Nikolai Khokhlov

Nikolai Khokhlov was a KGB officer who defected to the United States after refusing to organize the assassination of Georgi Okolovich, a soviet dissident living in Germany. Tragically, Kholklov's wife, who encouraged him to disobey his orders to murder Okilovich, was arrested along with their young son.

In 1957, the KGB made an attempt on Khokhlov's life, poisoning his coffee with radioactive thallium. Astoundingly, he survived, and went on to become a psychology professor at the California State University at San Bernardino.

Read more about Khokhlov's life in the UK Times article "The Spy Poisoned by the KGB—but who lived to tell the tale" 

Published work

 In The Name of Conscience (David McKay, 1959)