This entry is a summary of a talk given by Nigel West, at Ground Zero in New York, on July 6, 2010. Disclaimer: Any errors or omissions in the following are totally my own and should not be attributed to Nigel West.
The Al Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, changed everything.Before 9/11 the world dealt witih threats from nation states, organizations that had a "home," or rebel groups with a home base. Al Qaeda, however, is a transnational threat. An attact from this group can come from anyplace and they may attack anyone. How does this change everything:
1. No threat that can be reasoned with. With radical ideologs it is impossible to find a venue to sit down and reason. Nelson Mandella was able to reason with the South African Government. Even during the Korean War, we were able to find a place to talk with North Korea, and Henry Kissinger found a way through backchannels to talk with the North Vietnamese. Not so with Al Qaeda.
2. There's no "return address" for the Al Qaeda threat." Regardless of chest-beating pronouncements by politicians there is no way to effectively retaliate against Al Qaeda. We have tried proxies in Afghanistan and Iraq without success.
How we will deal with future attacks is problematic.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
17. Random Numbers
Random Numbers
One-time pads were discussed in an earlier entry. The usefulness of a OTP, and for many other cipher procedures, such as cipher machines, depends on the use of random numbers.
In 1942 the British Government’s Code and Cypher School [part of the British GCHQ, an organization somewhat analogous to the US National Security Agency] found that it was possible to mimic the supposedly random numbers generated by the Lorenz cipher machine used by the German Foreign Ministry as a basis for their OTPs. The related traffic was codenamed FLORADORA, and was read consistently until the end of WWII. Of course, reading the German mail gave excellent intelligence.
During World War II it was also found that the Soviets used OTPs that had identical sheets in OTPs used for many operations. This led to breaking down many of these messages into a source known as VENONA.
The methods used to generate random numbers by the Soviets is unknown. This does raise the question of how secure encrypted messages are that rely on random numbers. A number is random if and only if it has an equal probability as any other number in the population of being drawn. Many experiments have demonstrated that human attempts to call out random numbers produce anything but a random distribution. Most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are a generated in a predictable fashion using a mathematical formula. These can be reverse engineered, as was done for the Soviet VERONA ciphers.
In the case of Soviet WWII OTPs, the pressures of war and limited resources may have induced the preparer of the OTPs to use carbon paper to produce the original and the copy. While making one copy, why not make three copies? New pads could be produced faster by inserting pages from other OTPs. Who would ever know? But someone did know and this provided an enormous entry into highly valuable intelligence.
Today a good source does exist for drawing random numbers, and is found at http://www.random.org
RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs. People use RANDOM.ORG for holding drawings, lotteries and sweepstakes, to drive games and gambling sites, for scientific applications and for art and music. The service has existed since 1998 and was built and is being operated by Mads Haahr of the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland.
Note 1: The information about OTPs, Venona, and GCHQ is cited from
Note 2: The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces. Based in Cheltenham, it operates under the guidance of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
One-time pads were discussed in an earlier entry. The usefulness of a OTP, and for many other cipher procedures, such as cipher machines, depends on the use of random numbers.
In 1942 the British Government’s Code and Cypher School [part of the British GCHQ, an organization somewhat analogous to the US National Security Agency] found that it was possible to mimic the supposedly random numbers generated by the Lorenz cipher machine used by the German Foreign Ministry as a basis for their OTPs. The related traffic was codenamed FLORADORA, and was read consistently until the end of WWII. Of course, reading the German mail gave excellent intelligence.
During World War II it was also found that the Soviets used OTPs that had identical sheets in OTPs used for many operations. This led to breaking down many of these messages into a source known as VENONA.
The methods used to generate random numbers by the Soviets is unknown. This does raise the question of how secure encrypted messages are that rely on random numbers. A number is random if and only if it has an equal probability as any other number in the population of being drawn. Many experiments have demonstrated that human attempts to call out random numbers produce anything but a random distribution. Most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are a generated in a predictable fashion using a mathematical formula. These can be reverse engineered, as was done for the Soviet VERONA ciphers.
In the case of Soviet WWII OTPs, the pressures of war and limited resources may have induced the preparer of the OTPs to use carbon paper to produce the original and the copy. While making one copy, why not make three copies? New pads could be produced faster by inserting pages from other OTPs. Who would ever know? But someone did know and this provided an enormous entry into highly valuable intelligence.
Today a good source does exist for drawing random numbers, and is found at http://www.random.org
RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs. People use RANDOM.ORG for holding drawings, lotteries and sweepstakes, to drive games and gambling sites, for scientific applications and for art and music. The service has existed since 1998 and was built and is being operated by Mads Haahr of the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland.
Note 1: The information about OTPs, Venona, and GCHQ is cited from
Note 2: The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces. Based in Cheltenham, it operates under the guidance of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
16.The Best of Spy Movies
The following lists are from Nigel West (http://nigelwest.com/).
Nigel West developed lists of the best spy movies. They are listed below, along with synopses of those I have seen. I’ve made some corrections to Nigel’s list for dates and accuracy of titles. Any errors are totally my responsibility. I will add blog pages for some of them that have a great deal about espionage in them.
THE BEST SPY MOVIES
Pascali’s Island(1988) James Dearden, Director [Not available from Netflex]
The year is 1908; after centuries of unchecked power, the Ottoman empire is rapidly crumbling. As a result, Turkey's secret agents--those that haven't already been eliminated by downsizing or death--operate in a vacuum, their superiors knowing little and caring less about their activities. One such spy is Ben Kingsley, a minor bureaucrat of no ambition. When ordered to help disreputable English citizens Charles Dance and Helen Mirren in the theft of a precious Greek artifact, Kingsley goes along without question. He is even prepared to follow orders and double-cross Dance the moment the robbery is pulled off. But as the film progresses, Kingsley becomes less and less of a by-the-book government functionary and more and more of an enigma--to Dance, to Mirren, to his country, to himself. More than your usual "caper" film, Pascali's Island has more layers than an artichoke.
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Among the films expressing cynicism post Watergate, 1975's Three Days of the Condor illustrates the theme of loneliness—that we should never trust the government and must be very cautious about individuals. The film holds up surprisingly well, specifically dated as a 1970s period piece by fashion style and through numerous shots of the World Trade Center.
Robert Redford plays Joe Turner (code name Condor), a bookish researcher for the C.I.A. who reads spy novels and feeds creative scenarios into the computer database at a New York City sub office. One rainy day, Turner heads for lunch, returning to find that his six officemates have all been coldly gunned down by hit men, led by Joubert (Max von Sydow, in a casting coup). Without a back-story, Turner must be from another city because the only people he knows in NYC are associated with the C.I.A. and the ones with actual faces are mostly dead now. So who can he trust?
What if the scenario he proposed about an internal rogue C.I.A. element actually turns out to be true, and he's now being pursued from real professionals within the organization. And all he's ever done is read books. That's the basic setup, based on James Grady's Six Days of the Condor.
The film remains suspenseful enough to retain interest. Director Sydney Pollack sets the story in motion with a quiet, routine day at the office. But he allows glimpses from mysterious men from the shadows, who are recording the comings and goings into the Literary Society. Who are these guys anyway? Coolly efficient, it's not long before it's revealed that the whole affair is C.I.A. related. From the post-Nixon and Vietnam protest period, many of us no longer trusted the government and many felt that they had to be on the enemies list. If the government was involved, many felt that evil plots were involved as well. Three Days of the Condor confirms the paranoia. For a more believable story of political intrigue during this period, see Costa-Gavras' Z or All the President's Men.
Redford's fictional quandary works for the most part, given the paranoia of the times although his chance selection and kidnapping of Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) stretches believability. Most women would be freaked out if a stranger took them at gunpoint to their apartment. Dunaway attempts to act like she's frightened and talks haltingly, but she warms up to Redford far too quickly and beds him the first night of her capture.
Kathy is on screen for a relatively short time and doesn't want to talk about her life, her black and white photographs of lonely November park benches and leafless trees reveal a great deal about her character, and this is fully exploited with her exchanges with Redford's character. Redford is much less revealing beyond being another Robert Redford type character—smart, playful, and clever, and he's got those "good eyes that don't lie, don't look away much, and don't miss anything." But he is cast as the star vehicle and delivers all the role calls for. He also gets to shout out great lines like, "Fuck the Wall Street Journal!" and later foreshadow the Iraq fiasco.
Max von Sydow provides the acting joys without having much to say, although he clearly reveals the cynicism of the period when explaining how he could move from being a regular C.I.A. agent to hit man: "I don't interest myself in why, I think more in terms of when. Sometimes where? Always how much?" The wise old man, who has previously faced Mr. Death in chess in Bergman's classic The Seventh Seal, understands others far more deeply than they do themselves—when Turner's Asian love interest calmly tells the hit man that she won't scream, he smiles wryly, replying simply, "I know." The most suspenseful scenes all involve the veteran von Sydow, most notably a largely wordless scene in the same elevator as Redford.
Pollack's flawed film remains entertaining and continues to hold up over the years, representing the days when the enemy lay within—the days when flag waving patriotism was looked upon as naive because many knew that the government really was out to get you. A more complex time, perhaps, unlike the first half of the twentieth century nostalgically longed for by John Houseman in a nice cameo: "I miss that kind of clarity." Now that many Americans have returned to simpler days with clear-cut enemy terrorists and clamor for simple minded politicians (Sarah Palin anyone?), it's worth returning to a film like Three Days of the Condor for murkier times where everyone is suspect.
In The Company of Spies (1999) Tim Matheson, director[Not available from Netflex]
In The Company of Spies begins with a deep cover CIA agent in North Korea being kidnapped by the Korean Internal Service (KIS). Jack Marko (Karl Pruner) has discovered some crucial secret, but the KIS isn’t sure how much he knows. Worse, Marko was taken was before he could transmit the information to the CIA.
CIA Director Tom Lenahan (Ron Silver) needs the expertise of former East Asian division chief, Kevin Jefferson (Tom Berenger), to recover Marko and the information. Jefferson set up Marko’s infiltration but quit five years ago in disgust over political compromises forced on and within the CIA. Jefferson is reluctant but loyalty forces him to return, albeit on his terms: a free rein to run the operation, pick his team and answer only to Lenahan so internal bureaucracy can't endanger the mission.
Dr. Sarah Gold (Alice Krige), a psychologist with whom Jefferson might have had a relationship if their work hadn’t gotten in the way, is Jefferson’s second in command. The rest of the team includes Todd (Arye Gross), a flashy , by CIA standards, computer and communications expert; Paul (David McIlwraith) and Joanne Gertz (Elizabeth Arlen), a bickering married couple who specialize in satellite surveillance and photography; and Dale Beckham (Clancy Brown), an old-time CIA agent whose drinking has relegated him to training new recruits.
The dynamics and interactions of the characters flesh out what could have been a by-the-books spy drama. They bicker, get on each other’s nerves, pat each other on the back and pull each other through marathon work sessions as they struggle to recover not only Marko, but whatever secret he obtained. Berenger, Silver and Krige in particular have great chemistry in their scenes together, but the entire cast is believable and incredibly watchable.
The plot itself is good, with nice twists and turns. It neither spoon feeds information nor creates a puzzle so complicated it can’t be figured out. Director Tim Matheson does a good job of pacing and balancing the political maneuvering with the field work. Spies has some absolutely nail-biting scenes but except for one sequence with the Navy SEALs, the suspense comes from Marko’s interrogation and Dale’s investigation rather than predictable car chases and boring explosions. A gripping espionage drama doesn’t have to be cookie cutter.
Spies takes a decidedly pro-CIA approach, which isn’t surprising since it’s the first film shot with the agency’s cooperation. It doesn’t whitewash the agency’s failures, though it places more blame on the whims of politicians than the agency itself. Spies presents CIA agents as hard-working people with good intentions who sometimes make mistakes, not James Bond imitators.
The end of the film practically screams for it to become a TV series, and you probably will, too. How can you not with characters this engaging and a plot this smart? The only trick is the series should stay on Showtime out of the insanity of network television scheduling. Showtime won’t make any sort of decision, of course, until it sees how In the Company of Spies does, so if you like it, click here to send them a note. If you don’t request it, it won’t come.
The Lives of Others (2007)
This German film (Das Leben der Anderen) is set in 1980s East Berlin. It is director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut feature (which earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film). The film provides an exquisitely nuanced portrait of life under the watchful eye of the Stasi as a high profile couple is bugged. When a successful playwright and his actress companion become subjects of the Stasi's secret surveillance program, their friends, family, and even those doing the watching, find their lives forever changed.
The Fourth Protocol (1987) [Not available via DVD from Netflex]
An Englishman Abroad (1983) [Not available from Netflex]
Question of Attribution (1992) [Not available from Netflex]
Our Man in Havana (1959)
Our Man in Havana, the third and final collaboration between director Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene, makes a sardonic post-script to their great success, The Third Man. Like that film, it deals in espionage in an exotic hotspot (in this case, Havana, just as revolution was brewing in Cuba's jungles) where numerous world powers had interests, and features an innocent who manages to get in the middle of international scuffles. The difference is in the tone. Our Man in Havana is a dryly witty satire of the spy game.
Alec Guinness is Jim Wormold, a British vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana and the doting and devoted single father of a beautiful, spoiled teenage daughter (Jo Morrow). British Secret Service agent Hawthorne (a perfectly droll Noel Coward) picks, for reasons beyond the viewer, Wormold as the perfect choice to be his man in Havana. He appeals to Wormold's patriotism and duty but it's the income that sells Wormold; he wants to send his daughter to a fashionable finishing school in Switzerland, far away from the Havana hothouse and the attentions of the corrupt Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs, perfectly oily as the soft-spoken terror).
Wormold turns out to be a lousy agent and a failure as a recruiter, but a terrific author. Failing to deliver the expected reports, he makes up a doozy of a secret agent yarn, complete with a cast of supporting agents (all in need of generous expense accounts) and a secret installation right out of a science fiction thriller. His fantastical reports are eagerly devoured by officers back home in London (Hawthorne is dubious but too concerned for his own reputation to point out the fabrications of his own agent) and the head of British Intelligence (Ralph Richardson, dryly officious) sends a staff to Havana to help Wormold oversee these exciting developments. Not exactly the response Wormold had hoped for. Maureen O'Hara plays the neophyte secretary who becomes quite attached to Wormold even as she learns the truth of his reports.
There's a deft wit to Greene script, which Guinness and the cast play perfectly, and plenty of humor at the expense of gullible intelligence officers. But the film takes a darker turn when the fantasies spun by Wormold take root in the spy community. His phony agents are based on real people, and one of them turns up dead. His apolitical best friend and drinking buddy, the world-weary German expatriate Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives), gets caught in the middle of the intelligence turf war. And Wormold himself becomes a target of enemy agents and, out of necessity, becomes the real life espionage player he'd been posing on paper all this time. He's almost too good and confident in the transition, belying his amateur status and everyman vulnerability. But like Wormold himself, the film gives in to the fantasy to let him be a hero.
The inspiration for Graham Greene's original novel Our Man in Havana was his own adventures and observations when he worked for British Intelligence during World War II. He paints a decidedly unflattering portrait of the intelligence bureaucracy and the gullible leadership that eagerly accepts the most fantastic reports without a trace of skepticism. Amidst all that hubris and shameless self-promotion of the intelligence service leaders, Wormold's deceptions seem downright naïve and harmless in contrast. Technically it could be called treason, but Reed and Greene treat it mostly as simple creative license. For all the satire, this cynical look at the spy game in many ways anticipates the very serious work of John le Carrè. – in fact, the basic plot and premise were reworked and updated by John le Carrè for The Tailor of Panama – and Alec Guinness' Jim Wormold, the working class British spy, can be seen as a comic sketch of a man who will become Le Carre's decidedly mundane but thoroughly competent George Smiley, a character Guinness (under)played to perfection in the British TV mini-series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People.
"This film is set in Cuba before the recent revolution," reads the text that opens the film. The script was indeed written during General Fulgencio Batista's reign and Reed and Greene scouted locations in Havana while Batista fought Fidel Castro's guerillas, but by the time they were ready to shoot, Batista had fled and Castro had won. It had little effect on the production, as it turned out. Greene had spent a lot of time vacationing in Cuba and reporting on the revolution and had met and befriended Castro. Castro supported the film and its unflattering portrait of Batista's regime and his poeple asked for very few changes, and even those were minor.
Ernie Kovacs had grown a beard for the role of the corrupt police chief; when Fidel Castro came to power, the beard had become a symbol of revolutionary heroism and Kovacs was forced to shave it off. In return, Reed had the freedom to shoot all over Havana and contrast the bustling streets and bars of Havana's working class neighborhoods with the country clubs and exclusive retreats of the very wealthy. And while the film doesn't directly comment on the politics of Batista's Cuba, the corruption and totalitarian power of the government and its police are suggested in comments tossed off in the course of banter.
