IT'S JUST AS COLD FOR A REAL SPY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100350024-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 1, 1999
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: April 17, 1964
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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Sanitized - Approved For Relea
APR 1 7
CPYRGHT
.13001,;
.it's Just as Cold
for a Weak ~~do
Vhe best-selling novel in the U.S. The strength of this book lies in its
right now is The Spy Who Came In strong and parallel portraits of its
,from the Cold. It should be. A wire- two chief characters, Donovan and
`taut story of an aging secret agent Abel. They turn out to be a lot alike:
sent on a mission he fears and im- loners; men willing to stand and fight'
;perfectly understands, it makes the in favor of their own, enormously
bumptious fisticuffs of James Bond divergent principles. They also turn
sound like Action Comics. It also out to be-in their different ways-
,makes chillingly clear what it is like very brave men.
,to be a spy: bitter, ambiguous, dan- ("When your appeal succeeds,"
gerous and lonely. Abel asked Donovan once, "what
Now, marvelously, there comes happens to me then?" "I may have to
;along another fine new book about shoot you myself," said Donovan,
espionage. It Is just about as compel- "Don't forget, I still am a commander
ling as The Spy-but It happens to be In Naval Intelligence.")
true. Strangers on a Bridge by James F Abel's character comes into focus
,Donovan (Atheneum) tells-with a ? gradually because he revealed him-
clarity and sense of concern that a lot
of fiction writers should study-the
case of Colonel Rudolph Ivanovich
Abel, who spent nine years In the cold
as the chief Soviet spy in the U.S.
self grudgingly. He would take a little
of Donovan's aid and understanding,
then pull away like a mistrustful dog.
But when we do finally get to know
him, his resemblance to Leamas-the
envisioned.
Abel was a colonel in the KGB, the fictional agent in The Spy Who Came
Somewhere in Russia today there
Soviet spy agency, who came here in from the Cold-is extraordinary.
lives a short, spare man with a hard,
illegally in 1948. He moved to a drab. Like Leamas, Abel was a fierce pa
,hotel in Manhattan and worked out of 1 triot. Talking of Reino Hayhanen, the
thin mouth and the apprehensive eyes of a bird. If the KGB security people
a drab studio in Brooklyn.. and ran a agent who betrayed him to the U.S.,
have cleared him, he is like) workln
drab spy ring all over the country ,I he said, "I cannot understand why a y g
until 1957. Then one of his agents, man, to save his own skin, would be-, on-or running-the U.S. desk of So-
a hard-drinking and inept lieutenant tray his country and place his family, viet Intelligence. His name is not
named Hayhanen, went over to our In complete dishonor at home." Like Martin Collins nor Emil ,Goldfus nor
people when It appeared that his next Leamas he was versatile: he could "Mark" nor Rudolph Ivanovich Abel
duty station would be Siberia. When
,the FBI arrested Abel, James Dono-
van, a respected New York attorney
and a former Navy Intel Ilgence'off lcer
himself, agreed to represent him.
Donovan took on the defense of a
dedicated and dangerous spy out of
his deep belief in the guarantees of
the Constitution-and he did it, as his
book recurringly shows, against a lot
of social and business pressure. C11-
ants took accounts away from his
firm. Women made snide craoks at his
paint pictures, work complex math- -. nor any of the other aliases he used
ematics problems and run a lathe, here: even Donovan never learned and he passionately loved the Dodg- ;.what his name really was. He Is a man
era. Like Leamas he was uninformed who was and is dangerous to this
about many essentials of his own country, yet he profited immeasurably
work: he had known. all 'along that by this country's unique concern. for'
Hayhanen was a fool and a security justice; in those terms we owe him
risk, but he could" only assume that no sympathy But he was also a man
. this was necessary to some Byzan- who did his job cleanly for a cause he
tine KGB. operation he hadn't been believed in. As a spy, we cannot i
told about, Like Leamas he was total- wish Abel well. As a man, when he
ly lonely. He lived in his tiny room
and worked In his tiny studio and;
found his human relationships catch-1
as-catch can: a few students, a fellow]
wife. He went right ahead anyway, il.
but despite the superbly skillful de-
fulltso 1110 WOVO AbOl. Lite court son- of live, a $I We 0-hV&
tenced the spy to 30 years once photographed s `` l
LWhen Donovan came into his life, a.
have shown glimmers, then, that there
are other fights to fight and causes to
Donovan carried his fight all the
came within one vote of reversing the
conviction and freeing Abel. That he
to Donovan's plea that the colonel
might someday be traded to the So-
viets in return for a captured U.S.
agent. Three years after Abel was
Francis Gary Powers' U-2. Almost
set up just the kind of swap he had
leaves Donovan in the mists of morn-
ing to walk over--a- Berlin bridge, we
can hope that he came out of the cold. }
J .Peen; Flannel
Sanitized -Approved For Release CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100350024-3
 Sanitized - Approved For Release :
Sanitized - Approved For Release CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100350024-3