In "Alexander Orlov: The FBI's KGB General" (2002), former FBI agent Edward Gazur tries to prove the impossible that KGB Gen. Alexander Orlov was a true defector, a man who switched allegiances from the Soviet Union to America and repudiated international communism.
Gazur ardently believes that Orlov, who became his friend and whom he ultimately came to love as a father figure, genuinely cooperated with the FBI and the CIA. This (his own) book unfortunately proves quite the opposite.
Orlov did denounce Stalin, who had annihilated many of his compatriots in the various purges, but he was not a defector in the true sense of the word, and he did not deserve the honors or the protection this country extended to him and his family.
Orlov never fully cooperated with U.S. authorities and certainly did not help preserve the freedom and security of the country that sheltered him and his family during their many years on the run from the KGB, as well as the 15 preceding years when he hid from the FBI and CIA.
Curiously, Gazur wrote his tome after an FBI colleague brought to his attention a book entitled "Deadly Illusions" (1993) by John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, based on then recently opened KGB files, which presented Orlov in a very different light. Gazur was astonished: "What I read about Orlov and the man I knew personally and called a close friend seemed to be two entirely different people."
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