Steve Pound’s Book Reviews

The Lost Spy. Andrew Meier. Weidenfeld and Nicholson.402pp.2009.

This book has been described as “a jewel” by Simon Sebag Montefiore and he is not guilty of exaggeration. Quite simply this is one of the most extraordinary books I’ve ever read and the tale it tells is not just of a human tragedy but the history of Communism in the US and the horrific betrayal of the October Revolution – and those who served it.
The prose is pared down from necessity as there are more than a dozen good books fighting to escape the covers of “The Lost Spy” and the author has adopted a lean muscularity of style that means that there are no superfluous words and yet sufficient suggestions and signposts to years of study.
Put simply this is the biography of the utterly tragic idealist Isaiah Oggins, a small town American born of emigrant parents, successful student at Columbia University, agent of Soviet Russia, father, husband, gulag prisoner in Norilsk hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle and, finally, victim of execution by lethal injection in a white tiled room, Laboratory Number One, next door to the Lubyanka.
The incredible amount of research and effort undertaken by the author increases the admiration that many already harboured for Andrew Meier and the gentleness and respectfulness he shows to “Cy” Oggins living son reveals a decent human being as well as writer and investigator of genius.
The story of Simon and Rena Oggins and their journey from Kovno (Kaunas) is a book in itself and the history of America in the 20th.Century is revealed in the differing ambitions of their two sons – one the revolutionary Communist and the other a hard-headed and successful New York businessman and Republican voter.
Certain sentences reveal just how well a person can write and there is a sweet example of this early in the book when Meier describes Cy Oggins’ parents’ flight to the USA by recording that “they were both twenty-five years old when they abandoned the western edge of the czar’s empire for the Lower East Side of New York City”.
Possessed of an acute and enquiring mind Cy Oggins fought his way from Willimantic to Columbia University and immediately became radicalised by the intense political debate around the issue of America’s involvement in the Great War.
Columbia may have been headed by Nicholas Murray Butler, rightly described as a “snob of the first water” but Cy Oggins could study under Charles Beard, R.L.Schuyler, James Cattell and Henry Dana.
Had he not chosen to follow his (Red) star Oggins would have become a lecturer at Columbia but the furore of 1918 and the gathering of young radicals in the Collegiate Anti-Militarism League led him away from the Ivy League to the street battles inspired by Eugene Debs and terrorised by the “White Cossacks” and the Gegan Bomb Squad.
Columbia purged itself if the radicals – who moved across to the Rand School – and Cy Oggins met the woman who he would marry and who would outlive him by fifty years – Nerma Berman.
One of the many delights of this book is the cast of characters who flow through its pages and Emma Goldman, Alexander Trachtenberg and Scott Nearing shimmer and fade as Cy Oggins makes his journey.
By 1924 he was married to Nerma and he and his wife were full members of the US Communist Party. Now was the time to serve the cause.
In 1923 the American Trading Company (Amtorg) had opened in New York and the first resident, Werner Rakov started to set up the Soviet spy apparatus that was officially, or unofficially, founded in 1925.
In May 1928 Cy and Nerma boarded the Leviathan and left New York for Berlin.
Meier proves that he can write poetry as well as political prose and his description of the city vanishing behind Cy and Nerma may owe a little to Gerard Manley Hopkins but it is still a beautiful piece of writing.
Germany in the 1920s was the obvious location for the next stage of the revolution and Meier really pares down the word count into a few chapters instead of the volumes you just know he could write on the subject. The way in which he draws a picture of the seething cities on the brink of the German October is breathtaking and you really think that he was there to hear Ernst Thalmann speak, to mourn Liebknecht and Luxemburg, to see Josephine Baker dance, delight in Kurt Gerron signing Brecht, march with the Red Front Fighters and witness Ruth Fischer’s dream dissipate in the dust thrown up by marching jack-boots.
Cy and Nerma seem to have established a safe house for Moscow Centre and Cy became a dealer in antiquities – excellent cover.
Yet again Meier shows that he is a profoundly human man and his sketching in of the broad historical sweep is tempered by the identification of the agony suffered by Cy and Nerma as they were unable to participate in the political turmoil because of the need to retain their cover. The description of their longing to join the comrades at the Liebknecht Haus is beautifully written and their eventual recognition by the once Communist and later virulent Red baiter Sidney Hook is chilling.
Equally poignant is the story of Nerma’s ordered abortion and the couple’s determination to have a child in the future – despite the instructions of Moscow Centre.
From Berlin to Paris to Shanghai the story unfolds with a meticulous underpinning of prime research and analysis of original sources.
The travels of the Oggins follow the interests of Moscow and the tragic tale of the horrors that Stalinism visited on true believers the world over accompany them.
Oddly enough I read much of this book outside the house on the island once called Prinkipo where Trotsky was exiled between Alma-Ata and Paris. I could not enter the building as it is now the Hotel Splendid and admission to those without jackets or ties is forbidden – sans culottes shouldn’t even try.
Oggins was probably arrested in Moscow because the agent he worked with on an extraordinary scheme to import Italian aircraft to Manchuria betrayed the Centre and the loyal Cy Oggins was almost certainly damned by association.
Amazingly Meier has managed to get hold of the full face and profile photographs of Cy as he was processed through Lubyanka and the same record when he was brought back from the Gulag to the execution chamber in Moscow.
Compare and contrast the two faces of the same man and weep for the agony that can be suffered by the idealist.
This is a book magnificent in its historical, political and geographical sweep but it is also the very human story of Cy, Nerma and their son Robin and is impeccably researched, beautifully written and the bibliography alone is worth the price of the book.
Read this book and weep if you will – but read it.