The Spy Who Changed History

by Svetlana Lokhova

Overview

On a sunny September day in 1931, Soviet spy Stanislav Shumovsky walked down the gangplank of the SS Europa and into New York, concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students. Joseph Stalin had sent him to acquire American secrets to help close the USSR’s yawning technology gap, and the road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT.Using information gleaned from this mission, the USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to defeat Nazi Germany. Then in 1947, American innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Later , other MIT-trained Soviet spies would go on to acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project.In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin’s most audacious intelligence operation, piecing together every aspect of Shumovsky’s life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643132822
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	496
File size:	24 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Svetlana Lokhova is a By-Fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge, and was until recently a Fellow of the Cambridge Security Initiative jointly chaired by the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, and Professor Christopher Andrew, former Official Historian of the MI5.

Editorial Reviews

11/11/2019

In this eye-opening debut, University of Cambridge historian Lokhova documents the Soviet Union’s covert campaign to acquire America’s scientific and technological secrets in the decade before WWII. Beginning with the 1931 arrival of 75 Russian students (several of whom were trained spies) at U.S. universities including Cornell, Harvard, and MIT, the espionage mission, Lokhova contends, made it possible for the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany and close the “technological gap” with America. She focuses on the career of MIT graduate and spy Stanislav Shumovsky, who spent 15 years gathering intelligence on the U.S. aeronautics industry and established a network of American engineers and scientists willing to share top-secret technologies with the U.S.S.R. It’s thanks to Shumovsky, Lokhova writes, that Russia was able to mass-produce bombers capable of reaching U.S. targets and build its own atomic bomb. In addition to the scope of Shumovsky’s espionage, Lokhova also uncovers the roles of two Russian-American women, Raisa Bennett and Gertrude Klivans, in helping to train the Soviet spies for their U.S. missions. Though it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of the various code names and military hardware, Lokhova delivers a comprehensive account of a crucial yet overlooked chapter in the history of Soviet espionage. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

A superbly researched and groundbreaking account of Soviet espionage in the Thirties. Remarkable.

The Telegraph (London) [One of the Best Books of the Year in 2018]

Lokhova looks in detail at the role of Stanislav Shumovsky who in 1931 enrolled as a student at the US MIT and helped to acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. Well worth a read.

Keith Simpson MP - Iain Dale Recommends

[A] big, ambitious book. There was a chink of light towards the end of Yeltsin’s time, but Putin slammed the door shut on researchers. Few have prized it open again, even an inch. Lokhova is one of those who have—and that is the strength of her book. It contains original material in a genre of retreads.

Giles Whittell - The Times (London)

A superbly researched and groundbreaking account of Soviet espionage in the Thirties. Remarkable.

The Telegraph (London)

2019-07-14
History-changing it wasn't, but this is a genuinely untold story about a major Soviet espionage operation.

In a well-researched and often breathless account, Lokhova (By-Fellow/Churchill Coll., Univ. of Cambridge) focuses on Soviet technocrat Stanislav Shumovsky (1902-1984), who led an advanced party of 75 countrymen to the United States in 1931 to enroll in universities, majoring in science or engineering. The students' goal, Stalin informed them, was to bring home knowledge from the world's most advanced nation to jump-start sluggish Soviet industry. They were to learn, but even more, they were to steal. Overseen by Shumovsky and a cadre of undercover agents, they sent back an avalanche of technical information under the nose of the FBI, which remained oblivious for two decades. "To an extent that has never been acknowledged before," writes the author, "the Soviet Union's survival during the Second World War was underpinned by the technological and manufacturing secrets, plundered from US universities and factories, that enabled the development and mass manufacture of the aircraft and tanks needed to defeat the Third Reich." Lokhova is at her best describing individuals: earnest Russians and often enthusiastic Americans who were happy to help build the workers' paradise led by Stalin, who receives an admiring portrait. While there's no doubt the Soviet Union received useful intelligence, readers will not find hard evidence that this ensured its survival. Obsessed with espionage, the Soviets expended enormous resources perhaps better spent elsewhere. Much of the massive material sent back was public or simply proprietary. Lokhova highlights American amazement at the advanced Soviet Tupolev Tu-4 bomber, but it owed more to reverse-engineering of the American B-29 than spying. American material, not secrets, aided the Soviet Union against Hitler. Acquiring the American atom bomb plans saved time and money, but it was not a game-changer. Concentrating on the trees at the expense of the forest, the author never points out that Soviet industry remained backward until its 1989 collapse.

An interesting glimpse into a hitherto obscure Soviet spy ring, but there is less there than meets the eye.

Kirkus Reviews