Author Interview with Eva Dillon, Author of the True-Life Thriller “Spies In the Family”

Author Interview with Eva Dillon

In this interesting interview, author Eva Dillon talks about researching and writing her highly-acclaimed, fascinating true-life thriller Spies in the Family.

About Spies in the Family

A riveting, true-life thriller — as well as a moving memoir — from the daughter of an American intelligence officer, Spies in the Family is the astonishing story of two spies and their families on opposite sides of the Cold War.

Spanning fifty years and three continents, Spies in the Family is a deeply researched account of the lethal espionage campaigns of the Cold War, and two men whose devoted friendship lasted a lifetime, until the devastating final days of their lives.

Both a gripping tale of spy craft and a powerful personal story, Spies in the Family is an invaluable and wholly fresh look at one of the most extraordinary episodes in American history.

“A beautifully written, profoundly moving account of one of the most important U.S Intelligence sources ever run inside the Soviet Union. A cliff-hanger from beginning to end, Dillon’s account is filled with espionage tradecraft and family drama — essential reading for anyone fascinated by how spying really works.” — (Peter Earnest, Executive Director, International Spy Museum)

About the Author Eva Dillon

Eva Dillon spent twenty-five years in the magazine publishing business, including stints at Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, The New Yorker, and as president of Reader’s Digest.

Dillon and her six siblings grew up moving around the world for her father’s CIA assignments from Berlin to Mexico City to Rome to New Delhi.

A transplanted New Yorker now living in Charleston, she holds a bachelor’s in Music from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Author Interview with Eva Dillon

Q: Tell us about your CIA father…

Growing up, I always thought that my father’s job at the State Department explained our peripatetic lifestyle as we moved from continent to continent. Then, when I was seventeen in New Delhi, India, his diplomatic cover was blown, exposing his real career with the CIA to me and my six siblings. However, it would be decades before the extent of his clandestine activities became clear to us.

What we ultimately discovered: his role as a handler for the CIA’s most valuable Soviet double agent during the darkest moments of the Cold War.

Code-named TOPHAT, Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov was a World War II hero turned military intelligence officer who volunteered his services to the United States when he was under cover at the UN in 1961. A principled man motivated by his love of his country, he wanted neither money nor asylum. Instead, by alerting the US government to its deficiencies in the arms race via a wealth of classified material, he sought to prevent a superpower face-off, helping to keep the Cold War from becoming hot. My father and Polyakov developed a close friendship over the years that transcended the ideological divide and endured until their respective tragic final days.

When I discovered the relationship my father had with the Cold War’s highest-ranking, longest-serving Soviet asset, I wanted, primarily, to honor General Polyakov and his service. But the more tactical and emotionally motivating factor for me was when I learned that Polyakov’s son had immigrated to the United States and was willing to share his memories with me.

Exclusively gaining access to his stories of his father and account of growing up unknowingly as a family of a spy, and comparing that experience with my own, inspired me to tell an incredible and fascinating Cold War story, but through the intimate and personal lens of the two families.

Q: What inspired you to write this memoir?

I was inspired to write the book because of a magazine article we discovered in my mother’s belongings after she died in 1997. It featured an article called “Our Man In Moscow” (George Magazine, October 1997) about Dmitri Polyakov and my father. And that, in those pre-internet days before news found you rather than you finding it, is when I discovered the magnitude of my father’s secret career and was inspired to research both him and General Polyakov.

Most books like this one, are written by journalists who wait for newly declassified information. Polyakov’s case remains classified, and probably will for many years. I came at it quite differently, relying on interviews with 18 of my father’s former CIA colleagues and with the General’s son. But I didn’t want to write the book that a journalist would, and should, write some day. I wanted to write the book by a daughter, exposing the human interest side of this Cold War spy story.

Q: What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Finding the intelligence officers (CIA and FBI) officers who knew…

Read the full author interview here.

NY Literary Magazine

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