The Spy in the Archive

How do you steal a library? Not just any library but the most secret archive in the world. The answer is to be a librarian. To be so quiet, that no-one knows what you are up to as you toil undercover over decades and so low key, that even after your escape, aided by MI6, no-one even notices you are gone.

The Spy in the Archive is the remarkable story of how Vasili Mitrokhin – an introverted archivist who loved nothing more than dusty files – ended up changing the world. As the in-house archivist for the KGB, the secrets he was exposed to inside its walls turned him first into a dissident and then a spy, a man determined to expose the truth about the dark forces that had subverted Russia, forces still at work in the country today.This is the story of one man's journey from the heart of the Soviet state to disillusion and then betrayal and his determination to take on the most powerful institution in the world.

About the author

Gordon Corera is a journalist and writer on intelligence and security issues. Since 2004 he has been a Security Correspondent for BBC News where he covers terrorism, cyber security, the work of intelligence agencies and other national security issues for BBC TV, Radio and Online. He has reported from across the United States, Asia, Africa and the Middle East and presented a number of programmes focusing on intelligence agencies including MI6, MI5, GCHQ, the CIA, NSA and Mossad. He is the author of ‘Intercept – The Secret History of Computers and Spies’, ‘MI6 – Life and Death in the British Secret Service’ and ‘Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity and the Rise and Fall of the AQ Khan Network’.