoyed the insight Lucas put forth in "The New Cold War" in 2008 and was therefore happy to hear that he published this new book, "Deception," in 2012.

"Deception" starts off with a description of the modern Russian state including detailed explanations of the Anna Chapman and Sergei Magnitsky situations. Lucas provides valuable analysis regarding the mentality of the agents in the Russian security services.

Then, "Deception" provides a historical review of British/American/Russian/German espionage with focus on the years immediately following the 1917 Revolution and World War II. Much of the historical review is about Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Lucas used many primary sources for his research of the current events and historical events discussed in the book.

For me, the most interesting part of the book was about Herman Simm, an Estonian official who was arrested in 2008 for secretly working for Russian intelligence. Lucas gained first-hand information by interviewing Simm in prison. The process by which Simm was recruited, compensated, and operated reveals to Westerners the way in which other officials in Eastern Europe are probably controlled by Russia today.

Lucas' warning throughout is that the West is making a mistake by pretending that everything is okay in democratic Russia. In his words, "the West should start exposing corrupt practices by the Russian establishment, whose ability to find havens for stolen funds and leave Russia for comfortable lives in Western nations is one of the regime's pillars of stability." I fully agree.

John Christmas, whistleblower from Parex Bank of Latvia

Note: "Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West" is the UK edition and "Deception: The Untold Story of East-West Espionage Today" is the USA edition.

41 people found this helpful

Helpful

Hamilton Beck

Challenges Accepted Wisdom

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2015

Verified Purchase

In the first third of this “untold story of East-West espionage,” Edward Lucas creates the strong impression that he knows a lot more than he chooses to reveal – both about specific operations and individuals. He lifts the curtain only half way, partly to protect sources, but mainly because of English libel law. To avoid ending up in court, he has prudently decided against naming all the names he could.

While understandable, still this makes for a somewhat disappointing start. Yet "Deception" is a book that improves the deeper one goes into it; as Lucas provides more detail, the reader is increasingly likely to find challenges to accepted wisdom. Anna Chapman and the other members of her ring, for example, are routinely treated as something of a joke in the West. After all, they had access to few if any secrets, cost their handlers a lot of time and effort, and had cover stories that were in part risible (one of them, when questioned by a neighbor, claimed to have “a Belgian accent,” which makes little sense when speaking of a multi-lingual country). Lucas himself is withering on Chapman’s lack of professionalism, and strongly implies that she got her assignment mainly because of family connections. All the same, he advises that refusing to take this group seriously, which was the approach adopted by the media at the time, means uncritically swallowing the soft line pushed by US counter-intelligence. The reason? During the heady days of the famous “reset,” Washington was interested in promoting closer ties to Moscow, not in rocking the boat. Presumably if Chapman and her fellow moles were to be uncovered today, they would be presented in a much more sinister light.

The Soviet rule of thumb was "one in ten" – that is, they were happy if only ten percent of their sleeper agents in the West turned into useful sources. The percentage might seem low, but it is a realistic figure, based on experience. Measured by this yardstick, the group which included Chapman might well have exceeded expectations, had they been given more time.

The final third of the book deals with the Baltic states, a part of the world close to Lucas’ heart. He is scathing about SAS bungling in the post-war years, while expressing admiration for the brave (and mostly doomed) Estonians, whose activities were thoroughly penetrated by their Soviet counterparts.As Arnold M. Silver (not quoted by Lucas) put it so well: "Given the scale of Soviet penetration of the groups, it could not be expected that such operations would benefit anybody but the KGB, and of course for the next four years or so CIA and MI6 suffered one disaster after another. There was not one successful operation…. This did not hinder the careers of the responsible officers."

Lucas does hold out the disturbing possibility that the British were not in fact totally incompetent in running their Baltic spies, so many of whom were rounded up. Rather, he suggests the SAS might well have trained, transported and knowingly sacrificed many agents it cared little about, in order to better protect the few it did. We can identify which ones it valued, because they were precisely the ones who managed to survive. In the end, the reader is left wondering whether to believe their British spymasters were clueless or callous.

