The discoveries that compelled their change of heart lend surprising twists to the narrative—one likely to be of great...
A former FBI agent and his coauthor spouse revisit a bungled, long-forgotten spy case and turn up the smoking gun.
Judith Coplon was an all-American girl, a brilliant, vivacious scholar who worked in the Justice Department during the late 1940s. She was also a committed communist who, in the words of former KGB spymaster Oleg Kalugin, “was an ideological spy rather than a mercenary. She was in it for her beliefs, like the Rosenbergs.” Unlike the Rosenbergs, however, Coplon did not die for her commitment to the communist cause; though she was ferreted out and arrested in 1949, the federal government could never assemble an incontrovertible case against her. For the next 18 years, however, the FBI saw to it that Coplon was a virtual prisoner within her own home. The authors (he is now a Georgia-Pacific executive; she wrote Management Strategies for Women, not reviewed) dust off old files in the matter, questioning why the government failed in its mission to convict Coplon. There were two main problems, they conclude: the FBI never produced a credible witness and could not produce some of the most convincing evidence because it would have revealed that the Bureau had broken Soviet code. Federal prosecutors therefore relied on innuendo, unproven allegations, and outright lies so patent that the presiding judge commented, “If the government could not have presented an honest case, it should not have been in the courtroom.” The authors started their research with sharply divided views, the Mitchells write: Marcia believed Coplon was innocent, and Thomas was convinced she was a Soviet agent fully aware of her treason. At the end of their well-written account, they agree that Coplon was indeed a spy.
The discoveries that compelled their change of heart lend surprising twists to the narrative—one likely to be of great interest to students of Cold War history and true crime.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-931229-22-8
Page Count: 376
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
Top-notch nonfiction legal thriller, reminding readers of the baseline: “This all comes down to one thing. It's all about...
EPA investigator Hilldorfer recounts his uncovering of a monstrous environmental crime, caught in all its venality and prosecutorial subterfuge.
Writing in the third person (assisted by novelist/lawyer Dugoni), Hilldorfer reminds readers that crimes against the environment, even those that directly impact human lives, are notoriously difficult to prosecute thanks to loopholes that have been gathering since the 1970s. But the crime recounted here was so blatant that defendant Alan Elias, even though represented by a particularly aggressive legal team, was sentenced to a $6-million fine and 17 years in prison. The outcome of the trial was far from a sure thing, however, and Hilldorfer’s tale does not necessarily renew faith in the legal process as regards the environment. Elias, who couldn't be troubled by “bothersome regulations,” owned and operated Evergreen Resources, a fertilizer plant in Idaho devoid of the most rudimentary safety precautions. He sent two men down into a tank to clear sludge containing hydrogen cyanide (“what the Nazis used to gas the Jews at Auschwitz”), and one of them, Scott Dominguez, suffered permanent brain damage. Initially, Hilldorfer recalls, he “equated the term brain damage to mental retardation . . . but Scott Dominguez knew what had happened to him, and that it had left him a prisoner in his own body.” The electrically charged narrative tells of former employees referring to Elias’s Evergreen Resources as “Everdeath,” and sums up Elias’s approach to employee safety in a comment prompted by one worker's ailments: “Fuck the headaches; fuck the dizziness; if you're not back to work on Wednesday, you're fired.” In economically depressed Soda Springs, Idaho, that could cause a man to jeopardize his life, as eloquently testified to by the holes in Dominguez’s basal ganglia.
Top-notch nonfiction legal thriller, reminding readers of the baseline: “This all comes down to one thing. It's all about money.”Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-4652-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
Breezy, informative, and wholly enjoyable.
Journalist Rubenstein debuts with a wild tale of true-life folk hero Attila Ambrus, who lost his innocence in post-communist Hungary as he and the nation grappled with the demands of capitalism.
The evolution of Attila Ambrus from janitor to the beloved “Whiskey Robber” (so called due to his penchant for getting stinking drunk before carrying out his capers) was slow, but in hindsight practically inevitable. Raised in Romania, where discrimination against ethnic Hungarians like himself was widespread, Ambrus at age 21 risked his life to cross the border into Hungary, clinging to the underside of a train car, only to be treated as a hopeless country bumpkin by his new fellow citizens. The Hungarians were mostly occupied, however, in figuring out how to negotiate the new economy as their country raced toward Western-style capitalism while corrupt officials and business people found new ways to embezzle millions at the expense of the common man. In this unwelcoming climate, Ambrus somehow had to land a job. A disastrous but gutsy tryout led to his employment as a janitor for the hockey team UTE (Ujpest Gym Assocation), but it didn't pay quite enough to make ends meet. Legitimate opportunities were scarce, so when the chance arose to smuggle some pelts from Transylvania, Ambrus made it work. From there it was no great leap to robbing a post office, and once that was done, it was easy to do it again. By the time he was finally apprehended, the nonviolent, unfailingly polite bandit had captured the Hungarian public’s heart as a gentleman crook in a country where corrupt captains of industry who had stolen far more than he went unpunished. The author makes abundantly clear his delight in Ambrus’s odd history, energy, and circle of friends; never was there a more entertaining case history of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.
Breezy, informative, and wholly enjoyable.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2004
ISBN: 0-316-07167-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
