Long before 'The Best of Enemies' was published (on sale today), movie producer Ron Howard and Imagine Entertainment optioned the book with an eye toward making a motion picture from the tale. It's not hard to see why. 'The Best of Enemies' has all the elements that Hollywood loves. To start, it has two quirky and colorful lead characters, CIA Officer Jack 'Cowboy' Platt and KGB Officer Gennady Vasilenko. As the book's title suggests, the men, on opposite sides of the Cold War, develop a deep, abiding and unlikely friendship that survived a brutal cold war and, at times, even more cruel peace at a time when a supposed warming of relations between their countries hid an icy resolve to expose traitors in their midst.
Vasilenko was assigned to the KGB rezidentura in the Soviet Embassy in Washington in the late 1970s at a time when Platt was working 'Soviet recruitment operations' in conjunction with FBI agents in the D.C. area. The two were directed to try to recruit each other and while neither ended up betraying his country - they did establish a close relationship that endured for decades to come.
Another reason Hollywood is bound to like 'The Best of Enemies' is that the principal characters, while eminently likable, have flaws that make them interesting. In the case of Platt, it was a love affair with the bottle - an addiction he eventually beat later in life. But in the early events depicted in the book, his affinity to alcohol led to a scene aboard the Gangplank restaurant along Washington's waterfront where Platt, Vasilenko, an FBI agent and a CIA code clerk all got drunk. The FBI agent, who was most worst for the wear, announced to the other diners: "This here is real vodka, this is a real KGB guy, those are real CIA guys, and I'm FBI!" Platt and friends quickly got up to leave, the code clerk eventually having to be fished out of the channel where he had fallen. As luck would have it, two of the people who had been dining near them were Air Force intelligence officers who reported the incident. Somehow Cowboy's career survived.
In the case of Vasilenko, his love affair was not with liquor, but with the ladies. Eventually, he maintained two families with children in Moscow at the same time. The two clans met each other for the first time in a waiting room in a Russian prison where Gennady was being held in 2005, falsely accused of being a CIA asset.
But the significant part of the book lies in the stories of how the two men's careers seem to intersect with all the major intelligence events of the past several decades. Their story is interwoven with the notorious cases of people like Edward Lee Howard, Aldrich Aimes and Robert Hanssen.
Despite never having betrayed his country - Vasilenko's association with Platt contributed to his falling under suspicion and eventually spending years in various Russian prisons and gulags. In another 'you can't make this stuff up' twist - Vasilenko and Platt had befriended movie icon Robert DeNiro and the actor played an important role in trying to get better treatment for Gennady while in Russian custody.
Eventually, with help from Platt, who by that time had retired from the CIA and others, Vasilenko was released as part of a 2010 spy swap that returned Anna Chapman and the Russian illegals to Moscow in exchange for four people of interest to the West - including Sergei Skripal, who news accounts suggest has been the subject of unhealthy interest of GRU officers in Salisbury, England recently.
The Best of Enemies is rich in detail that espionage aficionados will enjoy - including CIA cryptonyms, tradecraft, and details of Russian abuse of those they suspect of disloyalty. The authors list about 50 people they interviewed for the book - and hint that there were many more who asked not to be named.
There are lots of nuggets that will interest DC-area readers --- such as an anecdote about how Vasilenko revealed to Platt that the Soviets used to maintain a dead drop site at the former Evans Farm Inn restaurant just a few miles from CIA headquarters - only to have Platt reveal that the Agency knew of it all along.
Also amusing is the description of the FBI's Washington Field Office, which in the late 70s was located in the old Post Office Building - which is now the Trump International Hotel in DC. The facility has been improved considerably - but it is described as being at the time, 'a dump, concrete falling all around us' and 'the worst space in government'.
Perhaps the biggest contribution of the book, however, is its depiction of the long game of intelligence, played out not in months or years, but in decades, the toll on the personal lives of not only the participants, but of their families, and the uplifting message that intelligence officers (at least initially) on opposite sides of the battle, can find friendship and common values in each other.
It is easy to see how the book may be turned into a movie - the only question remaining is: who will play Robert DeNiro?
The Cipher Brief awards 'The Best of Enemies' four trench coats. We highly recommend it.
Review by Under/Cover Senior Editor Bill Harlow. Few people combine the knowledge Harlow has of the worlds of intelligence, national security and publishing. He served on active duty in the United States Navy for 25 years – retiring as a Captain. During that time, he served as Assistant White House Press Secretary for four years and spokesman for the Secretary of the Navy for three. He swapped his uniform for a trench coat in 1997 becoming the chief spokesman for the Director of Central Intelligence – serving in that position for seven tumultuous years.
