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Podul spionilor
La 10 februarie 1962, pe Podul Glienicke și la Punctul de Control Charlie din Berlin a avut loc primul și cel mai celebru schimb de prizonieri dintre Est și Vest de după al Doilea Război Mondial. Cine erau personajele implicate și cum s-a ajuns la această soluție de compromis între marile puteri? Cât de mult a influențat schimbul evoluția Războiului Rece?
Podul spionilor este povestea reală a trei personaje extraordinare: William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, agent KGB de origine britanică arestat de FBI în New York și condamnat la închisoare; Gary Powers, pilotul american de avion U-2, capturat în timpul unei misiuni de spionaj în Rusia; Frederic Pryor, un tânăr doctorand american în Berlin, considerat, din greșeală, spion și arestat de Stasi, poliția secretă est-germană.
Giles Whittell, corespondent la Washington al cotidianului The Times, pasionat de aviație și de istorie, descrie cu lux de amănunte traseul fiecăruia dintre ei până la celebrul schimb de pe Podul Glienicke. Bazat pe informații din documente declasificate și pe interviuri conduse personal de autor în Statele Unite, Europa și Rusia, volumul surprinde o perioadă în care soarta lumii depindea într-adevăr de mesaje codate și de piloți tineri în costume presurizate.
Schimbul de prizonieri din friguroasa zi de februarie 1962 a constituit un prim moment de relaxare între marile puteri și un pas important în sensul evitării unui război nuclear.
Cursul istoriei e, uneori, hotărât de mici detalii.
Podul spionilor este povestea reală a trei personaje extraordinare: William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, agent KGB de origine britanică arestat de FBI în New York și condamnat la închisoare; Gary Powers, pilotul american de avion U-2, capturat în timpul unei misiuni de spionaj în Rusia; Frederic Pryor, un tânăr doctorand american în Berlin, considerat, din greșeală, spion și arestat de Stasi, poliția secretă est-germană.
Giles Whittell, corespondent la Washington al cotidianului The Times, pasionat de aviație și de istorie, descrie cu lux de amănunte traseul fiecăruia dintre ei până la celebrul schimb de pe Podul Glienicke. Bazat pe informații din documente declasificate și pe interviuri conduse personal de autor în Statele Unite, Europa și Rusia, volumul surprinde o perioadă în care soarta lumii depindea într-adevăr de mesaje codate și de piloți tineri în costume presurizate.
Schimbul de prizonieri din friguroasa zi de februarie 1962 a constituit un prim moment de relaxare între marile puteri și un pas important în sensul evitării unui război nuclear.
Cursul istoriei e, uneori, hotărât de mici detalii.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published November 9, 2010
680 people are currently reading
4307 people want to read
About the author
Giles Whittell
13 books38 followersGiles Quintin Sykes Whittell (born 1966)[1][2] is an English author and journalist who has worked for The Times as Correspondent in Russia and the United States.
Whittell was educated at Sherborne School[2] and Christ's College, Cambridge (B.A. 1988).[3] He has worked for The Times of London since 1993, first as US West Coast Correspondent from 1993 to 1999 and later as Moscow Correspondent (1999–2001) and Washington Bureau Chief (2009–2011). As of 2019 he is the paper's chief leader writer.[4]
His books [5] include Lambada Country (1992), Extreme Continental (1994), Spitfire Women of World War II (2007) and Bridge of Spies, a New York Times bestselling account of the Cold War spy swap between Rudolf Abel, Gary Powers and Frederic Pryor on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge in 1962. The book was published in the US in 2010 and the United Kingdom in 2011.[6]
Whittell was educated at Sherborne School[2] and Christ's College, Cambridge (B.A. 1988).[3] He has worked for The Times of London since 1993, first as US West Coast Correspondent from 1993 to 1999 and later as Moscow Correspondent (1999–2001) and Washington Bureau Chief (2009–2011). As of 2019 he is the paper's chief leader writer.[4]
His books [5] include Lambada Country (1992), Extreme Continental (1994), Spitfire Women of World War II (2007) and Bridge of Spies, a New York Times bestselling account of the Cold War spy swap between Rudolf Abel, Gary Powers and Frederic Pryor on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge in 1962. The book was published in the US in 2010 and the United Kingdom in 2011.[6]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 428 reviews
January 4, 2017
Description: Bridge of Spies is the true story of three extraordinary characters – William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent arrested by the FBI in New York City and jailed as a Soviet superspy for trying to steal America’s most precious nuclear secrets; Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot who was captured when his plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over the closed cities of central Russia; and Frederic Pryor, a young American graduate student in Berlin mistakenly identified as a spy, arrested and held without charge by the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police.