A selection from Lucas’s insights (not all are original with him): What is Russia’s main export? Not oil and gas, but corruption (pg. 79 – this from Don Jensen). A bad intelligence agency is more damaging than none at all (pg. 90). For Russians, ex-Soviet Georgia is like Florida for Americans – a source of countless sentimental holiday memories (pg. 112). The Soviet legacy created a cohort of Trojan horses welcomed with open arms into Western alliances, states, services and agencies (pg. 314).

The original hardcover edition covered the period up to September 2011. The postscript for the paperback edition brings the story forward to October 2012, when events such as mass demonstrations in the streets of Moscow were still fresh. The footnotes are extensive and include many useful sources. These can easily be accessed by following the links at [...]

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Carolyn Davis

Lucas brings espionage to life, without Bond and Bourne

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2012

Verified Purchase

Lucas' DECEPTION is an exciting read. He combines his journalistic experience in Eastern Europe and the USSR with his years of interest and research to bring us a frightening view of intrigue in the Baltic and USSR. I was pleased to read my friend Harry Rositzke's work had been included. The SIS and CIA did not, as many of us had thought, always have an upper hand in clandestine operations. Great Britain and the U.S. lost spies and agents secretly being run by the KGB after WWI and WWII. Lucas points out that what we read in the paper about the apprehension of spies in this country, and recently about the illegals caught in 2010, is not always the full story. Our spymasters deliberately report only what is necessary. This limits exposing information about FBI and CIA technology and methods and the level of probable damage to our country. Lucas includes details of horrendous deaths, details we don't really like to think about, but that happen to agents and our spies who are caught. Horrible deaths, of being put into a flaming furnace, and of unspeakable tortures.

Lucas brings details of operations that misfired, such as Hungary; and of Baltic states' efforts to free themselves from the USSR in 1989 and 1990, just as they had earlier tried to regain independence from the constant German/Nazi and Russian advances across their territory. The Baltic is more important as a fertile ground for gathering information about Eastern Europe, Russia, and former USSR states than I had realized. I am convinced that we must remain alert to what is currently going on in Russia. The espionage of the communist state continues in its new guise today.

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Embers

A very good book

Reviewed in France on March 1, 2013

Verified Purchase

A minute analysis of Russian politics during the Putin era. Very thorough and cleverly written.This is a must read if you are interested in the link between politcians and Russian intelligence.

One person found this helpful

Mark Meynell

If even half of this is true, this book is a significant wake-up call

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 3, 2012

Verified Purchase

The problem with the world of shadows is that, by definition, one never really knows what's going on in it. But just occasionally, the grubs and moles rise to the surface and we catch a glimpse. The recent coroner's enquiry in London into MI6's Gareth Williams mysterious death is a case in point, as were the horrendous radiation-caused death of Aleksandr Litvinenko in 2009 and the unmasking of Anna Chapman since then.

But Edward Lucas is a respected journalist with 25 years of experience covering Eastern Europe and Russia - and so deserves to be taken seriously when he claims to cast light on the shadows. His is a well researched and careful book, but his writing style is punchy and very readable. If the subject matter wasn't so sinister and threatening, it would be an enjoyable read. But it is profoundly relevant - not least because Vladimir Putin has only just returned to the seat so carefully kept warm for him by Dmitry Medvedev. And what Lucas rather grimly terms the unholy trinity of Gangsterdom, Spookdom and Officialdom that controls modern Russia (p78) presents genuine threats to the rest of the world, and especially Europe (now that the USA is becoming more concerned with its Pacific rather than Atlantic vista). Having lost an empire, he rightly notes that while there is little nostalgia for the ideology of the Soviet era in Moscow, many clearly feel a sense of humiliation at their lost power and prestige. With an economy in tatters through corruption, bureaucracy and the failure to innovate, the power of the old intelligence services is one of the few things to remain intact and functioning well.

