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- Sleeper Agent is the biography of a Soviet military intelligence officer who infiltrated America’s atom bomb project in World War II as a U.S. Army corporal and sent classified information to Moscow, including details about polonium, the fuel for the bomb’s trigger. Before moving to Oak Ridge, TN, he lived in the Bronx – as did his handler– took classes at Columbia and CCNY, and worked at a cover shop in Chelsea on West 23 rd Street.
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- Beyond the expected intrigue and deceit of an espionage drama, Sleeper Agent delves into the psychology of the spy, showing the hopes, fears, and beliefs that spurred his decisions and accomplishments.
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- Hidden in plain sight, this Red Army spy, George Koval, blended into the American culture: He played bridge, loved Walt Whitman, and was a Yankees fan who could reel off the history and stats of every big-league pitcher.
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- Brimming with new research, Sleeper Agent exposes fresh parts of the 1940s atom bomb history, such as the role of polonium and the importance of a Dayton, Ohio site tied to the Manhattan Project: a secret within the secret.
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- This gripping, fast-paced story shows the expertise and determination of Russian military intelligence, especially the use of science-trained spies in wartime America.
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- Koval’s life personifies the Cold War battle of the American Dream versus the Communist goal of a workers paradise.
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- Though his self-designed tapestry of lies and half-truths depicts a traitor, Koval was also a dedicated scientist and a survivor of anti-Semitism in both Russia and America.
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- From the Ellis Island of the West to the Jewish Autonomous Region of the Soviet Far East, from the Soviet program of well-planted science student spies in America to the production of the fuel for the atom bomb’s trigger, Sleeper Agent brings alive new moments in espionage history in both the Soviet Union and America.
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