October 24, 2015
This is the way history ought to be written! This incredibly researched book reads like a novel. The characters and events are combined to produce a moving history of the Cold War. As many have written in their review, I grew up during this time period, but was unaware of the fine details of the U-2 story. I highly recommend this book. You will captured by lives of these fascinating characters and educated about a time period that nearly brought the world to nuclear war. Don't miss this one. I only wish I had bought the book in hard cover. It's a keeper. (Minor point: Book should have come with some maps.)
November 28, 2025
Bridge of Spies tells a true story of espionage about the 1960 U-2 incident and subsequent prisoner exchange between the United States and Soviet Union. It focuses on three men: Francis Gary Powers, the American pilot shot down over Soviet territory; William Fisher (then known only by his alias Rudolf Abel), the Soviet spy arrested in New York; and Frederic Pryor, an American student detained in East Germany. Whittell braids together their separate stories in chronological segments, from pre-arrest activities through their February 1962 exchange on the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin. The book explains Powers's survival and interrogation in a Soviet prison, Fisher's subdued defiance in American custody, and Pryor's accidental stumble into Cold War politics. Whittell’s sources include declassified documents, trial transcripts, and interviews. He skillfully reconstructs events that have remained obscure for decades.
The book is history that reads like an espionage thriller. It presents the mechanics of Cold War intelligence work, details of the CIA's U-2 program, mundane realities of spy craft, and bureaucratic negotiations that led to the exchange. The author pays particular attention to how each government used its prisoners for propaganda during their detainment, and the genuine fears of the time about nuclear war. I enjoyed this book immensely. It clarifies what really happened during a time when much misinformation had been circulated, and myths created out of whole cloth. It helps the reader sort through the complex geopolitics of the Cold War. It’s worth reading just for the story of how Francis Gary Powers avoided death when being shot down at an altitude over 70,000 feet (21,332 meters)!
The book is history that reads like an espionage thriller. It presents the mechanics of Cold War intelligence work, details of the CIA's U-2 program, mundane realities of spy craft, and bureaucratic negotiations that led to the exchange. The author pays particular attention to how each government used its prisoners for propaganda during their detainment, and the genuine fears of the time about nuclear war. I enjoyed this book immensely. It clarifies what really happened during a time when much misinformation had been circulated, and myths created out of whole cloth. It helps the reader sort through the complex geopolitics of the Cold War. It’s worth reading just for the story of how Francis Gary Powers avoided death when being shot down at an altitude over 70,000 feet (21,332 meters)!
April 4, 2023
I liked the 2015 Spielberg film a lot. So much, in fact, that I bought it on DVD and we watch it every year, sometimes more than once. (Yes, our neighbors do think of us as out of control party animals.) Spielberg, written by the Coen brothers, starring Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, and Alan Alda, intrigue, suspense, freedom vs democracy. So I was curious about the real events on which the film was based. (Lest I be misunderstood in saying this, let me be clear that the movie is not mentioned in the book except in the publisher's copy on the cover. I gather, in fact, that movie script relied most heavily on a memoir by lawyer James Donovan and, to a lesser extent, a work by Gary Powers, Jr., son of downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.)
"Bridge of Spies" is a very well written work of popular history, as one might expect from an author with his journalistic credentials. It's objective is to explore the dramatic events it describes in the contexts of the global and domestic politics of the time and the personalities of the main characters. I won't summarize the story about an American pilot shot down over Russia, a KGB super-spy arrested in New York City, a hapless American graduate student, and how they came to be released from their respective prisons. All of this is available elsewhere.
Instead, I will say that notwithstanding the remarkable story it tells, "Bridge of Spies" is more than just a rehash of events that took place between 1959 and 1962. It offers a rich look at the powerful political, cultural, and even social currents that were at work when these events played out. It's easy to lose sight, at the distance of six decades, of how unstable those times were. This was the period of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War, the erection of the Berlin Wall, global anxiety about missiles with nuclear warheads, lingering echoes of WW2 and Joseph McCarthy hysteria, high level summit intrigues, less than civic-minded actors with enormous power, national and international politics (here in the US and in the USSR), and a lot more. It probably wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say, given the tension between the US and USSR and the enormous amounts of misunderstanding and deception, that a single mishandled spark could easily have ignited a nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR. Remember, the Cuban Missile Crisis that terrified the entire world took place at that very time, in 1962.
