The plot you describe is a manipulation of the novel which is set in a sharaska but has none of the hokey intel plot. In the Stalinist regime where old copies of Time Magazine are tightly controlled ts level documents and the pervasive deliberately generated security paranoia environment the intel story line is ridiculous. As late as 1959 the leading Soviet research organizations admitted that the US had almost no knowledge of the inner workings of the Soviet regime. The novel describes this sealed world phenomenon very well. The Soviet Union for much of its existence was the most tightly controlled regime in history. People who were life time Soviet citizens such as Ayn Rand’s younger sister were absolutely incapable of relating or functioning in American society. Her sister hated the US, freedom was not good but a menace, she hated being required to make decisions, loathed the wealth, innumerable automobiles and people just doing as they pleased.
But did you watch the series? Just asking.
And I have ordered the book