The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service

Save your money or go to the library. I was pulled in by the title too, but the author doesn't deliver. You can read the entire book and still not know any deed that Cy Oggins or his wife actually did in their service as "spies" for the Soviet Union.

The author seems detached from anything that approaches "being judgmental" about these two deciding to spy for Stalin - and you never find out why they did.

The only tisk tisking is saved not for Cy Oogins the spy but for his older brother who was (Gasp!) a Republican who actually ran for office and loved his country.

My opinion: The author got too close to Son of Cy the Spy and wound up writing a nice little book about his father the spy - who wasn't such a bad guy after all (except for the spying stuff)....nice gesture, disappointing book.

It gets 3 stars for being well written . However , the facts are mostly just
speculation. There really isn't much in the way of concrete evidence that
beyond a reasonable doubt ties Cy Oggins to much of anything . He's a fringe
shadowy character in his own story .It's essentially all circumstantial.The
tragedy is how he and countless others have been seduced by communism and then betrayed by it .

"The Lost Spy" by Andrew Meier is above all, a masterpiece of research, and story telling. The author takes the reader into a dark but fascinating labyrinth of idealism, espionage, and...murder.

Jaded by labor disputes, union battles with striking workers, social unrest, anti-Semitism, and college politics mixed with America's entry into World War I, an intelligent young man named "Cy" Oggins... becomes lost in a diabolical world.

"Cy" Oggins is seduced and mesmerized by the hallucinatory utopia espoused by Communism and the Soviet Union's "Great Social Experiment." Oggins, like so many of the others from the "Lost Generation" follow the flute of the Bolshevik Pied Piper and down the streets and alleyways of "No Return."

Oggins weaves in and out of various Communist organizations until by 1928 or, 1929 "Secret Agent" Oggins was like "Bur Rabbit" in the Uncle Remus Story; stuck to the "Tar Baby," with no way out.

"Cy" Oggin's radical Communist and revolutionary leanings were metastasized with his marriage to wife, and fellow revolutionary...Nerma. The couple was every bit as rabid in their missions as Kim Phillby, Richard Sorge, Morris and Lona Cohen, and Julius Rosenberg (to name but a few).

Oggins and his wife start their quest in New York and on to Germany, Paris, China, and (Manchuria/Manchukuo) and then eventually, Moscow.

Despite his numerous "duty stations" the reader can not help but wonder, just how important "Cy" really was to ..."The Center." Sometimes the reader gets the impression that Moscow was simply "toying" with this American communist (traitor to his own country). His work in China (on the ruins of Sorge's organization), was probably his most demanding and beneficial to Moscow overall. None the less, he was apparently being "shadowed" throughout his illustrious career. Either, the Soviets simply did not trust him (because he was an American?), or...felt he was a "double agent" for the American Secret services.

Despite his services to Stalin and the Kremlin, "Cy" Oggins was arrested by the NKVD in 1939, became prisoner #568 at the infamous Lubyanka, sentenced to over 8 years at a Russian Gulag, and eventually... murdered by the Soviet people's decree in 1947.

The author's description of his incarceration at the Lubyanka and Gulag is every bit as descriptive as Alexander Solzhenitsyn's, "One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich."

There is some speculation that "Cy" was in fact, a "double agent" (especially by the Russians). The U.S. Government did attempt to help negotiate his release both politically, and economically. However, it would appear this was done more to try and find out exactly what he knew than a valiant attempt to "bring him in from the cold."

The author's research into Oggins past affiliations, and exposure of his radical history would appear to make him an unlikely candidate (in my opinion), for a "Double Agent" like Kim Phillby, or even Sidney Reilly. U.S. Intelligence operations during the 1920's and 1930's were much more simplified (compared to the Soviets) who were at that time, infiltrating the entire United States and its government agencies. "The Haunted Woods" by Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassilieve gives the reader a good example of this fact.

"The Lost Spy" is an outstanding piece of investigative journalism and a real asset to any historian. A tremendous and exciting read that should be enjoyed and experienced by anyone interested in history, politics, and society as a whole. The icy winds of the "Cold-War" are still blowing, and what occurred during the time of "Cy" Oggins is still going on.

A SUPERB BOOK ......"DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT!"

This story of the life and fate of an American radical who spied for the USSR and was rewarded with his liquidation by the Stalinists can be appreciated on many levels. First, it is an exciting spy story, better than any fictional account. Secondly, it is a devastating expose of American radicalism in the first half of the twentieth century. Finally, and here one can be misunderstood, it is the story of the Jews' fascination with Communism and the nemesis that resulted.

American radicals were so disenchanted with American life in the first part of the 20th Century that they were easily taken in by Communism. Many of them were not in impoverished circumstances and suffered most probably from various infantile psychological disorders. The experience of the New Left in the second half of the 20th Century confirms that radicalism is a serious disorder. Jews in particular, in Europe and America, were drawn to Communism because of the Jewish experience of persecution by Christian and ex-Christian societies. They had more justifiable reasons for radicalism. But they also suffered more than non-Jewish radicals. Fascism exploited the Jewish attraction to Communism and made them its special victims. The Communists could count on the help of Jewish comrades but could also break out into anti-Jewish persecution when convenient. Communism pretended to abolish religious and ethnic hatred but nothing was farther from the truth.

The subject of this book, Cy Oggins, was Jewish as were so many of his Communist associates and handlers. Even the diabolic Communist doctor who murdered him for Stalin was Jewish. This corroborates the thesis of Yuri Skezkine in his pathbreaking book "The Jewish Century," namely that despite periodic outbreaks of Stalinist anti-Semitism the Jews did better under Bolshevism in the USSR than any other group and remained loyal to the Soviet system for a very long time. It has been in the interest of neoconservative Zionists to claim that the Communist regime persecuted and targed the Jews but this is obviously untrue. But anti-Semitism was increased among all the victims of Communism by the knowledge that many, but not most, Jews were favorable to the Bolsheviks. Zionism and Communism were deadly enemies in the quest for Jewish allegiance and it is not clear which ism did the Jews more damage.

In the end, radicalism is an evil outgrowth of infantile disorders and we should all be vigilant against it no matter what form its takes and no matter where.

This is an exciting book with many valuable lessons to discover.

Andrew Meier writes non fiction in a way that lets us be intrigued yet actually comprehend the complexity of the topics he discusses. Like with Black Earth he wrote an incredibly readable analysis of the fall of Russia by writing the truth. Once again he shares his vision wisely and with great detail.