He returned to the editorial staff of Komsomolskaya Pravda, where he worked as a reporter and then columnist, writing mostly about international issues and espionage from 1990 to 1996.

[2] The SVR (successor to the KGB), was in the midst of a budgetary crisis and sought to improve its image as an effective service and had agreed to the proposal.

[3] Although having misgivings, Vassiliev finally agreed to work on a book dealing with Soviet Espionage in America in the 1930s and 1940s as part of the project.

[3] In the fall of 1993, Vassiliev signed a book contract and met the American chosen by Crown to work with him, historian Allen Weinstein, a specialist in the Alger Hiss spy case.

[5] Although locked up in a safe each night with the archival material, no one checked what he was writing and Vassiliev was allowed to take notebooks home as he filled one and brought in another.

[8] Many cover names were already well known in the United States, however, and American author Weinstein had little difficulty understanding who was who and retained control over the final draft.

[8] Beginning in 1995, the political environment began to change in Russia, Vassiliev later recalled, with the popularity of Boris Yeltsin plummeting and an anxious mood sweeping the country.

[10] Adding to the difficulty, Crown Publishing found it necessary to cancel the five volume book deal for financial reasons, throwing the entire project into doubt.

[10] Feeling a communist-nationalist restoration somewhat likely and their own safety tenuous, Alexander Vassiliev and his wife Elena decided to emigrate to Great Britain in 1996, leaving his precious notebooks with trusted friends for safekeeping rather than risking losing them to inquisitive officials at the airport.

[11] Copies of his draft chapters for The Haunted Wood were transferred to computer disks and some key documents were transcribed prior to their leaving.

In January 2003 Frank Cass's lawyers offered Alexander Vassiliev to settle the monetary claim for more than £2,000 and promised not to republish the John Lowenthal article.