The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man

by Benjamin Cunningham

The Cold War meets Mad Men in the form of Karel Koecher, a double agent whose shifting loyalties and over-the-top hedonism reverberated from New York to Moscow.

In the mid-1970s, the CIA and KGB were both watching Karel Koecher closely—and they were both convinced he was working for the enemy. They were both right. Traveling with his wife, Hana, Koecher posed as a Czechoslovak asylum seeker and arrived in the US as a Communist sleeper agent. After parlaying a doctorate from Columbia into a job at the CIA, Koecher proceeded to operate as a double agent at the height of the Cold War.

Shunning a low profile, the Koechers embraced Manhattan’s high life — with cocaine, swinging and parties emblematic of the times and their penchant for risk. Hana, who was no more than a shy teenager when she arrived, grew into a sophisticated international diamond dealer that relayed messages to Karel’s handlers. Riding a wave of euphoria, the Koechers felt unstoppable. But it was too good to last.

Using newly declassified documents, interrogation tapes and extraordinary first-hand accounts from the Koechers themselves, Cunningham reconstructs their double lives and the fading Cold War, where a strange moral fog made it hard to know what truth was being fought for, and to what end.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Espionage, Biography, Military Fiction, Russia, Historical

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 23, 2022

About the author

Benjamin Cunningham is a correspondent for The Economist. He covered Central and Eastern Europe for six years, and now writes about the wider Mediterranean region from Barcelona. In addition he contributes to The Guardian, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Aspen Review, Le Monde Diplomatique and is an opinion columnist for Sme, Slovakia’s main daily newspaper. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Barcelona.

Reviews

[Kasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many events went down and public had no clue. Idea of double agent is fascinating.

[Philip Cosand · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no problem with the writing; it is the subject that lost me.

There were many agents during The Cold War. Plenty of double agents. Why pick this one?

As far as I can tell, the man never accomplished much. He traveled to the U.S. He reported back to the Czechs and the Soviets. ...and? Were any missions accomplished or thwarted because of him? Did anything result from his years traveling about?

Looked at as a case study in how Soviets treated their spies, or how they handled a difficult agent who had gone off on his own; sure. Interesting enough.

However, at the end, one is left to ponder that age old question: And?

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Liar by Benjamin Cunningham
Karel Koecher, a Jewish mother, an Austrian father, born in 1934, and by the time he is 15 has lived through his mother’s wartime survival experience, his father’s hostility, and the brief period of contestible Czech politics post war until the many events of 1948….that set the stage for all that followed…The StB=Stasi keeps an eye on young Karel; from a French Lycee in Prague to Physics and Maths at Charles University to a Film degree… a tour guide to Prague. Meets American from Columbia University George Kline…. not the last Columbia connection he will make… able to talk about Kafka with his artiste new friends… goes to work at StB to clean up his own files….and requested to go to NY/DCto penetrate the CIA…. which he does!!! As Pedro/Tulian, Rino
Wife Hana co-supports the life style as a diamond seller.
The book is also a history of the cold war, and its crescendo like ending, in the ‘80s with the deaths of Brezhneve, Adropov and Chernenko and the interactions of the younger Gorbachev with the soon to be senile Reagan.
Spying at the 92nd St Y; swinging on the East Side of Manhattan, FBI and CIA eventually arrested by FBI perhaps given up by his handler to them. Held for a year without trial and eventually on his initiative, traded for Natan Sharanksy. Final comment: StB was like a hyper empowered mutation of the DMV.

[Patrik Edvardsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only a fascinating story about a contrarian spy, but also a supremely well-researched account of the Cold War, The Liar shows the murky reality of espionage in an illuminating and often highly entertaining way. The Spy follows Karel Koecher, a Czchoslovak spy with a troubled upbringing, as he is tasked with uncovering intelligence in the US during the Cold War, initially with a baffling lack of guidance or direction from his employers at the StB and KGB. Ben manages to contextualise Karel's personal journey through the ideological battle between the Soviet Union and the US and illustrate just how random, and sometime truly strange, this time period was. A fascinating read, filled with well-crafted characters and nicely interjected references from literature and cinema that adds surprising colour to the political elements of the story. Well-worth a read!

[Andrew Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who grew up in the 70's this is a great book that no only reflect on the life of Karel Koecher and his wife lives as doube agents, but also reflects on the history of Czechoslovakia, the USSR (Russia) and the communists relationship with the USA.
The book provides a very interesting insight to the recruitment of spys and the relationship between the two super powers.

Anyone interested in espionage or the history between the Soviet states and the USA should enjoy this book.

[NellyBells · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Read about half and the deeper into the book the less I liked it. What was interesting to me was all the Czech stuff. I lived in Prague for 3 years and recognized all the place names. The thing I knew nothing about was what happened after the Russians rolled their tanks into Prague and it tipped a balance in the eastern bloc. August 21, 1968.

[NonFiction 24/7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a mess of a book. A good story made harder to read by being all over the place.

[Yvonne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating history of the cold war and the double agent spy working for both the CIA and the KGB.