Epstein, Edward Jay. Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. 335 pages.

Edward Jay Epstein began as a Warren Commission critic ("Inquest," 1966) -- not because Oswald wasn't the lone gunman, but because he was a tool of the KGB ("Legend," 1978). This perspective came from James Angleton, whom Epstein began interviewing in 1976, and from an interview with Yuri Nosenko arranged by CIA-connected editors at the Reader's Digest.

Between 1979 and 1985 Epstein attended a series of academic conferences on KGB deception, sponsored by universities, foundations, and the CIA. From these he began to see deception as a strategic problem. The second half of this book examines some major deceptions in the twentieth century: the Soviet "Trust" in the 1920s, Hitler's armament inventory in the 1930s, Soviet faking for our spy satellites, and the mole wars. Then Epstein looks at Glasnost in the Soviet Union. It's all happened before -- five times by his count -- so Gorbachev's Glasnost must be fakery as well, designed to provide the USSR with easy cash and credits from the West.

Epstein is sincere and honest, he's a good writer, and he generally names his sources in the intelligence community. That makes him worth reading, even after Angleton has been largely discredited and Epstein's premise is forced to fly in the face of almost all available evidence.
ISBN 0-671-41543-3

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