Carol Reed deftly directs Greene's dryly witty dialogue and brings a snap to the repartee, and he brings a very real sense of danger to the climax, where Wormold has to face the dangers he's brought down on himself. Its the transition between the two that is not so effective and Reed seems on wobbly ground when he tries to mix the tones. Yet the cast is uniformly excellent (with the exception of Morrow, who makes Milly a vacuous figure) and the black and white CinemaScope photography by the talented Oswald Morris is superb. (Morris went on to shoot the Le Carre adaptation The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Reed's own Oliver! and won the Academy Award for Fiddler on the Rood.) He crisply captures the buzzing atmosphere of Havana, which he plunges into shadow for the nighttime climax. After Wormold plays a cunning game of checkers with Segura, using miniature bottles of liquor for pieces, Morris and Reed send the camera off-kilter, like a boat rolling through swelling seas, suggesting both the drunken instability of Wormold and the unsettled state of affairs caused by his fabricated intelligence reports.
Sony releases the film under its vaguely defined "Martini Movies" banner, a collection of otherwise unrelated films that the studio frames with a mix of camp and nostalgia. Our Man in Havana doesn't really fit either of these definitions, but no matter, it's a good enough excuse to pull the rarely seen film out of the vaults and on to home video. The transfer is well done but there are no supplements to speak of, only the original trailer and a goofy "Martini Minutes" featurette, which is nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek promotion for the DVD series.
Best World War II Spy Movies Based on Fact
The Man Who Never Was. (1955).
A successful attempt at disinformation, codenamed MINCEMEAT, by the British to mislead the Germans on the site of the Allied invasion of Europe. Using the body of a young man who died from pneumonia. The British created a legend for the “Major” and gave him documents and artifacts to make a convincing case he was a flyer shot down. The Germans bought the legend and moved assets from Sicily to Greece expecting the invasion there.
Operation Crossbow (1965)
An Allied espionage effort to determine what the Germans we doing about V-1 rockets. The film illustrates many aspects of an espionage operation. The kinds of people needed and skill-sets are determined. Prospective agents screened. Conventional wisdom denies that there is any program to observe, and if there were, it would be no real threat. Meanwhile the Germans do have a viable program beset with technical problems. Before sending in agents the British use photo-reconnaissance, requiring thousands of pictures and hundreds of photo interpreters to look at each picture particularly for something new that might fit the needs of the German program.
A program is located at Peenemünde, Germany, but it is believed to be far underground. Agents are dispatched to infiltrate the factory. One of the potential agents interviewed in Britain is a double agent, actually working for the Germans. He is able to tease out and eliminate at least one of the infiltrators. However two agents survive long enough to signal the exact location of Peenemünde so it can be destroyed by virtually the entire RAF bombing force. Many lessons about black ops are taught in this film including how an agent must stick to his legend when captured. Some will be killed, but others will survive to complete the mission. Further, not only were the Germans building the V-1, but the V-2 and the V-10 which would theoretically reach New York. None of this could have been confirmed without agents in place putting their lives at grave risk.
I Was Monty’s Double (1958) [Not available from Netflex]
Operation Amsterdam (1959).
A high-adventure film about a British agent and two Dutch resistance fighters who struggle to keep the supply of industrial diamonds in Amsterdam away from the Germans who are invading Holland. The movie is based on true-life events that occurred in Amsterdam in 1940 just before the German invasion. Several terms used in the film are unfamiliar in our times and include fifth columnist, magnetic mines, and collaborator. These terms will be defined in another blog. Lessons taught in the film are that everyone is suspect and no one can be trusted in times of war and invasion. Further, objectives become very harsh. The British agent says at one point, “I am not concerned with feelings, only results.”
The film shows the chaos of the times under invasion, with refugees filling roads making exfiltration so difficult. It raises the issue of just what is loyalty? To suspect everyone being a traitor? To lend full support to the resistance? It also shows that the best plans of a covert operation will go astray, and there is no accounting for the benefit of serendipity to find a way to complete the mission.
The Heroes of Telemark (1965) [Not available from Netflex]
Five Fingers (1952) [Not available from Netflex.]
The movie is based on a true story. In neutral Turkey during WWII, the ambitious and extremely efficient valet for the British ambassador tires of being a servant and forms a plan to promote himself to rich gentleman of leisure. His employer has many secret documents; he will photograph them, and with the help of a refugee Countess, sell them to the Nazis. When he makes a certain amount of money, he will retire to South America with the Countess as his wife.
Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)
Carve Her Name With Pride is the inspiring story of the half-French Violette Szabo who was born in Paris in 1921 to an English motor-car dealer, and a French Mother. She met and married Etienne Szabo, a Captain in the French Foreign Legion in 1940. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Tania, her husband died at El Alamein. She became a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) and was recruited into the SOE and underwent secret agent training.
Her first trip to France was completed successfully even though she was arrested and then released by the French Police. On June 7th, 1944, Szabo was parachuted into Limoges. Her task was to co-ordinate the work of the French Resistance in the area in the first days after D-Day. She was captured by the SS 'Das Reich' Panzer Division and handed over to the Gestapo in Paris for interrogation. From Paris, Violette Szabo was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp where she was executed in January 1945. She was only 23 and for her courage was posthumously awarded The George Cross and the Croix de Guerre.
The movie is based on the true story of Violette Szabo, from the biography book by R. J. Minney: Carve Her Name with Pride: The Story of Violette Szabo. London: Newnes. ISBN: 9781844154418. Minney also wrote Notes of a Russian Sniper: Vassily Zaitsev which was also made into a recent movie.
Triple Cross (1967) [Not available from Netflex]
THE BEST SPY MOVIES WRITTEN BY INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS
Thirty-Six Hours (1964), by Alec Waugh [Not available from Netflex]
The 39 Steps (1935), by John Buchan
At least three versions of this film have been made, the first by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is vacationing in England when he gets caught in a web of mystery in this Hitchcock thriller. Shots ring out at a show, and a terrified woman (Lucie Mannheim) begs Hannay to help her. He's certain she's crazy - until she appears at his flat with a map in hand and a knife in her back, muttering something about 39 steps.
Eluding the police, Hannay travels through Scotland to unearth the truth. The mysterious 39 steps turns out to be an organization of spies stealing the secrets of Britain’s Air Ministry for a new airplane. This Hitchcock movie has been rated as the 21st best all-time British movies. The 1978 movie is American, starring Robert Powell as Richard Hannay. In 2008 it was reissued with Rupert Penry-Jones as Richard Hannay. Hannay has his holiday interrupted when secret agent Scudder (Eddie Marsan) bursts into his apartment, staying alive just long enough to deposit a notebook. Pegged with murder, Hannay must decode the book and nab the culprits -- before they find him first. In this nimble BBC update of John Buchan's novel, German spies and British police give chase as Hannay races to deliver the coveted code and avert a world war.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962), by David Lean
One of the cinema’s grandest spectacles, Lawrence of Arabia is at turns exhilarating, devastating, and puzzling as it ponders the mystery of a man who was a mystery to himself.
Based on the autobiography of eccentric, flamboyant WWI-era British officer T. E. Lawrence, who aided the Arab Bedouin against the German-allied Turks, David Lean’s nearly four-hour epic is most often praised, justly so, for its magnificent desert cinematography, sweeping score, and career-defining performance from Peter O’Toole.
But attention should also be given to the screenplay, adapted by first-time screenwriter Robert Bolt, who later wrote A Man for All Seasonsand The Mission. A case can be made for viewing Bolt’s Lawrence as a counterpoint to the Thomas More of his A Man for All Seasons. On the one hand, Lawrence seems to have, as Bolt wrote of More in the prologue to A Man for All Seasons, "an adamantine sense of his own self." On the other hand, More has something that Lawrence finally lacks — a place to stand, an unshakeable foundation on which his sense of self is founded. When the flood waters come, More’s house stands fast, while Lawrence is left adrift and lost.
The film is fundamentally concerned with the question: Who is Lawrence? The question is first raised in the opening scenes, as reporters question those who knew him are asked about him at his funeral. Was he an extraordinary warrior? A shameless self-promoter? Something else? Some combination of the above?
A second, unstated question, implicit in the first, is: Why ask who Lawrence is? Who is Lawrence to be the subject of such an inquiry? Why make a study of this particular man’s identity? Certainly Lawrence accomplished remarkable things in Arabia. But there are plenty of men whose achievements bear more attention than their personalities — and vice versa.
With Lawrence, though, the film suggests that there is an intractable link between who Lawrence is, or whom he or others think he is, and what he accomplishes. It also works the other way: What he does and doesn’t accomplish, and still more what happens to him, have a devastating impact on whom he perceives himself to be.
When we first meet Lawrence, though only a minor functionary in a British outpost in Cairo, he seems insouciantly persuaded of his own potential for greatness, and delights in demonstrating the strength of his will by snuffing a burning match with his fingers. Then, offered an opportunity to distinguish himself, he unhesitatingly seizes it — and succeeds beyond all reasonable expectations.
So unshakeable is his self-confidence is he that he grandly pits himself against, if not God, at least the pious religious acceptance or fatalism of the Muslim Bedouin. Setting out against all odds to avert an event that a Muslim companion (Omar Sharif) declares "is written," he punctuates his achievement by emphatically declaring, "Nothing is written." He even goes so far as to proclaim of his own audacious plans, "That is written — in here" (tapping his head). Indeed, for a time it seems, as even Sharif is forced to admit, "Truly, for some men, nothing is written, unless they write it."
Such language is of course disquieting not only for Muslims; Christians will inevitably think of St. James’s warnings concerning presumptuous declarations about what we will do tomorrow. Though we seldom feel the need to explicitly add a disclaimer such as "if God wills," we still find it jarring to hear someone seemingly repudiate even an implicit disclaimer of this sort.
Then, though, comes a nasty shock that brings back those implacable words "It was written," and this time Lawrence has no reply. Even so, subsequent triumphs enable him to recover from this incident, and at the height of his messianic complex he believes himself invisible and untouchable, even playing at walking on water.
And then comes the blow from which Lawrence doesn’t recover. Ironically, this event could almost have been the ultimate confirmation of his mystique, for though he is captured, interrogated, and abused, his identity goes undetected and he is soon released. If that’s not invisibility, what is? The first time I saw the film, I half expected him to get up and move on as if nothing had happened, just as he did earlier with the match and the bullet. It is evident the abuse is homosexual, an almost totally taboo subject for movies when this film was made. We do not know whether Lawrence’s change of character is more from humiliation of giving in to torture, being raped by another man, or his invisibility.
But no. Somehow his self-illusions have finally been shattered. In a way, it seems almost a letdown, for lesser men have suffered worse things and not broken. Yet only now does he fully appreciate that he is mere flesh and blood, and he begins grasping toward something that apparently he has previously scorned and now realizes may slip away from him entirely: common humanity. The story doesn’t end there, but it’s a decisive turning point.
In the end, what most stands out about Lawrence’s character may be something like caprice. He seems at first to have a personal, passionate interest in the fate of Arabia for its own sake — but this interest doesn’t just get mixed up in his messianism, it seems entirely subverted by it, as if Arabia is merely the stage for Lawrence’s self-revelation. The moment Lawrence suspects that he’s not a figure of mythic grandeur after all, he loses all will to try to contribute to the Arab cause, even on a mortal level, which would not be the case if he cared about Arabia for its own sake.
In the end, his dalliance with messianism ends and he goes back to Great Britain with a promotion, to write and drive motorcycles. At one point he says he loves the desert because "it’s clean"; later he prays never to see it again, but is told "For you there is only the desert."
Who is Lawrence, in the end? Can one not know oneself, and still be anyone? God help us all.
Five Fingers (1965), by Ludwig Moyszich [Not available from Netflex]
Dr. No (1962), by Ian Flemming
This film was Sean Connery’s first as 007. It is the franchise finding its feet. In 1962, there was no other movie quite like it. Certainly there were glossy action pictures and violent detective pictures, but the makers of Dr. No were inventing something wholly different the Bond picture. With nothing to go by (aside from Ian Fleming’s novel, which gave them the plot but not its eventual tone), it’s no surprise that it takes half the movie to get into what we now recognize as prime 007 territory.
The behind-the-scenes lead-up to Dr. No is a tale well known to Bond fans, who might as well skip the next two paragraphs. Ian Fleming had been hunting for a movie deal for nearly a decade; after the author’s plan to concoct an all-new story to launch a Bond franchise fell through (a mess that led to Thunderball, both the novel and the film), the rights were finally bought by producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli. With Thunderball unavailable, Dr. No was chosen to be Bond’s screen debut.
Cary Grant was first offered the role of 007 but a series was not for him, and he insisted he would only do one film. James Mason was also considered, but he said he’d bow out after two. Fleming himself asked his friend Noel Coward (with actual agent experience during World War II) to play the titular villain (replying via telegram, “no no no”). Eventually the producers and director Terence Young picked Sean Connery as Bond (who signed on for a five picture deal) and Joseph Wiseman as No.
Dr. No the film sticks rather closely to Fleming’s novel, as do the next two films. Changes are minimal and mostly cosmetic. Most notable is the filmmakers’ decision to make No an agent, not of the USSR, but of the fictional terrorist organization SPECTRE, thus distancing the film from the Cold War elements of the books. Curiously, it would be the Roger Moore films - the ones completely unrelated to Fleming’s work - that would make the Soviet Union a key player.
The basics remain. James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the death of fellow agent Strangways . We know he has been executed by a trio of blind men. H is trail leads him to the mysterious island of Crab Key, then to Dr. No, who finally reveals a plot to disrupt NASA’s space program.
Not counting his obligatory visit to M’s office, it’s not until Bond makes his way to Crab Key that Dr. No really feels like a James Bond Movie. Before this, it’s a fairly simple (albeit highly involving) detective/spy yarn, notable mainly for its rather chilling nature. The film’s first half includes several cold-blooded murders, including a most notorious one by the hero himself. Few leading men from late-50s film noir would be so brutal as to repeatedly shoot someone in the back - after taunting him first. “That’s a Smith & Wesson, and you’ve had your six,” he wryly informs his would-be assassin.
As originally shot, Bond fires five extra shots into his already-fallen enemy’s back. Censorship cut it down to one. The Bond of Dr. No is flippant, cocky, and seductive, but the main trait that separates him from other screen heroes and antiheroes is his viciousness. He’ll even rough up a lady or two, strong-arming a dragon lady photographer (Marguerite LeWars) with the same gusto he uses to take on No’s henchmen. Granted, she does earn it, what with the creepy flashbulb licking and sinister sneering
Other factors help this movie stand out from other action offerings of the day. Most obvious is the wit, which takes the film furthest from Fleming’s work and is exactly what we’ve come to expect about the Bond franchise. The cynical, detached one-liners begin here, and not just with the string of obvious jokes but with the very introduction of Bond himself. Director Young, cribbing an introduction from the 1939 film Juarez, slowly reveals our hero at the baccarat table - a hand here, a shoulder there - and when the camera finally tilts up to reveal his face, he lets loose with the now-famous “Bond. James Bond.” This line, present in every 007 movie, was not an intentional gesture for an arrogant introduction. Bond is smugly mocking the pretensions of the woman (Eunice Gayson) who just introduced herself as “Trench. Sylvia Trench.” 007’s greatest catchphrase began as a verbal middle finger to some rich twit.
Trench became a recurring character on the level of M or Miss Moneypenny. Although the idea eventually got scrapped, there she was in From Russia With Love, playing the role of Bond’s girlfriend back home.
Movie heroes just didn’t behave this way in 1962. We’re so used to it now - especially those of us who went to the cinema in the age of Schwarzenegger - but back then, Bond’s quips were something of a revolution, a sarcasm ahead of its time. By the time Bond works his way into No’s lair, the jokes are in full force. He’s snide right to his captor’s face; who else would dare? Connery delivers the lines with perfect Scottish sarcasm. His best line: “Tell me, does the toppling of American missiles really compensate for having no hands?” But he’s not the only jokester - the filmmakers themselves drop some visual gags, like the villain’s possession of a recently-stolen Goya painting. Not a timeless gag, but most certainly a clever one.
When Bond arrives on Crab Key and meets the lovely Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), her introduction remains one of the greatest shots in the history of cinema. We’re still watching a relatively ordinary thriller, filled with exotic locales and bold action, but nothing you’d call overly bizarre. Yet by the time Bond is defeating No’s henchmen and blowing up the whole damn island, we’ve stepped into an insane comic book.
Yes, in the last act of the film, we’re finally in familiar Bond territory - 007 invited into the villain’s headquarters, where the baddie talks a little too much about his ultimate plans, etc., etc. In retrospect, it seems the only logical place for Dr. No to go, but at the time, it must’ve been sheer madness.
Dr. No is a film that keeps aiming over the top until, by the end, you can’t even see the top from that height. For all this wildness, Dr. No is still hailed by fans as one of the series’ best. We can still admire its absurdities(which are relatively few compared to later films). The plot, while ridiculous, is relatively straightforward; that it delivers a tone is fairly true to Fleming. Then, Fleming delivered his share of lunacy, too.
Breach (2005), by Bob Hanssen [date of 2007 (re: Hanssen) in queue from Netflex]
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), by John le Carrè
The movie, based on John le Carrè’ book is, I think, better than the book itself. I was talking with a noted author of books and novels on spying. He said, “John le Carrè” is a master of the spy business, but his writing is ponderous. It takes him three pages just to cross the street.” Richard Burton turns in a wonderful performance as a very tired spy (presumably for MI-6) who loses a source when he is killed trying to cross from East Berlin into the West. He is recalled to London, and faces a desk job or retirement. However there is one more assignment for him to take, keeping him still in the cold.
