S2 Book Club: Spymaster - Startling Cold War Revelations of a Soviet KGB Chief
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
- Podcast Version: www.buzzsprout.com/868255/136...
October's book is: Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution.
00:00 - Introduction
02:11 - The Author and Sources
07:31 - Preface
08:43 - Breaking American Ciphers - And Starting a War
10:04 - Two Views of Culture
12:31 - Target: The American Embassy
16:48 - Inside a Deadly Purge
22:18 - Into Foreign Intelligence - And England
28:59 - A Mole and a Tunnel
33:54 - "Why Do You Need All Those People Here?"
36:10 - A Unique Look at the Hungarian Revolution
36:28 - Spy Center Vienna
36:54 - The KGB's Nazl Underground
38:46 - Richard Sorge Redux
39:55 - Organizing to Disinform
41:22 - Active Measures
43:27 - "How Could CIA Ever Have Believed in Than Man?"
47:54 - The Top Hat Paradox
49:47 - Prague Spring at the Politburo
50:26 - Other Places
51:08 - The Irony of Helsinki and Watching it End
51:44 - Epilogue and Appendix
52:50 - Closing Thoughts and Comments
Notes and Corrections:
*16:09 - Not American, he was Swedish.
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Woah. S2 just stepped up the game. When do we start the book club meetings around a fire in the woods with some whiskey tasting?
I’ll be there.
💯
That would be a fantastic experience. Man book club lmao. Instead of a living room, wine, and Fifty Shades, it's the lads, the woods, a fire, some brewskis and smoking, and discussing life's finer points. An experience long lost beyond party chats or youth groups.
Gotta know how to navigate over land, by foot and camp for three days, to get there.
An excellent qualifier!
I'd like to see a discord channel to help with the radio sh*t as well :)
Imagine a group of guys with kits and nods on around a fire sipping wine and talking about 1984 by George Orwell deep in the Georgia mountains.
I advise both IR and Thermals. I run both on a bridge, it's been a noon. 👍👍
Now that's a trip I wouldn't miss for the world
Thank u so much for this post. Have cancer and don’t feel like reading…. But could listen to you talk all day. Great content
Prayers for you, Sheila! And I agree 100%- great audio content from S2.
🙂
My girlfriend's stepfather is going though it too at the moment as well as a good work friend. Seems like it's in the air recently. You and yours aren't alone Sheila!
@@maxwellsharp2918 I think mine was related to the Cshot. I got the first two from the Mvax and 6 months later had a mammogram. They said hey… you have an enlarged lymph node, but don’t worry…. Lots of women are having this happen from “it”. We will monitor it. Then 6 months later, still there. Then, a year later, I had two enlarged nodes on that same side. Then this summer, Oh… your mammogram has shown a tumor, let’s biopsy. Yes, you have cancer. So….. lesson learned…. No more experimental drugs for me unless I am guaranteed to die from a disease…. Then I might. I should not have rushed in and gave them my arm. No more mRNA for me! I am sorry to hear the stepfather is going through it too. I don’t have any magic answers…. But tell him to do some “science” research into science papers and find things that might retard/stop his cancer progression. I am just starting keto/intermittent fasting along with turkey tail tea, turkey tail supplements, garlic supplements and turmeric. I cut out all sugar and white flour and am eating only clean Whole Foods now…. No added hormones, etc. I exercise and am feeling pretty good except I have brain fog which is why I appreciate him making these videos… I can listen better than read. Good luck to your friend’s stepfather. [Also…. I have found strength in knowing the Lord is with me. Phil 4:13]. Take care.
How are you doing Sheila?
Joining a Book Club will put you on the FBI terror list ❤🇺🇸
"Druga", if you're not on a list by now....your slacking!
@@willbass2869or "they" are slippin'
If you arent at minimum banned from traveling to Israel you are a rookie
Who. Fucking. Cares.