I had some familiarity with the period but not a lot (in my defense, I was still in grade school and thus rarely consulted on international matters). It's hard to overstate the vast interval between appearancess and reality. For example, Nikita Khrushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union, was not the unbalanced warmonger who meant what he said when he pounded his shoe at a meeting of the UN and threatened to bury us. In fact, he was deeply anxious about the prospect of nuclear war and eager for peace. He wanted to sit down with President Eisenhower at a summit in Paris and find a way to end the dangerous competition between the two nations. One can only wonder how different our world would be now had that summit taken place and been successful. But it didn't. In "Bridge of Spies" we see why. (On a less dire matter, Khruschev also wanted to visit Disneyland and was angry when he was told by American officials that it was impossible because there was no way they could guarantee his safety.)
This was the period in which the so-called "missile gap" shaped military and international policy, influenced presidential and congressional elections here, and was covered daily by newspapers, magazines, and TV. It was widely believed at the time that the Soviets were going full speed in manufacturing nuclear missiles (ICBMs) capable of crossing oceans and continents. Clearly America had to do everything it could to catch up with the Russians; the alternative was too dreadful to ponder. Senator Stuart Symington (D-MO), for example, announced "on the record" at a Senate hearing that Russia was so far ahead of the US in its arsenal of ICBMs that they'd have at least 3,000 by 1962, probably more. The peril facing the country was existential.
Except, knowingly or not (it's unclear), Symington was entirely wrong. The Soviet Union did not have thousands of missiles, it had only 4! The "missile gap" mania was driven by American intelligence agencies who believed Khrushchev's bluster, by fear of the spread of Communism, and by military contractors who saw huge profits to be made by feeding the fear. And by people in high places who stood to benefit by perpetuating the illusion.
I was struck too by how incredibly flimsy the U-2 spy plane was, and how individuals within the U-2 surveillance program connived to keep President Eisenhower from knowing certain things or manipulated him.
And then there was Rudolf Abel himself, who was seen by the FBI at the time as a KGB superspy. He was almost legendary in intelligence circles both in the US and in Russia. His arrest and trial held the country rapt and distressed the American intelligence who worried about what US secrets he might have revealed to his handlers, and their counterparts in Russia who feared which of their secrets Abel might share with the Americans. In fact, Abel almost certainly found nothing of value to report to his superiors during the eight years he spent in the US.
"Bridge of Spies" has the energy of a spy thriller and the kinds of flawed characters who might have been created by John Le Carre and other such authors who knew what they were writing about. It also speaks to us of our own times, of lies and mistaken assumptions and historical lessons not learned.
"Bridge of Spies" is a very well written work of popular history, as one might expect from an author with his journalistic credentials. It's objective is to explore the dramatic events it describes in the contexts of the global and domestic politics of the time and the personalities of the main characters. I won't summarize the story about an American pilot shot down over Russia, a KGB super-spy arrested in New York City, a hapless American graduate student, and how they came to be released from their respective prisons. All of this is available elsewhere.
Instead, I will say that notwithstanding the remarkable story it tells, "Bridge of Spies" is more than just a rehash of events that took place between 1959 and 1962. It offers a rich look at the powerful political, cultural, and even social currents that were at work when these events played out. It's easy to lose sight, at the distance of six decades, of how unstable those times were. This was the period of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War, the erection of the Berlin Wall, global anxiety about missiles with nuclear warheads, lingering echoes of WW2 and Joseph McCarthy hysteria, high level summit intrigues, less than civic-minded actors with enormous power, national and international politics (here in the US and in the USSR), and a lot more. It probably wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say, given the tension between the US and USSR and the enormous amounts of misunderstanding and deception, that a single mishandled spark could easily have ignited a nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR. Remember, the Cuban Missile Crisis that terrified the entire world took place at that very time, in 1962.
I had some familiarity with the period but not a lot (in my defense, I was still in grade school and thus rarely consulted on international matters). It's hard to overstate the vast interval between appearancess and reality. For example, Nikita Khrushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union, was not the unbalanced warmonger who meant what he said when he pounded his shoe at a meeting of the UN and threatened to bury us. In fact, he was deeply anxious about the prospect of nuclear war and eager for peace. He wanted to sit down with President Eisenhower at a summit in Paris and find a way to end the dangerous competition between the two nations. One can only wonder how different our world would be now had that summit taken place and been successful. But it didn't. In "Bridge of Spies" we see why. (On a less dire matter, Khruschev also wanted to visit Disneyland and was angry when he was told by American officials that it was impossible because there was no way they could guarantee his safety.)
