I would have loved to have met some former spies, but they don't readily advertise themselves unless they're not living in Moscow, and even then. I'm sure I've met some without realizing it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest.
I always wanted to play characters, and that was definitely one - a Russian spy.
Since that time I have had continuous contact with the persons who were completely unknown to me, except that I knew they would hand whatever information I gave them to the Russian authorities.
I went to Moscow and met some slightly powerful and scary people.
You can say that I lived in Asia for a long time and in Japan I became close to several CIA agents. And you could say that I became an adviser to several CIA agents in the field and, through my friends in the CIA, met many powerful people and did special works and special favors.
For years, I had a top secret clearance and never left Russia. Just once did I go to Bulgaria with my wife for a holiday at the Golden Sands resort, but I could not mention my real name. I was allowed to travel abroad only in the early 1990s.
There will always be spies. We have to have them. Without them we wouldn't have got Osama bin Laden - it took us years, but it happened.
I've known several spies who have wanted to become novelists. And novelists who became spies, of course.
I've met enough KGB colonels in my life.
My notion of the KGB came from romantic spy stories. I was a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education.