The Spy Who Was Left Behind: Russia, the United States, and the True Story of the Betrayal and Assassination of a CIA Agent

by Michael Pullara

Overview

The shocking true story of international intrigue involving the 1993 murder of CIA officer Freddie Woodruff by KGB agents and the extensive cover-up that followed in Washington and in Moscow.

On August 8, 1993, a single bullet to the head killed Freddie Woodruff, the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Within hours, police had a suspect—a vodka-soaked village bumpkin named Anzor Sharmaidze. A tidy explanation quickly followed: It was a tragic accident. US diplomats hailed Georgia’s swift work, and both countries breathed a sigh of relief.

Yet the bullet that killed Woodruff was never found and key witnesses have since retracted their testimony, saying they were beaten and forced to identify Sharmaidze. But if he didn’t do it, who did? Those who don’t buy the official explanation think the answer lies in the spy games that played out on Russia’s frontier following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Woodruff was an early actor in a dangerous drama. American spies were moving into newborn nations previously dominated by Soviet intelligence. Russia’s security apparatus, resentful and demoralized, was in turmoil, its nominal loyalty to a pro-Western course set by President Boris Yeltsin, shredded by hardline spooks and generals who viewed the Americans as a menace.

At the time when Woodruff was stationed there, Georgia was a den of intrigue. It had a big Russian military base and was awash with former and not-so-former Soviet agents. Shortly before Woodruff was shot, veteran CIA officer Aldrich Ames—who would soon be unmasked as a KGB mole—visited him on agency business. In short order, Woodruff would be dead and Ames, in prison for life. Buckle up, because The Spy Who Was Left Behind reveals the full-throttle, little-known thrilling tale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501152139
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	935,178
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

A trial lawyer by training, Michael Pullara has pursued the case of Freddie Woodruff for more than ten years. He lives in Texas. The Spy Who Was Left Behind is his first book.

Read an Excerpt

The Spy Who Was Left Behind
A Note on Georgian Names

Key Players

CHAPTER 1 Death on a Lonely Road

CHAPTER 2 “Do They Think We’re Idiots?”

CHAPTER 3 The Testimony of Two Spies and a Housewife

CHAPTER 4 An Obscure Hint

CHAPTER 5 Mr. American Lawyer

CHAPTER 6 Hometown of a Spy

CHAPTER 7 The Thief in Law

CHAPTER 8 “The Americans Knew Everything”

CHAPTER 9 A Visit to the Prosecutor General

CHAPTER 10 “No One Interviews Marina”

CHAPTER 11 A Georgian Education

CHAPTER 12 “You Need to Get That File”

CHAPTER 13 A Letter from the American Ambassador

CHAPTER 14 The Search for the Real Killer

CHAPTER 15 “They Beat Me”

CHAPTER 16 Official Interrogations

CHAPTER 17 A Reporter’s Questions

CHAPTER 18 Confessions of an Old Soldier

EPILOGUE The Spy Who Was Left Behind

Photographs

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Appendix Time line of Aldrich Ames’s CIA career from 1983 to his arrest for espionage

Index

Table of Contents

A Note on Georgian Names ix

Key Players xi

Chapter 1 Death on a Lonely Road 1

Chapter 2 "Do They Think We're Idiots?" 13

Chapter 3 The Testimony of Two Spies and a Housewife 27

Chapter 4 An Obscure Hint 47

Chapter 5 Mr. American Lawyer 67

Chapter 6 Hometown of a Spy 85

Chapter 7 The Thief in Law 99

Chapter 8 "The Americans Knew Everything" 117

Chapter 9 A Visit to the Prosecutor General 139

Chapter 10 "No One Interviews Marina" 159

Chapter 11 A Georgian Education 181

Chapter 12 "You Need to Get That File" 197

Chapter 13 A Letter from the American Ambassador 213

Chapter 14 The Search for the Real Killer 227

Chapter 15 "They Beat Me" 245

Chapter 16 Official Interrogations 259

Chapter 17 A Reporter's Questions 277

Chapter 18 Confessions of an Old Soldier 299

Epilogue: The Spy Who Was Left Behind 319

Acknowledgments 323

Appendix Time line of Aldrich Ames's CIA career from 1983 to his arrest for espionage 325

Index 329

Editorial Reviews

2018-10-02

For 10 years, lawyer Pullara pursued the mysterious 1993 murder of diplomat and CIA agent Freddie Woodruff in the Soviet Republic of Georgia. In his first book, he unspools his findings.

