The Myth and Reality of Russia’s Illegals
BOOK REVIEW: The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
By Shaun Walker / Knopf
Reviewed by: Kenneth Dekleva
The Reviewer — Dr. Kenneth Dekleva served as a Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist with the U.S. Dept. of State from 2002-2016, and is currently Professor of Psychiatry, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX; he is also a Senior Fellow at the George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations and a Salzburg Global Fellow. He is also the author of three spy novels, including The Russian Diplomat’s Wife. The views expressed are entirely his own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, the U.S. Dept. of State, or UT Southwestern Medical Center.
REVIEW — Shaun Walker is a well-known British journalist, who has spent over a decade in Russia. The latter experience and his extensive research provide the backdrop for his most recent book, The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West, a riveting history about the origins and evolution of Russia’s famed illegals program since 1917.
The Russian illegals program has a storied history, which is not only captured in this book, but which has been immortalized in numerous memoirs, novels, movies for example ‘Bridge of Spies’, and evocative TV series, such as the Russian: ‘Seventeen Moments of Spring’ (which is said to have influenced a young Vladimir Putin to aspire to a career in the KGB) and ‘The Americans.’ It’s more than mere intelligence history — it’s a larger tale, suffused with emotion, heroism, courage, myth, tragedy, successes, and losses.
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Walker’s book is superb, both because of its comprehensive history and background, and the narrative tales embedded therein. I loved reading about the first illegals such as Trilisser, Akhmerov, Bystrolyotov, Sorge, as well as the later Cold War illegals such as Abel, Molody, Grigulevich, and more recent illegals such as Tracy Ann Foley, Donald Heathfield, and their brilliant, ruthless masters, such as the late KGB General Yuri Drozdov, who headed Directorate S for over a decade.
Walker does a fine job outlining – through archival research, primary and secondary sources, and interviews – the background, selection, and intensive training that illegals undergo. Beyond the routine training that even ‘legal’ intelligence officers go through, working as an illegal demands much more, in terms of mastering languages, dialects, psychology, body language, drama (General Drozdov even took acting classes from Berthold Brecht to prepare for his six years as an illegal in East Germany during the 1950s!), and the ultimate challenge of working under deep cover without diplomatic immunity. The latter requires adopting a new identity for decades and being able to tolerate profound uncertainty and isolation. Walker tells of the program’s successes, but also notes the failures, and the deep psychological toll that being an illegal, or the family member of an illegal, can take upon its devotees. It can put one’s soul at hazard, something which even famous, highly successful illegals comment upon in the book. But it has its rewards, as noted by legendary illegal Yuri Shevchenko (who operated undercover as a French street artist for many years): “All of us on this earth get just one life. But not illegals. They can live several lives, all full of adventures.”
The early illegals after the Russian Revolution, during World War II, and the Cold War, had a larger-than-life quality. What’s more striking about the more recent, post-1991 illegals, such as Elena Vavilova, Andrei Bezrukov, and more recently, Anna and Artyom Dultsev (who were freed by Slovenia in a 2024 prisoner trade), is not only their skill set, but their ordinariness and ‘everyday’ qualities. They look and act like us, like neighbors. This is a different topic, one which makes one ponder more deeply the role of neighbors and strangers in our daily lives.
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My one criticism of this excellent book is that I would have welcomed a chapter on the inter-war illegals Arnold Deutsch and Theodor Maly, who recruited the Cambridge Five in of Russia’s most brilliant seeding operations.
Overall, Shaun Walker has written a masterful, must-read work, which helps us to understand both the history, qualities, and enduring status of the illegals, who have become something more, a fusion of history and myth. Because of that, they are likely here to stay, even long after their current champion, Russia’s President Putin, passes from the scene. For illegals are as quintessentially Russian as matryoshka dolls, borscht, and blini.
The Illegals earns a prestigious 4 out of 4 trench coats
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