“C” the Control of MI 6 gives Leamus a new legend. It is to play the role of a burned –out spy who leaves the service, and sinks into bitterness, alcohol, and despair. Leamus gets a number of jobs through the national job service, and loses them because of excessive drinking. Finally he gets one where he meets a girl, an unassuming and idealistic communist, Nan Perry. Nan believes that people working together can make a better world.
Continuing his apparent downward slide, he roughs up a grocer who will not give him credit, spends some time in jail, and loses the one job he was working at. This does the trick, and agents of the East smell blood in the water. He is recruited, and then held virtually captive in the East.
He winds up again in prison, charged with conspiracy against the state. There he is grilled about British agents. His job is to give up bits and pieces and eventually to turn suspicion away from himself to the number one man in East Berlin, agent Mundt. He does this by playing on the hatred the number two man, Fiedler, has for Mundt already, and his own ambitions. In the end he is successful, when Mundt is arrested. The trial proceeds with Fiedler as prosecutor. Fiedler is convinced Leamas is not a plant, but that Mundt was turned while in London, and became a British agent (or at least a double agent.) Leamas' credibility is further undermined when his English girlfriend, Nan Perry, is brought into the hearings to confirm Leamas' character. As Leamas' charade unravels and he is forced to admit he is still working as a British agent, Fiedler is escorted from the room as a complicit dupe and Mundt's reputation is untarnished.
We discover that Nan was used by MI 6. All along it was Fiedler, the Jew, that MI 6 really wanted to get. Mundt was actually turned in London as Fiedler contended at the trial. Mundt was evil, but their evil friend. Mundt arranges for Leamus and Perry to leave East Germany and get over the wall back into West Berlin. However, they cannot let Nan live. She is too dangerous, and it was arranged for her to be shot crossing the wall. Leamus cannot leave her, and the movie ends with him begged to leave. Then he too is shot while he is going to the girl.
A minor character in the movie, but one that will appear again and again in Le Carré’s books and the movies made from them. He is George Smiley, an intelligence officer working for MI6.
The movie has memorable quotes, and I’ve cited some of them below.
Alec Leamas: “Before, he (Mundt) was evil and my enemy; now, he is evil and my friend.”
Alec Leamas:” I reserve the right to be ignorant. That's the Western way of life.”
Alec Leamas: (to Nan)/. “What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?”
Nigel West developed lists of the best spy movies. They are listed below, along with synopses of those I have seen. I’ve made some corrections to Nigel’s list for dates and accuracy of titles. Any errors are totally my responsibility. I will add blog pages for some of them that have a great deal about espionage in them.
THE BEST SPY MOVIES
Pascali’s Island(1988) James Dearden, Director [Not available from Netflex]
The year is 1908; after centuries of unchecked power, the Ottoman empire is rapidly crumbling. As a result, Turkey's secret agents--those that haven't already been eliminated by downsizing or death--operate in a vacuum, their superiors knowing little and caring less about their activities. One such spy is Ben Kingsley, a minor bureaucrat of no ambition. When ordered to help disreputable English citizens Charles Dance and Helen Mirren in the theft of a precious Greek artifact, Kingsley goes along without question. He is even prepared to follow orders and double-cross Dance the moment the robbery is pulled off. But as the film progresses, Kingsley becomes less and less of a by-the-book government functionary and more and more of an enigma--to Dance, to Mirren, to his country, to himself. More than your usual "caper" film, Pascali's Island has more layers than an artichoke.
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Among the films expressing cynicism post Watergate, 1975's Three Days of the Condor illustrates the theme of loneliness—that we should never trust the government and must be very cautious about individuals. The film holds up surprisingly well, specifically dated as a 1970s period piece by fashion style and through numerous shots of the World Trade Center.
Robert Redford plays Joe Turner (code name Condor), a bookish researcher for the C.I.A. who reads spy novels and feeds creative scenarios into the computer database at a New York City sub office. One rainy day, Turner heads for lunch, returning to find that his six officemates have all been coldly gunned down by hit men, led by Joubert (Max von Sydow, in a casting coup). Without a back-story, Turner must be from another city because the only people he knows in NYC are associated with the C.I.A. and the ones with actual faces are mostly dead now. So who can he trust?
What if the scenario he proposed about an internal rogue C.I.A. element actually turns out to be true, and he's now being pursued from real professionals within the organization. And all he's ever done is read books. That's the basic setup, based on James Grady's Six Days of the Condor.
The film remains suspenseful enough to retain interest. Director Sydney Pollack sets the story in motion with a quiet, routine day at the office. But he allows glimpses from mysterious men from the shadows, who are recording the comings and goings into the Literary Society. Who are these guys anyway? Coolly efficient, it's not long before it's revealed that the whole affair is C.I.A. related. From the post-Nixon and Vietnam protest period, many of us no longer trusted the government and many felt that they had to be on the enemies list. If the government was involved, many felt that evil plots were involved as well. Three Days of the Condor confirms the paranoia. For a more believable story of political intrigue during this period, see Costa-Gavras' Z or All the President's Men.
Redford's fictional quandary works for the most part, given the paranoia of the times although his chance selection and kidnapping of Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) stretches believability. Most women would be freaked out if a stranger took them at gunpoint to their apartment. Dunaway attempts to act like she's frightened and talks haltingly, but she warms up to Redford far too quickly and beds him the first night of her capture.
Kathy is on screen for a relatively short time and doesn't want to talk about her life, her black and white photographs of lonely November park benches and leafless trees reveal a great deal about her character, and this is fully exploited with her exchanges with Redford's character. Redford is much less revealing beyond being another Robert Redford type character—smart, playful, and clever, and he's got those "good eyes that don't lie, don't look away much, and don't miss anything." But he is cast as the star vehicle and delivers all the role calls for. He also gets to shout out great lines like, "Fuck the Wall Street Journal!" and later foreshadow the Iraq fiasco.
Max von Sydow provides the acting joys without having much to say, although he clearly reveals the cynicism of the period when explaining how he could move from being a regular C.I.A. agent to hit man: "I don't interest myself in why, I think more in terms of when. Sometimes where? Always how much?" The wise old man, who has previously faced Mr. Death in chess in Bergman's classic The Seventh Seal, understands others far more deeply than they do themselves—when Turner's Asian love interest calmly tells the hit man that she won't scream, he smiles wryly, replying simply, "I know." The most suspenseful scenes all involve the veteran von Sydow, most notably a largely wordless scene in the same elevator as Redford.
Pollack's flawed film remains entertaining and continues to hold up over the years, representing the days when the enemy lay within—the days when flag waving patriotism was looked upon as naive because many knew that the government really was out to get you. A more complex time, perhaps, unlike the first half of the twentieth century nostalgically longed for by John Houseman in a nice cameo: "I miss that kind of clarity." Now that many Americans have returned to simpler days with clear-cut enemy terrorists and clamor for simple minded politicians (Sarah Palin anyone?), it's worth returning to a film like Three Days of the Condor for murkier times where everyone is suspect.
In The Company of Spies (1999) Tim Matheson, director[Not available from Netflex]
In The Company of Spies begins with a deep cover CIA agent in North Korea being kidnapped by the Korean Internal Service (KIS). Jack Marko (Karl Pruner) has discovered some crucial secret, but the KIS isn’t sure how much he knows. Worse, Marko was taken was before he could transmit the information to the CIA.
CIA Director Tom Lenahan (Ron Silver) needs the expertise of former East Asian division chief, Kevin Jefferson (Tom Berenger), to recover Marko and the information. Jefferson set up Marko’s infiltration but quit five years ago in disgust over political compromises forced on and within the CIA. Jefferson is reluctant but loyalty forces him to return, albeit on his terms: a free rein to run the operation, pick his team and answer only to Lenahan so internal bureaucracy can't endanger the mission.
Dr. Sarah Gold (Alice Krige), a psychologist with whom Jefferson might have had a relationship if their work hadn’t gotten in the way, is Jefferson’s second in command. The rest of the team includes Todd (Arye Gross), a flashy , by CIA standards, computer and communications expert; Paul (David McIlwraith) and Joanne Gertz (Elizabeth Arlen), a bickering married couple who specialize in satellite surveillance and photography; and Dale Beckham (Clancy Brown), an old-time CIA agent whose drinking has relegated him to training new recruits.
The dynamics and interactions of the characters flesh out what could have been a by-the-books spy drama. They bicker, get on each other’s nerves, pat each other on the back and pull each other through marathon work sessions as they struggle to recover not only Marko, but whatever secret he obtained. Berenger, Silver and Krige in particular have great chemistry in their scenes together, but the entire cast is believable and incredibly watchable.
The plot itself is good, with nice twists and turns. It neither spoon feeds information nor creates a puzzle so complicated it can’t be figured out. Director Tim Matheson does a good job of pacing and balancing the political maneuvering with the field work. Spies has some absolutely nail-biting scenes but except for one sequence with the Navy SEALs, the suspense comes from Marko’s interrogation and Dale’s investigation rather than predictable car chases and boring explosions. A gripping espionage drama doesn’t have to be cookie cutter.
Spies takes a decidedly pro-CIA approach, which isn’t surprising since it’s the first film shot with the agency’s cooperation. It doesn’t whitewash the agency’s failures, though it places more blame on the whims of politicians than the agency itself. Spies presents CIA agents as hard-working people with good intentions who sometimes make mistakes, not James Bond imitators.
The end of the film practically screams for it to become a TV series, and you probably will, too. How can you not with characters this engaging and a plot this smart? The only trick is the series should stay on Showtime out of the insanity of network television scheduling. Showtime won’t make any sort of decision, of course, until it sees how In the Company of Spies does, so if you like it, click here to send them a note. If you don’t request it, it won’t come.
The Lives of Others (2007)
This German film (Das Leben der Anderen) is set in 1980s East Berlin. It is director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut feature (which earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film). The film provides an exquisitely nuanced portrait of life under the watchful eye of the Stasi as a high profile couple is bugged. When a successful playwright and his actress companion become subjects of the Stasi's secret surveillance program, their friends, family, and even those doing the watching, find their lives forever changed.
The Fourth Protocol (1987) [Not available via DVD from Netflex]
An Englishman Abroad (1983) [Not available from Netflex]
Question of Attribution (1992) [Not available from Netflex]
Our Man in Havana (1959)
Our Man in Havana, the third and final collaboration between director Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene, makes a sardonic post-script to their great success, The Third Man. Like that film, it deals in espionage in an exotic hotspot (in this case, Havana, just as revolution was brewing in Cuba's jungles) where numerous world powers had interests, and features an innocent who manages to get in the middle of international scuffles. The difference is in the tone. Our Man in Havana is a dryly witty satire of the spy game.
Alec Guinness is Jim Wormold, a British vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana and the doting and devoted single father of a beautiful, spoiled teenage daughter (Jo Morrow). British Secret Service agent Hawthorne (a perfectly droll Noel Coward) picks, for reasons beyond the viewer, Wormold as the perfect choice to be his man in Havana. He appeals to Wormold's patriotism and duty but it's the income that sells Wormold; he wants to send his daughter to a fashionable finishing school in Switzerland, far away from the Havana hothouse and the attentions of the corrupt Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs, perfectly oily as the soft-spoken terror).
Wormold turns out to be a lousy agent and a failure as a recruiter, but a terrific author. Failing to deliver the expected reports, he makes up a doozy of a secret agent yarn, complete with a cast of supporting agents (all in need of generous expense accounts) and a secret installation right out of a science fiction thriller. His fantastical reports are eagerly devoured by officers back home in London (Hawthorne is dubious but too concerned for his own reputation to point out the fabrications of his own agent) and the head of British Intelligence (Ralph Richardson, dryly officious) sends a staff to Havana to help Wormold oversee these exciting developments. Not exactly the response Wormold had hoped for. Maureen O'Hara plays the neophyte secretary who becomes quite attached to Wormold even as she learns the truth of his reports.
There's a deft wit to Greene script, which Guinness and the cast play perfectly, and plenty of humor at the expense of gullible intelligence officers. But the film takes a darker turn when the fantasies spun by Wormold take root in the spy community. His phony agents are based on real people, and one of them turns up dead. His apolitical best friend and drinking buddy, the world-weary German expatriate Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives), gets caught in the middle of the intelligence turf war. And Wormold himself becomes a target of enemy agents and, out of necessity, becomes the real life espionage player he'd been posing on paper all this time. He's almost too good and confident in the transition, belying his amateur status and everyman vulnerability. But like Wormold himself, the film gives in to the fantasy to let him be a hero.
The inspiration for Graham Greene's original novel Our Man in Havana was his own adventures and observations when he worked for British Intelligence during World War II. He paints a decidedly unflattering portrait of the intelligence bureaucracy and the gullible leadership that eagerly accepts the most fantastic reports without a trace of skepticism. Amidst all that hubris and shameless self-promotion of the intelligence service leaders, Wormold's deceptions seem downright naïve and harmless in contrast. Technically it could be called treason, but Reed and Greene treat it mostly as simple creative license. For all the satire, this cynical look at the spy game in many ways anticipates the very serious work of John le Carrè. – in fact, the basic plot and premise were reworked and updated by John le Carrè for The Tailor of Panama – and Alec Guinness' Jim Wormold, the working class British spy, can be seen as a comic sketch of a man who will become Le Carre's decidedly mundane but thoroughly competent George Smiley, a character Guinness (under)played to perfection in the British TV mini-series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People.
"This film is set in Cuba before the recent revolution," reads the text that opens the film. The script was indeed written during General Fulgencio Batista's reign and Reed and Greene scouted locations in Havana while Batista fought Fidel Castro's guerillas, but by the time they were ready to shoot, Batista had fled and Castro had won. It had little effect on the production, as it turned out. Greene had spent a lot of time vacationing in Cuba and reporting on the revolution and had met and befriended Castro. Castro supported the film and its unflattering portrait of Batista's regime and his poeple asked for very few changes, and even those were minor.
Ernie Kovacs had grown a beard for the role of the corrupt police chief; when Fidel Castro came to power, the beard had become a symbol of revolutionary heroism and Kovacs was forced to shave it off. In return, Reed had the freedom to shoot all over Havana and contrast the bustling streets and bars of Havana's working class neighborhoods with the country clubs and exclusive retreats of the very wealthy. And while the film doesn't directly comment on the politics of Batista's Cuba, the corruption and totalitarian power of the government and its police are suggested in comments tossed off in the course of banter.
Carol Reed deftly directs Greene's dryly witty dialogue and brings a snap to the repartee, and he brings a very real sense of danger to the climax, where Wormold has to face the dangers he's brought down on himself. Its the transition between the two that is not so effective and Reed seems on wobbly ground when he tries to mix the tones. Yet the cast is uniformly excellent (with the exception of Morrow, who makes Milly a vacuous figure) and the black and white CinemaScope photography by the talented Oswald Morris is superb. (Morris went on to shoot the Le Carre adaptation The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Reed's own Oliver! and won the Academy Award for Fiddler on the Rood.) He crisply captures the buzzing atmosphere of Havana, which he plunges into shadow for the nighttime climax. After Wormold plays a cunning game of checkers with Segura, using miniature bottles of liquor for pieces, Morris and Reed send the camera off-kilter, like a boat rolling through swelling seas, suggesting both the drunken instability of Wormold and the unsettled state of affairs caused by his fabricated intelligence reports.
Sony releases the film under its vaguely defined "Martini Movies" banner, a collection of otherwise unrelated films that the studio frames with a mix of camp and nostalgia. Our Man in Havana doesn't really fit either of these definitions, but no matter, it's a good enough excuse to pull the rarely seen film out of the vaults and on to home video. The transfer is well done but there are no supplements to speak of, only the original trailer and a goofy "Martini Minutes" featurette, which is nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek promotion for the DVD series.
Best World War II Spy Movies Based on Fact
The Man Who Never Was. (1955).
A successful attempt at disinformation, codenamed MINCEMEAT, by the British to mislead the Germans on the site of the Allied invasion of Europe. Using the body of a young man who died from pneumonia. The British created a legend for the “Major” and gave him documents and artifacts to make a convincing case he was a flyer shot down. The Germans bought the legend and moved assets from Sicily to Greece expecting the invasion there.
Operation Crossbow (1965)
An Allied espionage effort to determine what the Germans we doing about V-1 rockets. The film illustrates many aspects of an espionage operation. The kinds of people needed and skill-sets are determined. Prospective agents screened. Conventional wisdom denies that there is any program to observe, and if there were, it would be no real threat. Meanwhile the Germans do have a viable program beset with technical problems. Before sending in agents the British use photo-reconnaissance, requiring thousands of pictures and hundreds of photo interpreters to look at each picture particularly for something new that might fit the needs of the German program.
A program is located at Peenemünde, Germany, but it is believed to be far underground. Agents are dispatched to infiltrate the factory. One of the potential agents interviewed in Britain is a double agent, actually working for the Germans. He is able to tease out and eliminate at least one of the infiltrators. However two agents survive long enough to signal the exact location of Peenemünde so it can be destroyed by virtually the entire RAF bombing force. Many lessons about black ops are taught in this film including how an agent must stick to his legend when captured. Some will be killed, but others will survive to complete the mission. Further, not only were the Germans building the V-1, but the V-2 and the V-10 which would theoretically reach New York. None of this could have been confirmed without agents in place putting their lives at grave risk.
