11 Feb Board Game & Book Pairings: Clandestine Operations Across Cold War Europe!
Whether it’s trench coats in the foggy Berlin night, deep cover agents leaving stolen documents in dead drops, or old spymasters reading newspapers on park benches, there’s something that fascinates us about spy stories from Cold War-era Europe. Gather up your James Bond gadgets and alert your local contact at the embassy because we have a cloak-and-dagger board game and a true story of double agents and dangerous escapes for you!
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Board Game: Covert
– Wage secret war against your friends and family from Seville to Moscow and Athens to Edinburgh! Break codes and strategically use special abilities to complete missions as you lead your team of agents to victory.
- Players: 2-4
- Playing time: 45-90 minutes
- Age: 13+
- From Boardgamegeek: “Control your network of spies, gather intel, and break codes in Covert, a game of tactical dice placement, set collection, and timing set in Cold War Europe. Players race to complete high-risk Missions by deploying their agents and acquiring the necessary equipment, all while keeping an eye on the needs of future missions and the advances of rival agencies.
“Each round, players roll their hand of dice and in turn allocate them to different actions, like moving their Agents, acquiring Agency Cards, completing and acquiring new Missions, and more. Dice are placed on action circles that require players to place their dice numerically adjacent to dice that have already been placed, allowing rival agencies to thwart their plans. But a good Agent always has a backup plan, and there are ways around everything that stands in your way.
“Covert combines simple concepts with a depth of play that allows players the freedom to combine special abilities and card combos to complete their Missions and overcome obstacles. Utilize your assets. Make your move. Don’t let anyone stand in your way.” (description via https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/187653/covert)
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Book: The spy and the traitor : the greatest espionage story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre
– This book is the true story of Oleg Gordievsky, the son of an NKVD officer who rose through the ranks of the KGB to become London bureau chief while simultaneously working as a double agent and providing information to MI6 for over a decade. After he came under suspicion from his superiors in 1985, British spies and diplomats conducted a daring operation to help him escape to Finland and eventually back to the U.K., this time as a defector.
- From the publisher: “If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation’s communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union’s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States’s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky’s name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain’s top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.
“Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky’s nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre’s latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man’s hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.” (description via https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Traitor-Greatest-Espionage-Story/dp/1101904194/)
- From the publisher: “If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation’s communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union’s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States’s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky’s name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain’s top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.
- Bonus: Check out the 2011 film adaptation of John Le Carré’s novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy!
