Reddit mentions of The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB

I've been reading this book recently, and I definitely recommend it, but both sides pretty much know who is diplomatic staff and who is intelligence with an official cover. They just don't do anything because of diplomatic reasons, besides heavily monitoring their activities. I'm sure Russia already has a list of CIA guys in the embassies.

The people in Russia on unofficial covers is a whole other thing.

A lot of fiction in this thread, I'd like to mention some non-fiction:

1. The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB by Milton Bearden and James Risen - Excellent story of the CIA and KGB from early 80s through the fall of the Soviet Union. Really covers in depth US operations inside the Soviet Union, important defections by senior Soviet military and intelligence personnel, and significant counterintelligence failures (Aldrich Ames). The best part is this is not a history review written by some academic third party, it was written by the guy who actually worked Moscow Station for the CIA during the period and knew Ames and handled many key defections. Moreover it contains a lot of detail on actual tradecraft methods.
   
   
2. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy by David Hoffman. This book really goes in depth on the Soviet chemical, biological, and radiological program, as well as the effort towards disarmament. What the Soviets dreamed up was actually quite frightening and they did much of it despite treat obligations. This book is interesting for two reasons: 1) The Soviets (And as conveyed by Phillip and Elizabeth in the Americans) really believed Reagan was a nut whom wanted to leave them on the ash heap of history, which drove their paranoia and pursuit of WMD; 2) It shows behind the scenes that Reagan actually wanted to reduce nuclear weapons and loathed the idea of nuclear war. A significant portion of the book focuses on the impact of key Soviet defectors that provided the US insight in to the Soviet WMD program.
   
   
3. Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century - Sergei Kostin, Eric Raynaud. Farewell was the code name for Vladimir Vetrov, a Soviet KGB Line X (Just like Oleg), whom was responsible for conducting S&T collection operations against the US. He became an agent for the French, and turned over heaps of information on Soviet S&T intelligence objectives and operations worldwide. His intelligence was passed on to the UK and US, and was important to Reagan in negotiations with the Soviet Union. His betrayal caused 100+ Soviet S&T intelligence officers to be expelled from US, the UK, and France. Excellent discussion on the motivation of an agent and stresses at maintaining two lives (Vetrov, in addition to working for the French, was also cheating on his wife... talk about stressful). Also a lot of interesting information on tradecraft such as signals for meetings and dead drops.

My first master's degree was in Intelligence Studies with a concentration in Intelligence Operations.

My two favorite books are supplemental to each other but talk about the the US v. the USSR during the mid 80s to late 90s. One is from the perspective a former CIA case officer and the other is from the perspective of a former KGB case officer.

The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB by Milt Bearden
Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer

A great overview of intelligence history is A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century by Jeffery T. Richelson. Richelson is very knowledgeable about intelligence history and well respected as one of the premiere historians in the field. He has written a ton of other books and I imagine they're pretty good and worthwhile.

Finally, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis is a great book not only about the Cuban Missile Crisis but examining how national security decisions are made.

right... just like in the 500 page book, legacy of ashes or this lovely book, the main enemy. Argghhh! I wish we had books we could refer to!