Review of "An Agent in Place: The Wennerstrom Affair," by Thomas Whiteside

 Review of

An Agent in Place: The Wennerstrom Affair, by Thomas Whiteside, ISBN 0345303261

Five out of five stars

A look inside Cold War espionage

 Swedish Colonel Stig Wennerstrom served as Sweden’s Air Attache in Moscow and Washington shortly after the end of the Second World War when the Cold War was heating up. For fifteen years, he served as an agent of the Soviet Union, passing NATO secrets to his handlers controlled by Moscow. Eventually uncovered and arrested by the Swedish authorities, the first part of the book is his recollection of the events of his spying. 

 What comes across very clear is how easy it was for him to gain access to secrets, copy them via photos and then pass them to his Soviet handlers. While there were many hints of his being a Soviet agent and there were suspicions within the Swedish security services, it took years before they were able to gather enough evidence to arrest him. 

 The second and shorter section of the book is an analysis of Wennerstrom’s statements by an espionage specialist. In this section, some of the statements by Wennerstrom are debunked. Several questions regarding the stated tactics given by Wennerstrom as well as some of what he was told by the Soviets are questioned. While they sound true, they also often come across as an attempt to belittle Wennerstrom and cover up what was a level of incompetence by the Swedish and NATO counter espionage agents. 

 Despite these questions, it is clear that this is a generally accurate rendition of the acts of one of the major agents that the Soviets were able to plant in the Western European militaries. 


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