Bridge of Spies

A highly technical read!! Kudos to the author for all of his supportive issues regarding U-2 flying, since that was a prelude to outer space travel. The main theme was also well done - the three spies who were exchanged on the bridge. I felt like I had known them personally after reading their "biographies". So very sad of how our government treated Gary Powers after all was said and done!! He died doing what he had always wanted to do - flying!! I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about the "U-2 Era".

My husband and I both found the book to be a first-rate account of what actually took place. It is also a well written, highly entertaining book, one of the proverbial hard-to-put-down reads. As retired members of the intelligence community, we were aware of the main facts of what transpired, but through the book, we learned much more about the many personalities involved, the geo-political intricacies, and the myriad details of what took place. The movie is also excellent but, of course, the book is much more informative.

This is a great story. A little slow at times but fascinating insight into the world of cold war espionage. I'm sure this was a difficult story to tell but I think the author did a pretty good job. Just had a little too much "filler" for my taste.

A true story fairly well written. Very interesting with good background information on the participants. However the information claiming Khrushchev very badly wanted an arms treaty should have been much better documented if true. Same for the claim that the military set up Gary Powers to fail to kill the treaty talks; a reporter can string misc. facts together to demonstrate the world is flat if he wants.( No I was not in the military).

Absolutely absorbing. Fascinating. Mesmerizing. Do you gather that I loved this book?! I love DeMille, Thor, and the rest of the political thriller authors, but this is better than any fiction. It should make for a great movie.

This is not a good book. I thought I was buying the book which inspired the new movie Bridge of Spies. It is not (the book by James Donovan entitled Strangers on a Bridge is the inspiration for the movie). This book, Bridge of Spies, is boring, badly written and worse of all, full of "what ifs". As in "what if" he said this and "what if" he said that. It's more fiction than historical info. Don't buy this book. Waste of time and money.

The book was very interesting for me as I grew up in the 60's. It was a little confusing at times because of the many characters in the story. Naturally, I remember the main characters and hiding under my desk at school during the nuclear bomb drills but I was too young to understand the cold war politics of that era. I'm sure I was not the only one with questions since the government kept a lot of secrets back then before the age of the internet and social media. This book brought to light what was going on behind that curtain of secrecy.

A fascinating correction of the historical record about the Francis Gary Powers and--more to the point--about the origins of the Cold War. The overwhelming power of the military-industrial complex lobby in this sordid tale, promoting the need for arms buildup and warfare in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary, is a depressing preview of what happened during the run-up to the Iraq War. American politics (and American media) will forever be the same, alas. We seem to have a reflexive need to believe in warmongers.

Unfortunately I had to return the book twice. When I opened the book the writing was upside down and was bound backwards. I suppose I could have just turned it around and flipped the book, but it drove me crazy that it was bound incorrectly. Probably just a bad batch, but they wouldn’t send me a third one.

The story of Rudolf Abel,one of the most famous Communist spies to have ever worked on American soil,is not new.The KGB spy who was arrested by the FBI and was jailed after being charged with spying in order to get America's nuclear secrets in well documented,and so is his exchange on the famous Glienecke Bridge in Berlin with Francis Gary Powers,the pilot who was shot down while flying over Central Russia. The third person described in detail in this book,Frederic Pryor,was an intellectual who was falsely charged with spying for the Americans. Indeed,some new interviews conducted by the author elaborate a bit on this espionage episode of the Cold War,however one feels that nothing new can be added that was not said before. Vin Arthey's book,"Like Father,Like Son" should be read instead because it offers a much better view on this whole affair. The book discussed here does not have any endnotes or footnotes,which is a shame because one cannot check or verify the various sources cited at the end of the book.

The movie was great, but the book is poorly written and edited. It is mainly about he U-2, not the world of spies. The amount devoted to the setting up and managing the spy exchange is about 10 percent of the bloated verbiage.

Disclaimer right up front: I knew basically nothing about all of this, I was not even close to alive near any of these events and had not done any independent research on it before reading this book. I knew a U2 got shot down over the USSR at some point in the Cold War and that is about it...

