Jul 12, 2009 9:00 am US/Eastern
Book Claims Ernest Hemingway Was KGB Agent
Acclaimed Author Allegedly Recruited By Russians In 1940s
MIAMI (CBS) ―
His home is one of the most visited landmarks in Key West, but a new book now says that Nobel prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway was on the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti's (KGB) list of agents in the United States, according to the UK Guardian.
The new book, "Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America," was based upon notes that former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev made when he got access in the 1990's to Stalin-era intelligence archives. Vassiliev co-wrote the book with John Early Haynes and Harvey Klehr.
The book claims Hemingway was recruited in 1941 and given the cover name "Argo." But, according to the authors, Hemingway failed to give the KGB political information and his contact with the KGB ended by 1950.
The author's claims aren't the first to be made against a legendary author. George Orwell reportedly had lists of "crypto-communists," prepared for a foreign office propaganda arm in 1949, according to the Guardian.
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