Benjamin Cunningham - author of THE LIAR: How a CIA Double Agent Became Cold War's Last Honest Man

Thursday, August 25, 2022

ABOUT BENJAMIN CUNNINGHAM AND THE LIAR

The Cold War meets Mad Men in the form of Karel Koecher, a double agent whose shifting loyalties and over-the-top hedonism reverberated from New York to Moscow.

In the mid-1970s, the CIA and KGB watched Karel Koecher closely-they were both convinced he was working for the enemy. And they were both right. Traveling with his wife, Hana, Koecher posed as a Czechoslovak asylum seeker and arrived in the US as a Communist sleeper agent. After parlaying a doctorate from Columbia into a job at the CIA, Koecher proceeded to operate as a double agent at the height of the Cold War.

Shunning a low profile, the Koechers embraced Manhattan's high life-with cocaine, swinging, and parties emblematic of the times and their penchant for risk. Hana, who was no more than a shy teenager when she arrived, grew into a sophisticated international diamond dealer who relayed messages to Karel's handlers. Riding a wave of euphoria, the Koechers felt unstoppable. But it was too good to last.

Using newly declassified documents, interrogation tapes, and extraordinary firsthand accounts from the Koechers themselves, Cunningham reconstructs their double lives and the fading Cold War, where a strange moral fog made it hard to know what truth was being fought for, and to what end.

Trailer for The Liar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Um1o1lCgk

BENJAMIN CUNNINGHAM BIO

Benjamin Cunningham is a journalist, writer and PhD candidate at the Universitat de Barcelona. His book "The Liar: How a Double Agent in the CIA Became the Last Honest Man of the Cold War" is forthcoming from PublicAffairs in August 2022.

Benjamin began as a daily newspaper reporter in Michigan before moving to Europe in 2006. He has since resided in Amsterdam, Prague and, now, Barcelona. Benjamin has reported from more than 40 countries, contributing to major international media likeThe Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde Diplomatique, The Los Angeles Review of Books, TIME magazine, Haaretz, SME, The Detroit Free Press, Al Jazeera, The Aspen Review and The Christian Science Monitor. He was a correspondent for The Economist for nearly a decade and prior to that worked as editor-in-chief of The Prague Post.

He lives near Barcelona with his wife and daughter. In his free time he practices Muay Thai and endurance sports.

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