That being said, I thought this book was great. It reads quickly, keeps you moving while still being informative/somewhat scholarly, and it is, most importantly, entertaining. I found the overall premise really fascinating on its own, but the author does a good job of spicing up duller parts (perhaps a bit liberally, but nonetheless it works). There really is not much more to say, if you find the description interesting then this book will entertain you, it is not a deceptive description of the story. If you think you would find this book interesting, you will...

I haven’t seen the movie, but I understand that in it the Russians tortured Gary Powers. In the book he was treated with kindness. In fact, the book, without fully embracing it, discusses the argument that Khrushchev wanted to blunt the arms race so his people could focus more on improving their lives than their military. The book also discusses, without fulling embracing, the idea that this particular U-2 flight was intentionally flown so that it would fall from the sky and compromise the Paris Peace talks scheduled later in 1960. This would benefit the ‘military industrial complex’ that Eisenhower warned of in his farewell address. (More fear = more money for weapons.)

The book vigorously defends Gary Powers against his detractors who believe that Powers landed his plane, or flew it at an altitude low enough for the Russians to shoot it down. The book also casts doubt on the impact of the Russian spy, Rudolph Abel (not his real name), maintaining that the information he passed on to his handlers was not all that important. Hard to prove a negative, and a more vigorous presentation of the sources of information that the Russians captured would have taken the book away from its primary goal of discussing the key players in this story.

I have to take issue with the other 3-star reviewers who find this book to be kind of boring (not a page turner). For me it was just the opposite. I was a kid during Gary Powers’ trial, and remember it well--the whole cold war McCarthy feeling of it. The book kept my attention all the way through. In my opinion, it was very well written, adeptly weaving the stories of Gary Powers, Rudolph Abel, and Frederic Pryor into a coherent whole. (Frederic Pryor was a student imprisoned by the STASI for no particular reason other than that’s what they did to people at the time. Frederic comes across as the most interesting character in the story. I’d like to meet him someday. He's still alive.)

All in all, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the cold war. (You can probably find it as an e-Library book if you don’t want to pay full price.)

Device used: Kindle Paper White. No problems with display or navigation. Hyperlink from the TOC to the pics was much appreciated. All the pics in one place.

Although the Tom Hanks/Stephen Spielberg movie was apparently not based on this specific book, the book (2010) deals largely with the same event in history. It is a very engaging, well-researched work giving the reader a window into a specific period of the Cold War that young American readers can scarcely fathom now. It is an in-depth biography of U2 pilot Gary Powers, Soviet spy Rudolf Abel aka William Fisher, and Frederic Pryor, a wayward future American economist at the wrong place (Germany) at the wrong time. (There is much less about Pryor in the book, and it's less interesting.) Whittell tells the tale of how their paths crossed in a Berlin prisoner exchange.

Powers was once a college track star somewhere in Kentucky, a small-town mountain boy whose family couldn't fathom the work he was doing as an ace pilot, the risks he was taking, and the income he was earning. His wife, Barbara, perhaps gets unfairly detailed scrutiny in this book. She hated the secrecy and the distance and became one of the few spouses allowed to accompany pilots abroad, mainly because she refused to say "no." At one point, she agreed to take a job in Greece and may have been some Colonel's lover, but ended up being able to accompany Powers to his base in Turkey. She seemed suspicious for having a broken leg in a press conference after Powers was shot down and became an international sensation; she broke it water skiing with him in Turkey. Their relationship was apparently intense but not able to suffer long absences.

