Roy E. Peterson epub Russian Bears American Affairs: Where the Bears Hid the Honey (U.S. Commercial Officer and IBM Manager)

When Dane Nelson was assigned to Vladivostok, Russian Far East, as the First U.S. Department of Commerce Foreign Commercial Officer in 1993, his Russian language training and Russian Foreign Area Officer status in the Army were part of his KGB file. His Black Ops experience was not. Dane was a hybrid ideally suited for covert and overt assignment. Both were now in play. Vladivostok was closed to western business for 71 years and harbored secrets of the former Soviet, now Russian Pacific Fleet that were important in Washington. Whether blowing up the Varyag underground torpedo/cruise missile arsenal, or killing opposition men in France, Dane covered his tracks.Dane Nelson makes history at levels rarely disclosed to public scrutiny, the Ollie North level. Dane is that operative who has parallel careers in the open and in the shadows managing them both perfectly. Only someone like Dane would divorce his American wife for simply asking about it, because he felt it was an act of disloyalty, or report himself to his government agency for close and continuing contact with a Russian woman. No one plumbed the peaks and valleys of Foreign Commercial Officer duties in any country, let alone Russia, and few if any faced the challenges of starting from zero in operating independently and opening two Commercial Offices and two American Business Centers anywhere in the Foreign Service, let alone 6,000 miles from Moscow with (former) KGB and MVD watching. Romance and intrigue are compelling. Even more compelling is much of it happened in real life. Dane left his Foreign Commercial Service post and became the first IBM Sales Territory Manager in Vladivostok, doubling his income and doubling the intrigue