20. How Spy Agencies Work

How Spy Agencies Work.
(This entry is a summary of a talk given on July 8, 2010by Nigel West on board Queen Mary 2, headed from New York to Southhampton, UK. Disclaimer: Any errors or omissions in the following are totally my own and should not be attributed to Nigel West.)

Spying is universally recognized. A euphemistic term is usually substituted, such as military liaison, observer, or attaché. Nevertheless, every country is engaged in it as a matter of necessity, and a form of “gentlemen’s agreement” has evolved as how spying is institutionalized and organized.

In overseas locations where Britain maintained a presence of its government, a “passport control officer” (PCO) was assigned to each embassy and consulate. This position has a set of prima facie and critically important functions:

• See all applications to enter the home country, and issue visas.


• Collect fees for visas (and these fees paid the cost of the control officer position)


• Broadly provide cover for British intelligence.


• Never acted against the host country (the so-called “third party rule,” still valid today)


• Function broke down in the 1940s owing to the Germans knowing all the PCOs in every country. All of them had to be withdrawn.


• Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (http://www.sis.gov.uk/output/sis-home-welcome.html) or SIS, became isolated with only a handful of stations (Helsinki, Stockholm, and Bern)

This model followed by almost all countries,except for the Soviet Union which had no analogous organization to the PCO. In fact, from about 1917-1930 all Soviet intelligence was contained within trade delegations since many countries did not recognize the USSR. The Soviets had a system of “Illegals” sent to a country via a third country to operate without any protection.

A Rezidentura was set up to conduct Soviet intelligence operations. The Rezidentura was headed by the Rezident and was responsible for security and intelligence operations conducted in other countries. A typical rezidentura included officers from the political, scientific and technical, counterintelligence, and illegal support lines. [see Nigel West (2006).Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Latham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., p. 216]. In addition there would be security personnel to monitor the local diplomatic community and specially protected cipher clerks to handle communication. Most of what we know about the rezidentura and the resident comes from defectors, supported by physical and technical surveillance.

The British became worried about having all their intelligence eggs in one basket. It was obvious that the PCOs were known to the Gestapo. Illegals were needed, since the “legals” were rendered impotent. A new organization was created. SIS attempted to create a second far more secret intelligence network in Europe, the Z section. Its originator Claude Dansey had little difficulty in persuading “C”, Admiral Sinclair, that SIS officers' normal cover abroad. The Passport Control Officer at the embassy was already well known to all their potential enemies. Although SIS made considerable use of willing journalists and journalistic cover for intelligence officers, this was no substitute for a permanent network.

In the United States the CIA (begun in WW II as the OSS) adopted the British model. “NOCs” were used (non-official cover). As did the British, CIA recruited for front organizations. A recent example is Valerie Plame. NOCs are vulnerable. They have no fall-back protection other than their own wits. Mossad today relies extensively on NOCs since Israel has no diplomatic relations with the countries they are most concerned with in the Middle East.