In this book, three authors, one each from the KGB and the CIA, and an American journalist have collaborated to examine Soviet archival material on the major events of the Cold War which occurred in and around the divided city of Berlin.
Assuming the KGB records are truthful, and contrasting them with what we know from CIA sources, we should now have the truth about the Berlin tunnel, the building of the Berlin Wall, and other flashpoints of recent history. But pace Michael Foot (claimed elsewhere as an important source by KGB London operatives), the spooks in the field did not always tell their superiors in Moscow the truth about how they were spending their budgets.
A large dollop of scepticism is needed in dealing with "information" from cool, clean CIA sources which have often been ready to pass off half-truths to credulous journalists anxious to get some kind of line on a totally mystifying piece of espionage hooliganism, which has to be "spun" as a success, no matter how much damage was caused to the originating side.
That said, a professional job has been done on the period between 1945 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The authors examine what is on the various records, and assemble a credible and measured account of incidents such as the construction and detection of the tunnel into the Soviet sector of Berlin which listened to telephone traffic.
In 1954 it seemed like a good idea to Allen Dulles, CIA director, to build a warehouse close to the Soviet sector of Berlin, and from there dig an underground tunnel about a third of a mile to the cables which carried secret Soviet telephone traffic. An underground listening post was constructed, and calls were recorded.
Then Berlin was divided into four sectors, controlled by the British, the Americans, the French and the Russians.
However, what Dulles did not not know was that George Blake, ostensibly working for the British secret service and liaising with the Americans, but then secretly working for the KGB, had tipped off Moscow, so all that effort was wasted.
The tunnel was built, the bugging was allowed to continue for nearly a year, and then, when it suited Moscow's purpose to "discover" the tunnel, it did so, and poured much opprobrium on the duplicitous deeds of international capitalism, with much relish. The Soviets burst into the tunnel just as the Americans ran away, leaving warm coffee cups behind them as they scuttled back to the safety of the US sector, the Russian publicity machine claimed.
It was a disaster for the CIA. Blake was eventually exposed, and jailed in England. He escaped from prison and went to Moscow with the help of a resourceful Limerick man, Sean Bourke, who was - among other things - a friend of the late Jim Kemmy.
But there were other disasters which hurt the Russians in their turn.
There is no central character to this book, but there is the next best thing, a battered old harlot of a city, Berlin, now undergoing yet another metamorphosis. In the 16 years this book covers, she gave comfort to two Germanys (Good Germany, the Federal Republic, albeit at a distance, and Bad Germany, the unlamented East German Soviet puppet state). The "Good" and "Bad" labels could, confusingly, be interchanged, depending on your view of the success of the denazification of the FDR. And Berlin also serviced three invading armies - French, British and United States - plus as rich a collection of misfits, flyby- nights and those driven by demons as you are ever likely to encounter.
A complete explanation of these confusing times is not, I believe, in the gift of historians, generals or journalists. It is the fiction writer, unfettered by nitty-gritty details, who can make the big picture comprehensible. In the meantime, our three authors have cleared quite a lot of ground of misinformation, misapprehensions and downright lies.