This was the period in which the so-called "missile gap" shaped military and international policy, influenced presidential and congressional elections here, and was covered daily by newspapers, magazines, and TV. It was widely believed at the time that the Soviets were going full speed in manufacturing nuclear missiles (ICBMs) capable of crossing oceans and continents. Clearly America had to do everything it could to catch up with the Russians; the alternative was too dreadful to ponder. Senator Stuart Symington (D-MO), for example, announced "on the record" at a Senate hearing that Russia was so far ahead of the US in its arsenal of ICBMs that they'd have at least 3,000 by 1962, probably more. The peril facing the country was existential.
Except, knowingly or not (it's unclear), Symington was entirely wrong. The Soviet Union did not have thousands of missiles, it had only 4! The "missile gap" mania was driven by American intelligence agencies who believed Khrushchev's bluster, by fear of the spread of Communism, and by military contractors who saw huge profits to be made by feeding the fear. And by people in high places who stood to benefit by perpetuating the illusion.
I was struck too by how incredibly flimsy the U-2 spy plane was, and how individuals within the U-2 surveillance program connived to keep President Eisenhower from knowing certain things or manipulated him.
And then there was Rudolf Abel himself, who was seen by the FBI at the time as a KGB superspy. He was almost legendary in intelligence circles both in the US and in Russia. His arrest and trial held the country rapt and distressed the American intelligence who worried about what US secrets he might have revealed to his handlers, and their counterparts in Russia who feared which of their secrets Abel might share with the Americans. In fact, Abel almost certainly found nothing of value to report to his superiors during the eight years he spent in the US.
"Bridge of Spies" has the energy of a spy thriller and the kinds of flawed characters who might have been created by John Le Carre and other such authors who knew what they were writing about. It also speaks to us of our own times, of lies and mistaken assumptions and historical lessons not learned.
September 9, 2020
I've been reading several books about the U-2 incident, Francis Gary Powers, and the incident's effect on U.S. policy. Fallout from the debacle was considerable. Khrushchev was eager to spend less on the military. He wanted to bring the fruits of capitalism, washing machines, etc. to the USSR, and they would not be able to if military spending continued apace. The Summit with Eisenhower was coming up, and he and Eisenhower (who had his own suspicions and pressure from the "military-industrial complex" he was to warn about) both wanted to cool things down. When Power's plane was shot down, the Russian's suspected the flight was a deliberate provocation to prevent the Summit. Indeed, after that the pressure on Khrushchev increased. Kennedy had been elected on a bogus missile gap charge, and he was also anxious to prove he "had balls." So it's not unreasonable to suggest that the Berlin Wall and moving missiles to Cuba were a direct result of pressure on Khrushchev to be tougher on the U.S.
I just had to read this book after seeing Tom Hank's brilliant performance in the eponymous movie (a must-watch.) The movie focuses primarily on the role of James Donovan, Abel/Fischer's, lawyer, while Whittell's excellent book looks at events from the perspectives of other participants: Powers' wife, his relatives, espionage in the fifties and sixties, the technology of the U-2, and Vogel, the East German lawyer, who played a key role in getting not just Powers exchanged but also Fred Pryor, a PhD economics student who got caught up in East Berlin just as the wall was going up.
A depressing feature of the book is the information that defense in both countries had an interest in keeping the Cold War alive since they profited from it greatly. The book also points out the need for accurate intelligence to help make informed decisions, although here, that intelligence was made available by the U-2, but its use was thwarted by the incident because of pressures from the military.
The technology has changed dramatically since then, more importantly, we no longer need pilots for our intelligence-gathering aircraft. Satellites, drones, and cyber warfare are far more important. Spy satellites are able to discern minute details of anything on Earth from their orbits high above Earth. Whether all that raw information is processed and used properly and without undue influence is another matter.
A fascinating, page-turner of a book.
I just had to read this book after seeing Tom Hank's brilliant performance in the eponymous movie (a must-watch.) The movie focuses primarily on the role of James Donovan, Abel/Fischer's, lawyer, while Whittell's excellent book looks at events from the perspectives of other participants: Powers' wife, his relatives, espionage in the fifties and sixties, the technology of the U-2, and Vogel, the East German lawyer, who played a key role in getting not just Powers exchanged but also Fred Pryor, a PhD economics student who got caught up in East Berlin just as the wall was going up.
A depressing feature of the book is the information that defense in both countries had an interest in keeping the Cold War alive since they profited from it greatly. The book also points out the need for accurate intelligence to help make informed decisions, although here, that intelligence was made available by the U-2, but its use was thwarted by the incident because of pressures from the military.
The technology has changed dramatically since then, more importantly, we no longer need pilots for our intelligence-gathering aircraft. Satellites, drones, and cyber warfare are far more important. Spy satellites are able to discern minute details of anything on Earth from their orbits high above Earth. Whether all that raw information is processed and used properly and without undue influence is another matter.
