Cover image of "Spies in the Family," a memoir that includes the story of the top CIA asset in the Cold War

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 ★★★★★


Photo of Dmitri Polykov, the top CIA asset in the USSR
GRU Major General Dmitri Polyakov, the highest-ranking US spy in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. One of his handlers was the author’s father, CIA spymaster Paul L. Dillon. Image: Wikipedia

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

Photo of Eva Dillon, author of this book about the top CIA asset in the USSR
Eva Dillon. Image: HarperCollins Publishers

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.”

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:

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.

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