DEATH OF A DISSIDENT: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko
and the Return of the KGB, by Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko. Free Press, 369 pp., $27.
THE LITVINENKO FILE: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy, by Martin Sixsmith. St. Martin's Press, 320 pp., $24.95.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently made his first visit to
see President Bush. Eavesdrop through your own surveillance program and
you'll doubtless hear the name Alexander Litvinenko.
First, the
facts about this spectacular case of pinpoint nuclear murder:
Litvinenko, born in Russia in 1962, became an operative in 1986 for the
KGB, continuing after it changed into the FSB in 1991. Until the
mid-1990s, he remained a loyal employee. But he became disillusioned as
he witnessed the official lies and murderous behavior of Russian forces
in the nation's war against Chechnya.
Ordered by the FSB to
kill the influential oligarch Boris Berezovsky in 1997, he instead
warned Berezovsky, then held a televised 1998 Moscow news conference at
which he and several disguised FSB mavericks made the charges public.
From then on, Litvinenko became an enemy of Russian intelligence and,
many believe, of Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself a fiercely
loyal veteran of the KGB and FSB.
The government fired
Litvinenko, and arrested and tried him in 1999 on minor charges. But in
2000 he escaped from Russia with his wife, Marina, and son, Tolik,
ultimately receiving asylum in Britain.
In the years between
his arrival there and his death last year, Litvinenko evolved into a
loyal aide to Berezovsky, also by then an exile in Britain and Putin's
foremost enemy. Litvinenko published two books with sensational claims:
"Blowing Up Russia" (2001) and "The Gang from Lubyanka" (2002).
Litvinenko asserted that the FSB had blown up Moscow apartment
buildings in 1999, killing scores of people to justify a renewed war
against Chechnya and to bolster support for the newly installed Putin.
He also charged that the infamous Moscow "theater siege" of 2002 was an
FSB operation. Several Russian politicians and journalists who tried to
investigate those allegations were later murdered, including Anna
Politkovskaya, shot to death last year on Oct. 7 - Putin's birthday.
On May 22, following a Scotland Yard investigation, Britain charged
that former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi poisoned Litvinenko last Nov. 1 by
placing polonium-210, an extraordinarily deadly substance, in his tea
at London's Millennium Hotel. Litvinenko died 23 days later after
excruciating pain.
On his deathbed, according to intimates -
including Alex Goldfarb, co-author with Litvinenko's widow of one of
two new books about the affair - he wrote a powerful statement accusing
Putin of his murder: "May God forgive you for what you have done, not
only to me, but to beloved Russia and its people."
British
doctors made the astonishing discovery during his final days that the
poison was indeed polonium-210, which is difficult to detect at first,
but a godsend to detectives because it leaves an unmistakable
radioactive trail. As a result, Scotland Yard pinned the crime on
Lugovoi and demanded his extradition from Russia. Russia refused.
A few weeks ago, Britain ejected four Russian diplomats and clamped
down on visas for Russian officials. Russia responded tit for tat.
That leaves British relations with Russia at their frostiest in
decades. By contrast, President Bush recently hosted Putin at his
family compound for the fraternity-brother diplomacy he favors. "The
Litvinenko File" and "Death of a Dissident" offer compelling, though
different, accounts of this intricate scenario.
Former Moscow
BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith brings a deductive Holmesian style
and reportorial distance to the case. He synthesizes biographical and
other information about the main players, concluding that an
independent group of current or former FSB agents committed the murder,
acting without direct orders from the Kremlin but knowing their work
would be appreciated. He is often skeptical of claims by Berezovsky and
Litvinenko.
Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko, by contrast,
couldn't be closer to the subject. Their book is by far the more
exciting read, a riveting thriller full of eyewitness accounts.
Marina Litvinenko's sympathies require no explanation. Goldfarb is an
ex-Russian scientist who emigrated to the United States, became chief
steward of the philanthropist billionaire George Soros' projects in
Russia, started working for Berezovsky in the mid-1990s, then flew to
Turkey at Berezovsky's behest to help in the Litvinenko family's escape.
Goldfarb argues that only Putin could have authorized and orchestrated
a polonium murder, given the immense difficulty involved in obtaining
and using the rare substance, 97 percent of which is produced in Russia.
Both books provide rich "inside Russia" details to help readers make up
our own minds. Perhaps the most important context both books deliver is
that all the characters in this drama knew or know one another, in some
cases very well. Berozovsky, once a close adviser to Boris Yeltsin,
skied and dined with Putin and advocated on his behalf as Yeltsin's
successor before they fell out. Lugovoi worked for Berezovsky as
security head for ORT, his TV channel.
Litvinenko personally
brought a dossier of criminal FSB activities to Putin in 1998 in the
hope that the Putin, who was then running the FSB, would reform it.
Litvinenko later concluded that Putin couldn't, because he had
participated in criminal FSB activities himself.
Those
connections cast doubt on the official Russian government position that
Litvinenko was too insignificant a figure to bother the Kremlin. To
absorb both of these books is to down your skulduggery straight,
without any sweeteners. Whichever scenario you accept, one thing's for
sure: The 1990s Western hope for a free, democratic Russia has gone up
in smoke - or radiation.