Spycraft Secrets E-Book

Nigel West

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 417

Leseprobe

‘Good intelligence is the best protection against terrorism. Reliable intelligence depends on good tradecraft.’ – Oleg Gordievsky, KGB defector

Wisdom begins with the definition of terms. – Socrates

First published in 2016

The History Press

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This ebook edition first published in 2016

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© Nigel West, 2016

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CONTENTS

Foreword by David Petraeus, Former Director of the CIA

Acknowledgements

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Introduction

Chronology

The A to Z of Spycraft

FOREWORD

Good intelligence is rarely stumbled upon by accident. More typically, it is the result of what Nigel West describes in this book as great spycraft.

As West explains, good intelligence is, in fact, the product of operations by dedicated, highly trained intelligence professionals with extensive experience, employing solid tradecraft, with exceptional technical support and reliable, secure communications, all after having undertaken thorough planning and after carefully weighed the potential risks and rewards. The overall effort is typically overseen by the station chiefs in respective countries, together with their individual operators and chiefs of operations, in consultation with leaders above them, depending on the sensitivity of the operation. They develop and ‘wargame’ specific plans, striving to ensure preparation for every possible contingency – all while recognising that even the best of plans may not survive contact with an adversary.

Such operations can yield extraordinary insights on the thinking, activities, capabilities, and limitations of a country’s adversaries. To be sure, that is not always the case. And some observers of intelligence organisations, unaware of many extraordinary but never revealed achievements, tend to characterise the intelligence agencies’ performance by compiling a catalogue of incidents that have gone awry. In part, this is because the most significant intelligence successes are typically not made public for at least a number of decades, as it is important to protect sensitive sources and methods. By contrast, intelligence failures are often immediately evident and remain in newspaper archives forever, ready for use by commentators recalling such failures, often without full appreciation of what may have been accomplished even in those endeavors deemed missteps, much less in those that have gone well.

At the forefront of the intelligence collection architecture is the case officer, the so-called ‘core collector’ or HUMINT (human intelligence) collector – a highly trained individual who identifies, cultivates, recruits and then handles a human source or carries out a sensitive technical operation in the quest for information that will support pursuit of the foreign policy goals of one’s government. Each of the stages of recruitment and handling of human sources entails an element of risk; but, however hazardous, the rewards, in terms of insights and information for policy-makers, can be considerable.

Case officers rarely act on their own and they seldom operate as portrayed in the movies. The lone, intuitive, multi-lingual, Ironman triathlete maverick with bulging muscles is a rarity. More typically, painstaking research, careful relationship building, imaginative initiatives and ingenious choreography – employed by individuals who look like average citizens (though they are not) working together as a team – are the components of a project that, upon fruition, will be so carefully protected that the sources recruited and the methods employed are highly restricted even within the overall organisation, not to mention the rest of government.

The men and women who carry out such operations may, again, seem to be typical citizens, but they are not. And the teams they comprise are nothing short of exceptional. I was privileged to be sworn in as the director of the CIA in early September 2011 after some thirty-seven years in uniform. Based on considerable interaction as a military commander with many Agency officers, particularly in the decade after 9/11, I knew the men and women of the Agency were extraordinary. But, on taking the reins as D/CIA, I was struck by just how extraordinary the talented, quiet professionals of the Agency really were. Indeed, the skills, commitment, patriotism, expertise, creativity and spirit of camaraderie of the men and women who inhabit that sub rosa world were often truly breathtaking as they planned and carried out complex missions in some of the most challenging environments in the world.

Of course, human intelligence involves much more than persuading individuals to act against their natural instincts – or to act on other motivations. In any case, there is a very important human dimension in the conduct of source recruitment, as the case officer builds a bond of mutual trust with a potential high-value asset. Throughout that process, good tradecraft is absolutely essential, as it is what the case officer employs to minimise the danger of compromise while performing particularly sensitive tasks.

The CIA has a proud record, dating back to 1947, of initiating and running to a successful conclusion some truly remarkable enterprises. Occasionally news of such a venture, such as the salvage of a Soviet submarine from the ocean floor, the capture of a notorious terrorist in international waters off Cyprus, the establishment of a backchannel to a pariah, the resettlement of a defector or the rescue of US diplomats from a hostile regime, will seize the headlines and maybe attract the attention of Hollywood. The common denominator in those well-known endeavours, and in many more tightly held operations, is the tradecraft that enabled such operations to be executed while minimising the potential for harm to the participants and political blowback for the governments involved.

The continuing development of the tradecraft employed by intelligence operatives is essential to the conduct of their operations. The reservoir of tradecraft comprises the knowledge and techniques accumulated over many years, in many different territories and cultures, that have been required for professionals in the field to carry out potentially perilous assignments with confidence. And that is spycraft, the focus of this book – each episode of which is publicly known, but the compilation of which makes for an enthralling, thrilling read!

General (Ret.) David Petraeus

Former director of the CIA

Arlington, Virginia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author is grateful for the generosity of numerous intelligence professionals, among them Gervase Cowell, Brian Latell, Ray Batvinis, Michael Fox, Keith Melton, Tony and Jonna Mendez, Patrick Magee, Martin McGartland, Oleg Kalugin, Oleg Gordievsky, Dan Mulvenna, Hayden Peake, Mark Williams, Brian Stewart and the late Harry Williamson, Juan Pujol, Tommy Robertson, Ed Wilson, Harry Verlander, Oleg Tsarev and Arthur Martin.

