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Fresh Air

The Real-Life Russian Spies Who Inspired 'The Americans'

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.434.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West, journalist Shaun Walker shares how agents were trained to blend into a target country and posed as citizens. Walker tells the story of Andrei Olegovich Bezrukov, aka "Donald," and Elena Vavilova, aka "Tracey," who were embedded in Cambridge, Mass. until a 2010 FBI raid. Even their two children didn't know their parents' true identities.

Also, jazz historian Kevin Whitehead pays tribute to versatile tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

99% of the U.S. population lives within listening range of at least one public media station.

0:06.9

And everyone can listen to NPR podcasts free of charge.

0:10.3

That means you get completely unpaywalled access to stories, prize-winning reporting,

0:16.2

and shows that represent the voices in every corner of the country.

0:20.3

Hear the bigger picture every day on NPR.

0:24.3

This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies.

0:27.1

The FX TV series The Americans portrayed a seemingly ordinary couple raising two children in a suburb of Washington, D.C.,

0:35.0

except that mom and dad were actually Soviet spies, working on long-term assignment

0:40.1

for the KGB.

0:41.9

In this scene, the couple, played by Matthew Reese and Kerry Russell, are talking after learning

0:46.9

that their new neighbor is an FBI counterintelligence agent.

0:50.9

The husband's telling his wife, maybe it's time to give up their ruse and defect to the

0:55.3

U.S. government.

0:56.7

We just get relocated, take the good life, and be happy.

1:06.4

Are you joking?

1:09.6

Is this a joke? No.

1:11.6

You want to betray our country?

1:13.6

Well, after everything we've done, I don't think it's such a betrayal.

1:17.6

Defecting to America?

1:18.6

America's not so bad.

1:20.6

We've been here a long time. What's so bad about it, you know?

1:24.6

The electricity works all the time. Food's pretty great. Closet space.

...

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