An expert in complex commercial litigation who felt a "suspicion about the sincere pronouncements by the US government" after he had completed a long investigation into the dubious circumstances of his father's death in the Vietnam War, the author, who knew Woodruff's family earlier in his life, did not buy the official version of Woodruff's murder. After postings in Berlin, Leningrad, Ankara, and Ethiopia, Woodruff was working at the embassy in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi when he was murdered on a mountain road (supposedly "a random act of violence") during a "sightseeing trip" in August 1993. The car had been driven by the chief bodyguard of Eduard Shevardnadze, who had become acting chairman of the State Council of Georgia after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. As Pullara vividly recounts, so many of the details didn't make sense—e.g., that Woodruff was in Georgia to train Shevardnadze's security force, as well as the numerous ill-fitting circumstances about the murder itself. Moreover, when the murder was conveniently blamed on Anzor Sharmaidze, a young former Soviet trainee, evidently under torture, the author sought to figure out the role CIA operations officer and secret Russian spy Aldrich Ames might have played in the affair; Ames was arrested by the FBI for espionage less than two weeks after Sharmaidze was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1994. From diving deep into FBI documents to repeatedly visiting the country and tracking down the shadowy protagonists, Pullara does a fine job of sleuthing to get at what he believes is the truth.

A highly detailed, engrossing work that incorporates a history of fledgling Georgia amid the author's well-demonstrated "passion for mysteries…[and] memory for trivia."

Kirkus Reviews

This book shines light where the U.S. government has maintained darkness. Freddie Woodruff was my boss in the CIA. After his murder, it didn’t take very long for me and the FBI agents investigating to figure out there’d been a cover-up, with the key evidence stolen. In a post-truth era, we need a lot more fearless writers like Michael Pullara.” —Robert Baer, bestselling author of See No Evil, The Devil We Know, and The Perfect Kill

“Michael Pullara has spent more than a decade in his quest to explain why and how CIA officer Freddie Woodruff was murdered. As a 26-year veteran of the CIA, and trained operations officer, I believe he is as close to the truth of what happened as any human is likely to get. He has produced a masterwork that covers nearly every possible aspect of this troubling case. This is a remarkable book that is at once humanitarian, scholarly, and deeply patriotic.” —G.L. Lamborn, author of Arms of Little Value: The Challenge of Insurgency and Global Instability in the Twenty-First Century

“For 10 years, lawyer Pullara pursued the mysterious 1993 murder of diplomat and CIA agent Freddie Woodruff in the Soviet Republic of Georgia. In his first book, he vividly unspools his findings. Pullara does a fine job of sleuthing to get at what he believes is the truth. A highly detailed, engrossing work that incorporates a history of fledgling Georgia amid the author's well-demonstrated ‘passion for mysteries...[and] memory for trivia.’” —Kirkus Reviews

“The most comprehensive and exhaustive account to date of what really happened to Freddie Woodruff and why. He has done this with aplomb, utilizing his trial lawyer and analytical and networking skills to piece together a detailed and very readable play-by-play account of his quest for the truth.” —The Cipher Brief

“Against great odds and motivated by nothing more than a sense of justice, Michael Pullara sets a standard for idealistic attorneys to strive for.” —The New York Journal of Books

“To offer too much about Pullara’s incredible investigation would rob a reader of the taut tension that runs through the book. The Spy Who Was Left Behind moves at the pace of a fiction thriller.” – Houston Chronicle

From the Publisher