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

AA

Anti-Aircraft

AVH

Államvédelmi Hatóság (former Hungarian intelligence agency)

BfV

Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (Federal German security service)

BND

Bundesnachrichtendienst (Federal German intelligence service)

BRUSA

British–US Communication Intelligence Treaty

BSC

British Security Coordination

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

CPUSA

Communist Party of the United States of America

DCI

Director of Central Intelligence

DGI

Dirección General de Inteligencia (Cuban intelligence service)

DGSE

Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (French intelligence service)

DIA

Defense Intelligence Agency

DIE

Departamentul de Informatii Externe

DO

Directorate of Operations

DS

Darzhavna Sigurnost (former Bulgarian intelligence service)

DST

Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (French security service)

EOKA

Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston

FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation

FCC

Federal Communications Commission

FSB

Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (Russian counterintelligence agency)

G-2

Irish intelligence service

G-2

Cuban intelligence service

GCHQ

Government Communications Headquarters

GRU

Glavnoye razvedyvatel’noye upravleniye (Russian military intelligence service)

HOW

Home Office Warrant

HVA

Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (former intelligence service for the German Democratic Republic)

INLA

Irish National Liberation Army

IRA

Irish Republican Army

IRB

Bureau of Intelligence and Research

IS9

Intelligence School 9, RAF Highgate

ISK

Intelligence Source Knox

ISOS

Intelligence Source Olive Strachey

JIC

Joint Intelligence Committee

KaPo

Kaitsepolitseiamet (national security service of Estonia)

KGB

Soviet intelligence service

MI5

British Security Service

MI6

British Secret Intelligence Service

MI

11 Field Security Police

MoD

Ministry of Defence

NIS

Naval Investigative Service

NKVD

Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (former Soviet intelligence service)

NOC

Non-Official Cover

NSA

National Security Agency

NVA

National Peoples’ Army

OGPU

Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye (former Soviet intelligence service)

OSS

Office of Strategic Services

OTP

One-Time Pad

PCO

Passport Control Officer

PIRA

Provisional Irish Republican Army

PUS

Permanent Under-Secretary

RATS

Remote Administration Tool

RHSA

Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich security agency)

RID

Radio Intelligence Division

RUC

Royal Ulster Constabulary

SAPO

Säkerhetspolisen (Swedish security police)

SAVAK

Sazeman-e Ettela’at va Amniyat-e Keshvar (former Iranian intelligence service)

SB

Służba Bezpieczeństwa (former Polish intelligence service)

SCI

Special Counterintelligence

SDECE

Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage (former French intelligence agency)

SHAEF

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

SIFE

Security Intelligence Far East

SIME

Security Intelligence Middle East

SIS

Secret Intelligence Service

SRAC

Short-Range Agent Communication

Stasi

Staatssicherheit (former East German security apparatus)

StB

Státní bezpečnost (former Czech intelligence agency)

SVR

Sluzhba vneshney razvedki (Russian foreign intelligence service)

TSD

Technical Services Division of the CIA

UAV

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

UB

Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (former Polish intelligence agency)

UCN

Unidentified Cover Name

UKUSA

United Kingdom–United States Signals Intelligence Agreement

UNSUB

Unidentified Subject

UpDK

Main Administration for Service to the Diplomatic Corps

UPI

United Press International

UVF

Ulster Volunteer Force

VCO

Visiting Case Officer

V-Mann

Vertrauensmann

WIN

Wolność i Niezawisłość (Polish Freedom and Independence movement)

X-2

Counterintelligence branch of OSS

Y

Signal interception

INTRODUCTION

Like most other professions, the espionage business has developed its own lexicon. For example, a ‘rolling car meet’ refers to a very specific method for a case officer to hold a rendezvous with an agent while on the move in a vehicle. It should not be confused with a Treff, the German word for a planned encounter that has been adopted by the intelligence community to mean a clandestine rendezvous with a sensitive source.

The public’s interest in this alternative argot was captured most memorably by the novelist John le Carré, who began to write spy thrillers while still serving as a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service station in Hamburg. Fully aware of the tendency for his organisation’s staff to speak in something approaching a private patois he invented an entirely new glossary that included ‘lamp-lighters’ (for the Watcher Service), ‘scalphunters’, ‘pavement artists’, ‘wranglers’ and ‘janitors’, many of whom were alleged to inhabit the dingy headquarters building, known as ‘the Circus’.

All these terms were fictional, and SIS was never based in Cambridge Circus, although each had its own authentic equivalent, which the author, perhaps for reasons of discretion, had not disclosed. In the real, sub rosa world of intelligence-gathering, each of these epithets acts as a veil of secrecy over particular types of activity, and the purpose of this book is to explain, and give examples of, how these operations happened, drawing on the first-hand experience of defectors to and from the Soviet Union; surveillance ‘operators’ who kept terrorist suspects under observation in Northern Ireland; case officers who have put their lives at risk by ‘pitching’ a target in a ‘denied territory’; and the NOCs who lived under alias, carrying ‘black documentation’ to spy abroad.

It was not until the successful decryption of the VENONA intercepts that Western analysts fully understood the extent to which the Soviets had created for themselves their own private intelligence language, a code within a sophisticated cipher system, that added an extra layer of secrecy, so that even if an adversary succeeded in decrypting a message and transforming it into plain-text, much of the content would remain opaque because commonly used words, such as New York, Washington and Britain were known as TYRE, CARTHAGE and the ISLAND, respectively. The United States was the COUNTRY and SIDON was London.

The true identities of individual agents were concealed behind semi-transparent cryptonyms, with Julius Rosenberg referred to as ANTENNA, for example. To insiders who knew that he had served in the US Army’s Signal Corps as a radio technician, the connection was obvious. Any local, hostile security apparatus was called the GREENS, with members of the Communist Party being COMPATRIOTS, members of the Young Communist League GYMNASTS, and agents PROBATIONERS. Whereas analysts found the repetition in this code increasingly easy to understand, the cipher, based on supposedly randomly generated five-figure groups, was intended to be absolutely unbreakable through the application of conventional cryptanalysis.