Whittell details the dangerously thin technology of the U2 planes, how its pressure suit was designed at an underwear plant, how a large number of things can and did go fatally wrong in U2 flights, and more. Pilots were pushed to physical limits, being forced to wait on a tarmac in unberable temperatures, unable to eat or drink for up to 12 hours at a time while having to fight passing out from extreme G-forces in midair. The U2 program was a darling of the CIA and a military-industrial complex convinced (wrongly) the US had fallen behind the USSR in nuclear missile production. For other books detailing this period, I recommend any biography of Eisenhower, Stephen Kinzer's The Brothers, and James Carroll's House of War. Kruschev used to be enraged at every U2 flight reported, Soviet forces were determined to shoot one down. Kruschev and Eisenhower were finally about to engage in crucial negotiations when Eisenhower ordered one last U2 flight over Kazakhstan, just to be certain something wasn't hidden from view that the Pentagon was unaware of. It was the most bold flight yet, made from Pakistan, and it had its problems even before takeoff. That was the tragic flight of Powers that derailed the US-USSR summit and sparked an international crisis.

Fisher was a fascinating and very good spy who is not that formally educated, nor a product of the British class system, who was loyal to the Soviet Union his parents took him to as a child. As a German born in England to parents who migrated to Russia, he was fluent in all three languages and learned to operate radios in the Soviet military. He was successfully sent to America to join a network of Soviet illegal immigrants. The details of their lives and communication is interesting. While McCarthyism and the "Red Scare" is largely seen in retrospect as fictional, Whittell shows that indeed the efforts and penetration of Soviet spies into the US was real and complicated. From ship yards to nuclear tests at Los Alamos, the network was strong and sophisticated; and relied on American and Canadian sympathizers and recruits. Once Stalin was dead and Kruschev denounced him by revealing some of his atrocities to the world, it became harder to work and recruit in America. But the unraveling came from Soviets who struggled with alcoholism, domestic problems, homesickness, etc.

Fisher's undoing came from one of his troubled counterparts, Reino Hayhanen. Hayhanen had accidentally lost a hollowed-out coin containing a microphoto of code numbers, which at some point was discovered on accident by a newspaper boy who dropped it and had the sense to turn it into a police officer. A red scare investigation ensued. As Hayhanen continued to cause problems, Fisher got him recalled to Moscow. Hayhanen instead turned himself in as a KGB spy in Paris in 1957, and a hollowed-out coin he presented as proof eventually got back to the FBI to connect the dots and Fisher's cover was blown.

Powers should have been an American hero for his bravery and for following orders. Instead, he was treated as a traitor. He survived being shot down only to have his country mistakenly read radar evidence suggesting he had not been. The NSA had recorded the Soviet suicide fighter pilot ordered to take down the U2 at all costs, and mistakenly read the radar signature for Powers. They accused him of lying about his flight path. He was also considered a traitor for not having taken a cyanide pill, but Whittell reveals there was no such pill on the plane and Powers training did not include any instructions to take a cyanide pill, if anything he was trained to stay alive. The CIA had told Powers to tell them everything he knew if captured, he was just following orders. (Powers did not know much about the mission, his job was basically to fly where told and make sure the camera was turned on.) But Powers became a political football that JFK inherited, and he also expressed a desire to prosecute Powers. Power's family traveled to Moscow for the show trial. After conviction, Powers lived in prison and was treated fairly decently; Whittell recounts Powers' accounts of prison life.

It was apparently Powers' father who suggested the Powers-Fisher swap in 1962. Even though the public did not forgive Powers, some politicians along with CIA Director Allen Dulles later praised Powers and he remained on as a test pilot of the SR-71 Blackbird on CIA salary. He and Barbara would divorce. Powers died piloting a helicopter in 1975.

This book was a fascinating look at the Cold War. James Carroll and others have chronicled the self-serving interests and paranoia of the "military-industrial complex" that drove us to the 1960 U2 crisis. This book shows somewhat early days and chronicles the spy drama that unfolded in the US alongside it. If Powers had not been shot down and the Eisenhower-Kruschev summit had gone ahead, history might be different.

Giles Whittell is a natural-born reporter, a writer with an eye for detail and for the dramatic. Bridge of Spies is not just his version of the famous story of the U2 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union and his swap with a legendary Russian spy. It's a thriller in its own right, with all the ingredients of an exceptionally well told and observed story. Whittell is a reporter in his element, writing on a subject he clearly finds fascinating and portraying Francis Gary Powers in a sympathetic light, unlike his CIA masters who appear to have resented the fact that he survived his traumatic shoot-down at 70,000ft and was imprisoned by the KGB, poviding the Russians with a propaganda trophy with which to berate the Americans.

