Alexander Vassiliev

Alexander Vassiliev (Russian: Александр Юрьевич Васильев; born 1962, in Moscow) is a Russian-British journalist, writer, espionage historian, and former KGB officer. He lives in London and is a recognized expert on Soviet KGB and Russian SVR intelligence operations, particularly Soviet espionage in the United States during the Stalin era.

Background and KGB Servic

Vassiliev graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (international section). In 1985, he entered the Andropov Red Banner Institute (the KGB's training school) and graduated in 1987. From 1987 to 1990, he served as an operative in the First (American) Department of the KGB's First Chief Directorate. He resigned from the KGB in February 1990 for political and moral reasons and also left the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that year.

After leaving the KGB, he worked as a journalist (including for Komsomolskaya Pravda). In the mid-1990s (around 1993–1995), while working on a book project, he gained access—facilitated by the post-Soviet SVR (the KGB's foreign intelligence successor)—to archival files on Soviet intelligence operations against the U.S. He took extensive handwritten notes and verbatim excerpts from thousands of pages of sensitive NKVD/NKGB/MGB documents dating primarily from the 1930s to the early 1950s.

The Vassiliev Notebooks

These notes (eight notebooks plus loose pages, totaling over 1,100 pages) became known as the Vassiliev Notebooks. They include summaries, direct quotes, and details on agents, operations, and targets in America. Vassiliev later smuggled the notebooks out of Russia to London. In 2009, he donated the originals to the Library of Congress (with no access restrictions), and digitized versions (with Russian transcriptions and English translations) are publicly available via the Wilson Center's Digital Archive.

The notebooks are a major primary source on Soviet espionage, shedding light on cases involving figures like Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, atomic bomb espionage ("Enormous"), and many others. They complement the VENONA decrypts and other declassified materials. Historians generally view them as valuable but note they should be used carefully: Vassiliev was not a trained archivist, so his selections could be unsystematic, and he worked under some limitations (the full KGB archives remain largely closed in Russia).

Major Books

• The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era (1999), co-authored with Allen Weinstein. Based directly on his initial access to the files.

• Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (2009), co-authored with John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. A broader analysis drawing on the full notebooks.

These works provide detailed evidence of extensive Soviet recruitment and operations in the U.S. during the 1930s–1950s, often confirming or expanding on earlier revelations from defectors and decrypts.

Other Activities

Vassiliev has worked as a screenwriter and continues to comment on intelligence history. His papers (including notebooks, file guides, concordances, and related materials) are held at the Library of Congress. He maintains a professional portfolio site focused on his expertise.

Vassiliev's contributions remain significant for Cold War and intelligence historians because they offer one of the most direct windows into closed Soviet archives from a former insider who later chose to make the material available for open research.

Note: There is another prominent figure named Alexandre Vassiliev who is a fashion historian and collector (with a foundation dedicated to historical clothing); they are distinct individuals.

External link

• Why Russophobia shapes Russian foreign policy, Understanding Putin's KGB mindset, Ian Proud, Apr 28, 2026