At 7.30 on November 8th, Steven Usdin will discuss his book, Engineering Communism: How Two Americans Spied for Stalin and Founded the Soviet Silicon Valley (Yale Univ. Press, Oct. 2005). He will describe how two members of the Rosenberg spy ring, Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant, transferred valuable secret military technology to the USSR during World War II, escaped from the FBI, and pioneered the development of microelectronics and computers in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. Based on his close friendship with Barr and newly declassified documents from both sides of the Iron Curtain, Usdin will explore the motivations of Communist spies in the 1930s and 1940s and the relevance of their stories for an understanding of today’s terrorists. The presentation will also highlight the contemporary relevance of the lessons from Engineering Communism, including the causes for the Soviet Union’s lack of technological innovation and the deep roots of American counterintelligence failures.