The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service

by Andrew Meier

Overview

“Utterly fascinating, a sad and sinuous study.”—Richard Schickel, Los Angeles Times

For half a century, the case of Isaiah Oggins, a 1920s New York intellectual brutally murdered in 1947 on Stalin’s orders, remained hidden in the secret files of the Soviet and American intelligence services—a footnote buried in the rubble of the Cold War. It surfaced briefly in 1992, when Boris Yeltsin handed over a dossier to the White House, but the full story of what happened remained a mystery. After eight years of international sleuthing, Andrew Meier at last reveals the truth in The Lost Spy: Oggins was one of the first Americans to spy for the Soviets.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393335354
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/10/2009
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Andrew Meier, the author of Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall, is a recent Fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers and currently a writer-in-residence at the New School University. He lives in New York City.

What People are Saying About This

Simon Sebag Montefiore

The Lost Spy is a jewel—one of those great lost spy stories from the cold war.

Sean Wilentz

An espionage thriller of the first rank.

Editorial Reviews

"An espionage thriller of the first rank."

Sean Wilentz

"A well-written and rewarding romp through the international communist movement of the 1920s and ’30s."

Peter Pringle

"The Lost Spy is a jewel—one of those great lost spy stories from the cold war."

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Former TimeMoscow correspondent Meier (Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall) tells a remarkable story about Cy Oggins, a Columbia University undergraduate who joined the fledgling Communist Party in 1920. Recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1926, he went to Europe in the guise of an academic; his residences acted as centers for Soviet espionage. After 1930 he sailed to China and Manchuria for various undercover schemes, then traveled to Moscow in 1939 during Stalin's purges. Despite long, loyal service, he was arrested and sent to an Arctic gulag and despite frantic pleas for Oggins's release from his wife, and more modest U.S. government efforts, the Soviets murdered Oggins in 1947 to keep his story from getting out. In Soviet archives, Meier saw a heavily censored fraction of Oggins's 162-page file, supplemented by the FBI's massive records, compiled thanks to J. Edgar Hoover's lifelong fixation on Communists. These files plus the author's extensive research have produced a rich account of American communism's early years as well as the bizarre, tragic odyssey of an American who devoted his life to serving the U.S.S.R. 16 pages of illus. (Aug. 11)

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Publishers Weekly

Journalist/historian Meier (Black Earth) draws a well-written, comprehensive portrait of the life of American-born Soviet operative Isaiah "Cy" Oggins. He uses interviews with Oggins's American son, U.S. diplomatic and intelligence files, and an abridged copy of Oggins's KGB/Soviet archive file to inform his study while proposing intelligent scenarios for the story's undocumented and shadowy periods. Actor/narrator David Chandler (Copper River) gives a clear and articulate reading, especially when the narrative's complexity and shifting time lines require heightened listener concentration. A great addition to nonfiction collections. [With tracks every three minutes for bookmarking; the Norton hc was "highly recommended," LJ4/1/08.-Ed.]
—Kristen L. Smith

Library Journal

Time magazine's former Moscow correspondent profiles an American who traveled the world gathering intelligence for the Soviet Union, until he was swept up in Stalin's purges. Meier (Black Earth: a Journey Through Russia After the Fall, 2003, etc.) unravels an amazing story. The son of a prosperous Russian immigrant, Cy Oggins entered Columbia University in 1917. A brilliant scholar, he was swept up in student opposition to World War I and shared his left-wing peers' fascination with Russia's communist revolution. Thanks to J. Edgar Hoover's obsession with subversion, undercover FBI surveillance, wiretaps and mail intercepts preserve a detailed account of American communism's turbulent birth, in which Oggins and his wife Nerma played a modest role. Meier reminds us that Lenin's USSR was equally obsessed with subversion, quickly organizing an elaborate, worldwide system of spies, moles, couriers and assassins. Recruited to this network in 1926, Oggins never spied against the United States. Soviet intelligence assigned him the cover role of a prosperous American scholar studying abroad; his residence served as a safe house for its spies. Oggins later traveled to China and Manchuria to work on various espionage schemes. But faithful service did not save him from Stalin's paranoia about anyone who had contact with foreigners, which devastated the Soviet intelligence service in the late '30s. Thousands of loyal agents were summoned to Moscow and executed or dispatched to the Gulag. Arrested in 1939 and sent to an arctic slave-labor camp, Oggins had a damaged leg that saved him from the most grueling jobs; he survived until 1947. Meier tells the painful story of his final years and Nerma'sdesperate efforts to secure his release. Gripping tale of a 1920s American radical who ultimately paid a terrible price for his idealism.

Kirkus Reviews

Cy Oggins spied for the Russians from 1926 to 1943. For that his employers locked him up twice in the gulags and finally killed him. The author fails to let us get to know the man or to ever reveal what he accomplished. Narrator David Chandler treats the sentences one at a time. He raises his voice to a crescendo by the middle of each and drops it at the end, unable to make a natural transition from one to another. The effect gives every sentence undeserved importance, a consequence the author doesn’t intend. Since our spy lived in France, Germany, Russia, and China, Chandler faces many foreign names and places. All of them make him sound uncomfortable in his pronunciations. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2008 - AudioFile