Open Minds

Making a Soviet Spy with Jack Barsky

We have all seen spy movies from the cold war era where Soviet and U.S. spies go head-to-head to conquer or free the world. Underlying these fictional accounts are the lives of real human beings, caught in a web of politics and power plays. Jack Barsky was one such individual, trained by the Soviet government to infiltrate the U.S. In part one of his story, we learn what it takes for someone to become a rising star within the KGB, the degrees of indoctrination he received, and what it was like to explore the Western world for the first time.