Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America

Chose because I couldn't stop reading even late into night. Well written. A different type of book for me. I especially liked that he became a Christian with a Happy ending.

I read this book because Cindy Coloma, who collaborated with Jack Barsky in writing it, has been one of my favorite authors for years. Jack was an East German who became a spy for the Soviet Union and operated in the United States for more than 10 years. His story is an uplifting story of personal growth and spiritual awakening. Spending the greater part of a lifetime of trying to do the right thing in every situation--well, most situations--and thinking himself to be generally successful in that pursuit--he gradually discovers that what he believed to be the right course for his life has been misguided and unduly harmed others along the way. Late in life, Jack sets himself upon a higher plane and seeks to mend relationships long neglected and destroyed by his poor choices and former way of life.There are several take-aways from Jack Barsky’s story. The poor quality of life in East Germany during the Cold War, although widely recognized and well understood for decades, registered afresh with me, and correspondingly, the necessity for the government to forcibly restrain its people from leaving specifically because there were far better choices had the people been at liberty to make them; the lack of a vibrant, loving family life in his coming-of-age years, which didn’t deter him from growing into a person of strong character, capable of true, deep and fervent love; and the innate human capacity for self-examination and change.This isn’t a pretty story about a hero who always does the right thing, with good triumphing over evil at every turn. It’s the story of a person of exceptionally fine intellect who employs his capability for rational thought to integrate the lessons learned his experiences--good and bad--into his heart and soul and formulate them into a better way of thinking and living.With his horizons thus expanding, Jack continuously re-evaluates his life’s work and his choices, at times suffering bitter self-recrimination for harm done to others by the actions he has taken and better choices he has avoided. He reaches a stage in his development where he discovers a dimension of love that he had not known to exist - and that he was capable of giving and receiving it.He does not quail when the time comes to “make a break” and make a truly hard--potentially deadly--right choice and bring his former way of life to an end.It is his very impressive daughter Chelsea who begins the spade-work to re-construct his broken family connections, long since abandoned, and insofar as possible facilitates bringing disparate pieces of Jack’s life and fragmented family together. Perhaps Chelsea’s story deserves to be written.Most importantly, by degrees Jack recognizes God’s hand upon him, as it had been all along the way, patiently guiding Jack’s development and growth even through his mistakes, presenting opportunities and inducing him to make decisions that will steer him toward a God-centered life.Having worked in Washington, DC for part of my career, this story also introduces me to the distinct possibility that I may have been close to agents of hostile governments seeking to harm our country. I might have had a neighbor, co-worker, or even a friend who was just like Jack at his worst, and never knew it. If I did, I hope any influence I had on them was good, and I hope they were like Jack Barsky.

