The Fourth Man

The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia

By: Robert Baer

Narrated by: Robert Baer, Eric Jason Martin

The explosive, never-before-told story of the thrilling hunt for a KGB spy in the top ranks of the CIA, revealing how spies blinded the US to the rise of Putin and Russia’s dangerous future, from New York Times bestselling author and former CIA officer Robert Baer.

We think we know all the Cold War’s greatest spy stories. The tales of America’s greatest traitors have been told over and over. However, the biggest story of them all remains untold—until now. Rumors have long swirled of another mole in American intelligence, one perhaps more damaging than all the others combined. Perhaps the greatest traitor in American history, perhaps a Russian ruse to tear the CIA apart, or perhaps nothing more than a bogeyman, he is often referred to as the Fourth Man.

Blowing the lid off the biggest spy story in decades, Robert Baer tells the full, gripping story for the first time. After arrest of KGB spy Aldrich Ames, the CIA launched another investigation to make sure there wasn't another double agent in its ranks. Led by three of the CIA’s best spy hunters, women who devoted their lives to counterintelligence, its existence was known only to a few. They began methodically investigating their own bosses and colleagues, turning up loose threads, suspicious activity, and shocking intelligence from the CIA’s best Russian asset.

In the end, they came to a startling conclusion that, whether true or not, would shake American intelligence to its core, setting the stage for a cat-and-mouse game with enormous geopolitical stakes. Spies and moles may seem like bygone cold war history, but with Russia again a misunderstood belligerent power, the skeletons America would rather keep hidden are emerging, and as Robert Baer shows in this thrilling masterwork of investigative reporting, they matter as much now as ever.

A stunning indictment of the CIA’s decades-long fa

THE FOURTH MAN represents a welcome return to Bob Baer’s non-fiction writing, with the author hitting his stride at last after a string of uneven works, both fiction and non-fiction.

Without offering any spoilers, THE FOURTH MAN is a straightforward account of the decades long—and perhaps still ongoing--search for what may be the most damaging spy ever to have betrayed U.S. secrets to Soviet/Russian intelligence.

You’ve heard of the notorious spies, Howard, Ames and Hanssen—well, that’s not all. Baer gives us the rest of the story.

Baer makes a highly persuasive—some may say compelling—case that the betrayals of U.S. secrets by Edward Lee Howard, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen are dwarfed by the long-term and comprehensive looting of America’s crown jewels by a so-called Fourth Man inside the CIA.

If what Baer reports is true, the Fourth Man systematically destroyed the CIA’s stable of Soviet/Russian spies and left U.S. policymakers blind to Kremlin plans and intentions as Vladimir Putin began his rise to power.

What’s best about the case that Baer builds in THE FOURTH MAN is that it is based not on Baer’s own views, but on a meticulous inquiry by a small team of dedicated CIA counterintelligence officers. The facts and arguments Baer lays out in his well-organized narrative are, for the most part, those of insiders who had direct access to the CIA’s most tightly guarded Russian secrets.

And, unlike the typical journalistic treatment of real-life spy stories, THE FOURTH MAN benefits from the fact that Baer served personally with many of the story’s key players during the years in question and could claim a passing acquaintance with many of the lesser figures. As an astute and accomplished CIA insider, Baer is able to put the book’s mass of conflicting and often bewildering evidence in proper context.

Also welcome in THE FOURTH MAN is a level of humility, compassion, and even-handedness that I would not have expected to see, based on Baer’s earlier works.

THE FOURTH MAN is a story of historic importance, seriously told, yet with Baer’s unique flair. The book is Bob Baer at his entertaining best and deserves the wide audience it is bound to receive.

A good read that needs an ending

Extraordinary story. Well worth taking in if you are a student of our cold war. The events happening when the Soviet Union collapsed had a lot of surreal chapters that today have become part of our current focus.

Great story, but not a good production on Audible.

This story was a most interesting procedural, luckily I bought both hard and digital copies.
ATT: Audible
Stop truncating the chapters.

Fascinating, important story!

Thought provoking and although some parts take a little time to digest, the book is relatively easy to follow. Fascinating deep dive into spy world and it’s ramifications- good, bad or indifferent. Hope the mystery is solved in my lifetime!

ex CIA officials’ books I’ve found one for one excellent

This one gives a look at inside CIA mole hunting and as Baer has said in interviews this really is as good as fiction.

The real ex CIA officers’ books are just better and I can’t stand fiction anymore.