Ripon Public Library

True believer, Stalin's last American spy, Kati Marton

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-272) and index

individual biography

illustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

True believer

bibliography

938703000

Kati Marton

Stalin's last American spy

"This astonishing real-life spy thriller, filled with danger, misplaced loyalties, betrayal, treachery, and pure evil, with a plot twist worthy of John le Carre, is relevant today as a tale of fanaticism and the lengths it takes us to. True Believer reveals the life of Noel Field, an American who betrayed his country and crushed his family. Field, once a well-meaning and privileged American, spied for Stalin during the 1930s and '40s. Then a pawn in Stalin's sinister master strategy, Field was kidnapped and tortured by the KGB and forced to testify against his own Communist comrades. How does an Ivy League-educated, US State Department employee, deeply rooted in American culture and history, become a hardcore Stalinist? The 1930s, when Noel Field joined the secret underground of the International Communist Movement, were a time of national collapse: ten million Americans unemployed, rampant racism, retreat from the world just as fascism was gaining ground, and Washington--pre FDR--parched of fresh ideas. Communism promised the righting of social and political wrongs and many in Field's generation were seduced by its siren song. Few, however, went as far as Noel Field in betraying their own country. With a reporter's eye for detail, and a historian's grasp of the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century, Kati Marton captures Field's riveting quest for a life of meaning that went horribly wrong. True Believer is supported by unprecedented access to Field family correspondence, Soviet Secret Police records, and reporting on key players from Alger Hiss, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and World War II spy master, 'Wild Bill' Donovan--to the most sinister of all: Josef Stalin. A story of another time, this is a tale relevant for all times"--, Provided by publisher

A Swiss childhood -- America -- The making of a radical -- The convert -- Spy games -- Spies in flight -- Desperate comrades -- Spain -- War -- Marseille -- The spy in wartime -- Child of the century -- Cold peace -- Man without a country -- 1948 -- The end of the line -- Bloodlust again -- Kidnapped -- Two more Fields disappear -- Erica falls in the net -- The prisons open -- Still not free -- The age of suspicion -- Twilight years -- Prague -- Home at last -- The stranger