Author Douglas Boyd explores for the first time the relationship between the KGB and its ghastly brood ? a family from hell. Perhaps the most menacing were the sleepers who settled in the West, married and had children while waiting to strike against their host countries many are still among us. Specially trained operatives undertook 'wet jobs', including assassination of anti-Soviet figures. What was at first not so obvious was that these state terror organisations were also designed for military and commercial espionage in the West, to conceal the real case officers in Moscow. When the resultant hatred exploded in uprisings they were put down by brutality, bloodshed and Soviet tanks. KGB ? officers of the Polish UB, the Czech StB, the Hungarian AVO, Romania's Securitate, Bulgaria's KDS, Albania's Sigurimi and the Stasi of the German Democratic Republic spied on and ruthlessly repressed their fellow citizens on the Soviet model. Trained by his NKVD ? a predecessor of the. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin installed secret police services in all the satellite countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The author also examines the reasons behind the love-hate relationship between France and the foreigners she pays to spill their blood for her which are at the core of the Legion's history.Moscow Rules: Secret Police, Spies, Sleepers, AssassinsĪfter the guns fell silent in May 1945, the USSR resumed its clandestine warfare against the western democracies. But what is it that attracts men from so many countries and social backgrounds to accept the harsh discipline of this legendary mercenary army with a rigid code of honor straight out of the nineteenth century? Douglas Boyd tells the eventful story of the Legion from its inception in 1831 to defend France's colonial interests, to the Legion of today involved in peacekeeping and humanitarian duties worldwide. The Legion has never had any problem attracting recruits: seven out of ten applicants are still rejected.
One of the rewards for which men sign on with the Legion is French citizenship, and every legionnaire may claim it after serving three years with good conduct. For 170 years, jobless, homeless and loveless men have found in the Legion a sense of purpose worth all the rigors and risks of serving in the world's longest-standing mercenary army. Known for its austerity and discipline, deprivation and sacrifice, the French Foreign Legion is perhaps the most intriguing and famous fighting force in the world.
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