I Was Monty’s Double (1958) [Not available from Netflex]
Operation Amsterdam (1959).
A high-adventure film about a British agent and two Dutch resistance fighters who struggle to keep the supply of industrial diamonds in Amsterdam away from the Germans who are invading Holland. The movie is based on true-life events that occurred in Amsterdam in 1940 just before the German invasion. Several terms used in the film are unfamiliar in our times and include fifth columnist, magnetic mines, and collaborator. These terms will be defined in another blog. Lessons taught in the film are that everyone is suspect and no one can be trusted in times of war and invasion. Further, objectives become very harsh. The British agent says at one point, “I am not concerned with feelings, only results.”
The film shows the chaos of the times under invasion, with refugees filling roads making exfiltration so difficult. It raises the issue of just what is loyalty? To suspect everyone being a traitor? To lend full support to the resistance? It also shows that the best plans of a covert operation will go astray, and there is no accounting for the benefit of serendipity to find a way to complete the mission.
The Heroes of Telemark (1965) [Not available from Netflex]
Five Fingers (1952) [Not available from Netflex.]
The movie is based on a true story. In neutral Turkey during WWII, the ambitious and extremely efficient valet for the British ambassador tires of being a servant and forms a plan to promote himself to rich gentleman of leisure. His employer has many secret documents; he will photograph them, and with the help of a refugee Countess, sell them to the Nazis. When he makes a certain amount of money, he will retire to South America with the Countess as his wife.
Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)
Carve Her Name With Pride is the inspiring story of the half-French Violette Szabo who was born in Paris in 1921 to an English motor-car dealer, and a French Mother. She met and married Etienne Szabo, a Captain in the French Foreign Legion in 1940. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Tania, her husband died at El Alamein. She became a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) and was recruited into the SOE and underwent secret agent training.
Her first trip to France was completed successfully even though she was arrested and then released by the French Police. On June 7th, 1944, Szabo was parachuted into Limoges. Her task was to co-ordinate the work of the French Resistance in the area in the first days after D-Day. She was captured by the SS 'Das Reich' Panzer Division and handed over to the Gestapo in Paris for interrogation. From Paris, Violette Szabo was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp where she was executed in January 1945. She was only 23 and for her courage was posthumously awarded The George Cross and the Croix de Guerre.
The movie is based on the true story of Violette Szabo, from the biography book by R. J. Minney: Carve Her Name with Pride: The Story of Violette Szabo. London: Newnes. ISBN: 9781844154418. Minney also wrote Notes of a Russian Sniper: Vassily Zaitsev which was also made into a recent movie.
Triple Cross (1967) [Not available from Netflex]
THE BEST SPY MOVIES WRITTEN BY INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS
Thirty-Six Hours (1964), by Alec Waugh [Not available from Netflex]
The 39 Steps (1935), by John Buchan
At least three versions of this film have been made, the first by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is vacationing in England when he gets caught in a web of mystery in this Hitchcock thriller. Shots ring out at a show, and a terrified woman (Lucie Mannheim) begs Hannay to help her. He's certain she's crazy - until she appears at his flat with a map in hand and a knife in her back, muttering something about 39 steps.
Eluding the police, Hannay travels through Scotland to unearth the truth. The mysterious 39 steps turns out to be an organization of spies stealing the secrets of Britain’s Air Ministry for a new airplane. This Hitchcock movie has been rated as the 21st best all-time British movies. The 1978 movie is American, starring Robert Powell as Richard Hannay. In 2008 it was reissued with Rupert Penry-Jones as Richard Hannay. Hannay has his holiday interrupted when secret agent Scudder (Eddie Marsan) bursts into his apartment, staying alive just long enough to deposit a notebook. Pegged with murder, Hannay must decode the book and nab the culprits -- before they find him first. In this nimble BBC update of John Buchan's novel, German spies and British police give chase as Hannay races to deliver the coveted code and avert a world war.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962), by David Lean
One of the cinema’s grandest spectacles, Lawrence of Arabia is at turns exhilarating, devastating, and puzzling as it ponders the mystery of a man who was a mystery to himself.
Based on the autobiography of eccentric, flamboyant WWI-era British officer T. E. Lawrence, who aided the Arab Bedouin against the German-allied Turks, David Lean’s nearly four-hour epic is most often praised, justly so, for its magnificent desert cinematography, sweeping score, and career-defining performance from Peter O’Toole.
But attention should also be given to the screenplay, adapted by first-time screenwriter Robert Bolt, who later wrote A Man for All Seasonsand The Mission. A case can be made for viewing Bolt’s Lawrence as a counterpoint to the Thomas More of his A Man for All Seasons. On the one hand, Lawrence seems to have, as Bolt wrote of More in the prologue to A Man for All Seasons, "an adamantine sense of his own self." On the other hand, More has something that Lawrence finally lacks — a place to stand, an unshakeable foundation on which his sense of self is founded. When the flood waters come, More’s house stands fast, while Lawrence is left adrift and lost.
The film is fundamentally concerned with the question: Who is Lawrence? The question is first raised in the opening scenes, as reporters question those who knew him are asked about him at his funeral. Was he an extraordinary warrior? A shameless self-promoter? Something else? Some combination of the above?
A second, unstated question, implicit in the first, is: Why ask who Lawrence is? Who is Lawrence to be the subject of such an inquiry? Why make a study of this particular man’s identity? Certainly Lawrence accomplished remarkable things in Arabia. But there are plenty of men whose achievements bear more attention than their personalities — and vice versa.
With Lawrence, though, the film suggests that there is an intractable link between who Lawrence is, or whom he or others think he is, and what he accomplishes. It also works the other way: What he does and doesn’t accomplish, and still more what happens to him, have a devastating impact on whom he perceives himself to be.
When we first meet Lawrence, though only a minor functionary in a British outpost in Cairo, he seems insouciantly persuaded of his own potential for greatness, and delights in demonstrating the strength of his will by snuffing a burning match with his fingers. Then, offered an opportunity to distinguish himself, he unhesitatingly seizes it — and succeeds beyond all reasonable expectations.
So unshakeable is his self-confidence is he that he grandly pits himself against, if not God, at least the pious religious acceptance or fatalism of the Muslim Bedouin. Setting out against all odds to avert an event that a Muslim companion (Omar Sharif) declares "is written," he punctuates his achievement by emphatically declaring, "Nothing is written." He even goes so far as to proclaim of his own audacious plans, "That is written — in here" (tapping his head). Indeed, for a time it seems, as even Sharif is forced to admit, "Truly, for some men, nothing is written, unless they write it."
Such language is of course disquieting not only for Muslims; Christians will inevitably think of St. James’s warnings concerning presumptuous declarations about what we will do tomorrow. Though we seldom feel the need to explicitly add a disclaimer such as "if God wills," we still find it jarring to hear someone seemingly repudiate even an implicit disclaimer of this sort.
Then, though, comes a nasty shock that brings back those implacable words "It was written," and this time Lawrence has no reply. Even so, subsequent triumphs enable him to recover from this incident, and at the height of his messianic complex he believes himself invisible and untouchable, even playing at walking on water.
And then comes the blow from which Lawrence doesn’t recover. Ironically, this event could almost have been the ultimate confirmation of his mystique, for though he is captured, interrogated, and abused, his identity goes undetected and he is soon released. If that’s not invisibility, what is? The first time I saw the film, I half expected him to get up and move on as if nothing had happened, just as he did earlier with the match and the bullet. It is evident the abuse is homosexual, an almost totally taboo subject for movies when this film was made. We do not know whether Lawrence’s change of character is more from humiliation of giving in to torture, being raped by another man, or his invisibility.
But no. Somehow his self-illusions have finally been shattered. In a way, it seems almost a letdown, for lesser men have suffered worse things and not broken. Yet only now does he fully appreciate that he is mere flesh and blood, and he begins grasping toward something that apparently he has previously scorned and now realizes may slip away from him entirely: common humanity. The story doesn’t end there, but it’s a decisive turning point.
In the end, what most stands out about Lawrence’s character may be something like caprice. He seems at first to have a personal, passionate interest in the fate of Arabia for its own sake — but this interest doesn’t just get mixed up in his messianism, it seems entirely subverted by it, as if Arabia is merely the stage for Lawrence’s self-revelation. The moment Lawrence suspects that he’s not a figure of mythic grandeur after all, he loses all will to try to contribute to the Arab cause, even on a mortal level, which would not be the case if he cared about Arabia for its own sake.
In the end, his dalliance with messianism ends and he goes back to Great Britain with a promotion, to write and drive motorcycles. At one point he says he loves the desert because "it’s clean"; later he prays never to see it again, but is told "For you there is only the desert."
Who is Lawrence, in the end? Can one not know oneself, and still be anyone? God help us all.
Five Fingers (1965), by Ludwig Moyszich [Not available from Netflex]
Dr. No (1962), by Ian Flemming
This film was Sean Connery’s first as 007. It is the franchise finding its feet. In 1962, there was no other movie quite like it. Certainly there were glossy action pictures and violent detective pictures, but the makers of Dr. No were inventing something wholly different the Bond picture. With nothing to go by (aside from Ian Fleming’s novel, which gave them the plot but not its eventual tone), it’s no surprise that it takes half the movie to get into what we now recognize as prime 007 territory.
The behind-the-scenes lead-up to Dr. No is a tale well known to Bond fans, who might as well skip the next two paragraphs. Ian Fleming had been hunting for a movie deal for nearly a decade; after the author’s plan to concoct an all-new story to launch a Bond franchise fell through (a mess that led to Thunderball, both the novel and the film), the rights were finally bought by producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli. With Thunderball unavailable, Dr. No was chosen to be Bond’s screen debut.
Cary Grant was first offered the role of 007 but a series was not for him, and he insisted he would only do one film. James Mason was also considered, but he said he’d bow out after two. Fleming himself asked his friend Noel Coward (with actual agent experience during World War II) to play the titular villain (replying via telegram, “no no no”). Eventually the producers and director Terence Young picked Sean Connery as Bond (who signed on for a five picture deal) and Joseph Wiseman as No.
Dr. No the film sticks rather closely to Fleming’s novel, as do the next two films. Changes are minimal and mostly cosmetic. Most notable is the filmmakers’ decision to make No an agent, not of the USSR, but of the fictional terrorist organization SPECTRE, thus distancing the film from the Cold War elements of the books. Curiously, it would be the Roger Moore films - the ones completely unrelated to Fleming’s work - that would make the Soviet Union a key player.
The basics remain. James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the death of fellow agent Strangways . We know he has been executed by a trio of blind men. H is trail leads him to the mysterious island of Crab Key, then to Dr. No, who finally reveals a plot to disrupt NASA’s space program.
Not counting his obligatory visit to M’s office, it’s not until Bond makes his way to Crab Key that Dr. No really feels like a James Bond Movie. Before this, it’s a fairly simple (albeit highly involving) detective/spy yarn, notable mainly for its rather chilling nature. The film’s first half includes several cold-blooded murders, including a most notorious one by the hero himself. Few leading men from late-50s film noir would be so brutal as to repeatedly shoot someone in the back - after taunting him first. “That’s a Smith & Wesson, and you’ve had your six,” he wryly informs his would-be assassin.
As originally shot, Bond fires five extra shots into his already-fallen enemy’s back. Censorship cut it down to one. The Bond of Dr. No is flippant, cocky, and seductive, but the main trait that separates him from other screen heroes and antiheroes is his viciousness. He’ll even rough up a lady or two, strong-arming a dragon lady photographer (Marguerite LeWars) with the same gusto he uses to take on No’s henchmen. Granted, she does earn it, what with the creepy flashbulb licking and sinister sneering
Other factors help this movie stand out from other action offerings of the day. Most obvious is the wit, which takes the film furthest from Fleming’s work and is exactly what we’ve come to expect about the Bond franchise. The cynical, detached one-liners begin here, and not just with the string of obvious jokes but with the very introduction of Bond himself. Director Young, cribbing an introduction from the 1939 film Juarez, slowly reveals our hero at the baccarat table - a hand here, a shoulder there - and when the camera finally tilts up to reveal his face, he lets loose with the now-famous “Bond. James Bond.” This line, present in every 007 movie, was not an intentional gesture for an arrogant introduction. Bond is smugly mocking the pretensions of the woman (Eunice Gayson) who just introduced herself as “Trench. Sylvia Trench.” 007’s greatest catchphrase began as a verbal middle finger to some rich twit.
Trench became a recurring character on the level of M or Miss Moneypenny. Although the idea eventually got scrapped, there she was in From Russia With Love, playing the role of Bond’s girlfriend back home.
Movie heroes just didn’t behave this way in 1962. We’re so used to it now - especially those of us who went to the cinema in the age of Schwarzenegger - but back then, Bond’s quips were something of a revolution, a sarcasm ahead of its time. By the time Bond works his way into No’s lair, the jokes are in full force. He’s snide right to his captor’s face; who else would dare? Connery delivers the lines with perfect Scottish sarcasm. His best line: “Tell me, does the toppling of American missiles really compensate for having no hands?” But he’s not the only jokester - the filmmakers themselves drop some visual gags, like the villain’s possession of a recently-stolen Goya painting. Not a timeless gag, but most certainly a clever one.
When Bond arrives on Crab Key and meets the lovely Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), her introduction remains one of the greatest shots in the history of cinema. We’re still watching a relatively ordinary thriller, filled with exotic locales and bold action, but nothing you’d call overly bizarre. Yet by the time Bond is defeating No’s henchmen and blowing up the whole damn island, we’ve stepped into an insane comic book.
Yes, in the last act of the film, we’re finally in familiar Bond territory - 007 invited into the villain’s headquarters, where the baddie talks a little too much about his ultimate plans, etc., etc. In retrospect, it seems the only logical place for Dr. No to go, but at the time, it must’ve been sheer madness.
Dr. No is a film that keeps aiming over the top until, by the end, you can’t even see the top from that height. For all this wildness, Dr. No is still hailed by fans as one of the series’ best. We can still admire its absurdities(which are relatively few compared to later films). The plot, while ridiculous, is relatively straightforward; that it delivers a tone is fairly true to Fleming. Then, Fleming delivered his share of lunacy, too.
Breach (2005), by Bob Hanssen [date of 2007 (re: Hanssen) in queue from Netflex]
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), by John le Carrè
The movie, based on John le Carrè’ book is, I think, better than the book itself. I was talking with a noted author of books and novels on spying. He said, “John le Carrè” is a master of the spy business, but his writing is ponderous. It takes him three pages just to cross the street.” Richard Burton turns in a wonderful performance as a very tired spy (presumably for MI-6) who loses a source when he is killed trying to cross from East Berlin into the West. He is recalled to London, and faces a desk job or retirement. However there is one more assignment for him to take, keeping him still in the cold.
“C” the Control of MI 6 gives Leamus a new legend. It is to play the role of a burned –out spy who leaves the service, and sinks into bitterness, alcohol, and despair. Leamus gets a number of jobs through the national job service, and loses them because of excessive drinking. Finally he gets one where he meets a girl, an unassuming and idealistic communist, Nan Perry. Nan believes that people working together can make a better world.
Continuing his apparent downward slide, he roughs up a grocer who will not give him credit, spends some time in jail, and loses the one job he was working at. This does the trick, and agents of the East smell blood in the water. He is recruited, and then held virtually captive in the East.
He winds up again in prison, charged with conspiracy against the state. There he is grilled about British agents. His job is to give up bits and pieces and eventually to turn suspicion away from himself to the number one man in East Berlin, agent Mundt. He does this by playing on the hatred the number two man, Fiedler, has for Mundt already, and his own ambitions. In the end he is successful, when Mundt is arrested. The trial proceeds with Fiedler as prosecutor. Fiedler is convinced Leamas is not a plant, but that Mundt was turned while in London, and became a British agent (or at least a double agent.) Leamas' credibility is further undermined when his English girlfriend, Nan Perry, is brought into the hearings to confirm Leamas' character. As Leamas' charade unravels and he is forced to admit he is still working as a British agent, Fiedler is escorted from the room as a complicit dupe and Mundt's reputation is untarnished.
We discover that Nan was used by MI 6. All along it was Fiedler, the Jew, that MI 6 really wanted to get. Mundt was actually turned in London as Fiedler contended at the trial. Mundt was evil, but their evil friend. Mundt arranges for Leamus and Perry to leave East Germany and get over the wall back into West Berlin. However, they cannot let Nan live. She is too dangerous, and it was arranged for her to be shot crossing the wall. Leamus cannot leave her, and the movie ends with him begged to leave. Then he too is shot while he is going to the girl.
A minor character in the movie, but one that will appear again and again in Le Carré’s books and the movies made from them. He is George Smiley, an intelligence officer working for MI6.
The movie has memorable quotes, and I’ve cited some of them below.
Alec Leamas: “Before, he (Mundt) was evil and my enemy; now, he is evil and my friend.”
Alec Leamas:” I reserve the right to be ignorant. That's the Western way of life.”