The delicate business of handling what are sometimes termed Covert Human Intelligence Sources became especially fraught during the thirty-two years of ‘the Troubles’ in Ulster. Several different British security agencies ran competing and overlapping intelligence organisations across the province in an environment that was particularly challenging. External penetration of the target paramilitary groups was almost impossible as the Republicans came from the same families, schools and neighbourhoods, and had been known to each other for generations. This mitigated against the deployment of an imposter or someone from outside the closely knit largely (but not exclusively) Roman Catholic community. Physical surveillance was next to impossible in streets where strangers and their vehicles were likely to come under close scrutiny by gangs of youths engaged on look-out duties to give early warning of raids, and the establishment of static observation posts was problematic in the extreme.

In these circumstances the authorities came up with ingenious solutions, such as recruiting military personnel with family backgrounds in the six counties to ‘retire’ and return to their homes to make themselves available to the local paramilitaries. This strategy, adopted by the British Army’s Force Research Unit, produced around a dozen good inside informants. There was considerable investment in long-distance observation from sites on top of tower blocks, and overhead reconnaissance from helicopters. Technology was also adapted to assist in the task of monitoring telephone conversations, disrupt the signals from remote-controlled devices employed to detonate explosives, and rescue agents in jeopardy.

Agents considered especially vulnerable were sometimes issued with ostensibly ordinary household items, such as domestic radios, that had been converted to transmit an emergency signal in the event of imminent compromise. Some agents also carried ‘sick-pills’, which when ingested would trigger violent retching and vomiting, thus providing a good excuse not to participate in some planned crime.

As in so many fields, a shooting war will create a climate in which many technological and other developments will be accelerated because of immediate necessity, and the same is true for espionage. It was the requirement to collect accurate information about enemy troop movements that in the First World War led to the creation of the train-watchers, a network of Allied agents taught to recognise particular types of railway rolling stock and associate them with the deployment of German infantry, cavalry and artillery.

In the Second World War the Axis occupation of much of central and western Europe provoked resistance movements and German responses with their own particular vocabulary, with passeurs, mouse-traps, reseaux and Funkspeil. This was a concentrated period of technical research which produced sabotage equipment, concealment devices, miniaturised transmitters and mobile direction-finding apparatus in support of what amounted to the first truly global espionage conflict.

Many of the lessons learned in the Second World War, ranging from strategic deception through the management of double agents to the exploitation of signals intelligence, were applied, often by the very same participants, during the Cold War. Ideological commitments made during the fascist era formed the foundation for post-war espionage, and the molehunters of the 1960s often found themselves delving into the university politics of the depression to track changed allegiances.

Forty-five years of superpower confrontation gave plenty of scope for the exponents of covert action, special political action and active measures to engage in a life-and-death struggle to promote their own interests. These manifested themselves in proxy wars fought in the developing world, sometimes colonial brush fires fuelled by Soviet or Chinese-sponsored nationalists, full-scale counter-insurgency emergencies, or minor police actions.

The conflicts, of varying scale, in Aden, Algeria, Borneo, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Indo-China, Kenya, Malaya, Oman, Palestine and Vietnam have all been accompanied by their own intelligence problems, and experience gained in one theatre has often found a useful application in another. Nowhere was this more true than in Northern Ireland where, for the longest period, four intelligence agencies took on an unprecedented challenge and ultimately prevailed. No wonder then that many of the personalities in today’s efforts to isolate Islamic terrorism cut their teeth during a lengthy commitment against rather different political extremists.

The purpose of Spycraft Secrets is to assemble the nomenclature from as many sources as practicable to present a reasonably comprehensive window into a fascinating, arcane world that, for most outsiders, is as intriguing as it is forbidden.

Nigel West

CHRONOLOGY

1909

The British Secret Service Bureau is established.

1910

Captain Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz is placed under surveillance during a visit to London. MI5 creates the Watcher Service.

1911

The mail of Karl Gustav Ernst, a German hairdresser in London’s Caledonian Road, is intercepted on a Home Office warrant. The 1883 Official Secrets Act is amended.

1912

A German spy, George Parrott, formerly HMS Agamemnon’s chief gunner, is arrested at home in Battersea. Three spies, Walter Rimann, Adolph Schroeder and Armgaard Graves, receive questionnaires.

1913

The Secret Intelligence Service opens its first overseas bureau in Brussels. Wilhelm Croner commits suicide.

1914

A large number of German espionage suspects, including Marie Kronauer and Carl Gustav Ernst, are arrested upon the outbreak of hostilities.

1915

German spies equipped with the ingredients for secret writing are arrested in London.

1916

The Reuters news agency is bought secretly by the British government.

1917

The US Congress passes the Espionage Act. The Bolsheviks seize power in Russia.

1918

The Soviet military intelligence service, the Third Department of the Red Army’s General Staff, is established.

1919

The Third International in Moscow declares world revolution.

1920

Vladimir Orlov is sent to western Europe to organise an espionage network.

1921

The British government signs a trade agreement with the Soviet Union as a prelude to formal diplomatic relations.

1922

White Russian forgers produce fake Soviet documents in Turkey.

1923

Nikolai Kroshko, code-named A/3, reports on the White Guards from their headquarters at Strenski Karlowtzy.

1924

The forger Vladimir Orlov fabricates the Zinoviev Letter.

