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Title details for Sleeper Agent by Ann Hagedorn - Available

Sleeper Agent

The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away

by Ann Hagedorn
Laural Merlington
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
This must-listen book tells the chilling story of an American-born Soviet spy in the atom bomb project in World War II, perfect for fans of The Americans.
George Koval was born in Iowa. In 1932, his parents, Russian Jews who had emigrated because of anti-Semitism, decided to return home to live out their socialist ideals. George, who was as committed to socialism as they were, went with them. There, he was recruited by the Soviet Army as a spy and returned to the US in 1940. A gifted science student, he enrolled at Columbia University, where he knew scientists soon to join the Manhattan Project, America's atom bomb program. After being drafted into the US Army, George used his scientific background and connections to secure an assignment at a site where plutonium and uranium were produced to fuel the atom bomb. There, and later in a second top-secret location, he had full access to all facilities, and he passed highly sensitive information to Moscow.
The ultimate sleeper agent, Koval was an all-American boy who had played baseball, loved Walt Whitman's poetry, and mingled freely with fellow Americans. After the war he got away without a scratch. It is indisputable that his information landed in the right hands in Moscow. In 1949, Soviet scientists produced a bomb identical to America's years earlier than US experts expected.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 18, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781666193077
      • File size: 227735 KB
      • Duration: 07:54:26

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      June 1, 2022

      Aficionados of true spy and espionage stories will enjoy this thrilling audiobook about George Koval, the ultimate Soviet sleeper agent. Iowa-born and U.S. Army--trained, Koval was a GRU intelligence officer working on the atomic bomb project. Hagedorn unpacks how he was embedded in the States in the 1940s as an electrical engineer with top secret clearance working on the Manhattan Project and how he stole a copy of those plans, left the United States on a ruse, gave them to his Soviet counterparts, and never returned to America. His actions remained unknown by the U.S. government for decades. Laural Merlington's narration is generally very effective. She remains distant, clinical, calm, and objective in her demeanor throughout; she verges on mechanical, sounding as if she is an AI in a few places. Her enunciation is crisp and clear, with correct pronunciation of Russian names and words. VERDICT Fans of John le Carr� and Ben MacIntyre will gobble this one up!--Stephanie Bange

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 3, 2021
      Journalist Hagedorn (The Invisible Soldiers) unearths the little-known story of Soviet spy George Koval (1913–2006) in this doggedly researched account. Posthumously awarded Russia’s highest civilian honor, Koval flew so far under the radar that Vladimir Putin hadn’t heard of him before attending a Moscow exhibition on Cold War–era spies in 2006. Culling FBI reports, school yearbooks, and immigration forms, Hagedorn details Koval’s early life in Sioux City, Iowa, where he was born to Russian Jewish immigrants, who, in the face of rising American anti-Semitism in the 1930s, returned to their native country to join a collective farm in the Jewish Autonomous Region of Russia’s Far East. After WWII began, Koval, who had been pursuing a chemistry degree, was recruited by military intelligence and sent back to the U.S. in 1940 as a spy. He infiltrated Manhattan Project facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Dayton, Ohio, supplying his handlers with classified information about the production of enriched uranium, plutonium, and polonium. After fleeing the U.S. in 1948, Koval became a teacher at the Mendeleev Institute in Moscow; Hagedorn suggests that embarrassment over his escape led the FBI to keep his case quiet. Enlivened by its brisk pace and lucid scientific details, this is a rewarding introduction to a noteworthy episode in the history of Soviet espionage.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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