Seeing Red: Spies, Lies and My So-Called Life as a Diplomat

Have you ever had one of those days when you’ve had to explain to a leading Senator that the woman approaching his table is actually a Soviet spy hoping to bed and blackmail him? Well, Danny Grossman has.

As a twenty-six-year-old diplomat serving in Leningrad during the Cold War, Grossman’s phones were tapped, his home was bugged, his neighbor went out the window, his houseguest was attacked, his consulate was rocked by something called Chernobyl, his movements were tracked by an ambitious young KGB officer named Vladimir Putin—and that was only the beginning!

With autocracy rising around the world, Grossman has written a stunning meditation on the politics of oppression, the nature of dreamers, and the resilience of ordinary people under siege.

Welcome to a very private peek behind the Iron Curtain.