Dad Asks Son to Join Family Business—Spying

In one sense, it was a fairly typical conversation between a father and son. When Peter Herrmann turned 16, dad Rudi sat him down to talk about his life plans. But the conversation took quite a twist, as recounted by Shaun Walker at the Guardian:

• "I am not who you think I am," said Rudi, who presented himself as a filmmaker born in Germany who settled his family first in Canada and then in New York. "I am not a German, and I'm not called Rudi. I am a Czech man named Dalibor Valousek, and I work for the Soviet Union, for the KGB."

Does mom know, asked Peter? Turned out she was a KGB agent, too. And then Rudi presented the final part of the mind-blowing conversation: Would Peter be interested in becoming a KGB agent as well? He said yes. All of this took place more than a half-century ago, and Peter—now Eliott Holar and still in the US—agreed to tell the incredible tale of his life to Walker. The Guardian piece is an excerpt of his forthcoming book, The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West.

The story details how Peter traveled to Moscow to be trained as a secret agent, though his spy career didn't last long—it fell apart when he was 22 and the FBI caught Rudi, who began cooperating. The family was given a new identity (as the Holars) and relocated in the US. (Read the full story.)