"Now a major motion picture Bridge of Spies directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks. Originally published in 1964, this is the insider account of the Cold War spy exchange -- with a new foreword by Jason Matthews. On February 10, 1962, American lawyer and negotiator James B. Donovan began his walk toward the center of the Glienicke Bridge, the famous "Bridge of Spies" which then linked West Berlin to the Russian-controlled East. With him, walked Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, the captured master Soviet spy. Approaching them from the other side was Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 spy plane pilot famously shot down by the Soviets, whose exchange for Abel Donovan had negotiated. Abel was the most gifted, the most mysterious, the most effective spy of his time. His trial, which began in a Brooklyn United States District Court and ended in the Supreme Court of the United States, chillingly revealed the methods and successes of Soviet espionage. No one was better equipped to tell the whole absorbing history than James B. Donovan, the American lawyer appointed to defend one of his country's enemies and who did so with scrupulous skill. A fast-paced memoir and dark character study that reads like a noirish espionage thriller. From Donovan's first interview with Abel to the exchange on the bridge in Berlin"--Provided by publisher.

Reissue with new foreword of work published in 1964. Includes index.