Overworld

As the son of a senior intelligence officer, Larry J. Kolb was born into the world of spies. As he grew older, he resisted numerous invitations to follow in his father's footsteps, choosing instead to become a businessman and hobnob with the wealthy and famous. Ultimately however, he was recruited as an agent by Miles Copeland, one of the founders of the CIA. In Overworld, Kolb describes his life in espionage.

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Eventually, Kolb ended up marrying Khashoggi's stepdaughter Kim, the daughter of his first wife Miles Copeland, His various business interests, his friendship with Khashoggi, and his job as Ali's agent took him around the world, often to places where other Americans would have been unwelcome. This made Kolb an irresistible target for recruitment by CIA. Ultimately, he was recruited by Miles Copeland, one of the founders of the CIA, who also had him trained him in the basics of spying. Copeland, after retiring from the CIA continued to work with his old organization, in an unofficial capacity. Kolb was never an intelligence officer – instead, he operated more as a freelance agent, obtaining information from, and through, his wide range of contacts and acquaintances, and often acting as a go-between, combining spying with his own business activities. The book is particularly of interest to Indians. Kolb was one of the accused in the St. Kitts forgery case. In fact, as the book opens, Kolb is spending time in a safe house in Florida, waiting – somewhat improbably - to be interrogated by someone in a "pearl blue turban'in connection with the St. Kitts affair. A good part of the book is devoted to his role in the affair.

Chandraswamy, the self-styled godman who was famous (or notorious) during the late 1980's, and another accused in the case, also figures prominently in the book. Kolb also claims to have been a friend of Rajiv Gandhi, having met him for the first time during a visit to India with Mohammed Ali.

Kolb's role in the St. Kitt's affair was initially to ensure that the story, that V P Singh's son Ajeya Singh had an account with the First Trust Corporation bank at Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts and Nevis, where he had stashed away 21 million dollars from the kickbacks received by his father. St. Kitts is a Caribbean tax haven which was particularly attractive to money launderers and other shady characters due to its especially customer-friendly banking secrecy laws.

According to Kolb's version of events, he was led to understand that the documents he was being shown - relating to the opening of the bank account - were genuine, and that he was working to help Rajiv Gandhi win the parliamentary elections, which were due shortly in India. Apparently, when the Indians failed in their efforts to plant the story in international newspapers, they approached Khashoggi through Chandraswamy. Khashoggi and Chandraswamy enlisted the help of Kolb, who with his contacts was finally able to ensure that the story appeared in the Arab News, a newspaper published from the Middle East. Later, Kolb traveled several times to Basseterre, to dig up more information to further implicate V P Singh and his sons in the case. He also wrote several of the pieces about the affair that appeared in newspapers around the world. Kolb also accompanied a Deputy Director from the Enforcement Directorate to Basseterre. The official was sent to investigate the matter, and Kolb describes how, after having failed to obtain any information from the bankers, he witnessed the official being fed documents and information, by accomplices of Chandraswamy on the flight back from Basseterre.

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