Death of a Dissident

Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB is a book written by Alexander Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko about the life and death of her husband, former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned by the radioactive element polonium in London in November 2006.

Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB

First edition cover
Author	Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Biography
Publisher	The Free Press
Publication date	22 May 2007
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	369 pp
ISBN	978-1-4165-5165-2
OCLC	104889488

Content

The life of Alexander Litvinenko has been described in the book at the background of power struggle between different political forces in post-Soviet Russia. The book presents active measures which, according to authors, have been undertaken by Russian state-security services to bring FSB leaders to power, from an attempted coup allegedly organized by Alexander Korzhakov in 1996 to the election of Vladimir Putin, who became popular as a result of the Second Chechen war. However, according to the book, Putin was appointed the Prime minister of Russia as a result of a secret deal with oligarch Boris Berezovsky.

According to the book, the FSB received a direct order from Russian President Vladimir Putin to kill Alexander Litvinenko, and it also had a hand in the 1999 apartment bombings, the Moscow theater hostage crisis and the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.[1]

Reviews

Nicholas Blincoe noted that the book is really a memoir by the former Russian dissident Alex Goldfarb who is an employee of Boris Berezovsky. Blincoe points out the problem, that "if everyone, including Goldfarb, is in Berezovsky's pay, there are no disinterested accounts, only potential apologists for his world-view." Blincoe further asserts that the fact that Berezovsky was the mastermind behind Putin's rise to power is evidence that no KGB-sponsored coup d'état took place - contrary to what was claimed in the book.[2]

References

1. Nowak, David (June 4, 2007). "New Litvinenko Book Accuses FSB". Moscow Times. Retrieved 2011-09-05. David Johnson, Johnson's Russia List at Center for Defense Information.
2. Blincoe, Nicholas (June 14, 2007). "All roads lead back to Berezovsky". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2011-09-05.

The book

• Goldfarb, Alex; with Marina Litvinenko. Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-1-4165-5165-2. Lay summary (2008-12-28).

External links

• Dakss, Brian (February 11, 2009). "Murdered Russian Spy's Widow, Friend Speak". The Early Show. CBS News. Retrieved 2011-09-04.
• "Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review". Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
• Jordan, Mary (June 10, 2007). "Poisoned Russian Had Sought Entry to U.S., Book Says". Washington Post.
• "Inside Controversy". The Leonard Lopate Show. New York Public Radio. 2007-06-12. Archived from the original on 2008-12-04. Retrieved 2011-09-05.
• Litvinenko was killed because of the personal struggle of Putin and Berezovsky RFE/RL
• "Presentation of the Book" (in Russian). ChechenPress.