Alec Leamas: (to Nan)/. “What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?”
15. Iranian Nuclear Fusion Program
Iranian Ali Akbar Salehi, of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said Saturday (July 24, 2010) that Iran is stepping up its research on nuclear fusion in a bid to produce alternative sources of energy. Salehi said Tehran plans to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor. He said that Iran had hired 50 scientists to work on the project, and that $8 million had been allocated for what he called "serious" research. It is puzzling why Lalehi chose this moment to make his announcement when world powers are vigorously pressuring Tehran to suspend its controversial nuclear activities.
Salehi, who has a doctorate from MIT, claimed that Iran's project would require intense effort, but could provide Tehran with large dividends in diversifying its sources of civilian energy. He says that nuclear fusion is a new technology, and that it needs intense effort to develop. He adds that it will take 20 to 30 years to commercialize nuclear fusion, but that Iran will try to use its resources to achieve that goal sooner. The vision, however, is chimereal. Asghar Sediqzadeh, who was appointed to run Iran's new fusion research center, told Iranian television that it would take two years to conclude initial studies, followed by another 10 years to design and build a fusion reactor
A fusion reactor that is economically feasible is much like the images one sees when viewing a 3-D movie. The temptation to reach out and touch the butterfly or fish floating by is overwhelming, but always just out of reach. For a fusion reactor to do anything to contribute to an alternative method of producing energy it must pass through four stages:
No research center anywhere in the world has reached stage 2. Stage two requires that more energy be produced by the reactor than goes into the machine.
Scientific feasibility has been demonstrated in at least three ways. Two groups are leading in the research to produce a fusion reactor. One is centered at the University of Rochester, which uses laser technology, and the other is Los Alamos using another method of compressing the fuel. In 2006, global powers agreed to spend more than $12 billion to build an experimental fusion reactor in the south of France. That accord was signed by the United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, South Korea and Japan.These groups have produced bursts of energy from fusion reactions, but the output energy is far from the input energy (including the paraphernalia required to make up the reactor).
Achieving a fusion reaction requires highly energized matter (usually a form of hydrogen or perhaps lithium) to be confined in a density that allows for the nuclear force of repulsion to be overcome and the very hot nuclei in the mix combine forming a heavier atom and at the same time releasing energy. This is an enormously difficult process, demanding hundreds of specialities and huge capital investments.
The announcement from Iran brings a chill to the rest of the world since fusion is also the process that produces the thermonuclear explosions of hydrogen bombs. In theory, there is no limit on the yield of a thermonuclear weapon. However, achieving the reaction in a bomb is also extremely difficult.
The Chinese, in the mid-1960s, revealed their own fusion program, oriented to nuclear weapons. Their first step was to test a boosted fission weapon. A boosted weapon used the heat and compression achieved to set off a fission bomb to achieve the temperature and confinement needed to begin fusion. Such weapons are more powerful than ordinary atomic bombs, which rely on fission reactions. Clearly such weapons are feasible. Thus the cold chill of the Iranian announcement.
It wouldn’t’ be a bad thing if the Iranians had this wonderful technological edge over the rest of the world, and they were about to produce a nuclear reactor that does fusion in a commercially viable fashion. No one else has come close so far. bless them," said Ottolenghi. Maybe the Iranians are up to just playful banter. However, if one looks at what the reality of a military program is, if you want to have thermonuclear weapons, you need to master the technology for fusion. And while fusion is not commercially viable for civilian purposes, fusion allows you to build infinitely more powerful nuclear weapons."
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran's controversial nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz has now produced close to 2.5 tons of low-grade, enriched uranium. The Iranian government claims it now has 17 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium. Experts say that such a quantity could be used to build two nuclear (fission-based) warheads.
Salehi, who has a doctorate from MIT, claimed that Iran's project would require intense effort, but could provide Tehran with large dividends in diversifying its sources of civilian energy. He says that nuclear fusion is a new technology, and that it needs intense effort to develop. He adds that it will take 20 to 30 years to commercialize nuclear fusion, but that Iran will try to use its resources to achieve that goal sooner. The vision, however, is chimereal. Asghar Sediqzadeh, who was appointed to run Iran's new fusion research center, told Iranian television that it would take two years to conclude initial studies, followed by another 10 years to design and build a fusion reactor
A fusion reactor that is economically feasible is much like the images one sees when viewing a 3-D movie. The temptation to reach out and touch the butterfly or fish floating by is overwhelming, but always just out of reach. For a fusion reactor to do anything to contribute to an alternative method of producing energy it must pass through four stages:
- Scientific feasibility
- Engineering feasibility
- Economic feasibility
- Commercial feasibility.
No research center anywhere in the world has reached stage 2. Stage two requires that more energy be produced by the reactor than goes into the machine.
Scientific feasibility has been demonstrated in at least three ways. Two groups are leading in the research to produce a fusion reactor. One is centered at the University of Rochester, which uses laser technology, and the other is Los Alamos using another method of compressing the fuel. In 2006, global powers agreed to spend more than $12 billion to build an experimental fusion reactor in the south of France. That accord was signed by the United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, South Korea and Japan.These groups have produced bursts of energy from fusion reactions, but the output energy is far from the input energy (including the paraphernalia required to make up the reactor).
Achieving a fusion reaction requires highly energized matter (usually a form of hydrogen or perhaps lithium) to be confined in a density that allows for the nuclear force of repulsion to be overcome and the very hot nuclei in the mix combine forming a heavier atom and at the same time releasing energy. This is an enormously difficult process, demanding hundreds of specialities and huge capital investments.
The announcement from Iran brings a chill to the rest of the world since fusion is also the process that produces the thermonuclear explosions of hydrogen bombs. In theory, there is no limit on the yield of a thermonuclear weapon. However, achieving the reaction in a bomb is also extremely difficult.
The Chinese, in the mid-1960s, revealed their own fusion program, oriented to nuclear weapons. Their first step was to test a boosted fission weapon. A boosted weapon used the heat and compression achieved to set off a fission bomb to achieve the temperature and confinement needed to begin fusion. Such weapons are more powerful than ordinary atomic bombs, which rely on fission reactions. Clearly such weapons are feasible. Thus the cold chill of the Iranian announcement.
It wouldn’t’ be a bad thing if the Iranians had this wonderful technological edge over the rest of the world, and they were about to produce a nuclear reactor that does fusion in a commercially viable fashion. No one else has come close so far. bless them," said Ottolenghi. Maybe the Iranians are up to just playful banter. However, if one looks at what the reality of a military program is, if you want to have thermonuclear weapons, you need to master the technology for fusion. And while fusion is not commercially viable for civilian purposes, fusion allows you to build infinitely more powerful nuclear weapons."
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran's controversial nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz has now produced close to 2.5 tons of low-grade, enriched uranium. The Iranian government claims it now has 17 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium. Experts say that such a quantity could be used to build two nuclear (fission-based) warheads.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
14. Iranian Nuclear Scientist a Redefector
Iranian Nuclear Scientist a Redefector.
Shahram Amiri, an Iranian scientist who a U.S. official says was paid $5 million for information on Iran's nuclear programs, returned July 15, 2010 to Iran. He thus became a redefector, an individual who defects to an adversary and then undergoes a change of heart and returns home.
Nigel West (Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2006, p. 214) gives examples of the few who have redefected form the U.S. The most notorious is KGB’s Vitali Yurchenko who had defected to the CIA in Rome in July 1985, then three months later turned himself in to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. He held a press conference where he claimed he had been abducted and drugged.
Amiri’s story is not so different. The U.S. says he was a willing defector who changed his mind and decided to board a plane home from Washington. Amiri has told a very different tale, claiming he was snatched while on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and bundled off to the United States to be harshly interrogated and offered millions of dollars by the CIA to speak against Iran.
U.S. officials have insisted that Amiri was neither kidnapped nor coerced into leaving Iran and that he made the decision to come to the U.S. without his family. The U.S. official added that Amiri decided to return to Iran in order to see his family again.
In Tehran, Iranian lawmaker Amir Taherkhani boasted that Amiri's return "shows the strength of the Islamic republic." Another prominent parliament member, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, called the alleged kidnapping a "terrorist act."
It remains unclear how Iranian authorities will ultimately deal with Amiri -- and the U.S. claims he cooperated with American authorities -- despite his hero-style welcome.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called Amiri a "dear compatriot" and said Iran was keenly interested in learning more about the reasons for his alleged abduction.
The CIA agreed to pay Shahram Amiri a $5 million fee to provide intelligence, but Amiri could not carry the money back with him. The money paid Amiri came from a secret program aimed at inducing scientists and others with information on Iran's nuclear program to defect, according to The Washington Post.
Anything he got from the CIA now far beyond his reach, owing to the financial sanctions on Iran. Iran's leaders are expected to use Amiri to ring up as many propaganda points as possible against Washington - showing that relations remain in a deep freeze and hopes of breakthrough talks appear as distant as ever.
The conflicting accounts about Amiri - whether he was a captive of the Americans or a homesick defector - are unlikely to alter the Western-led pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. It also gives the ruling clerics a welcome distraction at a time when domestic protests are growing over Iran's stumbling economy and worries about the fallout from international sanctions.
At first Amiri claimed the CIA "pressured me to help with their propaganda against Iran," he said, including offering him up to $10 million to talk to U.S. media and claim to have documents on a laptop against Iran. He said he refused to take the money. Also, back in Tehran, Amiri also sought to play down his role in Iran's nuclear program - which Washington and allies fear could be used to create atomic weapons. Iran says it only seeks energy-producing reactors. "I am a simple researcher who was working in the university," he said. "I'm not involved in any confidential jobs. I had no classified information."
Shahram Amiri, an Iranian scientist who a U.S. official says was paid $5 million for information on Iran's nuclear programs, returned July 15, 2010 to Iran. He thus became a redefector, an individual who defects to an adversary and then undergoes a change of heart and returns home.
Nigel West (Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2006, p. 214) gives examples of the few who have redefected form the U.S. The most notorious is KGB’s Vitali Yurchenko who had defected to the CIA in Rome in July 1985, then three months later turned himself in to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. He held a press conference where he claimed he had been abducted and drugged.
Amiri’s story is not so different. The U.S. says he was a willing defector who changed his mind and decided to board a plane home from Washington. Amiri has told a very different tale, claiming he was snatched while on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and bundled off to the United States to be harshly interrogated and offered millions of dollars by the CIA to speak against Iran.
U.S. officials have insisted that Amiri was neither kidnapped nor coerced into leaving Iran and that he made the decision to come to the U.S. without his family. The U.S. official added that Amiri decided to return to Iran in order to see his family again.
In Tehran, Iranian lawmaker Amir Taherkhani boasted that Amiri's return "shows the strength of the Islamic republic." Another prominent parliament member, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, called the alleged kidnapping a "terrorist act."
It remains unclear how Iranian authorities will ultimately deal with Amiri -- and the U.S. claims he cooperated with American authorities -- despite his hero-style welcome.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called Amiri a "dear compatriot" and said Iran was keenly interested in learning more about the reasons for his alleged abduction.
The CIA agreed to pay Shahram Amiri a $5 million fee to provide intelligence, but Amiri could not carry the money back with him. The money paid Amiri came from a secret program aimed at inducing scientists and others with information on Iran's nuclear program to defect, according to The Washington Post.
Anything he got from the CIA now far beyond his reach, owing to the financial sanctions on Iran. Iran's leaders are expected to use Amiri to ring up as many propaganda points as possible against Washington - showing that relations remain in a deep freeze and hopes of breakthrough talks appear as distant as ever.
The conflicting accounts about Amiri - whether he was a captive of the Americans or a homesick defector - are unlikely to alter the Western-led pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. It also gives the ruling clerics a welcome distraction at a time when domestic protests are growing over Iran's stumbling economy and worries about the fallout from international sanctions.
At first Amiri claimed the CIA "pressured me to help with their propaganda against Iran," he said, including offering him up to $10 million to talk to U.S. media and claim to have documents on a laptop against Iran. He said he refused to take the money. Also, back in Tehran, Amiri also sought to play down his role in Iran's nuclear program - which Washington and allies fear could be used to create atomic weapons. Iran says it only seeks energy-producing reactors. "I am a simple researcher who was working in the university," he said. "I'm not involved in any confidential jobs. I had no classified information."
Friday, July 23, 2010
13. One-Time Pad
One-Time Pad
One-Time Pad (OTP) refers to a simple cipher system for encrypting a message. If used properly it is vitually unbreakable. The system is based the single use of a “key” written on a single piece of paper . These pages are often bound at the edge so when a key is used it can be destroyed. Each page is numbered and the sender and receiver must have a prearranged system for which page to use for each message.
The key consists of groups of number or letters which can be combined with the message to encrypt. The key may be a series of groups of numbers or letters. Many variations of the OTP are available. Just a simple version will be presented here.
The paintext (message) ob viously consists of letters. The first step in encrypting the text is to assign a numerical value to each letter of the (plain text) alphabet. A=0, B=1, etc. A variation on this could be using a keyword, such as OPHELIA. The alphabet would be written
O P H E L I A B C D F G J K M N O Q R S T U V W X Y Z,
And O=0, P=1, etc. The remaining letters of the alphabet are written after OPHELIA omitting any that appeared in the key word.
The next step is to take a page from the One Time Pad. It has several groups of letter in random order. Each letter will also have a numerical equivalent such as the two examples above. The sender and the receiver have to have identical one-time pads, if a key word is used they each have to know what the word for the day is, and finally, each must know which page of the pad is to be used for a given message.
Example
Suppose Nigel wishes to send the message "HELLO" to Boris. Assume two pads of paper containing identical random sequences of letters were somehow previously produced and securely issued to both.
Nigel chooses the appropriate unused page from the pad. The way to do this is arranged in advance. For example, they both may know Use the 12th sheet on 1 May,,” or “Use the next available sheet for the next message.” The material on the selected sheet is the key for this message.
Each letter from the pad will be combined in a predetermined way with one letter of the message. It is common, but not required, to assign each letter a numerical value: e.g. "A" is 0, "B" is 1, and so on. In this example, the technique is to combine the key and the message using modular addition. The numerical values of corresponding message and key letters are added together, modulo 26. If key material begins with "XMCKL" and the message is "HELLO", then the coding would be done as follows:
H E L L O message
7 (H) 4 (E) 11 (L) 11 (L) 14 (O) message
+ 23 (X) 12 (M) 2 (C) 10 (K) 11 (L) key
= 30 16 13 21 25 message + key
= 4 (E) 16 (Q) 13 (N) 21 (V) 25 (Z) message + key (mod 26)
E Q N V Z → ciphertext
If a number is larger than 25, then the remainder after subtraction of 26 is taken in modular arithmetic fashion. This simply means that if your computations "go past" Z, you start again at A.
The ciphertext to be sent to Boris is thus "EQNVZ". Boris uses the matching key page and the same process, but in reverse, to obtain the plaintext. Here the key is subtracted from the ciphertext, again using modular arithmetic:
E Q N V Z ciphertext
4 (E) 16 (Q) 13 (N) 21 (V) 25 (Z) ciphertext
- 23 (X) 12 (M) 2 (C) 10 (K) 11 (L) key
= -19 4 11 11 14 ciphertext — key
= 7 (H) 4 (E) 11 (L) 11 (L) 14 (O) ciphertext — key (mod 26)
H E L L O → message
Similar to the above, if a number is negative then 26 is added to make the number positive.
Thus Boris recovers Nigel's plaintext, the message "HELLO". Both Nigel and Boris destroy the key sheet immediately after use, thus preventing reuse and an attack against the cipher.
The classical one-time pad of espionage used actual pads of minuscule, easily-concealed paper, a sharp pencil, and some simple arithmetic. The method can be implemented now as a software program, using data files as input (plaintext), output (ciphertext) and key material (the required random sequence).
For more on this example see the article on One-Time Pads in Wikipedia. For a comment on how the Germans misused OTP see West, Nigel (2006). Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Lanthan, MD: The Scarecrow Press.
One-Time Pad (OTP) refers to a simple cipher system for encrypting a message. If used properly it is vitually unbreakable. The system is based the single use of a “key” written on a single piece of paper . These pages are often bound at the edge so when a key is used it can be destroyed. Each page is numbered and the sender and receiver must have a prearranged system for which page to use for each message.
The key consists of groups of number or letters which can be combined with the message to encrypt. The key may be a series of groups of numbers or letters. Many variations of the OTP are available. Just a simple version will be presented here.
The paintext (message) ob viously consists of letters. The first step in encrypting the text is to assign a numerical value to each letter of the (plain text) alphabet. A=0, B=1, etc. A variation on this could be using a keyword, such as OPHELIA. The alphabet would be written
O P H E L I A B C D F G J K M N O Q R S T U V W X Y Z,
And O=0, P=1, etc. The remaining letters of the alphabet are written after OPHELIA omitting any that appeared in the key word.
The next step is to take a page from the One Time Pad. It has several groups of letter in random order. Each letter will also have a numerical equivalent such as the two examples above. The sender and the receiver have to have identical one-time pads, if a key word is used they each have to know what the word for the day is, and finally, each must know which page of the pad is to be used for a given message.
Example
Suppose Nigel wishes to send the message "HELLO" to Boris. Assume two pads of paper containing identical random sequences of letters were somehow previously produced and securely issued to both.
