The Main Enemy: The Secret Story of the CIA's Bloodiest Battle - Hardcover

For half a century, the US and the Soviet Union stood locked in a deadly dance, each shadowing the other's moves, meticulously plotting assaults and subversions that spanned the globe from Hong Kong to Kabul, Moscow to Washington DC. The Main Enemy tells, for the first time, the inside story of the climactic secret battles between the CIA and the KGB in the closing days of the Cold War, through the eyes of the American and Russian spies who fought them, with the full co-operation of dozens of senior intelligence officials from both sides. Milt Bearden, a legend in espionage circles ran operations in Afghanistan from the field, training Afghan freedom fighters. This is the story of six key figures, trained as spies in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis, who took control of the CIA and KGB just as Reagan and Gorbachev rose to power in the 1980s. This is a true story of clandestine operations take them from inside the Vatican and on the back streets of Baghdad and Kabul, Afghanistan, leading to the horror of September 11th. With cyanide capsules in pens, double and triple agents, ambushes and betrayals, The Main Enemy is a dramatic, roller-coaster ride through the last days of the Cold War.

Milt Bearden is a thirty year veteran of the CIA and was chief of the Soviet/East European division at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union giving him unique knowledge of the US espionage operations in Moscow. Jim Risen writes for the New York Times, and won the Pulitzer prize for his coverage of terrorism.