He was, after all, the son and grandson of Orthodox rabbis. A young Jew who hated the Communist Party's religious oppression.

Contract was a promising athlete of 16 in 1939, when he was invited to perform a diving routine for a group of Soviet dignitaries visiting a new pool in Poland. From the high board, the boy spied a flagpole about to topple into the audience. Instinctively, he says, he jumped, grabbed the flag, and pulled the pole with him into the water.

The life he saved was that of Nikita Khrushchev.

The dive changed Contract's life. He became a trusted aide and spy for Khrushchev -- the first secretary of the Ukrainian Community Party who in the 1950s became the leader of the Soviet Union -- and a decorated veteran of Stalingrad.

Later, Contract was a bodyguard, interpreter and food taster for Russian Premier Josef Stalin -- becoming the only Jew in the inner circle.

"It was a job," he explained yesterday before a breakfast speech at the Beth David Reform Congregation in Gladwyne. "If you couldn't beat them, you had to join them."

Now 75, and retired in King of Prussia, Contract is a loyal Republican, former professional soccer player, dry cleaner and would-be actor. He drives a white Cadillac, drops the names of famous friends from Bob Hope to Ronald Reagan,
and is an honorary member of the Pennsylvania Sheriff's Association.

The only visible trace of his former life is the snug green and red Soviet military uniform he wears for speaking engagements -- the one with the pearl-handled two-bullet Beretta tucked by his waist; with a medal-covered jacket he can no longer button.

Earlier this month, Contract was interviewed by Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, a group videotaping and archiving the memories of Holocaust survivors. Of more than 36,000 interviews, most lasted two, no more than five, hours.

Contract's story took 11 hours to tell, complete with anecdotes about spying on Winston Churchill and giving Soviet secrets to President Harry S. Truman, as well the agony of hiding his faith and learning that his family was killed by the Nazis.

It's a story Contract claims that also involved J. Edgar Hoover and FBI investigations into his life long after he became a U.S. citizen and vocal patriot. He says book publishers and media outlets have for years doubted his story on the ground that it could not be verified by the U.S. government.

So in 1991, Contract published his own book, The Back Room: My Life With Khrushchev and Stalin. It may yet become a movie.

"Can you imagine what it was like to have a cigar and brandy with Stalin at 3 a.m. while watching cowboy movies? Can you imagine defying a guy like Stalin?" wonders James Jaeger, the Devon film producer and Matrixx Entertainment president who has worked with Contract for more than three years.

"It's a mind-boggling story, and Sasha lived it."

According to his book, speeches and interviews, Contract was born in 1922 in Kiev, one of 10 children. His father, a rabbi, had been forced to "donate" his brewery to the Soviet government after the Revolution.

Money was tight and bellies hungry when the teenager became an unexpected hero in 1939. So Contract asked Khrushchev for a job.

"I knew that the members of the KGB didn't pay for anything," Contract recalls. "I thought if I could join, I could help feed my family." Contract says Khrushchev put him to work as a spy, though he was not a member of the Communist Party. When the war broke out, he was drafted, assigned to the tank corps in Stalingrad.

Injured three times in battle, he met Khrushchev again in a military hospital in 1942. Once again, Contract says, the leader offered his help. Once again, Contract asked for work -- this time with Stalin.

With Khrushchev's recommendation, the young soldier was named one of Stalin's 19 "Back Room Boys" in the Kremlin. He was bodyguard, interpreter and food taster, sampling meals, brandy, Cuban cigars -- everything except pork. Among his other duties: Stuffing Stalin's pipe, and showing "Uncle Joe" American cowboy movies.

"He rooted for the Indians."

Though Stalin was suspected of being anti-Semite, Contract says his boss knew he was Jewish. To protect him, Stalin changed the young man's name to Contractov, and bought him a gold cross necklace.

"Stalin was always afraid that people thought he hated the Jews," Contract says. "He always said, 'I don't hate Jews. But I will kill anybody who gets in my way.' "

During his four years with Stalin, Contract says, he eavesdropped on Churchill in a bathroom and was ordered to reveal his Judaism to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in an emotional ploy for American military support.

Contract says he was unable to intervene when the Nazis invaded Kovel, Ukraine, in 1942, killing his family.

He says their deaths led him to his boldest move: In 1945, he stole papers from Stalin and gave them to Truman at the meeting of the Big Three at Potsdam, Germany.

"I had no one left," he recalled. "I had to leave Russia."

Contract defected to U.S. authorities in Munich in 1946. He dyed his hair, played professional soccer, even worked as a sports reporter during the three years he pretended to be German while being debriefed by the United States.

In 1949, he arrived in New York and began a dry cleaning and real estate career. In 1955, he became a U.S. citizen. In 1965, he and his wife, Sylvia, moved to Carlisle, Pa.

In 1986, they relocated to the Philadelphia area to be near Thomas Jefferson Hospital, where Sylvia was being treated for cancer. She died in 1989, and he published his life story two years later.

Years later, Contract is still struck by how a single act of instinct led him to become "an outsider in the inner circle.

"I was so young, so naive. It was such a mistake," he says of the jump that may have spared Khrushchev's life. "Just think of all the trouble I could have saved the world if I hadn't."