Nigel chooses the appropriate unused page from the pad. The way to do this is arranged in advance. For example, they both may know Use the 12th sheet on 1 May,,” or “Use the next available sheet for the next message.” The material on the selected sheet is the key for this message.
Each letter from the pad will be combined in a predetermined way with one letter of the message. It is common, but not required, to assign each letter a numerical value: e.g. "A" is 0, "B" is 1, and so on. In this example, the technique is to combine the key and the message using modular addition. The numerical values of corresponding message and key letters are added together, modulo 26. If key material begins with "XMCKL" and the message is "HELLO", then the coding would be done as follows:
H E L L O message
7 (H) 4 (E) 11 (L) 11 (L) 14 (O) message
+ 23 (X) 12 (M) 2 (C) 10 (K) 11 (L) key
= 30 16 13 21 25 message + key
= 4 (E) 16 (Q) 13 (N) 21 (V) 25 (Z) message + key (mod 26)
E Q N V Z → ciphertext
If a number is larger than 25, then the remainder after subtraction of 26 is taken in modular arithmetic fashion. This simply means that if your computations "go past" Z, you start again at A.
The ciphertext to be sent to Boris is thus "EQNVZ". Boris uses the matching key page and the same process, but in reverse, to obtain the plaintext. Here the key is subtracted from the ciphertext, again using modular arithmetic:
E Q N V Z ciphertext
4 (E) 16 (Q) 13 (N) 21 (V) 25 (Z) ciphertext
- 23 (X) 12 (M) 2 (C) 10 (K) 11 (L) key
= -19 4 11 11 14 ciphertext — key
= 7 (H) 4 (E) 11 (L) 11 (L) 14 (O) ciphertext — key (mod 26)
H E L L O → message
Similar to the above, if a number is negative then 26 is added to make the number positive.
Thus Boris recovers Nigel's plaintext, the message "HELLO". Both Nigel and Boris destroy the key sheet immediately after use, thus preventing reuse and an attack against the cipher.
The classical one-time pad of espionage used actual pads of minuscule, easily-concealed paper, a sharp pencil, and some simple arithmetic. The method can be implemented now as a software program, using data files as input (plaintext), output (ciphertext) and key material (the required random sequence).
For more on this example see the article on One-Time Pads in Wikipedia. For a comment on how the Germans misused OTP see West, Nigel (2006). Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Lanthan, MD: The Scarecrow Press.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
12. The Spying Game (bibliography)
Suggested references and sources (most of these provided by Nigel West (http://www.nigelwest.com/abouttheauthor.htm). I have added a few of my own but the structure and the lion’s share of the spade work was done by Nigel West.
GENERAL AND BACKGROUND
Epstein, Edward Jay (1989). Deception. New York: New York: Simon & Shuster
Knightley, Phillip (1986). The Second Oldest Profession. London: André Deutsch.
Minnick, Wendell (1992). Spies and Provocateurs. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Schecter, Jerold (2002). The Spy Who Saved the World. New York: Charles Scribner’s.
Smith, Joseph and Davis, Simon (2000). Historical Dictionary of the Cold War. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.
Stafford, David (2002). Spies Beneath Berlin. London: John Murray.
West, Nigel (2002). Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Lantham, MD: The Scarecrow Press
CAMBRIDGE SPIES
Bethell, Lord Nicholas (1984). The Great Betrayal: The Untold Story of Kim Philby’s Biggest Coup. London Time Books
Borovik, Genrikh (1994). Philby Files: The Secret Life of a Master Spy. London: Little, Brown
Brown, Anthony Cave (1994). Treason in the Blood: H. St. John Philby, Kim Philby, and the Spy Case of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Carter, M. (2002). Anthony Blunt. Farrar Straus & Giroux
Cookridge, E. H. (1969). The Third Man: The Full Story of Kim Philby. G.P. Putnam
Costello, John (1988). Mask of Treachery. Morrow.
Deacon, Richard (1986). The Cambridge Apostles: A History of Cambridge University’s Elite Intellectual Secret Society. Straus & Giroux.
Driberg, Tom (1956). Guy Burgess: A Portrait with Background. Weidenfelt & Nicolson.
Hoare, Geoffrey (1955). The Missing Macleans. Viking.
Knightley, Phillip (1989). The Master Spy. Knopf.
Lamphere, Robert (1986). The FBI-KGB War. Random House.
Mann, Wilfred Basil (1982). Was There a Fifth Man? Pergamon.
Modin, Yuri (1995). My Five Cambridge Friends. Farrah, Straus & Giroux.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick (introduction by Richard Gib Powers) (1998). Secrecy. Yale University Press.
Newton, Verne W (1991). The Cambridge Spies: The Untold Story of Maclean, Philby, and Burgess in America. Lantham, MD: Madison Books. ISBN: 0-8181-8059-9
Newton was a Washington-based independent scholar when he wrote this book He had served four years as a senior official in the State Department and that certainly assisted him greatly in uncovering the paper trail left behind by the Cambridge spies. The spies played a role in World War II to be sure, but also in the Cold War where a major struggle occurred between the West and the USSR over the Persian-Gulf oil fields, the Congolese uranium ore, locations for air and naval bases to dominate the vital traffic from the Black Sea Straits to the Pacific Islands. Newton details the behind the scenes efforts of the Cambridge spies, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, and Guy Burgess, to see that the Soviet Union prevailed in these clashes.
Nicolson, Harold (1968). Diaries and Letters, Vol. 3, “The Later Years, 1945-1962.” Antheneum.
Page, Bruce; Leitch, David; and Knightley, Phillip (1969). The Spy Who Betrayed a Generation. Sphere Books.
Penrose, Barrie and Freeman, Simon (1986). Conspiracy of Silence: The Secret Life of Anthony Blunt. Griffon.
Philby, Eleanor (1968). Kim Philby: The Spy I Married. Ballantine Books.
Philby, Kim (1968). My Silent War. Grove Press.
Pincher, Harry Chapman (1984). Too Secret Too Long. St. Martin’s Press.
Seale, Patrick, and McFonville, Maureen (1973). Philby: The Long Road to Moscow. Simon & Schuster.
Straight, Michael (1983). After Long Silence. Norton
Sutherland, Douglas (1980). The Fourth Man. Secker & Warburg
West, Nigel (ed.) (1995). The Faber Book of Espionage. Faber & Faber
West, Nigel, and Tsarev, Oleg (1998). The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives. Harper Collins.
West, Rebecca (1964). The New Meaning of Treason. Viking.
Wright, Peter (1987). Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. New York: Viking, 1987
Spycatcher had a significant impact on several levels. To begin with, Wright's book was a major challenge to Britain's secrecy laws, as British officials banned the book and then tried unsuccessfully to win an injunction against publication in a widely-reported trial in Australia. This of course guaranteed that the book would be a bestseller, whereupon some of Wright's allegations received more attention than they probably deserved: that Roger Hollis, the head of MI5 in the 1960s, was a Soviet mole, that MI5 sometimes bugged diplomatic conferences, that they plotted against British prime minister Harold Wilson in 1974-1976 Wright claims that this was instigated by the CIA's Angleton, and that MI6 plotted to assassinate Nasser during the 1956 Suez crisis. Of these, the plot against Wilson was the most newsworthy, but Wright's treatment is considered self-serving
BRITISH COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
Aldrich, Richard (2001). The Hidden Hand. London: John Murray.
Blake, George (1990). No Other Choice. London: Jonathan Cape.
Bower, Tom (1995). The Perfect English Spy. London: Heinemann
Cavendish, Anthony (1990). Inside Intelligence. London: Collins.
Costello, John (1988). Mask of Treachery. New York: William Morrow.
Deacon, Stephen (1979). MI6. London: Fourth Estate.
Dorril, Stephen and Ramsay, Robin (1991). SMEAR: Wilson and the Secret State. London: Fourth Estate
Hennessey, Thomas and Thomas, Claire (2009). Spooks: The Unofficial History of MI5. Chalford, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Amberley Publishing. ISBN: 978-84868-079-1
Hennessy, Peter (2002). The Secret State. London: Penguin.
Leigh, David (1980). The Frontiers of Secrecy. London: Junction.
Milne, Seamus (1994). The Enemy Within. London: Verso.
Paine, Lauan. Britain’s Intelligence Service. London: Robert Hale.
Penrose, Barrie, and Freeman, Simon (1986). Conspiracy of Silence. London: Grafton Books.
Philby, H. A. R., Kim (1968). My Secret War. London: MacGibbon & Key.
Philby, Rufina and Peake, Hayden (1999). The Private Life of Kim Philby. London: St. Ermin’s Press.
Pincher, Chapman (1981). Their Trade is Treachery. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
Porter, Bernard (1980). Plots and Paranoia. London: Unwin Hyman.
Summers, Anthony, and Dorril, Stephen (1987). Honeytrap. London: Weidenfeld.
Thomas, Rosamund (1991). Espionage and Secrecy: The Official Secrets Acts 1911-1989 of the United Kingdom. London: Routledge.
Thurloe, Richard (1994). The Secret State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Trevor, Roper (1968). The Philby Affair. London: William Kimber.
Urban, Mark (1996). UK Eyes Alpha. London: Faber & Faber.
Verrier, Anthony (1983). Through The Looking-Glass. London: Jonathan Cape.
West, Nigel (2005). Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
West, Rebecca (1967). The New Meaning of Treason. New York: Viking Press.
UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE
UNITED STATES COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
Barron, John (1998). Operation SOLO. New York: E.P. Dutton
Bearden, Milton and Risen, John (2004). The Main Enemy. New York: Random House.
Hack, Richard (2004). Puppetmaster. Beverley Hills, CA: New Millennium Press.
Herrington, Stuart (1999). Traitors Among Us. Noveto, CA: Presidio Press.
Sullivan, William J. (1979). The Bureau. New York: W. W. Norton.
Vise, David A. (2002). The Bureau and the Mole. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
Weiner, Tom; Johnston, David; and Lewis, Neil (2003). Betrayal. New York: Random House
Westerfield, H. Bradford, Ed. (1995). Inside CIA’s Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency’s International Journal, 1955-1992. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press. ISBN: 0-300-07264-3
SOVIET COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
Bower, Tom (1989). Red Web. London: Aurum Press
Cherkashin, Victor and Feifer, Gregory. (2005). Spy Handler. New York: Perseus Books.
Dallin, David (1955). Soviet Espionage. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Donovan, James B. (1964). Strangers on a Bridge. New York: Atheneum, 1964
Foote, Alexander (1964). Handbook for Spies. London: Museum Press.
Modin, Yuri (1995). My Five Cambridge Friends. London: Hodder Headline, 1995
Nechiporenko, Oleg (1993). Passport to Assassination. New York: Birch Lane Press (1993)
Sudoplatov, Pavel (1994). Special Tasks. Boston: Little, Brown.
DEFECTORS
August, Frantisek (1984). Red Star over Prague. London: Sherwood Press.
Bakhlanov, Boris (1972). The Nights are Longest There. London: Hutchinson
Barron, John (1980). MiG Pilot. New York: Avon Books.
Bittman, Ladislav (1972). The Deception Game. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN: 0-345-29808-X [New York: Ballantine Books]
From 1964-1966 Department D, the special arm of the Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakian Intelligence Service, engaged in dirty tricks against their number one enemy, the United States.
Bittman, the major player in this autobiography, said he defected to the West in 1968 because he concluded that Cold War propaganda was a disservice, especially to Czechoslovakia, his own country. The final irony, he said, was watching soviet and Prague (CIS) agents practice black propaganda operations against Czechoslovakia herself, one of the most successful producers of disinformation and propaganda against the non-Communist world. He was in Vienna when the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia began August 21, 1968. He defected, and after defection he presented “Special Operations” that he traced in the world press to Western intelligence agencies.
Bittman was suspected, and then accused of being a traitor and subjected to a secret trial. He defected, perhaps to save his own skin more than from feelings of guilt, although he claims to have come to an understanding that “the end does not necessarily justify the means,”
He did experience the tragedy of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, and psychological crises of exile in a new political and cultural environment.
Borodin, Nikolai (1955). One Man in his Time. London: Macmillan.
Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. New York: Random House
Deriabin, Piotr (1959). The Secret World. New York: Doubleday.
Dzhirkvelov, Ilya (1987). Secret Servant. London: Collins.
Frolik, Jozef (1975). The Frolik Defection. London: Leo Cooper
Golitsyn, Anatoli (1984). New Lies for Old. London: Bodley Head.
Gordievsky, Oleg (1995). Last Stop Execution. London: Macmillan.
Gouzenko, Igor (1948). This Was My Choice. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.
Granovsky, Anatoli (1962). I Was an NKVD Agent. New York: Devlin-Adair.
Hildago, Orlando (1972). A Spy for Fidel. London: E. A. Seaman.
John, Otto (1972). Twice Through the Lines. Harper & Row.
Kaznacheev, Alexander (1962). Inside a Soviet Embassy. New York: Lippincott.
Khokhlov, Nikolai (1959). In the Name of Conscience. New York: David McKay.
Kravchenko, Viktor (1950). I Chose Justice. New York: Scribner’s
Kravchenko, Viktor (1951). I Chose Freedom. London: Robert Hale
Krotkov, Yuri (1967). The Angry Exile. London: Heinemann
Kuzichkin, Vladimir (1990). Inside the KGB. London: Andrè Deutsch.
Levchenko, Stanislav (1972). On the Wrong Side. New York: Pergamon Brassey.
Lunev, Stanislas and Winkler, Ira (1998). Through the Eyes of the Enemy. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.
Mitrokhin, Vasili (1999). The Mitrokhin Archive. London: Penguin.
Monat, Pawel (1999). Double Eagle. New York: Harper & Row
Myagkov, Aleksei (1976). Inside the KGBNew York: Foreign Affairs Publishing.
Pacepa, Ion (1987). Red Horizons. Washington, DC: Regnery.
Petrov, Vladimir (1956). Empire of Fear. New York: Praeger.
Rezun, Vladimir (1984). The Acquarium. London: Macmillan.
Sakharov, Vladimir (1980). High Treason. New York: Putnam’s
Sejna, Jan (1984). We Will Bury You. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
Shainberg, Maurice (1986). Breaking from the KGB. New York: Shapolsky Publishing.
Shevchenko, Arkadi (1985). Breaking with Moscow. New York: Ballantine.
Sigl, Rupert (1978). In the Claws of the KGB. New York: Dorrance.
Stiller, Werner (1983). Beyond the Wall. Washington, DC: Brassey’s.
Tokaev, Grigori (1956). Comrad X. New York: Harville.
CRYPTOGRAPHY
D’Agapeyeff, Alexander (1949). Codes and Cyphers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-1-44373=691-6
Kahn, David (1966). The Codebreakers. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Nuclear Weapons and Proliferation
Serber, Robert (1943, 1992) [edited by Richard Rhodes(1992)]. The Los Alamos Primer: First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN: 0-520-07576-5
VENONA
Adamson, Iain (1966). The Great Detective. London: Frederick Muller.
Albright, Joseph and Kuynstel, Marcia (1997). Bombshell. New York: Random House.
Australia. Royal Commission on Espionage (1955). Report of the Royal Commission on Espionage. Canberra : Commonwealth Govt. Printer.
Benson, Robert Lousi, and Warner, Michael (1996) Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957. Washington, DC: National Security Agency.
Bamford, James (1982). The Puzzle Palace. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin.
Bentley, Elizabeth (1951). Out of Bondage. New York: Devin-Adair.
Bernikow, Louise (1951). Abel. New York: Trident.
Bly, Herman O. (1998). Communism: The cold War and the FBI Connection. New York: Huntingdon House.
Canada (1946). The Report of The Royal Commission Appointed under Order in Council P. C. 411 of February 5, 1946 to Investigate The Facts Relating to and The Circumstances Surrounding The Communication, by Public Officials and Other Persons In Positions of Trust, of Secret and Confidential Information to Agents of A Foreign Power, June 27, 1946. Ottawa : E. Cloutier, Printer to the King.
Carposi, Geroge (1965). Red Spies in Washington. New York: Trident Press.
Clubb, O. Edmund (1974). ). The Witness and I . New York: Columbia University Press.
Huss, Piere J., and Carpozi, George (1965). ). Red Spies in the UN. New York: Coward-McCann.
Kahn, David (1966). The Codebreakers. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Kalugin, Oleg (1994). The First Directorate. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Klehr, Harvey (1995). The Secret World of American Communism. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Klehr, Harvey, and Radosh, Ronald (1996). The Amerasia Spy Case. Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Kuczynski, Ruth (1991). Sonia’s Report. London: Chatto & Windus
Lamphere, Robert (1986). The CIA-KGB War. New York: Random House.
Martin, David C. (1980). Wilderness of Mirrors. New York: Harper & Row.
Moorhead, Alan (1952). The Traitors. London: Harper & Row.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick (1998). Secrecy. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Peake, Hayden B. (1997). "OSS and the Venona Decrypts." Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 3 (Jul. 1997), pp. 14-34.
