034 - Benjamin Cunningham - The Double Agent Who Infiltrated the CIA

<p>Benjamin Cunningham is a correspondent for <em>The Economist</em>. He covered Central and Eastern Europe for six years, and now writes about the wider Mediterranean region from Barcelona. In addition he contributes to <em>The Guardian</em>, <em>The Los Angeles Review of Books</em>, <em>Aspen Review</em>, <em>Le Monde Diplomatique</em> and is an opinion columnist for <em>Sme</em>, Slovakia’s main daily newspaper. </p> <p>His first book is called The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Cold War's Last Honest Man. In the mid-1970s, the CIA and KGB watched Karel Koecher closely—they were both convinced he was working for the enemy. And they were both right. Traveling with his wife, Hana, Koecher posed as a Czechoslovak asylum seeker and arrived in the US as a Communist sleeper agent. After parlaying a doctorate from Columbia into a job at the CIA, Koecher proceeded to operate as a double agent at the height of the Cold War.<br />  <br /> Shunning a low profile, the Koechers embraced Manhattan’s high life—with cocaine, swinging, and parties emblematic of the times and their penchant for risk. Hana, who was no more than a shy teenager when she arrived, grew into a sophisticated international diamond dealer who relayed messages to Karel’s handlers. Riding a wave of euphoria, the Koechers felt unstoppable. But it was too good to last.<br />  <br /> Using newly declassified documents, interrogation tapes, and extraordinary firsthand accounts from the Koechers themselves, Cunningham reconstructs their double lives and the fading Cold War, where a strange moral fog made it hard to know what truth was being fought for, and to what end.</p>