1925

Under interrogation in Berlin, Druzhelovsky implicates Vladimir Orlov.

1926

Ukrainian General Simon Petlura is murdered in Paris.

1927

Nikolai Kroshko reports to Moscow on Orlov’s activities.

1928

The Abwehr is established in Germany.

1929

Vladimir Orlov is prosecuted in Berlin for forgery.

1930

Russian General Aleksandr P. Kutepov is abducted in Paris. Arkady Petrovich Kerr arrives in Berlin to penetrate the Brotherhood of Russian Truth.

1931

Leopold Trepper travels to Belgium to establish a GRU illegal network.

1932

Gaik B. Ovakimian arrives in New York supposedly to work as an engineer for Amtorg, but actually to run a network of NKVD illegals.

1933

Christopher Draper is recruited as a German spy but acts as a double agent for MI5. A group of Metropolitan-Vickers engineers is arrested in the Soviet Union and charged with espionage.

1934

Rudolf von Scheliha is recruited as a Soviet spy while serving at the German embassy in Warsaw. The US Congress passes the Federal Communications Act.

1935

The Völkischer Beobachter correspondent, Dr Hans Thost, is expelled from London. Henry Landau publishes Secrets of the White Lady.

1936

Arnold Deutsch and Theodore Maly run the NKVD’s illegal rezidentura in London. The British Joint Intelligence Committee is established.

1937

The FBI arrests Sergeant Gunther Rumrich. General Eugene Miller is abducted by the NKVD in Paris. Claude Dansey creates the Z Organisation.

1938

Jenifer Hart handles telephone intercept warrants at the Home Office. Karl Zeiss patents the microdot. Jessie Jordan is arrested in Dundee.

1939

A German spy, Ensign Jean Aubert, is executed by a firing squad in Toulon. Two SIS officers, Sigismund Payne Best and Richard Stevens, are abducted by German agents at Venlo.

1940

Peter Fleming creates the Auxiliary Units stay-behind organisation. Leon Trotsky is assassinated in Mexico City. Clarence Hince and Hugh Clegg of the FBI are indoctrinated into the Radio Security Service’s cryptographic breakthroughs.

1941

Based in Cairo, SIME double agent CHEESE creates the concept of strategic deception. Abwehr D/F apparatus detects the Red Orchestra in Brussels. TRIPLEX exposes a Portuguese diplomat in London, Rogeiro de Menezes, as a spy. Gustave Jones is appointed the FBI legal attaché in Mexico City.

1942

The Office of Strategic Services establishes liaison personnel with MI5 and SIS. Lavrenti Beria introduces XY rezidenturas. The Abwehr’s radio network in Brazil is closed down. The Liverpool Evening Post announces the death of William Gerbers.

1943

The first ferret mission is flown against a Japanese radar site on Kiska in the Aleutians. An SIS officer, David Russell, is murdered in Romania for his gold sovereigns. Lydia Altschuler acts as a courier for the NKVD in New York. Escapees Pieter Dourlein and Johan Ubbink reveal that SOE’s Dutch network is in German hands.

1944

GARBO’s network of notional agents participate in the Allies’ D-Day deception campaign. Harry Gold meets David Greenglass in Albuquerque. SCI units enter Paris and take control of the Abwehr’s stay-behind network.

1945

TICOM 6 seizes the BalkanArchiv at Burgscheidungen. Igor Gouzenko defects in Ottawa. A Special Counterintelligence unit attempts to entrap Friedrich Kaulen. Elizabeth Bentley makes a statement to the FBI implicating dozens of NKVD spies.

1946

Great Britain and the United States sign the BRUSA communications intelligence agreement. Smersh is wound up. Judith Coplon is charged with espionage. The XX Committee is reestablished in London.

1947

MI5 investigates Klaus Fuchs for a security clearance. The National Security Act establishes the CIA. Roy Farran is charged with the murder of Alexander Rubowitz in Palestine.

1948

Jan Masaryk is the victim of a defenestration in Prague. The CIA introduces the polygraph. The CIA influences the Italian general election to ensure a Christian Democrat victory.

1949

Klaus Fuchs is identified as a Soviet spy. CBS’s George Polk is shot dead in Salonika. The British government begins to check the backgrounds of civil servants.

1950

Harry Gold leads the FBI to David Greenglass. Emil Goldfus rents an apartment in New York.

1951

Reino Hayhanen is issued with a passport by the US embassy in Helsinki. Kim Philby is dismissed from the Secret Intelligence Service.

1952

Harry Houghton offers to spy for the UB while working at the British embassy in Warsaw. William Marshall is arrested for espionage. Two CIA officers, John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau, are imprisoned in China.

1953

The UKUSA communications intelligence agreement is signed. The CIA begins MK/ULTRA experiments with hallucinogenic drugs. A hollow nickel containing a Soviet message is found in Brooklyn and handed to the FBI. The Sverdlovsk’s hull is surveyed during the Coronation review at Spithead. Encounter magazine is founded by the CIA.

1954

Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov defect in Australia. Manfred Rotsch leaves East Germany as a KGB agent. Paddy Costello gives New Zealand passports to Lona and Morris Cohen.

1955

The Berlin tunnel goes operational. John Vassall is caught in a homosexual honeytrap in Moscow and blackmailed by the KGB. A GRU illegal, Aleksei Chisov, approaches the CIA in Paris. Mossad runs a false-flag operation in Germany against missile scientists working for Egypt.

1956

Buster Crabb disappears under the Ordzhonikdze in Portsmouth. The CIA’s Edward Ellis Smith is compromised by his maid Valya in Moscow. SIS’s network in Egypt is arrested.