The focus here is the Soviet wartime penetration of OSS Headquarters. Even more specifically, Peake explores in detail the interaction between Elizabeth Bentley's revelations and the Venona decrypts in terms of what is revealed about Soviet agents working in OSS' domestic components. Although the argumentation is too finely detailed to restate succinctly, the author decides that Bentley's accusations are, in the main, supported by the information in the Venona materials. And where they are not supported, they are also not refuted. Peake concludes that "the Soviet intelligence services did a very thorough job of penetrating the domestic elements of OSS." However, the Soviets successes "pose a paradox. They were numerous and productive..., but to date there is no direct evidence of damage that affected the OSS wartime mission in the United States."
Radosh, Ronald and Milton, Joyce (1983). The Rosenberg File. New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston.
Rees, David (1973). Harry Dexter White. New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan.
West, Nigel. VENONA: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War. London: HarperColllins Publishers. ISBN: 0-00-653071-0
The astonishing story of VENONA remains one of the last untold stories in the history of the Cold War. Based on the only complete set of decrypts held in Britain outside Whitehall and supplemented by interviews with most of the key players in the drama, VENONA reveals the extraordinary cryptographic effort conducted in conditions of unprecedented secrecy over three decades that gave Western counterintelligence experts a fascinating glimpse into how Soviet Russia recruited and ran hundreds of moles across the globe. VENONA provided the FBI and CIA with compelling evidence against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Alger Hiss, Klaus Fuchs, Donald Maclean and many other, but, to protect the source, VENONA could never be mentioned in any trial. Nigel West here identifies for the first time the real names of several important Soviet spies, including the famous scientist J. B. S. Haldane and the Hon. Ivor Montagu, and discloses that there are nearly 300 (as of 1997) not yet indentified former Soviet agents in America and Britain. Nigel West is a first-rate espionage sleuth.
Wright, Peter (1987). Spycatcher. New York: Viking Penguin.
Books by Nigel West
Novels
The Blue List (1989)
Cuban Bluff (1990)
Murder in the Commons (1992)
Murder in the Lord s (1994)
Duel in the Dark (1999)
Anthology (edited)
Spy!: Six Stories of Modern Espionage (1980)
Non-fiction
Historical Dictionary of Naval Intelligence
MI5: British Security Service Operations 1909-1945 (1981)
Matter of Trust: MI5, 1945-72 (1982)
The Circus: MI5 operations 1945-1972 (1983)
MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations 1909-1945 (1983)
Unreliable Witness: Espionage Myths of the Second World War (1984)
A Thread of Deceit: Espionage Myths of World War II. New York: Random House (1985). ISBN: 0-394-53941-9
West addresses several questions about espionage activities during World War II. The major questions (and myths about them exploded) are: How long before the Luftwaffe’s raid on Coventry did Churchill receive a warning? The Soviet network in Switzerland known as the Lucy Ring received intelligence from top echelons of the German H9gh Command. How was this managed? Was the Allied assault on Dieppe betrayed in order to enhance the reputation of an MI5 agent? Who was the Nazi sleeper in the Orkneys who masterminded the singing of the Royal Oak? Did Roosevelt know that the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor? Was “Little Bill Stephenson really code-named INTREPID? How much notice did the Germans have of the airborne landings at Arnhem? Was CICERO the most successful German spy of the war or a mere pawn in a British deception campaign?
Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent Ever (1985)
Operation Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent of World War II (1986)
GCHQ: The Secret Wireless War 1900-86 (1987)
Mole-Hunt: The Full Story of the Soviet Spy in MI5 (1987)
The Sigint Secrets: The Signals Intelligence War, 1900 to Today--including the Persecution of Gordon Welchman (1988)
Games of Intelligence: The Classified Conflict of International Espionage (1989)
The Friends: Britain's Post-war Secret Intelligence Operations (1990)
Seven Spies Who Changed the World (1991)
Secret War: The Story of SOE, Britain's Wartime Sabotage Organisation (1992)
The Illegals: The Double Lives of the Cold War's Most Secret Agents (1993)
The Faber Book of Espionage (1993)
The Faber Book of Treachery (1995)
Vietnam Book (1996)
Secret War for the Falklands: SAS, MI6 And the War Whitehall Nearly Lost (1997)
The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets At the Heart of the KGB Archives (1998) (with Oleg Tsarev)
Counterfeit Spies: Genuine Or Bogus? (1998)
British Security Co-Ordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas 1940-45 (1998)
Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45 (1998)
West, Nigel. VENONA: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War. London: HarperColllins Publishers. ISBN: 0-00-653071-0
The astonishing story of VENONA remains one of the last untold stories in the history of the Cold War. Based on the only complete set of decrypts held in Britain outside Whitehall and supplemented by interviews with most of the key players in the drama, VENONA reveals the extraordinary cryptographic effort conducted in conditions of unprecedented secrecy over three decades that gave Western counterintelligence experts a fascinating glimpse into how Soviet Russia recruited and ran hundreds of moles across the globe. VENONA provided the FBI and CIA with compelling evidence against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Alger Hiss, Klaus Fuchs, Donald Maclean and many other, but, to protect the source, VENONA could never be mentioned in any trial. Nigel West here identifies for the first time the real names of several important Soviet spies, including the famous scientist J. B. S. Haldane and the Hon. Ivor Montagu, and discloses that there are nearly 300 (as of 1997) not yet indentified former Soviet agents in America and Britain. Nigel West is a first-rate espionage sleuth.
The Third Secret: The CIA, Solidarity And the KGB's Plan to Kill the Pope (2000)
Triplex (2004) (with Oleg Tsarev)
Triplex reveals more clearly than ever before the precise nature and extent of the damage done to the much-vaunted British intelligence establishment during World War II by the notorious "Cambridge Five" spy ring”Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. The code word TRIPLEX refers to an exceptionally sensitive intelligence source, one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war, which appears nowhere in any of the British government's official histories. TRIPLEX was material extracted illicitly from the diplomatic pouches of neutral missions in wartime London. MI5, the British Security Service, entrusted the job of overseeing the highly secret assignment to Anthony Blunt, who was already working for the NKVD, Stalin's intelligence service. The rest is history, documented here for the first time in rich detail.
Triplex (2004) (with Oleg Tsarev). New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Mortal Crimes: The Greatest Theft in History - Soviet Penetration of the Manhattan Project. New York: Enigma Books(2004). ISBN: 1-929631-21-9
West reveals the detailed investigations conducted on both sides of the Atlantic by MI5, the FBI, and U. S. Military counterintelligence. He discloses the secret cooperation of some of the suspects, the evidence that was accumulated against some of the most revered names in nuclear physics, and describes the unprecedented scale of the NKVD’s networks, and their very successful efforts to cultivate, recruit, and run spy-rings at Berkeley, Los Alamos, New York, Montreal, and Chicago, in an operation codenamed ENORMOZ. The revelations are shocking if true. West is an indefatigable researcher, and has better documented his work than almost any other writer. It is hard to believe some of his revelations.
Mask: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain (2005)
Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence (2007)
Historical Dictionary of Sexspionage (2009)
The A to Z of Sexspionage (2009)
The Guy Liddell Diaries, Volume I (2009)
The A to Z of British Intelligence (2009)
Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming's World of Intelligence (2009) (see Ian Fleming)
Historical Dictionary of Naval Intelligence (2010)
GENERAL AND BACKGROUND
Epstein, Edward Jay (1989). Deception. New York: New York: Simon & Shuster
Knightley, Phillip (1986). The Second Oldest Profession. London: André Deutsch.
Minnick, Wendell (1992). Spies and Provocateurs. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Schecter, Jerold (2002). The Spy Who Saved the World. New York: Charles Scribner’s.
Smith, Joseph and Davis, Simon (2000). Historical Dictionary of the Cold War. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.
Stafford, David (2002). Spies Beneath Berlin. London: John Murray.
West, Nigel (2002). Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Lantham, MD: The Scarecrow Press
CAMBRIDGE SPIES
Bethell, Lord Nicholas (1984). The Great Betrayal: The Untold Story of Kim Philby’s Biggest Coup. London Time Books
Borovik, Genrikh (1994). Philby Files: The Secret Life of a Master Spy. London: Little, Brown
Brown, Anthony Cave (1994). Treason in the Blood: H. St. John Philby, Kim Philby, and the Spy Case of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Carter, M. (2002). Anthony Blunt. Farrar Straus & Giroux
Cookridge, E. H. (1969). The Third Man: The Full Story of Kim Philby. G.P. Putnam
Costello, John (1988). Mask of Treachery. Morrow.
Deacon, Richard (1986). The Cambridge Apostles: A History of Cambridge University’s Elite Intellectual Secret Society. Straus & Giroux.
Driberg, Tom (1956). Guy Burgess: A Portrait with Background. Weidenfelt & Nicolson.
Hoare, Geoffrey (1955). The Missing Macleans. Viking.
Knightley, Phillip (1989). The Master Spy. Knopf.
Lamphere, Robert (1986). The FBI-KGB War. Random House.
Mann, Wilfred Basil (1982). Was There a Fifth Man? Pergamon.
Modin, Yuri (1995). My Five Cambridge Friends. Farrah, Straus & Giroux.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick (introduction by Richard Gib Powers) (1998). Secrecy. Yale University Press.
Newton, Verne W (1991). The Cambridge Spies: The Untold Story of Maclean, Philby, and Burgess in America. Lantham, MD: Madison Books. ISBN: 0-8181-8059-9
Newton was a Washington-based independent scholar when he wrote this book He had served four years as a senior official in the State Department and that certainly assisted him greatly in uncovering the paper trail left behind by the Cambridge spies. The spies played a role in World War II to be sure, but also in the Cold War where a major struggle occurred between the West and the USSR over the Persian-Gulf oil fields, the Congolese uranium ore, locations for air and naval bases to dominate the vital traffic from the Black Sea Straits to the Pacific Islands. Newton details the behind the scenes efforts of the Cambridge spies, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, and Guy Burgess, to see that the Soviet Union prevailed in these clashes.
Nicolson, Harold (1968). Diaries and Letters, Vol. 3, “The Later Years, 1945-1962.” Antheneum.
Page, Bruce; Leitch, David; and Knightley, Phillip (1969). The Spy Who Betrayed a Generation. Sphere Books.
Penrose, Barrie and Freeman, Simon (1986). Conspiracy of Silence: The Secret Life of Anthony Blunt. Griffon.
Philby, Eleanor (1968). Kim Philby: The Spy I Married. Ballantine Books.
Philby, Kim (1968). My Silent War. Grove Press.
Pincher, Harry Chapman (1984). Too Secret Too Long. St. Martin’s Press.
Seale, Patrick, and McFonville, Maureen (1973). Philby: The Long Road to Moscow. Simon & Schuster.
Straight, Michael (1983). After Long Silence. Norton
Sutherland, Douglas (1980). The Fourth Man. Secker & Warburg
West, Nigel (ed.) (1995). The Faber Book of Espionage. Faber & Faber
West, Nigel, and Tsarev, Oleg (1998). The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives. Harper Collins.
West, Rebecca (1964). The New Meaning of Treason. Viking.
Wright, Peter (1987). Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. New York: Viking, 1987
Spycatcher had a significant impact on several levels. To begin with, Wright's book was a major challenge to Britain's secrecy laws, as British officials banned the book and then tried unsuccessfully to win an injunction against publication in a widely-reported trial in Australia. This of course guaranteed that the book would be a bestseller, whereupon some of Wright's allegations received more attention than they probably deserved: that Roger Hollis, the head of MI5 in the 1960s, was a Soviet mole, that MI5 sometimes bugged diplomatic conferences, that they plotted against British prime minister Harold Wilson in 1974-1976 Wright claims that this was instigated by the CIA's Angleton, and that MI6 plotted to assassinate Nasser during the 1956 Suez crisis. Of these, the plot against Wilson was the most newsworthy, but Wright's treatment is considered self-serving
BRITISH COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
Aldrich, Richard (2001). The Hidden Hand. London: John Murray.
Blake, George (1990). No Other Choice. London: Jonathan Cape.
Bower, Tom (1995). The Perfect English Spy. London: Heinemann
Cavendish, Anthony (1990). Inside Intelligence. London: Collins.
Costello, John (1988). Mask of Treachery. New York: William Morrow.
Deacon, Stephen (1979). MI6. London: Fourth Estate.
Dorril, Stephen and Ramsay, Robin (1991). SMEAR: Wilson and the Secret State. London: Fourth Estate
Hennessey, Thomas and Thomas, Claire (2009). Spooks: The Unofficial History of MI5. Chalford, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Amberley Publishing. ISBN: 978-84868-079-1
Hennessy, Peter (2002). The Secret State. London: Penguin.
Leigh, David (1980). The Frontiers of Secrecy. London: Junction.
Milne, Seamus (1994). The Enemy Within. London: Verso.
Paine, Lauan. Britain’s Intelligence Service. London: Robert Hale.
Penrose, Barrie, and Freeman, Simon (1986). Conspiracy of Silence. London: Grafton Books.
Philby, H. A. R., Kim (1968). My Secret War. London: MacGibbon & Key.
Philby, Rufina and Peake, Hayden (1999). The Private Life of Kim Philby. London: St. Ermin’s Press.
Pincher, Chapman (1981). Their Trade is Treachery. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
Porter, Bernard (1980). Plots and Paranoia. London: Unwin Hyman.
Summers, Anthony, and Dorril, Stephen (1987). Honeytrap. London: Weidenfeld.
Thomas, Rosamund (1991). Espionage and Secrecy: The Official Secrets Acts 1911-1989 of the United Kingdom. London: Routledge.
Thurloe, Richard (1994). The Secret State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Trevor, Roper (1968). The Philby Affair. London: William Kimber.
Urban, Mark (1996). UK Eyes Alpha. London: Faber & Faber.
Verrier, Anthony (1983). Through The Looking-Glass. London: Jonathan Cape.
West, Nigel (2005). Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
West, Rebecca (1967). The New Meaning of Treason. New York: Viking Press.
UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE
UNITED STATES COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
Barron, John (1998). Operation SOLO. New York: E.P. Dutton
Bearden, Milton and Risen, John (2004). The Main Enemy. New York: Random House.
Hack, Richard (2004). Puppetmaster. Beverley Hills, CA: New Millennium Press.
Herrington, Stuart (1999). Traitors Among Us. Noveto, CA: Presidio Press.
Sullivan, William J. (1979). The Bureau. New York: W. W. Norton.
Vise, David A. (2002). The Bureau and the Mole. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
Weiner, Tom; Johnston, David; and Lewis, Neil (2003). Betrayal. New York: Random House
Westerfield, H. Bradford, Ed. (1995). Inside CIA’s Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency’s International Journal, 1955-1992. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press. ISBN: 0-300-07264-3
SOVIET COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
Bower, Tom (1989). Red Web. London: Aurum Press
Cherkashin, Victor and Feifer, Gregory. (2005). Spy Handler. New York: Perseus Books.
Dallin, David (1955). Soviet Espionage. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Donovan, James B. (1964). Strangers on a Bridge. New York: Atheneum, 1964
Foote, Alexander (1964). Handbook for Spies. London: Museum Press.
Modin, Yuri (1995). My Five Cambridge Friends. London: Hodder Headline, 1995
Nechiporenko, Oleg (1993). Passport to Assassination. New York: Birch Lane Press (1993)
Sudoplatov, Pavel (1994). Special Tasks. Boston: Little, Brown.
DEFECTORS
August, Frantisek (1984). Red Star over Prague. London: Sherwood Press.
Bakhlanov, Boris (1972). The Nights are Longest There. London: Hutchinson
Barron, John (1980). MiG Pilot. New York: Avon Books.
Bittman, Ladislav (1972). The Deception Game. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. ISBN: 0-345-29808-X [New York: Ballantine Books]
From 1964-1966 Department D, the special arm of the Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakian Intelligence Service, engaged in dirty tricks against their number one enemy, the United States.
Bittman, the major player in this autobiography, said he defected to the West in 1968 because he concluded that Cold War propaganda was a disservice, especially to Czechoslovakia, his own country. The final irony, he said, was watching soviet and Prague (CIS) agents practice black propaganda operations against Czechoslovakia herself, one of the most successful producers of disinformation and propaganda against the non-Communist world. He was in Vienna when the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia began August 21, 1968. He defected, and after defection he presented “Special Operations” that he traced in the world press to Western intelligence agencies.
Bittman was suspected, and then accused of being a traitor and subjected to a secret trial. He defected, perhaps to save his own skin more than from feelings of guilt, although he claims to have come to an understanding that “the end does not necessarily justify the means,”
He did experience the tragedy of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, and psychological crises of exile in a new political and cultural environment.
Borodin, Nikolai (1955). One Man in his Time. London: Macmillan.
Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. New York: Random House
Deriabin, Piotr (1959). The Secret World. New York: Doubleday.
Dzhirkvelov, Ilya (1987). Secret Servant. London: Collins.
Frolik, Jozef (1975). The Frolik Defection. London: Leo Cooper
Golitsyn, Anatoli (1984). New Lies for Old. London: Bodley Head.
Gordievsky, Oleg (1995). Last Stop Execution. London: Macmillan.
Gouzenko, Igor (1948). This Was My Choice. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.
Granovsky, Anatoli (1962). I Was an NKVD Agent. New York: Devlin-Adair.
