Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster is the autobiography of Pavel Sudoplatov, who was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general. When it was published in 1994, it caused a considerable uproar for a number of reasons. It also made him well known outside Russia by providing a detailed look at Soviet intelligence and Soviet internal politics during his years at the top. The book also described the Soviet state view on the term "special tasks" which Sudoplatov described as "sabotage, kidnapping and assassination" beyond the USSR's borders. Sudoplatov was known for managing the two plots that led to the assassination of Leon Trotsky. Problems and value It is a somewhat problematic work for several reasons. For one, it was based in large part on Sudoplatov's memory, 40 years or more after the events that form the bulk of the book. For another, it was written with the help of his son Anatoli and two American writers, Jerrold and Leona Schecter, with Sudoplatov's contributions being a series of interviews, which the others turned into a book. Finally, the Schecters have produced other works on this topic which are problematic. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr described the portrayal of atomic espionage by Sudoplatov as a mix of "faulty memories, Soviet intelligence agency disinformation, sloppy citations, misplaced trust in documents provided by unidentified sources under unexplained circumstances, and egregious lapses in logic and judgment." The book contains a number of incorrect statements. One example is the misidentification of the source codenamed "MLAD"/"MLLAD" as Bruno Pontecorvo, instead of Theodore Hall. Various reasons are possible; for one, as the book was written over 40 years later, Sudoplatov's memory may have been in error. (The transcript of the interview where he made the error records him responding to a question as to whether MLAD was Pontecorvo by saying "I think so; Yes.") Also, Hall was at the time unknown in the West, and Sudoplatov may have wished to protect him. Other misstatements have been attributed to a desire on the part of Sudoplatov, who never changed his allegiance, to cause trouble in the West. Still, the book contains a great deal of material that is of value, and even critics who note its problems feel that it has considerable value. For instance, Alexei Kojevnikov wrote, "Sudoplatov is quite reliable