The novel’s central figure, Gordievsky was in a sense “born into the KGB” (7), as his father was a KGB agent who began his service in the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB. Gordievsky and his brother, Vasili, both followed in their father’s footsteps and became agents themselves. Their mother’s side of the family was mistreated by the Communist Party, so she never fully bought into its supposed infallibility. She kept quiet, however. Thus, Macintyre notes the internal, silent dissension in which Gordievsky grew up, even as he appeared to be a model student from a model family.

His coming of age coincided with a brief period of liberalization within the Soviet bloc, a corrective to the excesses of the Stalin years. Gordievsky welcomed this change, taking it as a sign of his country’s growth and future promise. He therefore found the violent suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 disillusioning. Nonetheless, Gordievsky was loyal and dedicated to the KGB from early on. He was recruited at university and sent on a brief mission to Berlin in 1961. His faith was again tested when, on the very day after his arrival, the Berlin Wall went up.