“Four themes run like dark threads throughout our story below. The first three are the action parts of intelligence agencie…“Four themes run like dark threads throughout our story below. The first three are the action parts of intelligence agencies: espionage (stealing secrets), subversion, and sabotage. The latter two of these constitute covert action…Added to these kinetic activities of intelligence services in East and West is a fourth theme, and part of the secret world, the role of analysis: understanding an opponent’s aims and capabilities. All four of these ventures are as old as history, but they were taken to new levels by superpowers during the Cold War. Today the action elements are also carried out in the cyber domain, which provides a new medium for what is much older tradecraft. As we shall see, these three components – espionage, subversion, and sabotage – continue to be in play even when relations ostensibly improved between East and West…”- Calder Walton, Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West In his massively ambitious Spies, Calder Walton attempts to cover roughly one-hundred years of intelligence history, mostly pitting the United States against the Soviet Union, and later the Russian Federation. Starting with the Russian Revolution and ending with the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, it pulls back the curtain on many familiar events of the Cold War, and shows you the backstage view of how they unfolded with the help of unseen hands. While it can be easy to overstate the impact of spies, broken codes, and pilfered secrets, there is no doubting the inherent drama of it all. This is a tale brimming with divided loyalties, supreme betrayals, and extreme risks, where the smallest mistake can cost the highest price. Spies takes you into a world where high ideals clash with the basest greed, and heroism and treason share different sides of the same …