What makes this book such a good read are the characters. They bring this story to life and provide the reader with an insight into an historical event which was not just about the politics of the Cold War but a personal account of people who were embroiled in some of the most daring and exciting exploits of that past era; and as we know from the more recent exposure of the Russian spy ring in the United States which included a beautiful and shapely female spy, Anna Chapman, espionage is not a dying profession. The Cold War, in a different disguise, goes on.

The secrecy of the U2 programme - the elegant silver (then black) aircraft which were supposedly part of the Weather Reconnaissance Squadron Number Two - the sheer endurance of the pilots like Powers, strapped for hours in space suits as they flew over the forbidden territory of the Soviet Union; the machinations of William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, who achieved very little despite a reputation for being a masterspy; and Frederic Pryor, the spy who never was a spy. All the components required for a thriller. I also loved the bravado of the American lawyer, James Donovan, Fisher's lawyer, and the woman who briefly stars in the story whose scoop was read around the world - Annette von Broecker, the Reuters "editorial assistant" (not even a reporter) who predicted that the spy swap between Powers and Fisher would take place at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and while every other reporter was waiting at the more famous Checkpoint Charlie, she rushed off to the lesser known bridge and was in time to witness the handover. But she didn't even get her byline on the story - just a cup of hot chocolate from her colleagues by way of thanks! Another personal ingredient in a wonderful book.

I enjoyed the movie. Tom Hanks was very good. I was inspired to read the book for a more in depth research for this subject, minus the typical Hollywood hyperbole. I believe it would be useful to watch the movie first, as I did. Then maybe this will inspire a deeper knowledge of an ignition source for what was a very stressful time in the USA. I'm a boomer, and remember the drills, Cuba, Khrushchev, Kennedy's brass pair. But I was just a boy.Girls were way more important to me then nuclear Armageddon. Then on to the "next"- Vietnam. These and all important to the American experience. This book focuses on the development of the U2 program and the pilots. The key players in this drama. And of course the underlying sanity that prevailed. What the movie tried to do was portray the characters personalities. For me it's going to take more research to realize how well Hollywood did in this regard. But for now this work is an excellent starting point to connect some loose ends.

Utterly fascinating. This book is important for anyone with an interest in why the arms race dragged on so long, but it's a must if you have a secret thing for spy planes. Considering its impact on world events, the story of Gary Powers' final flight over Russia in 1960 is surely one of the most neglected of the Cold War. It has been told before, but to my knowledge this is the first time a western writer has tracked down the Russians who actually brought Powers down. Whittell has put together the final hours leading up to the shoot-down in a way that finally lays to rest the theory that Powers somehow brought it on himself by flying too low. He also claims that but for the shoot-down there would have been no Cuban missile crisis and Nixon might have beaten Kennedy in 1960. What is not in doubt is that the collapse of the superpower summit two weeks after Powers was taken prisoner set the scene for the Berlin spy swap on the bridge in the book's title. There were supposed to be no civilian witnesses to the exchange, but one of those involved was an American post-grad falsely accused of working for the CIA, and one of those who saw the tail-end of the swap on the bridge was a young Reuters correspondent who never got a byline for her story. The author interviews them both, and many more. Brilliantly written, this is an essential addition to any Cold War buff's collection.

This book is the story of a spy, a U2 pilot and a student who got caught up in the machinations of the cold war during the late 50s and early 60s. The spy was a Russian colonel named Rudolf Abel touted as so important in stealing atomic secret plans for the Russians,the pilot was Gary Powers the last pilot to spy on Russia from 70,000 feet and then got shot down while the third was a clueless American PhD student caught up in the spying game.
The book details the negotiations as to how the 3 were exchanged at the Glienicke bridge
First class piece of history.