A fascinating, page-turner of a book.
November 3, 2015
This would have been a lot better if it hadn't been disjointed and made me question the logic behind its structuring. It was also really, really aggravating that the author flip flopped with the names/aliases of the Russian spy seemingly without rhyme or reason. People would be mentioned in great detail for a section and then not mentioned for great lengths of time only to suddenly be key players and only referred to by their last name, prompting the question of "who??" and flipping pages back to the list of people in the front.
April 30, 2024
I saw the movie and liked it a bit and then I saw that it was a book and couldn't resist. The story certainly has enough legs to carry a book and the movie doesn't do the affair justice but the author went a little overboard on the small details, things we really don't need to know more than a half century later.
I never understood why Gary Powers was made out to be such a bad guy but I have the advantage of studying his case when I was in Air Force Survival School back in the day. He was a big part of why our prisoner of war indoctrination was introduced to people serving in any sort of security or intelligence capacity. He had no training and no idea how to conduct himself when under intense interrogation. It's not like the Soviets gained much from him except for propaganda value. He was just a pilot.
I never understood why Gary Powers was made out to be such a bad guy but I have the advantage of studying his case when I was in Air Force Survival School back in the day. He was a big part of why our prisoner of war indoctrination was introduced to people serving in any sort of security or intelligence capacity. He had no training and no idea how to conduct himself when under intense interrogation. It's not like the Soviets gained much from him except for propaganda value. He was just a pilot.
June 12, 2020
An incredible mix of unique history during the height of the Cold War. Bridge of Spies is a mix of personal lives, strategic intelligence programs, spies, and diplomats culminating in a nail biting spy swap in the spy capital of the Cold War world, Berlin. Bridge of Spies provides unique insight into the American U-2 program, Soviet 'illegals' operations within the US and the economic spying that took place out of embassies. Giles Whittell does a fabulous job of blending both personal and national stories stories into a single narrative that is exciting to read. Bridge of Spies is now one of my all time favorites.
September 26, 2015
This is a very detailed look into what lead up to one of the most well known exchange of "spies" during the Cold War. Though Gary Powers worked for the CIA he was in reality anything but a spy. A U-2 pilot for sure, a spy not even close. Fisher, the man exchanged for Powers, was actually a spy. What is in question with Fisher is what, if any real information he transmitted back to his handlers in the almost 10 years he spent in America. I strongly suggest this book for anyone interested in this era and those interested in the story of the spy swap. Very well written and extremely well researched.
November 19, 2015
If you are looking for the book that mirrors the eponymous movie, this is not the book. The title you seek is "Stangers on a Bridge" by James Dinovan, the lawyer portrayed by Tom Hanks.
This book is a product of exhaustive research written in a manner that sways between dry technical prose and awkward attempts to turn a phrase. I trudged halfway through it and finally gave up.
This book is a product of exhaustive research written in a manner that sways between dry technical prose and awkward attempts to turn a phrase. I trudged halfway through it and finally gave up.
October 21, 2015
Fascinating, Insightful & Mesmerizing! A Powerful Read! I Loved It!
November 26, 2019
Bridge of Spies is a thrilling true story of espionage and super-power diplomacy at one of the tensest moments of the Cold War, centered around a prisoner exchange in Berlin in 1962.
Willie Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, was a Soviet spy in the finest traditions of the Bolshevik 'illegals' (named in comparison to legals, who had diplomatic cover as 'cultural attaches' or similar). His mission was to rebuild a spy ring to match the immense A-bomb theft of Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs. Fisher was undercover for years, but it unclear what, if anything he managed to uncover, before a drunken and incompetent subordinate defected to the West rather than face recall to Moscow. Undone by the weakest link in a human chain, Fisher was sentenced to decades in prison.
Meanwhile, America was pursuing its own patented brand of espionage. The U-2 flew at an altitude of 70,000 feet, above the range of anti-aircraft guns and interceptors. Aerial photos provided detailed evidence of the weapons backing Khrushchev's bellicose 'we will bury you' rhetoric, or rather, a detailed absence of evidence. In the late 1950s, everything pointed to an immense American advantage in bombers, bombs, and even rockets, with the Russian ICBM program a handful of balky liquid fueled rockets. The overflights enraged Khrushchev, but the CIA's voracious appetite for intelligence lead them to schedule one last overflight on May 1, 1960. This flight put Gary Powers in range of an S-75 Dvina SAM, and the shootdown killed hopes for disarmament and detente.
