Thursday, July 09, 2009

Ernest Hemingway, KGB

Hemingway revealed as failed KGB spy | Books | guardian.co.uk: "Up till now, this has been a notably cheerful year for admirers of Ernest Hemingway – a surprisingly diverse set of people who range from Michael Palin to Elmore Leonard. Almost every month has brought good news: a planned Hemingway biopic; a new, improved version of his memoir, A Moveable Feast; the opening of a digital archive of papers found in his Cuban home; progress on a movie of Islands in the Stream.

Last week, however, saw the publication of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press), which reveals the Nobel prize-winning novelist was for a while on the KGB's list of its agents in America. Co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, the book is based on notes that Vassiliev, a former KGB officer, made when he was given access in the 90s to Stalin-era intelligence archives in Moscow."

5 comments:

David Cranmer said...

Say it ain't so Bill!

Brian Drake said...

I knew it! I always wondered. Only a KGB agent on a mission to destroy the USA would write a line like, "He went to the river. The river was there." Can't you smell the commie influence? It's worse than Hammett!

Scott Cupp said...

So, I guess his "suicide" was really a CIA plot to get rid of him?

Unknown said...

There's the plot of your next novel!

Rick Robinson said...

Is "on the KGB's list of spies in the U.S>" the same as "a spy FOR the KGB"? Didn't the KGB have a list of persons suspected by it of being spies for the U.S.?

Or maybe he got on the list because of all that time spent hanging out in Cuba, drinking Cuba Libres.