Wait ur not on that list yet? Give it a bit if your on this channel you will be on the list with there rest of us in no time
Thank you S2 team for continuing to bring great value and esteem to the youtube platform. I cant believe you offer this content for free.
s2 your analysis skills are really on display here. good work breaking down not just the story but the import and intrigue.
Other S2 fans: Last month, by keeping my phone aside (I don't watch TV or game as it is) I was able to read 7 books cover-to-cover. I only meant to find out how much it was possible to read if I resolved to do it. On the last week of the month I was too tired to read without dozing off constantly, so if it weren't for working in excess of full-time hours I wonder if I might've made 9.
Already I've noticed that my reading speed has increased and suddenly 400 pages registers as a liesurely effort.
What tipped me to pursuing the effort in earnest was reading Louis L'Amour's memoir 'Education of a Wandering Man', wherein he gives some great tips on getting started with reading. Here's what I recall from top-of-the-head:
1) don't pay heed to feeling you have 'no time to read' - L'Amour once logged how many books he was able to read in a year just in moments spent waiting for people; ordering food/drink, appointments, bus stops, etc. He managed 25 books over 12 months by siezing these moments.
2) start by reading what you enjoy - L'Amour believed anyone who'd taken the time to write was worth being read on merit of their effort; even poor writing can be read for profit if you come to recognise the ways in which it could have been strengthened. Don't over-discern, especially getting started: all reading builds literary muscle, and some of the 'great works' will require considerable training to tackle.
3) In the course of his life taking notes on what the great characters of history had read in common, L'Amour concluded that the only work exceeding The Bible to feature in those literary repertoirs (particularly of great military leaders) was Plutarch's 'Lives'.
4) cherish libraries and mass-market paperbacks as assets with which to capitalise on in getting an education - the ubiquity of both are anomalies to our age, and history in no uncertain terms says that they're not to be taken for granted.
5) with reference to point 4, consider to get hold of a copy and read it for an abundance of helpful suggestion inspiration in reading!
How right you are! Regarding mass market paperbacks, off the subject of this video, might I recommend a bantam war book called rocket fighter? I learned a bit from that book. It's about the messerschmitt 163 komet, a true DANGEROUS technological miracle in a day when the speed of sound was NOT understood or maybe even unaware of. It was written by one of the test pilots, so its probably pretty accurate.
i loved to read as a child, around 1969 or 70 i got viral pneumonia and read constantly for a month. i was suppose to be in the class of 77 but dropped out after the 10th grade. mom convinced me to take a PRE GED test to see what i needed to study. my reading and comprehension was at 2nd year college level. (i was NOT into team sports, but in hunting and fishing etc...
later spent 10 years in prison. im not and never was into TV and sports was what was on tv so i read. i discovered the "books in print" catalogs and made lists of books to read based on subjects, authors. i used INTER LIBRARY LOAD PROGRAM to order books to read. being only allowed to order 3 books at a time, i recruited my brothers to hand in orders for me in their names.
in "the white tailed deer of north america" by leonard la rue, i found references to magazine articles by researchers on the chemical capture of deer in magazines that the "department of natural resources" actually subscribed to .
one such article i got a photocopy of contained detailed photos of how researchers made tranq darts to use in a blowgun using regular syringes. that article referenced other articles.
i borrowed a book titled "C,B,W, Chemical and Biological Warfare: the poor mans atomic bomb" security let it through because they didnt know shit. so i sat in the day room and read aloud to my brothers , just how easy it is to get cultures of bad ass shit, and turn it into a biological weapon, and how to use it as a weapon. LOL
i ordered books on DIY medical stuff like "emergency child birth" written to educate EMTs etc... i read out of print books farming muskrats, farming foxes mink, bobcats,etc... you name it i read it IF security let it through.
if security REJECTED THE BOOK/ARTICLE i then knew where it was.
when released i hit the public library and was able to get books from military libraries, the library of congress, and i even traveled to the libraries that had the books i wanted to read in their reference section that they will NOT let out of the library, (VERY EXPENSIVE) books.
i changed my looks now so i do not STAND OUT, $12,000 for laser surgery to remove the PECKER WOOD racist tattoos, cut my beard, removed my piercings ( when people started thinking it was fashionable).