As evidence, Lucas carefully examines the details of a number of important recent cases. Most disturbing was the case of Sergei Magnitsky - a courageous lawyer who suffered primarily for doing his job of defending his client's interests. And this elicits one of Lucas' characteristically pithy and devastating verdicts: "It is a sure sign of a rotten legal and political system when lawyers are punished for the crime of representing their clients." (p39) Later, he examines the modern Russian illegals, of whom Anna Chapman was the most notorious (and, from the profile here, clearly the most inept). While it is clear that the western intelligence services can't claim a consistently impressive record in recent years, they have not stopped functioning either. And it fascinating to read, in passing, his articulations of the paradoxes of the spy world, the sorts of mentality a good spy needs, the huge difficulty of creating illegals. But the overall impression is clear. Russia's security and intelligence services are hard at work, perhaps as much as they have ever been.

The reason this is all serious is that the west has let its guard down - for political and economic reasons, it wants to do business with Russia, to put the old Cold War antipathies behind them. But this creates an open door for the FSB & SVR - an open door which is being exploited with alacrity. This book certainly does not appear to hanker after the past, nor harbour a blinkered outmoded prejudice against Russia (as a previous reviewer has suggested). In fact, what makes the problem feel most contemporary is that the issue is no longer ideology - but power and wealth. This is serious because it is actually a matter of state-sponsored crime and exploitation. Which means that we should be wary of exactly what Russia's intentions are. Of course, it seems clear (e.g. from Wikileaks) that behind the press-statements, governments have few illusions about what they are dealing with. But the prevailing anxieties about preserving good diplomatic relations (the USA's 'reset'), the focus on counter-terrorism rather than counter-espionage, and the difficult politics involved in being more openly alert, seem to have put the west on the back foot. If this book can bring about more transparency and vigour in dealing with this issue, then Edward Lucas will have done us a great service indeed.

32 people found this helpful

Brian Lait

Scarily informative, as ever

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 5, 2012

Verified Purchase

As with his previous book ("The New Cold War") Edward Lucas makes it very clear how big a threat Russia is, despite the west's best attempts at trying to make us believe all is well. An excellent book.

I am very disturbed at how little the west, including some of the world's largest corporations, seems to be doing to combat this (not so) new threat. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, nothing has changed in the espionage world, other than the clear fact that Russia appears to have stepped up their efforts by several gears.

Anyone reading this should go on to read Masha Gessen's book "The man without a face" if they want to really discover who and what Putin is and, therefore, the man now in charge in Russia.

6 people found this helpful

Tennent H. Bagley

The true but secret Russian policy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 18, 2012

Verified Purchase

If you're looking to cut through the fog covering Putin's Russia for rare insight into its true nature and intentions, here's a book for you. If you want to get in short form an idea of the techniques it is practicing against the West- deception, espionage, subversion - then again, here's a book for you. "In no other country have gangsterdom and state power overlapped to such a threatening extent." Lucas writes. He shows the Mafia-state system where "dirty money and underhand business practices taint and corrode the financial systems, business cultures and politics of the countries they touch." The book's detailed insights into the recent spy scandals of the eleven Illegals caught in the United States and of the Estonian NATO official Herman Simm, would alone justify its price. It's a worthy follow-up and supplement to the author's recent (and still up-to-date) "The New Cold War", another must-read.

9 people found this helpful

Aurimas Nausėda

It takes some time to understand why the spies have been useful in the Cold War

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2016

Verified Purchase

The book reminds the history of spying. However, the spying is related to one country - Russia. This process is described in details covering the spies from Russia and the Western spies who spied in the Soviet Russia. But, as it is said every book has disadvantages. What are they? It takes some time to understand why the spies have been useful in the Cold War, which lasted for 40 years. Also, why there was a conflict between Russia and the Western countries. Besides, the disadvantages of the Soviet Union have been examines in details.

The cover of the book is misleading, because the book is the history of spying, but not the story of the Russian president.