I like nonfiction books about the OSS, the space program, and other books that reveal formerly classified information about WWII or the Cold War. I looked forward to reading Bridge of Spies, and was very interested in it until I ran across the line that Gary Powers attended Milligan College in Kentucky, a college that I am familiar with. As interesting as the book was to me up to that point, I couldn't believe there was such a blatant factual error. Milligan College is in Tennessee, not Kentucky. And it is very easy to verify that fact. If such an easily verifiable fact is wrong, how can I believe anything in the book? I chalk this book up to being fiction instead of nonfiction. I tried to continue reading the book, but I just didn't enjoy it anymore, and I stopped reading it.

The existing 3.77-star rating is probably closer than this 4, but whole numbers is all we have.

I read this because of seeing the Tom Hanks movie.

The movie was much more dramatic. The book was much more true.

However, only part of the book was about "The Bridge of Spies." A large part of it was about the U2 and Gary Powers. Otherwise, the book would have been quite a bit shorter. That part, however, was as informative as the part that first led me to this book.

Author Giles Whittell puts it together in a tidy package. He narrates in detail the events behind the most famous prisoner exchange of the Cold War era.

Whittell provides the back-story of each of the three principals: the Soviet master spy, KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel as he was best known (however, he was actually William Fisher); F. Gary Powers, the famous U-2 spyplane pilot shot down over the Urals at 70,000+ feet (who survivied); and graduate student Frederic Pryor, a Yale graduate who studied in East Germany at the precise time the Berlin Wall was erected.

Whittell does a masterful job of integrating the three lives and putting them into historical context of the events and issues of the late 1950's and early 1960's. Time has shown this to be the height of the Cold War era, a time when the Cold War nearly went hot.

Because of the unexpected shoot-down of Powers' U-2 spyplane by Soviet missileers, the key opportunity for down-scaling the Cold War arms race was lost. As Soviet radar had improved and Soviet missiles rocketed to new heights, President Eisenhower's fallback position of "plausible deniability" for overflights was no longer credible. Eisenhower was caught in a "big lie" when both plane and pilot were recovered.

Khruschev responded by disinviting Eisenhower to a much-anticipated May, 1960 summit at Lake Baikal, the primary purpose of which was to try to reign in the arms race on both sides. Eisenower's much ballyhooed "honesty" proved to be a sham.

In the context of the era, the alleged "missile gap" trumpeted by Cold War hawks was embraced "with vigor" by Presidental candidate John Kennedy. In the 1960 Presidential election, this issue alone may have made the difference in Kennedy's slim win over Richard Nixon. Late in the campaign, Nixon tried to distance himself from Eisenhower's policies, seen by some as too dovish. However, Nixon served as Eisenhower's Vice-President for eight years and was unable to put daylight between himself and Eisenhower's policy for reducing the arms build-up, a hoped-for last act as President.

The major consequence of the events of 1960 would be that the arms race would continue to spiral up for decades. With historical hindsight, it can now be seen that Khruschev was ultimately weakened by the events of the successful U-2 shootown. A Soviet triumph initially, the U-2 incident soon became a liability that weakened Khruschev's leadership because Eisenhower had been disingenuous and conniving.

After Kennedy became President, Khruschev would challenge the new President, an attempt to appease his own hawks by secretly shipping land-based missiles into Cuba. These actions would result in the "Cuban Missile Crisis," a critical show-down between the two superpowers, a moment in time when many thought the nuclear clock was closest to striking midnight.

What makes this book such a powerful, good read is Whittell's ability to integrate the lives of the three principals (as events build to the 1962 prisoner exchange) into the larger issues and events of the era. Five stars.

Interesting story; well researched. Whittell does a nice job depicting the ambivalence with which the American public regarded Powers. The narrative could have been more compelling, though, and at times the writing is a little choppy. Whittell seems to assume that most readers are well versed in Cold War lore. Some of his older readers, like me, probably are. Increasingly, though, the average reader will regard the Cold War as an interesting, though somewhat obscure, historical footnote. More and better rendered context would thus make this book better.