THE REFERENCE NOTATIONS ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO READ AND MIGHT GIVE YOU A MUCH MORE IN DEPTH KNOWLEDGE. for instance in "the chemical capture of animals" there was details about a chemical that paralyzed the animals muscles but the majority of them died , then told that a researcher accidentally got injected and revealed why the animals died. IT WAS FROM FEAR, THE DRUG CAUSED THE ANIMAL/PERSON TO DIE FROM FEAR!
a doctor talked about FENTANYL that was seized in a raid of 224 GRAMS saying that it would KILL 95,000 PEOPLE. the math then says that just 1 gram of pure fentanyl would kill 250 people and just 4MG was enough to kill any human.
so a paste of distilled water and fentanyl inserted in the hollow point of a .177 pellet in an air rifle would overdose anyone shot with it! CRAZY< RIGHT!!
"Goulag Archipelago" & "Ordinary Men" are amazing books, but difficult to accept how brutal & demonic the average person can become under a dictatorial government
i did 10 calendars in prison, it can get super brutal that is for sure. sometime you HAVE to be brutal when dealing with people.for instance , when a young man comes into the prison he will have lots of fears and rightfully so.
being a white man in a 200 man open barracks where the guard on the gate is an inmate of the majority color, and controls the gate of 4 barracks along with the hallways gates at either end, you know that you are mostly all on your own. you tell the new white guy that if he will man up and fight, that you and others will make sure it is a one on one fight, they you will have his back. well the next think you know he is someone BITCH because he was too full of fear.
same thing in the WORLD. sometimes you just got to let the weak ones perish. that is BRUTAL but necessary and keeps the enemy busy!
@@steffybael1245 Have you ever seen Jay Williams, let's live life. UA-cam channel? or Texas prison channel? there are some real life experiences being shared on UA-cam.
When i was in school i was amazed with Soljenitsin tho when i got older i understood that mostly it was i big ball of bullshit mixed with truth.
Why ? Coz numbers simply do not add up. Numbers of people who went though labour camps by Soljenitsin were on magnitude higher than any other histoian published. In 1990s when Yeltsin was president there was a narrative, that USSR was bad and we are good . Tho all reasech that was done showed totally different numbers contrary to Soljenitsin was writing . Have more trust to them cos in 1990s researchers had access to all old KGB archives.
Out of his all books only one left that i still like , "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch" because its a true story about Soljenitsin himself. Others are BS.
Probably you would like to oppose me by saying look how bad was USSR , Stalin and Beriy.
To that i might say its an emotional response , same way i was thinking some 10 years ago .
I remember one day i was having a beer in spanish military base there was a general that was in close to retirement age. He told something good about Russia and Putin i tried to oppose him but saying but the news! He replied news are for idiots every news agency is basically a propaganda outlet, if you want to understand something about the world read reports and look at the numbers. Every serious organization UN , USA strategy initiative etc are publishing reports , read them and look at the numbers , and then you will have some understanding about the world.
Eventually it helped processes information differently. Something I wish for you too.
Cheers.
Oh, you think it's limited to dictatorial government? That's cute.
You have a great head on your shoulders. I've learned a lot from you, not just facts, but how to think and inform my worldview.
I would definitely like to see you go over The Perestroika Deception and Active Measures at some point in the bookclub.
Yes. A good book on that is people should read: "New Lies For Old" by Anatoliy Golitsyn.
Wake up babe new S2 dropped.
More books
this looks awesome but you’re killing me with this right after you drop our other homework assignment
Keep this stuff coming, you guys have been knocking it out of the park!
You guys are doing a lot of different projects. Keep up the good work!!
Oh nice! I'm always looking for books like this, I loved the former MI-5 Agent book "Spycatcher", this is right up my alley. There's a couple of other ones I need to pick up too, like Ric Prado's and Henry Crumpton's, also Douglas London's.