1957

Lev Rebet is assassinated in Munich. Mieczyslaw Reluga defects in London. Nikolai Khokhlov survives an assassination attempt in Frankfurt. Reino Hayhanen defects to the CIA in Paris.

1958

Otto Georgi is betrayed by George Blake and imprisoned. CIA pilot Allen Pope is imprisoned in Indonesia.

1959

Stepan Bandera is assassinated in Munich. Frantisek Tisler defects from the Czech embassy in Washington.

1960

Three CIA technicians are imprisoned in Cuba after being caught in the act of installing bugs in the New China News Agency. The first CORONA satellite is placed in orbit. An Israeli spy, Wolfgang Lotz, is established in Cairo. A Soviet spy, Willie Hirsch is arrested in Chicago.

1961

Two USAF fliers, John B. McKone and Freeman B. Olmstead, are released in a spy swap. Konon Molody, the KGB illegal rezident in London, is arrested. Bogdan Stashinsky defects to the CIA. MI5 recruits Stephen Ward. SIS Colin Figures runs a UB spy, code-named NODDY, in Warsaw. Anatoli Golitsyn defects to the CIA in Helsinki.

1962

Douglas Britten is recruited by the KGB. John Vassall is arrested in London. KGB illegal rezident Willie Fisher is exchanged for CIA pilot F. Gary Powers.

1963

A CIA agent, Rolando Cubela Secades, is given a poison-pen device in Paris to assassinate Fidel Castro. Stephen Ward commits suicide. Yuri Krotkov defects in London.

1964

Anthony Blunt receives an immunity from prosecution in return for his confession. Yuri Noseko defects and reveals KGB surveillance techniques. Greville Wynne is released in exchange for Konon Molody.

1965

CIC Sergeant Glen Rohrer defects to Czechoslovakia with a polygraph machine. Mossad spy Eli Cohen is arrested in Damascus. Robert G. Thompson is sentenced to thirty-five years’ imprisonment.

1966

The FBI ceases all black-bag operations. Oleg Timanov defects in Libya. Gerda Osterreider is appointed a cipher clerk at the German foreign ministry.

1967

The NSA Special Collection Service is established. Leonard Safford is sentenced to twenty-five years’ imprisonment. John Walker begins spying for the KGB. The first CAZAB conference is held.

1968

Cartha DeLoach reviews the FBI’s black bag operations. Philip Agee resigns from the CIA. British ambassador Sir Geoffrey Harrison is compromised by his chambermaid in Moscow.

1969

Ashraf Marwan offers to supply information to Mossad. Yuri Loginov is returned to the Soviet Union in a spy swap.

1970

MK/NAOMI is terminated by the CIA. Alexander de Marenches is appointed the DGSE’s director.

1971

Denis Donaldson is recruited by the RUC Special Branch. The PHOENIX programme is terminated in Vietnam. SIS’s Frank Steele opens secret talks with the Provisional IRA.

1972

A covert Automatic Number-Plate Recognition system is introduced in Northern Ireland. Black September massacres Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Oleg Lyalin defects in London. The CORONA satellite project is terminated.

1973

DCI James Schlesinger orders a review of the CIA’s domestic activities. Jim Bryson and Patrick Mulvenna are shot dead in Ballymurphy. Standa Kaplan defects from the Czech StB. Vladimir Vetrov recruits Pierre Bourdiol.

1974

Otis Pike and Frank Church commence hearings in Congress on allegations of CIA misconduct. A group of Mossad katsas are arrested in Lillehammer, Norway. Oleg Gordievsky is recruited by SIS in Copenhagen.

1975

An RUC informant, Eamon Molloy, is abducted in Belfast and murdered. Vaclav Jelinek arrives in London as an StB illegal alias Erwin van Haarlem. Bill Colby shows Congress a poison-dart gun.

1976

The KH-11, the first digital imagery satellite, is placed in orbit. Toxic spy-dust is detected in Moscow. Senator Frank Church reveals that fifty American newsmen are on the CIA’s payroll.

1977

Martha Peterson is arrested by the KGB as she services a dead drop in Moscow. David Holden of The Sunday Times is murdered in Cairo.

1978

Robert G. Thompson is released in a spy swap. Raymond Gilmour is recruited by the RUC Special Branch. Georgi Markov is killed with a ricin pellet in London. UN diplomat Arkadi Shevchenko defects in New York. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is passed. Ion Paceta defects in Bonn.

1979

The US embassy in Tehran is seized and occupied by Iranian students. Stanislas Levchenko defects in Tokyo. Robert Hanssen passes FBI secrets to the GRU in New York.

1980

Ronald Pelton visits the Soviet embassy in Washington and offers to spy. The CIA’s David Barnett is arrested. The CIA successfully exfiltrates six American diplomats from Tehran. Congress passes the Classified Information Procedures Act. Frank Terpil flees to Havana. Victor Sheymov is exfiltrated from the Soviet Union by car.

1981

Christopher Black becomes the first supergrass. A grocery bag containing false British passports is found in a London telephone kiosk. Vladimir Potashov is recruited by the CIA.

1982

Raymond Gilmour is resettled. A clandestine RAF radar station is established at Balmaceda in Chile. Vladimir Vetrov is arrested in Moscow. BND agent Dietrich Nistroy is sentenced to life imprisonment. Gerry Tuite is convicted in Dublin of terrorist offences committed in London.

1983

MI5 officer Michael Bettaney offers to spy for the KGB. Pierre Bourdiol is arrested after he is betrayed by his KGB recruiter, Vladimir Vetrov. An East German physicist, Alfred Zehe, is arrested in Boston.

