We were there. This is what we saw—and perhaps what we should have seen. But who could have predicted Trump?

The Berlin Wall Fell Over a Weekend, 30 Years Later We're Still Trying to Cope with the Consequences Mike Pompeo was in Germany serving with American forces there when the Berlin Wall came down. It seems he has no illusions about the Soviet threat back then, or the threat posed by Vladimir Putin today. This is what he had to say in a speech in Berlin on Friday:  Yet Pompeo's boss, on whose behalf he lies and deceives whenever he deems it necessary, is talking about going to Moscow to hang out with Putin on "Victory Day" next May. "Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden ‒ invades its neighbors and slays political opponents.  It suppresses the independence of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.  Russian authorities, even as we speak, use police raids and torture against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who are working in opposition to Russian aggression.  In Chechnya, anyone considered 'undesirable' by the authorities simply disappears." There is something wrong with this picture. My comments on MSNBC on Saturday:  http://us.wildmoka.com/c/clip/7FlqGL At The Daily Beast we ran several stories about the Fall of the Wall which I invite you to read, watch, and share. Among them is an essay that I wrote this week, but should have written 30 years ago:  HAMMER, SICKLE, AND SWASTIKA The Night the Cold-War World Turned Upside Down CHRISTOPHER DICKEY This vivid context by Andrew Nagorski:   THE GREAT ESCAPE The Berlin Wall and the Collapse of Communism in Five Acts ANDREW NAGORSKI And this provocative 2014 essay about the impact of November 1989 on one Vladimir Putin:    COLD WAR How the Fall of the Berlin Wall Radicalized Putin In 1989, as East Germany collapsed around him, a KGB spy in Dresden named Vladimir Putin came to some hard conclusions that would later inform his bellicose geopolitics. MASHA GESSEN We also ran several great photographs by the redoubtable Turnley twins:   REUNION The Fall of The Wall as Captured by Peter and David Turnley PETER TURNLEY And we embedded this slide show that has even more of their extraordinary pictures:  https://vimeo.com/369238488   Copyright © 2019 Christopher Dickey, All rights reserved. You are receiving this because you were on my personal mailing list, and this is in fact a personal account. But please do feel free to "unsubscribe." Our mailing address is: Christopher Dickey 555 W 18 Street The Daily Beast New York, New York 10011 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

My Latest Cloak & Dagger essays, All In One Place

My latest Cloak and Dagger essays, all in one place:

DUBIOUS BATTLE

Did Novelist John Steinbeck Spy for the CIA in Paris?

During the same summer that he wrote “The Amiable Fleas,” now published in English for the first time, the American author also appears to have been gathering intel for the Agency.

Steinbeck's residence in 1954

Previously:

CLOAK AND DAGGER

The Spy Who Started the Cold War

Igor Gouzenko was a lowly Soviet cipher clerk when he turned the world order upside down in 1945. Nobody could have predicted the espionage hysteria his defection would unleash.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY

CLOAK & DAGGER

The Great Russia Witch Hunt (of 1949)

Was a top State Department aide truly a Soviet spy? Or did Richard Nixon and the right find a convenient victim?

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY

ENDSPELL

The Codebreakers Who Exposed Soviet Spies–and Fed Paranoia

Schoolteachers, archeologists, linguists and mathematicians worked on the Venona project breaking unbreakable Soviet code from WWII. They were heroes. But some had deep regrets.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY

BEHIND ENEMY LINES

The Allied Spies Who Paved the Way for D-Day

Secret agents—women and men—died making it possible for the Allies to storm through France. It's time to remember them.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY

‘WORSE THAN MURDER’

Could Secret Cables Have Saved Ethel Rosenberg?

Even as Ethel Rosenberg was strapped into the electric chair for spying for Moscow in 1953, decrypted cables might have spared her. But they were released only decades later.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY

УМНИЦА

The ‘Red Spy Queen’ Who Shocked America—and the Soviets

Elizabeth Bentley died in 1963 a “frumpy New Englander.” But in the 1940s she had managed to manipulate the most feared secret police agency in the world—and intimidate the FBI.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY