Аннотация

The article based upon a host of Soviet and American archival and published documents, memoirs of a number of Soviet, American and British intelligence officers, agents, generals and diplomats, as well as on works published by Russian, American, and British historians shows the reasons why both great nations while having powerful armies and navies, enormous and adequate amount of information on their potential adversaries’ plans and intentions entered World War II the way they did: ill-prepared for an imminent attack and suffering huge casualties and losses in manpower and hardware. The reasons why the crucial military and political information obtained the hard way by numerous agents and officers and timely delivered and submitted to Soviet and American statesman and warlords by their intelligence and counterintelligence agencies was either misused or simply ignored by both Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt.