The Case of Agent Gorbachev
By Kristie Macrakis
East Germany acquired technology the old-fashioned way: by stealing it. But did it do their industrial enterprise any good?
This Article From Issue
November-December 2000
Volume 88, Number 6
Page 534
DOI: 10.1511/2000.41.534
It is September 1961, a few weeks after the building of the Berlin Wall on August 13. A man of medium build, with slicked-back dark blond hair and a bit of a paunch, gets off the West Berlin subway at Friedrichstrasse, the location of the main border crossing to East Berlin. The cheap fluorescent lights give his face a greenish pallor as he navigates the mazelike underground passages and walks up to the cubicles of the East German border guards. Attracting the attention of one of the officers, he asks to be arrested.
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