Well, keep in mind that these spies are criminals. Do you really believe that this criminal was so virtuous in his marriage that he wasn't the victim of a covert honeypot operation, when probably 98% of all govt has been video taped in these acts. Maybe the story was so unbelievable because it was a lie! We must always consider them criminal professional liars.
If you were dying and you were a spy wouldn't a possible thing you might want do be anything spy novels and getting ideas for your own "biography". You have to learn to think like Satan to be able to know how him and his crew is going to act.
should also read: "New Lies For Old" by Anatoliy Golitsyn.
@@huwhitecavebeast1972 Ooooh yes also that one!
Got to see Oleg Kalugin speak once. It was pretty crazy.
Based book club, looking forward to more reading material!
I like the idea of book reviews. Much obliged!
Great stuff!
Never been more excited for a book club.
You do much better book summaries than I do. I appreciate that! You have far better equipment and natural skills. Please continue to do book summaries. It's much more efficient than reading or listening on Audible books but allows us to be aware if we want to buy the books ourselves for more detail.
I’m so happy that we have people like s2 on our side. I admire smart, competent people with the right mindset
I love the concept of hearing about the books you are reading and a summary. Though I will say I prefer more applicable information to apply in our daily lives. So great work.
I find the section on the purge interesting because when dealing with personalities who have a paranoid need for loyalty checks (to the point of being self-fulfilling prophesy i.e. Stalin), The wrong answer is to denounce your disgraced immediate superiors. This only demonstrates your own capacity for disloyalty and makes you suspect. The correct answer is to shift focus of the conversation into your own acts of loyalty to the greater -purpose- just as described in the story. Know others as well as you know yourself and remember that every conversation is a form of manipulation. The question is always, who is manipulating who?
👍🏻🇺🇸🪖 I love the book club series buddy! I’m looking forward to the next one.
23:00 I think the explanation is quite simple. If you're intel leadership and you press on a lower guy to rat on his boss... and he does... he's not safe to keep around because someone above YOU could press him to rat on you
I suspect that a part of the reason for the Agency seeming amateurish is a result of our system of government. Policy makers spend much of their energy trying to counter or undo what the opposite party has done, and we basically hit "Repeat" every four or eight years. I think other nations, particularly Russia and China, are much better at playing the long game.
Right now, for instance, China is engaged in something called Plan 2049. Basically, China wants to displace the U.S. as the dominant superpower by the centenary of the Chinese Communist victory in 1949. Xi Jin Ping will be long dead by 2049. In America, in the meantime, our national level policy makers seem to be far less interested in doing what is right for America, and far more interested in countering the other party or trying to get re-elected in the next couple of years.
thats the danger with one party rule, nothing gets questioned and everything gets 100% public support
cool! 😎 Underground Book Club 💜👍
Learn.Do.Teach you’re doing amazing stuff man. Thank You!
Fantastic! Keep the education flowing.
I enjoy the path your taking . A book club catches our remnant ( old crusty Hams who have forgotten what you have to work with ). The response I'm getting is being hidden from anyone but this public open forum called 'Book Club' is a winner behind your blank screens . . . You Got Me .
T/C/E
Great vid! Looking forward to the next
Great video! Thank you!
very good cant wait for next one
FANTASTIC!! Thank you sir!
I'd like to see a book club book on Yuri Totrov - he used operations research techniques to identify CIA agents. I'm fascinated by the concept but I haven't found out the actual method
Fantastic! Thank you!
I really miss the intel updates from this channel....
Great Work!
Looking forward to it.
Excellent idea, I read all of these......
Great idea!
recently read The Unending Game by Vikram Sood he was a former R&AW (India's intelligence service) Chief’s Insights into Espionage. it was written in 2018. its online. learned alot.
Book club!!!
I Definitely would like to get more of this book club stuff, its great content.