1984

Two major PIRA arms caches are found in England. The Grand Hotel in Brighton is bombed in a bid to assassinate Margaret Thatcher. Detlef Scharfenorth is arrested in Cologne. Vladimir Vorontsov of the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate is recruited by the CIA. Soviet spy Manfred Rotsch is arrested in Germany.

1985

Vitali Yurchenko defects to the CIA in Rome. Oleg Gordievsky is exfiltrated from Moscow. Edward Howard escapes FBI surveillance in Santa Fe. A Polish UB officer, Jerzy Kaczmarek, is arrested in Bremen.

1986

Gerard McDonnell is sentenced to life imprisonment. Parliament passes the Interception of Communications Act. Spycatcher is published. Jerzy Kaczmarek is released in a spy swap. Ronald Pelton is imprisoned in a plea bargain.

1987

Eight PIRA gunmen are shot dead in an SAS ambush at Loughgall. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger offers a damage assessment at Jonathan Pollard’s sentencing.

1988

The DGI’s Carlos Medina Perez, shoots an MI5 officer in a London street. A KGB officer, Alexander Zhomov, approaches the CIA’s Jack Downing on a train to Leningrad.

1989

The Security Service Act is passed to legitimise MI5. Vaclav Jelinek is sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in London. Philip Agee participates in a false-flag operation for the Cuban DGI.

1990

PIRA bomb-maker Dessie Ellis is extradited to face trial in London. Gerald Bull is murdered at his apartment in Brussels. Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft is executed in Baghdad.

1991

Martin McGartland is abducted in Belfast. Aldrich Ames is recalled for a second polygraph. The DGSE is caught engaging in industrial espionage in Houston.

1992

Three touts are murdered in South Armagh. The Matrix Churchill prosecution collapses and the Scott Inquiry is established, Aleksandr Kouzminov defects and describes the truth serum SP-117.

1993

KGB defector Victor Sheymov publishes Tower of Secrets. The CIA’s Valerie Plame spends a year at the London School of Economics. A French list of industrial espionage targets is leaked.

1994

Aldrich Ames is arrested. The Intelligence Services Act is passed. PIRA prisoners break out of Whitemoor prison. The StB’s Vaclav Jelinek is released from prison and deported to Prague.

1995

A CIA mole in the DGI, Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, is arrested in Havana. DCI John Deutsch briefs Congress on the Aldrich Ames damage assessment. The CIA terminates research into remote viewing.

1996

The CIA’s Jim Nicholson is arrested at Dulles Airport. MI5 begins Operation AIRLINES to defeat PIRA’s South Armagh Brigade. PIRA’s Edward O’Brien is killed by his own bomb in London.

1997

David Shayler leaves MI5. Mossad attempts to assassinate Hamas leader Sheikh Khaled Mashal in Amman. The SAS’s B Squadron arrests four Crossmaglen snipers. The FBI suspects CIA officer Brian Kelley is a Soviet mole code-named KARAT. Princess Diana is killed in a car accident in Paris

1998

Sinn Féin discovers a listening device in Gerry Adams’s car. Igor Sutyagin is recruited by SIS at a conference in Birmingham. The RED WASP spy-ring is indicted in Florida.

1999

Two PIRA gunmen, Jim Errington and Patrick Sheehy, are murdered in Nenagh. Rafid Ahmed Alwan, later code-named CURVEBALL, leaves Iraq and settles in Munich. The first Predator is deployed operationally over Kosovo.

2000

Colonel Alexander Zaporozshky is resettled in Virginia by the FBI. Al-Qaida attacks the French oil supertanker Limburg.

2001

Al-Qaida attacks targets in New York and Washington, DC. The DIA analyst Ana Montes is arrested as a DGI spy. Al-Qaida’s military commander in Afghanistan, Mohammed Atef, is killed by a CIA operated UAV.

2002

Donald Rumsfeld remarks about ‘known unknowns’. Al-Qaida leader Qued Salim Sinan al-Haethi is killed by a UAV in Yemen. The Belgian government acknowledges responsibility for the murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961.

2003

The Coalition invades and occupies Iraq. Michael McKevitt, the Real IRA leader, is imprisoned in Dublin. A Canadian terrorist suspect, Maher Arar, is released from detention in Syria.

2004

Charges are dropped against the GCHQ linguist Katharine Gun. Two Mossad officers, Elia Cara and Uriel Zoshe Kelman, are arrested while tombstoning in New Zealand.

2005

Denis Donaldson admits that he has been an RUC Special Branch source for the past twenty years. Details of the CIA’s black sites are leaked to the Washington Post.

2006

Denis Donaldson is shot dead at his home in Donegal. Alexander Litvinenko dies after ingesting polonium-210. Valerie Plame resigns from the CIA.

2007

Ashraf Marwan is defenestrated at his flat in London. Kendall Myers retires from the US State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

2008

A PIRA bodyguard, Roy McShane, is identified as an MI5 asset and withdrawn from Belfast. The JIC ceases to distribute the weekly Red Book.

2009

Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn are arrested and convicted of spying for Cuba.

2010

Ten SVR illegals are arrested in the United States and exchanged in a spy swap. Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is murdered by Mossad in Dubai.

2011

A North Korean assassin is interdicted in Seoul. Osama bin Laden is killed in Abbottabad.

2012

Mark Haddock is acquitted on murder charges in Northern Ireland. The Jonathan Pollard damage assessment is declassified and released.

2013

PIRA bomber John Downey is arrested at Gatwick Airport. Rogue contractor Edward Snowden begins to leak NSA secrets. Victor Sheymov complains about his handling by the CIA in Tiebreaker.

