Title: S, Portrait of a Spy
Author: Ian Adams
Adam, Ian (1982). S, Portrait of a Spy. New Haven: Ticknor & Fields
LCCN: 82000731
Date Updated: June 18, 2015
“90% fact and 10% fiction” – suppposedly – is what espionage fans will get in this non-narrative novel about a Canadian triple agent. As we learn through an interview format: “S” was a Soviet mole high in the RCMP security services. He was discovered by the CIA, but they chose not to expose “S” to the Canadian authorities, preferring to use him to “pump any crap they wanted along to the Soviets.” The CIA comes off badly indeed in this book, especially in the torture department and in “colonizing” Canada – while a reporter, known herein as “The Author,” investigates “S” through his fellow workers, his superior, CIA agents, and his lover Krista Golner, a gorgeous linguist on contract to the federal government. (A fellow KGB agent, she is eventually knifed to death.) The book certainly doesn’t read like a novel. It exposes the charades that “S” perpetrated on the Security Services through the years – and the result is an somewhat documented, but juicily detailed, mosaic.
This is one of many books on the Department of Energy Hanford counterintelligence reading list. The entire list is as follows (with links when appropriate.) The entire list is found at Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence
Angleton Era
Adam, Ian (1982). S, Portrait of a Spy
Buckley, William F., Jr. (2000). SPYTIME: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton
Garbler, Florence Fitzsimmons (1994). CIA Wife: One Woman’s Life Inside the CIA.
Mangold, Tom (1991). Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter
Martin, David C. (1980) Wilderness of Mirrors
Wise, David (1992). Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors that Shattered the CIA
