Vasily Zarubin ranked as an important Soviet intelligence officer, but he has received little recognition in the history of intelligence in the United States. In Rezident, author Robert K. Baker, who worked with foreign counterintelligence matters for the FBI during a thirty-three-year career, presents the first English language biography of Zarubin, Stalin's principal intelligence officer in this country during World War II.

Rezident recounts the exploits of Zarubin's work with Soviet intelligence during the twentieth century narrating how his odyssey extended from the Soviet Far East during the early years of Soviet Russia to deep cover assignments with his wife, Elizaveta, in France, Nazi Germany, and the United States. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin appointed Zarubin as his intelligence emissary to the United States to gather political, military, and technological information. Zarubin was successful in providing valuable information to the Soviet Union during the war years.

This biography of Zarubin's life and times provides a greater appreciation and understanding of the role of the security and intelligence services in the sphere of national security.