The two spies were sentenced to years in prison. Mostly through the entrepreneurial efforts of Power's father, and Fisher's defense lawyer Donovan, were the two sides able to broker a swap, throwing in a US PhD student who's thesis on East German economic was also declared to be espionage.
Giles keeps it fast, interesting, and manages to capture the spirit of the era.
Willie Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, was a Soviet spy in the finest traditions of the Bolshevik 'illegals' (named in comparison to legals, who had diplomatic cover as 'cultural attaches' or similar). His mission was to rebuild a spy ring to match the immense A-bomb theft of Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs. Fisher was undercover for years, but it unclear what, if anything he managed to uncover, before a drunken and incompetent subordinate defected to the West rather than face recall to Moscow. Undone by the weakest link in a human chain, Fisher was sentenced to decades in prison.
Meanwhile, America was pursuing its own patented brand of espionage. The U-2 flew at an altitude of 70,000 feet, above the range of anti-aircraft guns and interceptors. Aerial photos provided detailed evidence of the weapons backing Khrushchev's bellicose 'we will bury you' rhetoric, or rather, a detailed absence of evidence. In the late 1950s, everything pointed to an immense American advantage in bombers, bombs, and even rockets, with the Russian ICBM program a handful of balky liquid fueled rockets. The overflights enraged Khrushchev, but the CIA's voracious appetite for intelligence lead them to schedule one last overflight on May 1, 1960. This flight put Gary Powers in range of an S-75 Dvina SAM, and the shootdown killed hopes for disarmament and detente.
The two spies were sentenced to years in prison. Mostly through the entrepreneurial efforts of Power's father, and Fisher's defense lawyer Donovan, were the two sides able to broker a swap, throwing in a US PhD student who's thesis on East German economic was also declared to be espionage.
Giles keeps it fast, interesting, and manages to capture the spirit of the era.
March 28, 2017
Although they share titles, this is not the book of Steven Spielberg's film despite the fact that they both deal with the same incident: the first spy exchange of the Cold War. On 10 February 1962, Rudolf Abel (as he gave his name) was exchanged for Francis Gary Powers, the two men walking past each other across the Glienicke Bridge on the outskirts of West Berlin as men on either side of the River Havel watched the silent passage through telescopic sights.
Spielberg's film concentrates very much on the relationship between Rudolf Abel and the lawyer, James Donovan, who defended him when he was brought to trial on espionage charges - and then the unlikely turn that saw the same James Donovan charged with negotiating the exchange of Abel for Gary Powers, the U2 pilot shot down on 1 May 1960 (plus another American, Frederic Pryor, a student who unwittingly got caught up on the wrong side of the newly-built Berlin Wall and who became a pawn in international power politics).
Whittell's book is much more wide ranging, spending as much time on Gary Powers as Rudolf Abel, while devoting only a couple of pages to Donovan and the trial. More than fifty years later, it's salutary to remember just how dangerous the world was then, with two superpowers in ideological confrontation, each armed with nuclear weapons. It's tempting to see our own times of Islamist terrorism as uniquely bad but really there's no comparison. During the Cold War, a misstep or a misunderstanding could have unleashed nuclear hell upon us all. Today's terrorists are reduced to driving a car at pedestrians. So this book is an excellent corrective and a fine and exciting piece of historical writing, bringing together spying, spy planes and high-tension international politics. If you've seen Spielberg's film, it's well worth reading for a broader and deeper understanding of what went on and why.
Spielberg's film concentrates very much on the relationship between Rudolf Abel and the lawyer, James Donovan, who defended him when he was brought to trial on espionage charges - and then the unlikely turn that saw the same James Donovan charged with negotiating the exchange of Abel for Gary Powers, the U2 pilot shot down on 1 May 1960 (plus another American, Frederic Pryor, a student who unwittingly got caught up on the wrong side of the newly-built Berlin Wall and who became a pawn in international power politics).
Whittell's book is much more wide ranging, spending as much time on Gary Powers as Rudolf Abel, while devoting only a couple of pages to Donovan and the trial. More than fifty years later, it's salutary to remember just how dangerous the world was then, with two superpowers in ideological confrontation, each armed with nuclear weapons. It's tempting to see our own times of Islamist terrorism as uniquely bad but really there's no comparison. During the Cold War, a misstep or a misunderstanding could have unleashed nuclear hell upon us all. Today's terrorists are reduced to driving a car at pedestrians. So this book is an excellent corrective and a fine and exciting piece of historical writing, bringing together spying, spy planes and high-tension international politics. If you've seen Spielberg's film, it's well worth reading for a broader and deeper understanding of what went on and why.
dnf
May 8, 2021I think perhaps it was the audiobook version I didn't get along with. Too much information coming at me too fast, and all of it rather dry. I was intensely bored and I think around the halfway point I realized I'd retained absolutely nothing and might as well just give up. I don't plan to pick up the physical book, but I could change my mind about that. I think I'd have had a better go of it had I attempted to read it physically.
