The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin’s Secret Service by Andrew Meier
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20
This book has been described as “a jewel” by Simon Sebag Montefiore and he is not guilty of exaggeration. Quite simply, it is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read. The tale it tells is not just the story of a human tragedy but the history of communism in the United States and the horrific betrayal of the October revolution and those who served it.
The Lost Spy is the biography of the utterly tragic idealist Isaiah “Cy” Oggins, a small town American born of emigrant parents, a successful student at Columbia University, an agent of Soviet Russia, a father, a husband, a gulag prisoner in Norilsk hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle and, finally, a victim of execution by lethal injection in a white tiled room, Laboratory Number One, next door to the Lubyanka in Moscow. The research undertaken by the author only increases the admiration that many already harbour for Andrew Meier and the respect he shows Cy’s living son reveals a decent human being as well as a writer, researcher and investigator of genius.
The story of Simon and Rena Oggins and their journey from Kovno (Kaunas) is a book in itself – “they were both 25 years old when they abandoned the western edge of the czar’s empire for the Lower East Side of New York City”– and the history of the United States of America in the 20th century is revealed in the lives of their two sons: one became a revolutionary communist, the other a hard headed and successful New York businessman (and Republican).
Possessed of an acute and enquiring mind, Cy Oggins went to Columbia University and was quickly radicalised by the intense political debate about America’s involvement in the Great War.
Columbia may have been headed by Nicholas Murray Butler, rightly described as a “snob of the first water”, but Oggins could study under Charles Beard, RL Schuyler, James Cattell and Henry Dana.
Had he not chosen to follow his (red) star Oggins would have become a lecturer at Columbia but the furore of 1918 and the gathering of young radicals in the Collegiate Anti-Militarism League led him away from the Ivy League to the street battles inspired by Eugene Debs and terrorised by the “White Cossacks” and the Gegan Bomb Squad.
Columbia purged itself of the radicals – who moved across to the Rand School – and Oggins met the woman he would marry and who would outlive him by 50 years – Nerma Berman. By 1924 he was married to
Nerma and he and his wife were members of the US Communist Party. Now was the time to serve the cause.
In 1923 the American Trading Company (Amtorg) had opened in New York and the first resident, Werner Rakov started to set up the Soviet spy apparatus that was officially, or unofficially, founded in 1925.
Three years later, Oggins and Nerma boarded the Leviathan and left New York for Berlin. Meier proves that he can write poetry as well as political prose and while his description of the city vanishing behind them may owe a little to Gerard Manley Hopkins it is still a beautiful piece of writing.
Germany in the 1920s was the obvious location for the next stage of the revolution and Meier pares down the word count into a few chapters instead of the volumes you know he could write on the subject.
The way in which he draws a picture of the seething cities on the brink of the German October is breathtaking and you really think he was there to hear Ernst Thalmann speak, to mourn Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, to see Josephine Baker dance, to delight in Kurt Gerron singing Brecht, to march with the Red Front Fighters and to witness Ruth Fischer’s dream dissipate in the dust thrown up by marching jackboots.
Oggins and Nerma seem to have established a safe house for Moscow Centre and he became a dealer in antiquities – excellent cover. Meier again shows he is a profoundly human man and his sketching in of the broad historical sweep is tempered by the identification of the agony suffered by Oggins and Nerma as they were unable to participate in the political turmoil because of the need to retain their cover.
The description of their longing to join the comrades at the Liebknecht Haus is beautifully written and their eventual recognition by the once communist and later virulent red-baiter Sidney Hook is chilling. Equally poignant is the story of Nerma’s ordered abortion and the couple’s determination to have a child in the future – despite the instructions of Moscow Centre.
From Berlin to Paris to Shanghai the story unfolds with a meticulous underpinning of prime research and analysis of original sources. The travels of the Oggins follow the interests of Moscow and the tragic tale of the horrors that Stalinism visited on true believers the world over accompany them.
Oddly enough, I read much of this book outside a house on the island once called Prinkipo where Trotsky was exiled between Alma-Ata and Paris. I could not enter the building as it is now the Hotel Splendid and admission to those without jackets or ties is forbidden – sans-culottes shouldn’t even try.
Cy Oggins was probably arrested in Moscow because the agent he worked with on an extraordinary scheme to import Italian aircraft to Manchuria betrayed the centre and the loyal Oggins was almost certainly damned by association.
Amazingly, Meier has managed to get hold of the full face and profile photographs of Oggins as he was processed through the Lubyanka and his record when he was brought back from the gulag to the execution chamber in Moscow. Compare and contrast the two faces of the same man and weep for the agony that can be suffered by the idealist.
This is a book magnificent in its historical, political and geographical sweep but it is also the very human story of Cy Oggins, Nerma and their son Robin. It is impeccably researched, beautifully written and the bibliography alone is worth the price of entry.
Read it and weep if you will – but read it, please.
Stephen Pound
About The Author
