Product Description

Discloses Cold War actions we never knew about before from the FBI's innermost man in the Soviet Union.

Product Details

• Published on: 1996-01-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

From Amazon.com
With all the suspense and intrigue of a Cold War thriller, Operation Solo tells the remarkable and true story of Morris Childs, code named "Agent 58", who, for twenty-seven years, provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets during fifty-two clandestine missions to the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe.

From Publishers Weekly
Although Morris Childs (1902-1991) was treated as a friend by Soviet rulers Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov, this Chicago communist and onetime editor of the Daily Worker, the U.S. Communist Party newspaper, was an American spy working for the FBI. Barron (FBI Today) interviewed his wife, Eva Lieb Childs, and numerous FBI operatives to produce this remarkable true-life espionage story, which often reads like a spy thriller. According to Barron, Operation Solo (as the Childses' group was called) yielded intelligence that enabled Washington to exploit the Soviet Union's widening rift with China in the 1960s; their spying also helped Nixon and Kissinger forge ahead with diplomatic ties to Beijing. Born Moishe Chilovsky, near Kiev (he emigrated to America when he was nine), Childs also befriended Castro, Mao Tse-tung, East Germany's Walter Ulbricht and other Communist leaders. In 1987, Reagan awarded him a presidential medal. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Traditionally, it is the Central Intelligence Agency that carries out foreign espionage for the United States, but attention to the American Communist Party gave the FBI an opportunity to infiltrate communism's highest international levels. It is amazing that the FBI apparently managed to keep it a secret all these years. Morris Childs (1902-91) trained in Moscow as a Comintern agent and became a labor agitator in the Midwest during the Depression. He became the editor of the Communist Daily Worker in 1946 but fell out of favor with the American party next year. Suffering a heart attack, he became disillusioned at what communism had become and thus was willling, along with his brother, to cooperate with the FBI when approached in the mid-1950s. Childs was rehabilitated to become the American party's foreign minister and the main funnel for funds from abroad. He advised the Soviets on America and reported to Washington what the Communists were thinking. Childs received the Order of Lenin from the grateful Russians, and Leonid Brezhnev even hosted a banquet for his 75th birthday. It is interesting to read about the role of Childs in some of the great international events of the time. Perhaps most disturbing is the account of the aged and isolated Soviet leadership hysterically seeking signs that the entire world was going to attack in the mid-1980s. Barron (The KGB Today, Reader's Digest, 1983) was able to interview Childs and other principals in the case. Suitable for public and academic libraries.
Daniel K. Blewett, Loyola Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

SON OF AGENT
I am the son of the FBI agent Richard Hansen. I can attest to the secrecy of this operation by explaining how I learned about it. In 1997 I was looking through the new arrivals at my local library. I started leafing through this book and did a double take when I saw my dad's name. I checked out the book, rushed home, called my dad. Sure enough, he admitted that he was the agent in the book. It is an amazing testament to his fidelity that he did not speak of this operation(even after he retired), until this book came out.

Fascinating
I loved this book. I read it years ago and am still able to fascinate people with the Childs's story. My kids have started asking me about it again now that they are in college (they knew the story, but wanted the name of the book so they could read it themselves.)
If anyone thinks the public should be privy to all the goings-on in the government at all times- I recommend this book. Without these underground heros, the Berlin wall probably would still be standing.

Incredible Read!
An incredible spy mystery with unbelievable twists and turns that would strain the imagination if it were a novel. That's the amazing part, it's all true. Right down to the surprise birthday party in the Kremlin. Who says that the Communists don't have a sense of humor. It is just difficuly to conceive that this double agent kept it up for 22 years, working with and hob nobbing with all the top dogs of the communist world, all the while reporting directly to the FBI. Morris Childs started out as a dedicated Communist determined to overthrow the government of the United States and ended up as one of the most courageous patriots of the 20th century. No wonder Ronald Reagan awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the highest award to a civilian given by a President. Don't miss reading this book. It is one of the best I have ever read.