2014

Rolando Sarraff Trujillo is released from prison in Havana in exchange for three Cuban spies.

2015

Frederick Forsyth acknowledges having worked for SIS. Jonathan Pollard is released on parole from a federal prison at Banner, North Carolina.

THE A TO Z OF SPYCRAFT

A

ABDUCTION

The abduction of opponents of the Bolshevik regime became almost commonplace in Paris before the Second World War, the known victims being mainly White Russians, and some supporters of Leon Trotsky.

The Soviets also employed the technique on an almost industrial scale in post-war Austria and Germany when numerous scientists, technicians and other targets were routinely seized off the street and forced to work in Soviet labour camps. A GRU defector, Grigori Tokaev, was prompted to seek political asylum from the British in 1947 precisely because of the disagreeable nature of his duties, which included instructions to abduct Focke-Wulf’s chief designer, Dr Kurt Tank. Typical was the abduction of Dr Walter Linse who had fled East Germany in 1947 and later became the anti-Communist leader of the Society of Free Jurists. He was taken from West Berlin in July 1952 and died in a Soviet prison camp in December 1953. Similarly, Bohumil Lausman, a prominent Czech anti-Communist who fled to the west in 1949, disappeared from Vienna in 1953 and was driven to Prague where he was imprisoned. Ukrainian nationalists were also targeted, with Dr Alexander Trushnovich seized in West Berlin in April 1954 and Valeri P. Tremmel taken from Linz in June 1954.

In February 1964 a CIA assessment of Soviet kidnappings, drawn up for the Warren Commission, referred to incidents in Calcutta in January 1958 when Aleksandr F. Zelenovskiy tried to defect, and in Rangoon in May 1959 when Mikhail I. Strygin was physically prevented from seeking asylum at the US embassy. Such interventions were not unusual, as was demonstrated by the removal of Konstantin Volkov and his wife from Istanbul in September 1945, days after he had offered to defect to the British.

In the modern era such abductions are relatively rare; rendition, as the process is now often known, is not recognised by international law as a legitimate alternative to extradition proceedings. In July 1984 a former Nigerian minister, Umaru Dikko, was grabbed off a London street by Mossad agents working on behalf of the Nigerian government in an abortive attempt to fly him back to Lagos from Stansted Airport. Similarly, in September 1986 an Israeli technician, Mordechai Vanunu, responsible for newspaper leaks about his country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, was lured from London to Rome where he was bundled aboard a ship, eventually to face trial in Tel Aviv.

ACCESS AGENT

An intermediary who is employed by an intelligence agency for the specific purpose of introducing a case officer to a potential recruit is known as an access agent. The scenario created for the meeting, known as ‘the bump’ may range from a small dinner party, to a major academic conference.

ACTIVE CONCEALMENT

A concealment device that fulfils two functions, to provide a hiding place and to work as intended, is referred to as an active concealment. Classic examples include cigarette lighters that really work, but contain a cavity in which microfilms can be stored, hand-held torches in which one of the battery cells has a hollow space, or tubes of branded toothpaste that have been repackaged to conceal something incriminating.

ACTIVE MEASURES

A Soviet term for an aggressive operation or propaganda campaign, often involving disinformation, and roughly equivalent to the CIA definition of covert action, active measures embrace every component of aggressive operations.

AGENT AUDIT

Introduced to the CIA by DCI Admiral Stansfield Turner who had expressed doubt about the performance of sources run by the DO, Agent Audit was a mandatory assessment of individual agents intended to weed out those considered unproductive.

Turner, a teetotal Christian Scientist who headed the CIA between March 1977 and January 1981 and never disguised his preference for technical intelligence, undertook an unprecedented review of the DO’s staff in 1977 which became known as the Halloween Massacre and resulted in the premature retirement of 820 staff, some of whom were the most experienced case officers of the era. The CIA lost two Deputy Directors of Operations (DDI), William E. Nelson in May 1976 and William W. Wells in December 1977. In addition Turner transferred Jack McMahon from the Directorate of Science and Technology in January 1978 and Bill Wells, a Mandarin-speaking Far East expert who had been in the DO since 1962, and had served in Manila, Taipei, Tokyo and Hong Kong, was replaced.

Morale at the CIA plummeted as the Agency was cut to 14,000 personnel and the annual budget reduced to $6 billion. Bob Gates, who was Turner’s executive assistant, recalled that, ‘with the people fired, driven out or lured into retirement, half our analysts had less than five years’ experience. And our analysis wasn’t all that sharp, forward-looking or relevant. Our paramilitary capability was clinically dead. What covert action we did carry out was super-cautious and lacked any imagination.’

The problem with Agent Audit was that sometimes a human source would lose access to the required information, but experienced handlers knew that such individuals often regained access, or could find a replacement, and in any event were always grateful for continued support during a difficult period. Any loyalty demonstrated was often repaid with dividends, while termination, though a short-term expedient, would create resentment.

When, in November 1979, sixty-six Americans, among them the CIA station chief Tom Ahern and three of his subordinates, were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran, the DO was left with virtually no agent network in Iran, and not a single DO officer fluent in Farsi. As a consequence, the CIA was obliged to rehire a retiree to head its Iranian Task Force.

AGENT OF INFLUENCE

Such an individual, usually associated with fellow travellers and sometimes a confidential contact of a local foreign embassy, is not a conventional intelligence source, but is usually ideologically motivated. During the Cold War such agents often occupied posts that enabled them to exercise influence on behalf of Moscow.

Following the defections of Oleg Gordievsky in 1985 and Vasili Mitrokhin in 1992 evidence emerged that several well-known British left-wing journalists had allegedly received undeclared financial support from the KGB, among them the Guardian’s literary editor Richard Gott, and the long-serving editor of Tribune, Dick Clements.

