[Therefore, Shanghai was also something else:] It was the espionage intelligence center of the Far East, ... It's a very colorful and exotic arena. Shanghai in that period was in some ways an attractive and sinister place.

It was the espionage intelligence center of the Far East. It's a very colorful and exotic arena. Shanghai in that period was in some ways an attractive and sinister place.

The results were actually rather meager, ... and yet all the powers put enormous resources into intelligence in the Far East.

I was drawn into it. I felt I had a ringside seat at this mixture of the theater of the absurd and theater of cruelty.

(He) was a Russian, born in Latvia, who was an actor, singer, gangster and ran a whole network of agents in Shanghai for the Japanese during the war, ... He ended up, though, working for the Americans after the war. Before the war, he worked for the British, fell out with the British, and then turned for the Japanese.

I was drawn into it, ... I felt I had a ringside seat at this mixture of the theater of the absurd and theater of cruelty.