I didn't see the movie, so not able to compare the book to that. Did learn a lot about international geopolitics and the Cold War in the last years of the Eisenhower administration from reading this book. The author interviewing participants 50 years later after details have been declassified and they can speak freely provided interesting perspective. I thought it would be more of a spy thriller, but the actual negotiation and prisoner swap ends up being only a small part of the book

This book opens the world of the cold war, and my world as a child never knowing how close we were to a nuclear war. It has opened up the event of where our country and the former Soviet Union spied on each other and probably still do it today.

A comprehensive look at the times and issues of the late 50's to early 60's. Real military intelligence of the USSR was very limited, so the US took increasing risks to "take a look". The in-depth character studies, and motivations of the actors brought the period to life.

I found myself remembering where I was and what I was doing in the Air Force as the story of these spy adventures was unfolded in this narrative. I enjoyed the trip to my past and recollected my recollections in the process. The details and clarity of the story-line were excellent and made this window into the past easy to enjoy. I remember the "alert duty" I pulled in SAC at Whiteman AFB. and the realities of the cold war.

Just read Bridge of Spies, and loved it, especially the parts about Powers. I researched the U-2 that got shot down over Cuba (the only death of the Missile Crisis) and I found author Whittell to be incredibly skillful on his subject of the U-2 shot down over Russia.

This book covers vast grounds. From the space race to technical details of aeronautics to the quaint details of aircraft of a bygone era to, of course, smoke and mirrors of international politics of the cold war era.

Oh, by the way, don't quite judge thks book by its cinematic namesake...

The book is pretty good. I am not sure if the paper version has a glossary of everyone involved, but the Kindle version surely needs one. It is VERY in depth, which is great, but can also be pretty hard to read at times. At points, I felt as though I needed to go back and study what I had just read. Besides the occasionally overwhelming depth, it is a good book.

A thorough yet readable account of some of the pivotal events of the Cold War. In a rarely managed balancing act, the author even manages to dis the "conspiracy theories" without joining the tin foil hat brigade.

Two stars for the effort. Author uses a very condescending tone when talking about characters he depicts, be that Powers, Abel or Pryor. This is bothersome. Also there are contradictions in his depiction of Abel - on one hand "he did not do any real spying", on another - information gathering and utilization of the spy paraphernalia. We cannot really succeed by underestimating and dismissing the enemy.

I read this after seeing the great movie of the same name. I liked this even better than the movie, which is saying a lot. It is full of details and history from the Cold War which were pretty fascinating. It opened my eyes to more depth of the entire, long conflict.

This is the first book I've read of the Cold War era and I was very impressed. I had seen the movie prior to reading the book and I thanked that helped because the book was disorganized. It jumped back and forth in time periods and jumped between stories frequently for the first half of the book.

Good book with more details than the movie (as with all books). Details indicative of in-depth research. I especially like how the book didn't focus on the two main characters (powers and Abel). But gave some details into the surrounding cast (family members, associates, US/East German/Soviet) involved actors.

A well researched book, interesting but tedious reading. Having lived during this time period , the military-industrial complex so named by President Eisenhower obviously lives today. How many lives have been taken by the wealthy to support their life style.

Tom Hanks is truly the consummate actor. His co-star did an awesome job as well. I lived through the years on both sides of the ocean. It brought back a flood of memories and emotions about that time. Thank you all for that special gift. I remember those days as if it was yesterday. It's truths are just as powerful today.

Great analysis and research from both Soviet and American sides. The book sometimes was a little hard to follow because the author would jump back and forth between events of different location or time.

Great read. I recalled vaguely when Gary Powers was shot down but didn't know the story nor how our nuclear buildup in the 60's was based on bad data as to what the Soviets had. This was very interesting and now I need to rent the movie!

For most Americans, Gary Powers is simply a name in history. This work charts his life well and talks about the challenges these pilots faced before and during flights, not to mention the problems of bailing out at 70,000 feet. The other two characters are very interesting as well. Paints a nice and accurate portrait of the fear and hysteria in 1950s America.