November 12, 2022
Solid book that scratches the itch at the intersection of spy thriller and engineering marvels.
June 30, 2019
Although non-fiction, this reads almost like a thriller. Based around a spy swap, most of it deals with Gary Powers and U-2 fights over Russia. I found it really fascinating reading and also enlightening.
The author’s case is that many in the USA at the time claimed that there was a missile gap and that Russia had a vast quantity of ICBMs. President Eisenhower knew from U2 flights over Russia that this was almost certainly not the case. Khrushchev was keen to offer disarmament as the arms race was a great burden on the Russian economy, but that opportunity was lost when Powers was shot down just before a planned summit and the US refused to apologise for overflying Russia. Under intense political pressure at home, Khrushchev was forced to drop his proposal for disarmament, leading to both sides building thousands of ICBMs.
Such an outcome suited the military industrial complex and you can’t help wondering if Power’s last flight ( sub-par plane, less than usual lack of secrecy, route chosen, etc) was perhaps planned to result in failure. However, it could be claimed that ultimately the cost of the arms race bankrupted the Soviet Union and led to its collapse.
Some have complained that the book is nothing like the movie. Well, it’s the movie which is nothing like the book, and personally I prefer the latter.
The author’s case is that many in the USA at the time claimed that there was a missile gap and that Russia had a vast quantity of ICBMs. President Eisenhower knew from U2 flights over Russia that this was almost certainly not the case. Khrushchev was keen to offer disarmament as the arms race was a great burden on the Russian economy, but that opportunity was lost when Powers was shot down just before a planned summit and the US refused to apologise for overflying Russia. Under intense political pressure at home, Khrushchev was forced to drop his proposal for disarmament, leading to both sides building thousands of ICBMs.
Such an outcome suited the military industrial complex and you can’t help wondering if Power’s last flight ( sub-par plane, less than usual lack of secrecy, route chosen, etc) was perhaps planned to result in failure. However, it could be claimed that ultimately the cost of the arms race bankrupted the Soviet Union and led to its collapse.
Some have complained that the book is nothing like the movie. Well, it’s the movie which is nothing like the book, and personally I prefer the latter.
November 5, 2015
Good, straightforward telling of the famous Cold War spy exchange and the unlikely events that led up to it. It's funny reading this kind of thing after a lot of WWII spying stories--in that era there's so often something clearly at stake. In this time period the "Master Soviet Spy" is basically just hanging out in Brooklyn and painting. Still, it's great hearing about all the people involved, since everyone seems to be putting on fronts upon fronts.
With the movie coming out I did find myself wondering how to turn it into a movie and it wouldn't be easy. Seems like it might be better to just do a play or something with the lawyers interacting with the family, because it's really a lot of crazy backstory that happens to lead up to one highly charged walk over a bridge.
With the movie coming out I did find myself wondering how to turn it into a movie and it wouldn't be easy. Seems like it might be better to just do a play or something with the lawyers interacting with the family, because it's really a lot of crazy backstory that happens to lead up to one highly charged walk over a bridge.
August 3, 2018
I picked this one up because I really enjoyed the Tom Hanks movie. I was surprised to find out that the movie only really covers the last 1/10 or so of the book. There was so much detail and background information leading up to the events of the final negotiation, and it was all incredibly interesting. I was born towards the tail end of the Cold War, so it was fascinating to learn more about how that period in history began.
There was some language in the book, and one page that was inappropriate and should have been left out. Ignoring those two things, this was an interesting book.
There was some language in the book, and one page that was inappropriate and should have been left out. Ignoring those two things, this was an interesting book.
March 14, 2019
While I don't mind some extraneous information in the books I read/listen to, that seemed to be almost all this book was. The author never met a rabbit tail he didn't follow. Listening to it, the book was nine hours plus long, only about twenty minutes of those involving the title event. By the end, I just wanted it to be done.
January 3, 2020
This book was a gift , so I did my best to get through it. It's not my genre at all. It seems like a very thorough piece of research, but the pace is so slow. It was atmospheric and read like a piece of investigative journalism in places, but I didn't even make it to the incident before I put it down. I haven't been inclined to pick it up again in months, so I'm calling it.
September 18, 2018
This book gives much more background on Gary Powers' and the U2 flights over the Soviet Union. I listened to this audiobook, borrowed from our US library.
