Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century

This is the story of Vladimir Vetrov, a KGB agent who, despite his total disregard for traditional espionage tradecraft, photocopied or photographed reams of KGB documents and passed them over to a minor French agency in Moscow in the 1980s. The amount of information he turned over was truly remarkable, and it is surprising that his name is not better known today. I will not summarize further because there are good summaries in other reviews. Unfortunately, the book is poorly written. This is a translation, but that is not the problem. The author has a penchant for including irrelevant detail. Want to know that Vetrov’s license plate was when he was stationed in Paris during the 1970s? You’ll find it here. You also learn that when he returned to Moscow his next-door neighbor worked at the XYZ company, but moved out and Vetrov was able to expand his apartment. Neither the neighbor or the apartment have anything to do with the story. Letters written to his wife after he was arrested (for an unrelated crime) are also included. They are banal and essentially irrelevant—like something you might write to your wife while away on a business trip. Still, the author uses them to devote an entire chapter to amateur psychological speculations. I skimmed through the letters and the amateur psychoanalysis to get to the real story of how he was unmasked: French bungling, primarily. The book would be 20%-30% shorter if a good editor had been brought in. The story itself, once stripped of irrelevant details and amateur psychoanalysis, is well-researched and quite fascinating. A chapter serving as an epilogue gives an idea of how the information obtained from Vetrov was used. Once the enormous extent of the Soviet technology thefts became apparent, a brilliant White House “operative” named Gus Weiss, came up with the idea of feeding them false information through the recruited agents identified by the Farewell dossier. In this way “stolen” software for controlling pressure in large gas pipelines (intended for transporting gas to Europe) was allegedly introduced unwittingly by the recruited agents. Once installed on the Siberian pipeline it worked just fine, until it didn’t. One day the gas line pressure suddenly became uncontrollable with predicable results. Russia denies it happened and unfortunately it cannot be independently verified. However, there is evidence elsewhere that the USA fed malicious software to the Soviets via the numerous agents identified by Vetrov.

This is the story of one of the most consequential Western intelligence success stories of the Cold War. Like most of the very damaging Soviet agents, Vladimir Vetrov volunteered his services to the West unexpectedly -- he was not actively recruited. Vetrov was motivated by unspectacular motives -- his KGB career had come to a dead-end, and he was highly resentful of the notorious fact that the children of Communist Party big-shots had the inside track for promotion and recognition within the KGB. In fact, Vetrov did not approach the CIA or MI6, both of which had very active intelligence programs in Moscow, where Vetrov was located. No, he approached French Counter-Intelligence, the DST, which functions in a manner similar to the US FBI. The KGB "knew" that the DST or for that matter French Intelligence, did not run espionage operations in Russia (they did not) and thus Vetrov's French handlers escaped detection. In fact, Vetrov was eventually caught for the most banal of reasons -- he had become a drunken wreck, and he had a blow-up with his mistress, who he attempted to murder in brutal fashion.To their infinite credit, the French shared the fruit of their agent, code-named "Farewell" with the United States upon the election of Francois Mitterand as President of France. Mitterand handed over the "Farewell" product as a way to show the United States and Ronald Reagan that despite being a Socialist, and having four Communist Party cabinet ministers, he (Mitterand) and France were solidly in the Western camp. And it worked -- President Reagan, in no small part because of the "Farewell" intelligence, developed warm relations with Mitterand.Specifically, Veltrov had an unspectacular job in the KGB analyzing technology that the KGB stole from the West. This enabled him to see secret documents that revealed the previously unknown (and vast) extent to which the KGB was stealing Western defense and industrial secrets. Further, he was able to identify Soviet KGB personnel abroad, and even their traitorous Western sources, defense workers and the like. Over a period of years, Veltrov passed thousands of classified KGB documents to the French and the CIA which had far-reaching consequences in President Reagan's ultimately successful strategy to pressure the Soviet Union into economic and military collapse. This book explains this with insight and considerable detail.All of this makes for fascinating reading. While this book starts out a bit dry, being written in the third person, the reader quickly becomes engrossed in learning about the life of a professional KGB officer who became disaffected from the KGB. This book also provides fascinating insights into the details of everyday living in the lives of more or less ordinary Russians. Indeed, it was Veltrov's ordinary human failings, alcoholism and adultery, that ultimately led to his downfall.Highly recommended. RJB.

It takes a special sort of skill to make a story about spies and espionage and secret agents and the KGB a dull and tedious trudge. But that’s exactly what the author has done here – in spite of his interesting subject matter and his painstaking and meticulous research (every last bit of which he includes in his narrative). I found this book really hard to wade through. I kept with it as Russia is my subject and I wanted to learn about this double agent but I could only manage it in small doses. Vladimir Vetrov was recruited early in his career by the KGB and after postings to France and Canada he returned to Moscow as an analyst. For reasons that are a little hard to understand, in spite of the author’s attempts to do so, he becomes a double agent working for the French intelligence service under the code name Farewell. The book is repetitive, concentrates too much and too often on extraneous detail, and the translation is shaky at best and clunky at worst. A thorough edit would have helped, and a more concise account would have retained some of the suspense and tension that must have been part of the original events. Even Vetrov’s execution felt strangely tepid. And I hated the frequent use of imagined conversations, feelings and motives, about which the author could not have known. Examples from near the end of the book. “Two strapping men, over 6 feet 6 inches tall….” interviewed Svetlana. Who had the tape measure? “Both men were imbued with a sense of the moment’s solemn intensity.” Were they? Did they say so? “Like a sleepwalker she left the office….she sat on a bench to …collect herself. The news sank in only later that evening.” Really? How does Kostin know? Making up stuff detracts from the overall credibility of the narrative. So all credit for the research, but little for the writing style.

This account of 'the greatest spy story' has some real strengths - it has been thoroughly researched and is very complete, shows the story from all perspectives - leaving it up to the reader to form his/her final opinion on Vetrov, and has some very interesting facts...That being said - it took me ages to get through the book as I had to put it down from time to time. While the number of facts brought in is sometimes overwhelming, these also get repeated. And repeated. And some more... Only after 2/3rd of the book, did I feel that the story picked up its pace and got exciting. Only to lose its momentum again 3 chapters later.In conclusion, I did finish this book and learned quite a lot in the process. It wasn't the most exciting reading experience though... A bit of a shame, to be honest!

This is fascinating true story of an unhappy KGB agent who turned against his own kind. I also found it desperately sad reading for his family and in particular his son. The author managed to get some amazing interviews, bringing back to life a man you may admire or dislike. However, some say his providing of a flow of valued information helped bring an end to the Cold War. Recommended reading.June Finnigan - writer

This is a very good spy tale, all the better for it as its true, and gives an excellent insight to the Russian mentality (I have worked there) Although I almost never read spy stuff, the reality opf it caught my eye, and I'm glad it did...if you are of the same non-spy habit, ytou might think about seeing this one...it is different.

This book is a very slow starter because the author takes his time setting the background and procedures of both the KGB and the French Secret Service. Once Farewell decides to betray his country or as he saw it the KGB the story gathers speed. A interesting insight into the workings of the Soviet system and the complex personality of the responsible for ending the Cold War.