This is awesome … really love s2 book club
I wish i can be apart of such physical book cluba of these topics, unfortunately i am from Philippines, n it seems like im the only one in my area who shares the same views n interest of S2underground😅
Yes I suspect there it would be hard to find other people with interest in this material there.
The chapter 5 story is hilarious! I hope someone makes a movie about it.
This is great. 👍👍
I nominate The Turner Diaries
One book from me:
Disinformation
By
Ion Pacepa
Goes back to Czars and explains the Russian mindset, up to the present day.
Also verifies what we all eventually came to suspect: the KGB was funding most of drug-fueled debauchery of the 60's and 70's.
It's not much tradecraft, but a good big picture of the "destroy them from within" thinking of communism.
Nice man!
Great video, I like this new bookclub
Impeccable notes there, guy.
Book club rocks
Book club over JS8 when?
29:22 George "Blake"
*EVERY SINGLE TIME*
S2 baby baby!
Amazing ❤❤
Rock on, S2
'The War Magician'
You will love this book
awesome!
This is a great way to inform and teach others.
Another great book that is relevant to the strategy employed today is from the 1939 book Armies of Spies by Joseph Gollomb.
I think some use game sites like chess to pass messages. I have noticed certain people that create multiple accounts… have to create new emails for each account and they use the account maybe only one day or two, then that same person creates a new account the next day. They keep key words in their user name for who ever they are chatting with. Very very strange behavior. They have been doing this for quite a few years.
Awesome! Book club time 🗿🗿🗿
A book to add to the read pile
Cool. Thanks
Dope!
Alright this is *cool* !!!
BOOK CLUB!!!
I love it
LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO!
Have you read Marcus Wolf's "Man Without a Face"? I've often wonderer how accurate it was.
Missed the notification on this one...
If the appendix matters so much, why not wait until you've gone through it? It's not like there was an important deadline to beat-- this is the first book club video. Beyond that, interesting video.
Wouldn't mind a video thought process of how you take/organize notes!
Maybe you could also do a video on how you take notes, study, and break things down to learn and teach?
Very good episode. I like the variety you are including. would be interested in a group discussion in person would be best. about books such as this. dounds like a great camping weekend. this automatically made me think of the movie. The Falcon and the Snow man. with Robert Redford. thanks again.
I think the reason the KGB was better than the CIA was due to a big socioeconomic difference between the two cultures. When you are poor and oppressed you have the motivation and environment conducive to having a wild imagination. Just like the saying "necessity is the mother of invention", the Soviets didnt have much to work with so they had to get really good at thinking outside the box. During the space race the US spent tons of money trying to invent a pen that would work in outer space while Russia just used pencils. Russia is home to some of the greatest artistic achievements in many areas, from ballet, symphonies, poets, authors like Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and the many famous artists and painters. I believe the creative and imaginative strength of Russia has a lot to do with its way of life throughout history.
Richard Sorge was a German communist who worked for the NKVD (later named the kGB) during WWll. He was posted to Tokyo as a reporter, which was his cover job. The Japanese allowed this because he was working for a German newspaper and because Germany and Japan were both Axis powers. But he was secretly working for the USSR and had a transmitter and code books hidden under the floorboards of his rented room in Tokyo. So yes, Sorge was a Soviet spy, but he was not Russian.
I would love for you to go over your system(s) for notetaking, it looks really good and is something I've always had trouble with
I recommend Aquarium by Viktor Surovov, it describes the inner workings of the GRU during the war, sounds like it has sone similar content to this.
Great video! Eagerly waiting for your take on Israel.
The Perestroika Deception next please. Essential reading!
Wouldn't mind, Jan Sejna "We Will Bury You" or Golitsyn's "New Lies for Old". Never trusted RU, never believed RU and I don't know why people play down or dismiss current and past 'activities' or how anyone can ever support them.
People should also read: "New Lies For Old" by Anatoliy Golitsyn.
@@huwhitecavebeast1972 Yep, because 'a leopard never changes its spots'.