April 3, 2021
The history of the Glienicke Bridge, site of several iconic Cold War spy swaps, has always fascinated me and without fail comes to mind every time I have occasion to cross that bridge. This is the story of the first of those spy swaps in February 1962. A while ago I read James B. Donovan's Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers on the same topic. As defense attorney for the Soviet spy known then as Rudolf Abel and later chief negotiator of the swap, his account focussed largely on those aspects. Whittell's Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War puts a stronger focus on the other side of the story, that of American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, and thus made for an excellent addition to Donovan's book.
July 30, 2022
نویسنده به قصد ساخت فضایی کاملتر از جنگ سرد، اطلاعات ناکارآمد زیادی رو در اختیار مخاطب میذاره که نه داستان رو پیش میبرن و نه از جذابیت خاصی برخوردارن و همین قضیه نیمهی اول کتاب رو کسالتبار میکنه. اما نیمهی دوم کتاب به مراتب بهتر نوشته شده و با تمرکز بیشتر بر روایات و اتفاقات مربوط به شخصیتهای تبادل شده بر پل جاسوسان فضای هیجانانگیز و با جذابیتهای یک نوشتهی سیاسی رو خلق میکنه.
پ.ن: از فیلم اسپیلبرگ هم روایت بیطرفانهتر و کاملتری داشت و به وجههای سیاسی اتفاق نیز بیشترپرداخته بود.
پ.ن: از فیلم اسپیلبرگ هم روایت بیطرفانهتر و کاملتری داشت و به وجههای سیاسی اتفاق نیز بیشترپرداخته بود.
October 10, 2022
Not the most thrilling story…but really well reported. I’ve read far more captivating “spy” stories and non-fiction accounts, but this one was not quite so exhilarating. By no means was it impossible to pore through, but was not a page turner, in my opinion. There are some interesting details and terrific attention to historicity, but only a middling read for me.
July 11, 2018
A very well written history of the U2 plane, Francis Gary Powers and the swap of a Soviet spy and an innocent economist academic related thereto. The book provided a revealing insight into Eisenhower and Khrushchev who wanted disarmament but fell into an arms race.
May 29, 2020
So glad I've read this book, thorough research and so much information after the fall of the USSR and somewhat better openness for historical research.
When Power's U-2 plane was shot down over the USSR, we were living in West Germany. We lived there when the Berlin Wall was built - and when the Soviets exchanged Powers and Prior for their agent Fisher (aka Abel). In fact, my father was there for the exchange, representing the CIA's Office of Security.
Obviously he couldn't talk about it at the time. We didn't even know he worked for the CIA until we moved back to the US. It's very fascinating to know the details of this historical time.
In particular, the details of the struggle between Eisenhower and Kruschev, and suggestions that the U-2 mission may have been compromised by Americans, in order to sabotage potential de-escalation of the arms race, are quite intriguing. Ike's warnings about the military-industrial complex is doubly chilling in the light of this possibility.
When Power's U-2 plane was shot down over the USSR, we were living in West Germany. We lived there when the Berlin Wall was built - and when the Soviets exchanged Powers and Prior for their agent Fisher (aka Abel). In fact, my father was there for the exchange, representing the CIA's Office of Security.
Obviously he couldn't talk about it at the time. We didn't even know he worked for the CIA until we moved back to the US. It's very fascinating to know the details of this historical time.
In particular, the details of the struggle between Eisenhower and Kruschev, and suggestions that the U-2 mission may have been compromised by Americans, in order to sabotage potential de-escalation of the arms race, are quite intriguing. Ike's warnings about the military-industrial complex is doubly chilling in the light of this possibility.
June 3, 2023
2.5⭐️ This book contains a niche yet interesting piece of history. The author’s strength unfortunately causes the book’s biggest weakness. With Whittell including a large amount of background, it makes the narrative a bit too wide and hard to follow. There are a lot of characters and a lot of boring information to get to the more interesting, historical moments.
June 10, 2019
Interesting, got a little bogged down with details in the middle. As always very impressed with the time and effort of the research. Never saw the movie, have a feeling Tom Hanks would be a more entertaining option.
January 11, 2021
Foarte interesantă!
September 3, 2023
An interesting read certainly but also a bit of a let down because most of the pages are dedicated to the story of the U-2 pilot who was shot down. At one point the book was even getting into unnecessary territory with plane specs and avionics. I feel like I was promised more cloak-and-dagger and less engineering. It's unclear if there simply wasn't enough information about the Soviet spy and the wayward student, or if the author is just an aviation geek.
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