He served our country for eighteen years, the longest-running, highest-ranking CIA asset in the history of the Cold War. He was active as a spy for the United States during the most intense years of the Cold War, from 1961 to 1980. And by then his “briefing transcripts and photocopies of secret documents fill[ed] 25 file drawers in the agency’s innermost sanctum.” Many top US officials credit him with helping prevent the Cold War from turning hot. Yet his entry on Wikipedia describes him as a double agent for the Soviet Union. That misinformation reflects the long-running battle among CIA veterans that counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton set off in the 1960s with his tragically misguided “mole hunt.” But in Spies in the Family, Eva Dillon sets the record straight with her deeply researched account of her father’s long friendship with him.
Helping prevent the Cold War from turning hot
His name was Dmitri Polyakov (1921-88), and he rose to the rank of major general in the GRU, the foreign military intelligence agency of the USSR until 1991. Unlike many CIA assets in the Soviet Union, he wanted no money. And he had “no desire to become an American—Polyakov’s Russian roots went too deep for that—but he viewed the Soviet Union as an aggressor whose commitment to ideological confrontation might well lead to a cataclysmic war. He began to believe that he might, in some small way, prevent this by helping the Americans better interpret Soviet political, military, and economic actions and intentions.” And he delivered on that hope like no one else. Then, because of his great value as a CIA asset, he was betrayed by American spies, first Robert Hanssen and then Aldrich Ames.
Spies in the Family: An American Spymaster, His Russian Crown Jewel, and the Friendship That Helped End the Cold War by Eva Dillon (2017) 352 pages ★★★★★
The “Black Hats” of the CIA
The story of James Jesus Angleton’s disruptive and misguided “mole hunt” has been told many times. Angleton was, by all accounts, brilliant, and he performed admirably in the job in the 1950s. Then his best friend, long-time MI6 officer Kim Philby. defected to the USSR in 1961—and the counterintelligence chief went off the rails. Always suspicious, he exhibited what psychiatrists have described as full-blown paranoia. He saw Soviet spies under every rock in the CIA. And his acolytes, called “Black Hats,” spread terror in the agency. Their campaign to unroot moles, and especially to discredit every credible Soviet defector, turned the agency upside down. Hundreds lost their jobs or found themselves under endless suspicion, their careers on the rocks. But one of the biggest mistakes Angleton made in his unhinged mole hunt was to cast suspicion on Dmitri Polyakov.
Ironically, there does appear to have been one, and possibly more than one, Soviet spy in the agency. Later research points in that direction. But it was not anyone Angleton or his followers identified at the time.
A spy story wrapped in a family memoir
Dmitri Polyakov’s story comes to light in the course of Eva Dillon’s account of her father, Paul Dillon’s, long career as an officer of the CIA. Dillon joined the agency soon after it was formed, working in the field as early as 1951. He served in posts under diplomatic cover in Berlin, Mexico City, Rome, and New Delhi. And Eve and her six brothers and sisters were born and grew up in all those places. Her memoir recounts their family’s experiences while following the course of her father’s career until his untimely death in 1980. And Dmitri Polyakov figured in a major way in Paul Dillon’s career. He was the general’s handler in New Delhi but also met with him many times in other cities over the years. They became fast friends.
Spies in the Family is a lucid account of an important chapter in the history of US espionage operations—and a highly readable story of one family’s experience of life in the CIA.
About the author
According to her publisher, “Eva Dillon spent twenty-five years in the magazine publishing business in New York City, including stints at Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, The New Yorker, and as president of Reader’s Digest, U.S. Dillon and her six siblings grew up moving around the world for her father’s CIA assignments in Berlin, Mexico City, Rome, and New Delhi. She holds a bachelor’s in music from Virginia Commonwealth University and lives in Charleston, South Carolina.”
For related reading
This is one of the Best books about the CIA and of Good nonfiction books about espionage.
For other memoirs about the work of the CIA, see:
- Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA by Amaryllis Fox (Life undercover in the CIA chasing suitcase nukes)
- Six Car Lengths Behind an Elephant: Undercover & Overwhelmed as a CIA Wife and Mother by Lillian McCloy (Under deep cover in the CIA during the Cold War)
- Three Minutes to Doomsday: An Agent, a Traitor, and the Worst Espionage Breach in US History by Joe Navarro (The worst spy scandal in US history, and it’s not what you think)
And one book in particular by a former senior CIA official also deals directly with the agency’s work with General Polykov: Spymaster: Startling Cold War Revelations of a Soviet KGB Chief by Tennent H. Bagley (Startling revelations from a top KGB spymaster).
You’ll find other great reading at The 15 best espionage novels and The best spy novelists writing today.
And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.
Reality like exploding pagers and walkie-talkies is leaving espionage fiction in the ashtray of history. Why not forget about fictional agents like Bond and Bourne dashing to save the world from disaster and forget about CIA and MI6 officers reclining on their couches dreaming up espionage scenarios to thrill you. Check out what a real MI6 and CIA secret agent does nowadays. Why not browse through TheBurlingtonFiles website and read about Bill Fairclough’s escapades when he was an active MI6 and CIA agent? The website is rather like an espionage museum without an admission fee … and no adverts. You will soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won’t want to exit.
After that experience you may not know who to trust so best read Beyond Enkription, the first novel in The Burlington Files series. It’s a noir fact based spy thriller that may shock you. What is interesting is that this book is apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies’ induction programs. Why? Maybe because the book is not only realistic but has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. It is an enthralling read as long as you don’t expect fictional agents like Ian Fleming’s incredible 007 to save the world or John le Carré’s couch potato yet illustrious Smiley to send you to sleep with his delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots!
See https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2023_06.07.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2024.08.31.php.
Thank you. I haven’t paid any attention to Bond or Bourne for decades. But I haven’t yet had a chance to check out the Burlington Files. In the meantime, I have found many sober and well-informed authors of spy fiction whose work bears no resemblance to the superhero stories you and I both deplore.