@@huwhitecavebeast1972you know the score mate!
It's available on audible... to all you commuters who don't like to read...
I also prefer a Hard copy however i compromised on digital as it’s cheaper and should something happen, my notes are backed up. Notes on the kindle app on a newer iPad Pro is not bad. I can highlight several different colors, add my own annotations, and it syncs across all platforms should you not have your iPad with you and need to look at a certain marked page that you added a note on. Just pull out a device that has the app or a browser you can login into and presto. Still, nothing beats the feel of a book in your hand and the smells that come with them.
Is there a Cliff Notes version?
Your Book is a good read.
Your review was great and there is some stuff in there that could be useful. Trust no one, always believe you are being watched, Luck is good but blackmail is better.
The next book for just a suggestion could be Sub Rosa: The O.S.S. and American Espionage.
What makes Russian so good at spy craft?
1) They know how to keep a secret.
2) Their way of life means they must know how to lie.
3) They know how to spot a lie.
4) They always have some self doubt.
5) They question themselves.
Good stuff brother !!!
I like the book analysis and teaching.
Similar to how Jay dyer does the globalists books and writings.
P.s. Ian Fleming was mi6
Belt and Road Initiative is the reason for the Ukraine War.
Chicom told Russia in 2013 they need the Belt and Road to
go thru Ukraine.
Exactly why propaganda via kremlin spy agency is being spread heavily vis-a-vis the American right wing. The new axis wants the funding to our pentagon to cease
People are so dumb to think money just goes straight to Zelinsky and he keeps it. Literally, we have so many dumb Americans
I called my house rep & expressed the need to support Ukraine defense AND secure Southern border. We can do both!!!
29:26 MR. BEAST!!!!!!
I'm sure the agencies see these death bed confessions as a fairly strong reason to not let operatives to get too old.
Or politicians....
Nothing is said in this book that can't be found elsewhere. Just enough is revealed for a story and not much else. Pay day for an old spy jandler and keeps the good stuff for the motherland.
On the cultural issues driving the difference in perceived ability: Americans have a reputation in much of the world for being naive. Culturally, we expect honesty and transparency in addition to adherence to a consistently applied set of rules. That expectation simply does not exist in Russian culture.
I think the major differences was due to cultural like a city boy in the country or a country boy in the city. Where we have issues with not being warn or the government not doing enough to protect us. The best analogy I can think of was WW2 where thru a city was bomb even though the government knew of it ahead of time. But didn't want the knowledge that they can decipher the enigma device. Granted that was a different time. But we seen the public over the last couple of decades go up in arms over how this could of happen like 9/11. Where in the USSR you learn to watch what you say, because you heard the stories of not asking about someone if they disappeared. I'll say they won the intelligence war, but they couldn't win due to manipulation that allowed them to do intelligence work well. I just don't think the public would allow the ruthlessness like USSR or even like what England did during WW2 at this point in time.
People should also read: "New Lies For Old" by Anatoliy Golitsyn.
Hello underground, welcome back to me.
In Soviet Russia or any totalitarian state...the common citizen needs to be constantly vigilant and on point with what they know and others know....
In a free society like America, even trained spies came from a life of freedom and therefore naive thinking and practices...
Probably a contributing factor for why our intelligence lags.
Jay Dyer has a ton of content on his channel dealing with spies and geopolitics in case anyone is interested
I'd love to find a good book Critical of F.D.R. and the new deal. Anyone have a recommendation?
Not sure if this is helpful, but Maynard Keynes became quite critical of the new deal much later, effectively denouncing Keynesism (!).
(they don't teach THAT in college economics)
Antony Sutton's Wall Street Series has a book on FDR and the New Deal. It's an amazing series so just read them all.
Hell just read his diaries/memoirs, they are damning. Also he had FBI investigate his wife having an affair, found out that she was and had the dude sent to the Pacific theater, to serve until killed.
Thank you boys.
A good book I would suggest is " The Turner Diaries".
Fredred rhymes with Fed.