Not all agents of influence are necessarily conscious, although Michael Foot, one of Tribune’s editors, who would become leader of the Labour Party, would be criticised for apparently not noticing a large subsidy from the Soviet embassy for what purported to be a volume subscription to the weekly journal.

One Soviet channel was Pierre Charles Pathé, son of the movie magnate and one of the leading French journalists of his era. He was arrested in July 1979 and convicted of having accepted undeclared payments over the previous twenty years from two KGB officers, Yuri Borisov and Igor Kuznetsov, and for having inserted pro-Soviet articles into his magazine, Synthesis. Pathé was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment but was released in 1981. In the same category was François Saar-Demichel, a French businessman who had fought in the resistance during the Second World War and until 1947 served in the DGSE, but was honeytrapped in Moscow in 1961. Later he became close to the Elysée Palace and acted as an informal foreign policy adviser to President Charles de Gaulle on East–West relations until his activities were investigated by the DST in 1970, which effectively terminated his access.

AGENT PROVOCATEUR

Defined as a person conducting themselves in a manner to entrap others, the classic agent provocateur will lead a target to incriminate themselves, and then warn the appropriate authorities so action can be taken.

During the Second World War one of the longest and most sophisticated agent provocateur operations was run by MI5’s F3 section to identify Nazi sympathisers and fifth columnists in Britain, and to determine the scale of the threat they posed. An MI5 officer fluent in German, John Bingham, adopted the alias of Jack Roberts, code-named JACK KING, and posed as Gestapo officer in London on a mission to verify the credentials of potential supporters who could be relied upon to assist a Fascist government after a successful invasion.

The first victim was Irma Stapleton, a factory worker and ardent Nazi. Her case was referred to by MI5’s director of counter-espionage, Guy Liddell, as explained in his diary entry for 18 November 1941:

We had a Directors’ meeting and I raised the question of Irma Stapleton. From the transcript notes taken by mike [sic] of her last interview with John Bingham posing as a representative of the German secret service there seemed no doubt that she was prepared to go to any lengths and that she could quite easily bring out a whole shell from the factory where she works. She has swallowed our bait hook, line and sinker. If we went on with the case there seemed little doubt that we could get her seven years’ at the Old Bailey. We were to some extent forced to adopt these methods because if we interned people under 18(b) because we felt they were a potential danger, they were almost invariably released. I rather wondered how far it would be worth the expense and trouble of trying to get a woman of this type sentenced to seven years, particularly since the case could not be held in an open court. The Director-General said he would give this matter his consideration.

On 19 November Stapleton was arrested, and Liddell observed the following day:

Irma Stapleton was arrested last night. She had brought an empty shell out of the factory, and a note in her own hand-writing giving the position of Wade’s garages. She also gave John Bingham full production figures for Wade’s garage. Her reaction was immediately to denounce Bingham as a Gestapo agent who she was intending to hand over to the police at the earliest opportunity. She insisted on making a statement which is said to be a tissue of lies. Bingham was arrested at the same time and carried away struggling and handcuffed. This morning she was remanded at Bow Street for fourteen days.

Stapleton subsequently was convicted under the Defence of the Realm Act and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, although the full role played by MI5 in the case was not disclosed in court.

For three years from November 1941 Bingham presented himself as working for the Gestapo, and cultivated Marita Perigoe, a woman known to have expressed disloyal, strongly anti-Semitic views, whose husband Bernard had been detained in Brixton prison. Through her, KING was introduced to Hans Kohout, a former member of the British Union who wanted to spy for Germany, but was persuaded he could undertake more valuable tasks than espionage. KING was also able to gather information about internees held in the Isle of Man and their attempts to maintain contact with Germany. An MI5 summary dated July 1942 set out what KING had accomplished:

All disloyal persons are extremely suspicious of so-called members of the German Secret Service or Gestapo as they are well aware that this technique is used by all Security Services to find out who is loyal and who is not. It would not be an exaggeration to say that during thirty percent of Jack’s time with the fifth column, members firmly believe that he is in MI5; it is only owing to his outstanding ability that this idea has been dispelled and he has been able to continuehis work. Mrs Bray, to whom reference will be made later, recently stated to another member of the organisation that it was obvious that Jack was a member of MI5. If the Germans had another good organisation in this country as one might think from what Jack said, why should they bother to send spies over here by parachute or disguised as patriotic escapees from occupied countries? Furthermore, she was aware that all espionage within this country was now done through the Spanish Embassy, and she proposed to send a piece of important information which her husband had recently acquired to that embassy. Jack dissuaded her from taking this course and the information is now in MI5 … It is difficult to indicate how delicate and lengthy a process it is to gain the confidence of these disloyal persons. This case started two years ago and it is doubtful if it will have reached a point when a prosecution would be possible or worthwhile for at least another year, it is only in the last few weeks that Jack has persuaded Marita to accept payment (‘expenses’) for her work. She is paid £2 a week, the money being sent in a double envelope, the inside one being blank, in pound notes. Letters are posted from different parts of London every Thursday evening. Although Marita is fully aware that the British authorities impose HOWs, she was persuaded by Jack to accept payment through the post. She feels secure because the money is sent in a double envelope so that ‘if any curious person at the GPO were to hold the letter up to the light, he would not see the pound notes inside. Photostats of the banknotes are obtained from the HOW on Marita’s correspondence and the legal implications of the matter have been discussed with Major Edward Cussen. Marita has provided this office with the names of disloyal persons with whom she, or her sub-agents, are in contact.