2025-05-16
49 分钟This is The Guardian.
Welcome to The Guardian Long Read,
showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.
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I am not who you think I am.
How a Deep Cover KGB Spy Recruited His Own Son by Sean Walker.
Read by James Faulkner.
Rudy Herman took a deep breath and asked his son Peter to sit down.
I have a story to tell you, he said.
Rudy had been preparing for this conversation for several years, running over the words in his mind.
He was about to tell his 16-year-old son that everything Peter thought he knew about their family was a lie.
The pair sat on a bench, and Peter waited quietly for whatever it was his father wanted to say.
He was an academically gifted and unfailingly polite child,
but he had been struggling psychologically.
He had few friends and felt overwhelmed at home.
Rudy, an ambitious German-Canadian filmmaker, was charming with colleagues and friends,
but with his son, he was something of a tyrant, not violent, but psychologically domineering.
He was disdainful of American pop culture,
insisting that Peter not waste his time on mind-rotting pursuits such as reading comics or listening to rock music.
It was almost as if he was actively trying to sabotage Peter's efforts to fit in.