It involved an audacious KGB scheme assigned the highest possible priority by the Kremlin. But, although exceedingly clever, it boomeranged so disastrously that it contributed in time to no less than the collapse of the Soviet empire. Several operatives were killed along the way. Somehow I got caught up in the melodrama, escaping death from an assassin's bullet by the narrowest of margins. At one point there was an effort by the KGB to exploit a sexual indiscretion by threatening blackmail. Before it was over, Russian, Chinese, and American spies were at each other's throats on several continents. The whole thing centered on what appeared to be a brilliant stratagem to dupe the United States into squandering tens of billions of dollars on a needless military space race with the Soviet Union. But it backfired, exploding in the faces of the too clever Russian plotters, and resulting in the collapse of the Communist Party structure in Moscow and the dissolution of the long-standing collection of Soviet satellite states, leaving Russia alone, isolated and bitter. I've decided to lay out the story in all its gory details. There was so much involved that I realized I could not do it justice by writing a newspaper article, or even a long magazine piece. It would take a book. Prepare to be amazed.