GOOD THINGSIf you like John Le Carre', The Americans, some Agatha Christie, and spy stories generally, you'll like *most* of this book up to about p. 280 or so. That's a large part of the book. The section about the author's childhood and youth in East Germany is fascinating, and his emerging affection for the material benefits of capitalism once he is living in the U.S. is sort of interesting. The dead drops, the codes, the secret messages at random places in New York's five boroughs are all fascinating (especially if, like me, you live in New York, and you begin to wonder what you might be missing as you travel around the city), and the author's upward mobility through American higher education and then corporate life are interesting to follow. -- The narrative also shows with great clarity the undercover spy's need to compartmentalize his life, and (like the spies in The Americans) to sacrifice ordinary morality, kindness to other human beings, and communication with family members to the alleged needs of an ideology-driven, apparently all-powerful State.NOT-SO-GREAT ASPECTS OF THE BOOK.By the end, however, you realize that a very smart but not very profound man has led an exciting life; it's his adventures that are interesting but not the man himself. Increasingly, as you read through this book's 325 pages, Philosophical and Religious Musings dominate, and adventures become less important, and you realize, This man is dull. Some of the dullness may be due to the 'professional' 'writer', the 'written with' part of the team. Is she responsible for the grammatical errors and the cliches? Quite possibly. The prose of Joe Reilly (the FBI agent who 'captured' the author) in his 'Afterword' is much livelier, clearer, and more forceful than the prose of the rest of the book; possibly he wrote it himself. -- To the lovers of thrillers and spy stories like myself, the dullest and dimmest part of the book is the last third or so, when the author Finds Jesus and Finds Love and discovers that Love, Jesus, Faith, his older daughter, and his third wife (and the fourth woman to bear one of his five children) offer the True Meaning of Life. On p. 304, he (or Cindy Coloma, the 'professional' 'writer') writes, '...somehow God's protective handed shielded me during my entire high-risk life.' --Really?? it wasn't your own superb smarts, luck, and the carelessness of the KGB? it wasn't the privileges that accrue to a highly-educated, very tall and somewhat good-looking white male in the western world that carried you through? -- Nope. It was Jesus, it seems. Dittrich/Barsky becomes the dullest kind of born-again Christian when he starts telling us about his 'journey of Faith.' -- Of course, it's not hard to see how a former committed Communist might morph someday into a born-again Christian; clearly, Dittrich/Barsky was a man who felt life was empty without an ideology. -- Okay. So be it. -- But it's not really interesting to read about. -- Nor is the blog on D/B's personal web site, which is full of dull prose, conservative opinions, and hackneyed "ideas." -- The youthful KGB spy has morphed into a Seriously Christian suburban dad who values material comforts, believes that Trump was right to fire Comey (that info comes from his personal web site), and is a patriotic American.This sentence from Joe Reilly's conclusion says more briskly and unsentimentally what the book is about: "Failed marriages, abandoned children, lost causes, financial uncertainty -- all the detritus of a spy's life -- failed to crush an inner spark of optimism that continues to drive Jack toward the next new chapter in his life."IN CONCLUSIOND/B is or appears thoroughly sincere, and he definitely has a story to tell. But fiction is more interesting than reality, and the brutal, amoral thugs of The Americans, Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, are much more exciting to follow. -- Take this book out of the library or borrow it from a friend. It would make good reading (much of it but not all of it) in a doctor's waiting room, on a stalled train, or on the beach. -- And read the interviews with Dittrich / Barsky on line, which offer many little details that aren't in the book.

Clumsily written and filled with cliches, Jack reminds you too often how smart he is and it gets tiring real quick. He does surprisingly little spying in his years as a spy, and we didn't learn much about what the Soviets gained from the one instance Barsky actually sent them useful technology. And when he gets to the born-again stage of his life, it's preachy when it doesn't need to be.Still, I found the book hard to put down as the story is compelling and I couldn't help but feel bad for the guy. He gave up a great career and a family in pursuit of a nonsense goal and realized only too late he had been brainwashed and manipulated. Yet he still lived an interesting and unique life.

Well written and riveting story. Provides an insight in how the KGB prepared its agents. Around page 300 Jesus enters the story and starts getting credit for each and every lucky coincidence in the author's life. This probably just reflects the author's state of mind after being born again, but it doesn't make for enjoyable reading. Still, I'd recommend the first 300 pages.

Very interesting story

Great book what an amazing journey he had so much of his life

Very well written and easy to read. A good historical,political, socioeconomic background to his autobiography. Well done!!!

Its okay. Not what I hoped for. Very little about how the KGB operated. The first many chapters were about life in east Germany, the last few about becoming a born again Christian. Every degenerate though out the world becomes a born again and its a story I have no interest in. I think Jack Barsky is an interesting person with many interesting stories to tell but this book just did not do it. He should write a new book that discusses his Kgb colleagues, specifics of some of the ways in which he operated (ie. how to surveil someone or to recruit a source, how he got close to people, close calls and so on, and about some of the things that took place in his training. Also what about the relaionships he had with KGB colleagues? This would be interesting. Deep undercover however is a book that I could not wait to rid myself of the first several chapters in hope of reading something interesting and then the part I was most interested in was insufficient. No doubt a realistic account but much has little to do with intelligence work. Hopefully Mr. Barsky writes another book dealing more with spycraft and soviet training/operations.