The summer I ... froze in the Cold War

By Tony Wright
Updated January 20 2017 - 10:08pm, first published 10:00pm
The  KGB Museum in  Hotel Viru, Estonia. Photo: visitestonia.com
The KGB Museum in Hotel Viru, Estonia. Photo: visitestonia.com
From the hotel room KGB staff monitored guest activities. Photo: visitestonia.com
From the hotel room KGB staff monitored guest activities. Photo: visitestonia.com
Listening devices were linked to 60 guest rooms in the hotel. Photo: visitestonia.com
Listening devices were linked to 60 guest rooms in the hotel. Photo: visitestonia.com
A man hands out free advertising newspapers in Moscow while behind him looms the Federal Security Service building. The Federal Security Service is the former KGB. Photo: Peter Dejong
A man hands out free advertising newspapers in Moscow while behind him looms the Federal Security Service building. The Federal Security Service is the former KGB. Photo: Peter Dejong
Mikhail Gorbachev and Erich Honecker greet each other in East Berlin in 1989.
Mikhail Gorbachev and Erich Honecker greet each other in East Berlin in 1989.
A view of Siberian countryside from the Trans-Siberian train in winter.
A view of Siberian countryside from the Trans-Siberian train in winter.

The secret men on the 23rd floor of the Hotel Viru must have been disappointed. There I was, a Western journalist, witnessing what would turn out to be the final chapter of one of the most consequential periods of the 20th century – and I was a dead loss to the secret police.

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