Dealing With the Devil: Anglo-Soviet Intelligence Cooperation During the Second World War

During World War II, the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence agency, the NKVD, and the British Special Operations Executive collaborated in parachuting Soviet agents into Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany. The two intelligence services also collaborated in other, less spectacular ways, sharing intelligence and operative secrets and running agents together. O'Sullivan (history, California State U.) tells the story of this collaboration, offering chapters on the origins of the collaborative relationship, the "Pickaxe" scheme of parachuting agents into Nazi-controlled territory, the stories and usually unfortunate fates of particular agents, Anglo-Soviet counter intelligence operations in Iran and Afghanistan, and the lessons drawn by both sides as the war drew to a close. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The Author: Donal O’Sullivan received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn, Germany. He has also completed the Habilitation, the highest academic degree in German academia. His previous book, Stalin’s Cordon Sanitaire, is the recipient of the 2008 Historian’s Prize of the Kronauer Foundation. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of History at California State University in Northridge, California.