The Ardis audio studio presents Leonid Mlechin’s book “Intelligence in Faces.”
The author offers a broad panorama of the history and development of Soviet domestic foreign intelligence. The book contains portraits of all heads of Soviet and Russian political intelligence, starting with the first chief of the foreign department of the Cheka and ending with the current director of the SVR. Who were these people who, at different times, led the agency on Lubyanka? What qualities helped them reach the position of the country’s chief intelligence officer? Among them are well-known figures such as Vladimir Kryuchkov or Yevgeny Primakov—and those whose achievements and failures are known only to professionals.
Behind the fates of intelligence chiefs lie turning points in the life of our country and the world.