What Shaun Walker’s fascinating and meticulously researched new book, “The Illegals,” makes clear is that these suburban moles weren’t Cold War leftovers but rather the continuation of a century-long Russian project for infiltrating Western society. The program began in 1922, when Lenin was still pacing the Kremlin corridors, and continues today under Vladimir Putin, who seldom met a Soviet relic he didn’t want to polish up. Walker, a reporter for The Guardian, has done the kind of deep archival spelunking and source-cultivating that makes editors nervous about expense accounts. He’s interviewed former illegals — spies who lived with fabricated identities as beautifully lacquered as a set of matryoshka dolls. These weren’t diplomatic spies with immunity; they were ghosts walking among us with American accents and, presumably, Sam’s Club memberships. Read more
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