Death of a Dissident

Alex Goldfarb just published a book called “Death of a Dissident”. I’ve known Goldfarb for 30 odd years. In Russia he was a dissident, in America he joined the faculty of Biology at Columbia University and showed himself to be a capable scientist. Some years later, he became a capable administrator in charge of the Soros’ foundation, where he helped Russian scientists who survived the terribly difficult years of Perestroyka. He also organized American doctors who volunteer their services to fight TB in Russian prisons. He helped Alexandre Litvinenko and his family defect to England. Litvinenko was a former Russian FSB agent who was rather knowledgeable of many secrets of the Russian Security Services. In the book, Goldfarb asserts that Litvinenko was poisoned by FSB agents in an act of revenge for divulging of Russian State Secrets. He supposedly wrote the book with Marina Litvinenko, but it’s clear that Goldfarb wrote most of it, if not all, by himself. The book is written in English, showing Goldfarb to be a highly educated and intelligent person. A week or so ago, Alex and Marina Litvinenko were guests of Charlie Rose, arguably the best TV show host. Goldfarb was very impressive and answered all the questions with precision and agility. Last Thursday he came to the restaurant and brought two books. One was for me and the other for the well known Russian-American journalist Vladimir Kozlovsky. I don’t know what Alex wrote for Kozlovsky, but on the book he signed for me he wrote: to Roman Kaplan – owner of a haunt where dissidents and spies hang out.