Love The Rosenberg File? Readers share 100 books like The Rosenberg File...

This is a non-fiction book but it reads like a novel and explores one of the great mysteries of the spy world: how on earth did Kim Philby manage to betray not only his country but also his friends over so many years? 

A former spy I had the privilege of interviewing described Philby as a shit, so maybe there’s the answer. I think this is a terrific read, and although Macintyre probably isn’t a spy, like Deighton, he knows them. 

I doubt there has ever been a more controversial book written about an espionage case than Perjury! For decades, Professor Weinstein’s 1978 book on the Alger Hiss case generated heated arguments between Hiss’s supporters and detractors. I was a participant in that battle and I tell you, it was brutal. Both sides took no prisoners when arguing over the legitimacy of the author’s interpretation of evidence and conclusions. For over 25 years, Hiss cheered his supporters on and went to his grave, still proclaiming his innocence. 

The historian’s task is to separate historical fact from fantasy. I recommend Weinstein’s expanded second edition version because in its pages, he does just that, plus he integrated the provocative evidence from Russian archives that emerged after the first edition was published. 

Bottom line, this book provides the most objective and convincing account of the drama that led to Hiss’s conviction.  

I treasure this book not only because I possess one of the few hardback copies inscribed by all three authors but also because I consider Spies the most authoritative book about KGB espionage operations in America during the 1930s and 40s. Without question, if I could own own only one book about Soviet espionage in America, this would be it!.  

I’ve known the principal author, John Haynes, for over thirty years. Though we do not always agree on who was or was not a Soviet spy, I have the utmost respect for his scholarship and encyclopedic knowledge of KGB operations. What I feel is particularly important about this book is that it integrates information from available Soviet archival sources into the narrative. Not surprisingly, the authors reveal the names of numerous Americans who were Soviet spies but were never even under suspicion. Read carefully: you may find a relative is… show more.

The Alger Hiss case riveted America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His trial and conviction convince many Americans that Communist espionage had been a serious problem and the case made Richard Nixon a national figure. His chief accuser, Whittaker Chambers, was a fascinating, tormented, talented man and writer. Tanenhaus’s biography portrays him with all his virtues, warts, and contradictions.

In addition to facilitating atomic espionage, Julius Rosenberg supervised several engineers who stole vital technical secrets dealing with radar, sonar, and aviation.  Usdin tells the fascinating story of two of them, Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant, who defected to the Soviet Union after the Rosenbergs were arrested and helped build the Soviet Silicon Valley.

The story of the youngest physicist at Los Alamos, Ted Hall, who volunteered to spy for the KGB and provided vital atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Although Hall’s treachery was discovered by American counter-intelligence, he was never prosecuted to avoid alerting the Soviets that the United States had decrypted their top-secret WWII cables. Albright and Kunstel tell the story of an idealistic, naïve and arrogant spy.

British spy rings of the 1930s and 40s fascinate me. Their members appear more colorful and audacious than their American counterparts. I think it rings especially true for the chaps of the “Cambridge Spy Ring.” Their escapades are recounted in dozens of books but I consider Newton’s the best, partly because he does what no other historian had done: chronicle the missing American dimension of the Cambridge Spy Ring saga. 

Newton is a fine historian as well as a grand storyteller, and I love a book that reads like a mystery novel! I also have great respect for writers who possess the knack for projecting a sense of “place” in their books. Newton does this so well that, when I lived in Washington DC, and after completing my evening read of his book, I’d venture out onto gaslit cobblestone streets and wander by the l brick-faced Georgian style residences ever… show more.

Of all the biographies I’ve ever read, Miranda Carter’s psychological tale chronicling “the lives” of Anthony Blunt is my all-time favorite! When I taught my university espionage history course, my students typically knew nothing about espionage history. I made Carter’s book their first reading assignment as I needed to kick the course off with a quick-paced, enthralling story of a real-life spy. Carter’s book was perfect.

Carter characterizes this treacherous Communist as a “spy with no shame.” So true! In his public life, Blunt wore a mask that allowed him to appear as a renowned art historian who hobnobbed with the Queen. But another mask is evident—that of a conniving spy recruiter who, as a closeted homosexual, seduced and blackmailed undergrad boys into becoming Communists and, in some cases, spies.

In my experience, no other book does a better job of showing readers what it is like to live a… show more.

In 1953, a working-class Jewish couple from Brooklyn was executed for allegedly selling nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. Their two young children were orphaned. E. L. Doctorow’s novel about the Rosenbergs is an excruciating examination of these events from the fictionalized perspective of one of those children. Daniel’s point of view—naïve, angry, traumatized—brilliantly illustrates the absurdity and cruelty of American culture when it turns against those who, for reasons of class, race, or religion, have never been fully included in it. I’ve read it a dozen times and still find myself sobbing at the realization of how all the country’s history, all its dreams and delusions about itself and its destiny, were stacked up against this poor pair of nobodies. Their real crime lay in demanding that the United States live up to its ideals, something it has never been able to do.

The Schneirs did not write the first book on the famous case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, New Yorkers who were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951 and put to death by the U.S. government in 1953. But for 20 years after its publication in 1965, their book became the definitive version of how the Rosenbergs had been victims of a grave miscarriage of justice, convicted of a crime “that never occurred”.

When the Schneirs published a revised version in 1983, its claims directly conflicted with those of another 1983 book, The Rosenberg File by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, which argued that during World War II, Julius Rosenberg had absolutely been a spy who shared atomic secrets with the Soviet Union. These divergent views led to a very public debate over the Rosenbergs’ guilt.