The Mole: The Cold War Memoir of Winston Bates: A Novel

This fictional memoir of Winston Bates details his life working as a staff member for Senator Richard Russell, and Bates’ dabbling with the government’s Armed Services as a planted Canadian mole. Bates rises up the Defense Department ladder pretty fluidly thanks to his photographic memory, which leaves a strong first impression, and his social skills to network with key government players. When first recruited in France, he gets set up to move to Washington D.C to collect U.S intelligence information for Canada and he spends a lot of his time wondering when he will be contacted and by whom. It was fun to read about how Bates navigated his way through Washington, collecting intelligence information, and how that mixed with his social calendar and the gossip of The Hill’s elite. It is a book that centers on political intrigue as much as it does political gossip.

I really enjoyed how The Mole: The Cold War Memoir of Winston Bates: A Novel was written. Warner has written a well-researched fictional memoir that made sense contextually. It provided an entertaining look into the flow of government information as Bates dealt with some of the most defining moments of American history, covering everything from the U-2 spy planes over Russia and the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, to Vietnam and Watergate. This would be a nice read for those interested in this period of the U.S Government.