Hildago, Orlando (1972). A Spy for Fidel. London: E. A. Seaman.
John, Otto (1972). Twice Through the Lines. Harper & Row.
Kaznacheev, Alexander (1962). Inside a Soviet Embassy. New York: Lippincott.
Khokhlov, Nikolai (1959). In the Name of Conscience. New York: David McKay.
Kravchenko, Viktor (1950). I Chose Justice. New York: Scribner’s
Kravchenko, Viktor (1951). I Chose Freedom. London: Robert Hale
Krotkov, Yuri (1967). The Angry Exile. London: Heinemann
Kuzichkin, Vladimir (1990). Inside the KGB. London: Andrè Deutsch.
Levchenko, Stanislav (1972). On the Wrong Side. New York: Pergamon Brassey.
Lunev, Stanislas and Winkler, Ira (1998). Through the Eyes of the Enemy. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.
Mitrokhin, Vasili (1999). The Mitrokhin Archive. London: Penguin.
Monat, Pawel (1999). Double Eagle. New York: Harper & Row
Myagkov, Aleksei (1976). Inside the KGBNew York: Foreign Affairs Publishing.
Pacepa, Ion (1987). Red Horizons. Washington, DC: Regnery.
Petrov, Vladimir (1956). Empire of Fear. New York: Praeger.
Rezun, Vladimir (1984). The Acquarium. London: Macmillan.
Sakharov, Vladimir (1980). High Treason. New York: Putnam’s
Sejna, Jan (1984). We Will Bury You. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.
Shainberg, Maurice (1986). Breaking from the KGB. New York: Shapolsky Publishing.
Shevchenko, Arkadi (1985). Breaking with Moscow. New York: Ballantine.
Sigl, Rupert (1978). In the Claws of the KGB. New York: Dorrance.
Stiller, Werner (1983). Beyond the Wall. Washington, DC: Brassey’s.
Tokaev, Grigori (1956). Comrad X. New York: Harville.
CRYPTOGRAPHY
D’Agapeyeff, Alexander (1949). Codes and Cyphers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 978-1-44373=691-6
Kahn, David (1966). The Codebreakers. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Nuclear Weapons and Proliferation
Serber, Robert (1943, 1992) [edited by Richard Rhodes(1992)]. The Los Alamos Primer: First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN: 0-520-07576-5
VENONA
Adamson, Iain (1966). The Great Detective. London: Frederick Muller.
Albright, Joseph and Kuynstel, Marcia (1997). Bombshell. New York: Random House.
Australia. Royal Commission on Espionage (1955). Report of the Royal Commission on Espionage. Canberra : Commonwealth Govt. Printer.
Benson, Robert Lousi, and Warner, Michael (1996) Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957. Washington, DC: National Security Agency.
Bamford, James (1982). The Puzzle Palace. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin.
Bentley, Elizabeth (1951). Out of Bondage. New York: Devin-Adair.
Bernikow, Louise (1951). Abel. New York: Trident.
Bly, Herman O. (1998). Communism: The cold War and the FBI Connection. New York: Huntingdon House.
Canada (1946). The Report of The Royal Commission Appointed under Order in Council P. C. 411 of February 5, 1946 to Investigate The Facts Relating to and The Circumstances Surrounding The Communication, by Public Officials and Other Persons In Positions of Trust, of Secret and Confidential Information to Agents of A Foreign Power, June 27, 1946. Ottawa : E. Cloutier, Printer to the King.
Carposi, Geroge (1965). Red Spies in Washington. New York: Trident Press.
Clubb, O. Edmund (1974). ). The Witness and I . New York: Columbia University Press.
Huss, Piere J., and Carpozi, George (1965). ). Red Spies in the UN. New York: Coward-McCann.
Kahn, David (1966). The Codebreakers. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Kalugin, Oleg (1994). The First Directorate. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Klehr, Harvey (1995). The Secret World of American Communism. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Klehr, Harvey, and Radosh, Ronald (1996). The Amerasia Spy Case. Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Kuczynski, Ruth (1991). Sonia’s Report. London: Chatto & Windus
Lamphere, Robert (1986). The CIA-KGB War. New York: Random House.
Martin, David C. (1980). Wilderness of Mirrors. New York: Harper & Row.
Moorhead, Alan (1952). The Traitors. London: Harper & Row.
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick (1998). Secrecy. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Peake, Hayden B. (1997). "OSS and the Venona Decrypts." Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 3 (Jul. 1997), pp. 14-34.
The focus here is the Soviet wartime penetration of OSS Headquarters. Even more specifically, Peake explores in detail the interaction between Elizabeth Bentley's revelations and the Venona decrypts in terms of what is revealed about Soviet agents working in OSS' domestic components. Although the argumentation is too finely detailed to restate succinctly, the author decides that Bentley's accusations are, in the main, supported by the information in the Venona materials. And where they are not supported, they are also not refuted. Peake concludes that "the Soviet intelligence services did a very thorough job of penetrating the domestic elements of OSS." However, the Soviets successes "pose a paradox. They were numerous and productive..., but to date there is no direct evidence of damage that affected the OSS wartime mission in the United States."
Radosh, Ronald and Milton, Joyce (1983). The Rosenberg File. New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston.
Rees, David (1973). Harry Dexter White. New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan.
West, Nigel. VENONA: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War. London: HarperColllins Publishers. ISBN: 0-00-653071-0
The astonishing story of VENONA remains one of the last untold stories in the history of the Cold War. Based on the only complete set of decrypts held in Britain outside Whitehall and supplemented by interviews with most of the key players in the drama, VENONA reveals the extraordinary cryptographic effort conducted in conditions of unprecedented secrecy over three decades that gave Western counterintelligence experts a fascinating glimpse into how Soviet Russia recruited and ran hundreds of moles across the globe. VENONA provided the FBI and CIA with compelling evidence against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Alger Hiss, Klaus Fuchs, Donald Maclean and many other, but, to protect the source, VENONA could never be mentioned in any trial. Nigel West here identifies for the first time the real names of several important Soviet spies, including the famous scientist J. B. S. Haldane and the Hon. Ivor Montagu, and discloses that there are nearly 300 (as of 1997) not yet indentified former Soviet agents in America and Britain. Nigel West is a first-rate espionage sleuth.
Wright, Peter (1987). Spycatcher. New York: Viking Penguin.
Books by Nigel West
Novels
The Blue List (1989)
Cuban Bluff (1990)
Murder in the Commons (1992)
Murder in the Lord s (1994)
Duel in the Dark (1999)
Anthology (edited)
Spy!: Six Stories of Modern Espionage (1980)
Non-fiction
Historical Dictionary of Naval Intelligence
MI5: British Security Service Operations 1909-1945 (1981)
Matter of Trust: MI5, 1945-72 (1982)
The Circus: MI5 operations 1945-1972 (1983)
MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations 1909-1945 (1983)
Unreliable Witness: Espionage Myths of the Second World War (1984)
A Thread of Deceit: Espionage Myths of World War II. New York: Random House (1985). ISBN: 0-394-53941-9
West addresses several questions about espionage activities during World War II. The major questions (and myths about them exploded) are: How long before the Luftwaffe’s raid on Coventry did Churchill receive a warning? The Soviet network in Switzerland known as the Lucy Ring received intelligence from top echelons of the German H9gh Command. How was this managed? Was the Allied assault on Dieppe betrayed in order to enhance the reputation of an MI5 agent? Who was the Nazi sleeper in the Orkneys who masterminded the singing of the Royal Oak? Did Roosevelt know that the Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor? Was “Little Bill Stephenson really code-named INTREPID? How much notice did the Germans have of the airborne landings at Arnhem? Was CICERO the most successful German spy of the war or a mere pawn in a British deception campaign?
Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent Ever (1985)
Operation Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent of World War II (1986)
GCHQ: The Secret Wireless War 1900-86 (1987)
Mole-Hunt: The Full Story of the Soviet Spy in MI5 (1987)
The Sigint Secrets: The Signals Intelligence War, 1900 to Today--including the Persecution of Gordon Welchman (1988)
Games of Intelligence: The Classified Conflict of International Espionage (1989)
The Friends: Britain's Post-war Secret Intelligence Operations (1990)
Seven Spies Who Changed the World (1991)
Secret War: The Story of SOE, Britain's Wartime Sabotage Organisation (1992)
The Illegals: The Double Lives of the Cold War's Most Secret Agents (1993)
The Faber Book of Espionage (1993)
The Faber Book of Treachery (1995)
Vietnam Book (1996)
Secret War for the Falklands: SAS, MI6 And the War Whitehall Nearly Lost (1997)
The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets At the Heart of the KGB Archives (1998) (with Oleg Tsarev)
Counterfeit Spies: Genuine Or Bogus? (1998)
British Security Co-Ordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas 1940-45 (1998)
Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45 (1998)
West, Nigel. VENONA: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War. London: HarperColllins Publishers. ISBN: 0-00-653071-0
The astonishing story of VENONA remains one of the last untold stories in the history of the Cold War. Based on the only complete set of decrypts held in Britain outside Whitehall and supplemented by interviews with most of the key players in the drama, VENONA reveals the extraordinary cryptographic effort conducted in conditions of unprecedented secrecy over three decades that gave Western counterintelligence experts a fascinating glimpse into how Soviet Russia recruited and ran hundreds of moles across the globe. VENONA provided the FBI and CIA with compelling evidence against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Alger Hiss, Klaus Fuchs, Donald Maclean and many other, but, to protect the source, VENONA could never be mentioned in any trial. Nigel West here identifies for the first time the real names of several important Soviet spies, including the famous scientist J. B. S. Haldane and the Hon. Ivor Montagu, and discloses that there are nearly 300 (as of 1997) not yet indentified former Soviet agents in America and Britain. Nigel West is a first-rate espionage sleuth.
The Third Secret: The CIA, Solidarity And the KGB's Plan to Kill the Pope (2000)
Triplex (2004) (with Oleg Tsarev)
Triplex reveals more clearly than ever before the precise nature and extent of the damage done to the much-vaunted British intelligence establishment during World War II by the notorious "Cambridge Five" spy ring”Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. The code word TRIPLEX refers to an exceptionally sensitive intelligence source, one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war, which appears nowhere in any of the British government's official histories. TRIPLEX was material extracted illicitly from the diplomatic pouches of neutral missions in wartime London. MI5, the British Security Service, entrusted the job of overseeing the highly secret assignment to Anthony Blunt, who was already working for the NKVD, Stalin's intelligence service. The rest is history, documented here for the first time in rich detail.
Triplex (2004) (with Oleg Tsarev). New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Mortal Crimes: The Greatest Theft in History - Soviet Penetration of the Manhattan Project. New York: Enigma Books(2004). ISBN: 1-929631-21-9
West reveals the detailed investigations conducted on both sides of the Atlantic by MI5, the FBI, and U. S. Military counterintelligence. He discloses the secret cooperation of some of the suspects, the evidence that was accumulated against some of the most revered names in nuclear physics, and describes the unprecedented scale of the NKVD’s networks, and their very successful efforts to cultivate, recruit, and run spy-rings at Berkeley, Los Alamos, New York, Montreal, and Chicago, in an operation codenamed ENORMOZ. The revelations are shocking if true. West is an indefatigable researcher, and has better documented his work than almost any other writer. It is hard to believe some of his revelations.
Mask: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain (2005)
Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence (2007)
Historical Dictionary of Sexspionage (2009)
The A to Z of Sexspionage (2009)
The Guy Liddell Diaries, Volume I (2009)
The A to Z of British Intelligence (2009)
Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming's World of Intelligence (2009) (see Ian Fleming)
Historical Dictionary of Naval Intelligence (2010)
11. Vector, by Robin Cook (1999)
Robin Cook made a great career as a novelist. His background in medicine prepared him technically to write, for the most part, very convincingly. His book Vector fits in this blog because it is about bioterrorism and counterintelligence.
A New York City cab driver is an angry disillusioned Russian émigré. He wants to return to Russia, but before he does he wants to do damage to the society that enticed him with what he believed to be a false American dream.
Yuri was a technician in the Soviet bioweapons industry. He has the technical knowhow to carry out his attack on a large scale. Teaming up with some survivalists who distrust the American government he plans his attack, only to be frustrated at the end by amazingly intuitive counterintelligence work. The counterintelligence comes not from the FBI or the CIA but from the office of Medical Examiner.
It's a good read, and technically accurate. It truly underlies how futile it is to rely on a single agency to gather, analyze and disseminate intelligence. It further shows that intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance is all elements of key government offices at all levels.
Cook, Robin (1999). Vector.New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. ISBN: 0-399-14471-4
A New York City cab driver is an angry disillusioned Russian émigré. He wants to return to Russia, but before he does he wants to do damage to the society that enticed him with what he believed to be a false American dream.
Yuri was a technician in the Soviet bioweapons industry. He has the technical knowhow to carry out his attack on a large scale. Teaming up with some survivalists who distrust the American government he plans his attack, only to be frustrated at the end by amazingly intuitive counterintelligence work. The counterintelligence comes not from the FBI or the CIA but from the office of Medical Examiner.
It's a good read, and technically accurate. It truly underlies how futile it is to rely on a single agency to gather, analyze and disseminate intelligence. It further shows that intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance is all elements of key government offices at all levels.
Cook, Robin (1999). Vector.New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. ISBN: 0-399-14471-4
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
10. C4ISR
C4ISR is expanded beyond C3I – that is, Command, Control, Communication, Intelligence (C3I) plus Computers, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (CSR) resulting in C4ISR. This expanded concept came about as a result of Battle Command needs. A journal, C4ISR: The Journal of Net-Centric Warfare is a journal published by the Defense News Media Group containing articles on C4ISR studies.
The expanded concept originally had a strategic application to battlefield command, but in truth it applies to the National Command Authority as well. C4ISR to provide capabilities that enable the highest command level, as well as field forces, to generate, use, and share the information necessary to survive and succeed.
As presented in the precious blog, Command and control systems provide the means to execute nuclear, conventional, and special operations effectively.
Intelligence provides the capability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary’s ability to do the same. It includes comprehensive knowledge of the theater in contention, including the status and intentions of both enemy and friendly forces. Part of the intelligence function is Surveillance and Reconnaissance. For intelligence to be useful it must be detailed to allow decision makes to out-think and out-operate enemy forces and protect American lives.
Computers and computer systems are highly vulnerable to attack. Since they are vital to security, planning for resisting penetration and security of systems is essential. It has become a new part of the Intelligence function. Surveillance and Reconnaissance have always been part of intelligence operations, but now these two functions are raised to the level of command and control itself.
All this shows that when a command structure is vulnerable to decapitation – loss of any of the C4ISR – it may lose its entire ability to deal with a critical situation. On 9/11 we got a good lesson in this, as all functions were lost, limited, or inadequate.
The expanded concept originally had a strategic application to battlefield command, but in truth it applies to the National Command Authority as well. C4ISR to provide capabilities that enable the highest command level, as well as field forces, to generate, use, and share the information necessary to survive and succeed.
As presented in the precious blog, Command and control systems provide the means to execute nuclear, conventional, and special operations effectively.
Intelligence provides the capability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary’s ability to do the same. It includes comprehensive knowledge of the theater in contention, including the status and intentions of both enemy and friendly forces. Part of the intelligence function is Surveillance and Reconnaissance. For intelligence to be useful it must be detailed to allow decision makes to out-think and out-operate enemy forces and protect American lives.
Computers and computer systems are highly vulnerable to attack. Since they are vital to security, planning for resisting penetration and security of systems is essential. It has become a new part of the Intelligence function. Surveillance and Reconnaissance have always been part of intelligence operations, but now these two functions are raised to the level of command and control itself.
All this shows that when a command structure is vulnerable to decapitation – loss of any of the C4ISR – it may lose its entire ability to deal with a critical situation. On 9/11 we got a good lesson in this, as all functions were lost, limited, or inadequate.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
09. Command, Control, Communcation, and Intelligence. C3I
In the 1980s and 90s it was common to talk about C3I, meaning Command, Communication, Control, and Intelligence. This generally applied to the highest level when considering dealing with a potential enemy attack. One major concern, especially during the Cold War, was a first strike nuclear attack, perhaps a “bolt from the blue” whereby the means of controlling the US strategic forces would be compromised by “decapitation,” that is, destruction of the National Command Authority for distributing commands on what is to be done, by whom, and with what weapons.
Maintaining the ability to defend one’s country then requires a command structure that cannot be decapitated. Policy makers develop structures considering what parts of the command system are vulnerable and how they may remain operative even under worst-case scenarios. An example is the New York City Fire Department. When the Twin Towers disaster occurred there was no unified incident command with a single agency in charge. The responding agencies acted according to their own protocols with results that were comparable to the loss of the buildings themselves. Paramedics took their own initiative in establishing triage centers and first-line treatment sites. No one was in command, and agencies did not even have a clear understanding of what was happening beyond the obvious.
In part this was due to the loss of fire department communications, since the department’s center was in the towers and knocked out along with the building. Senior fire command personnel were also lost in the building. Thus the command structure did not work, control suffered, and communications were lost. It is interesting that the 9/11 Commission Report (the “Kean Report” found at http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf) focused on the Al-Qaeda attack and global terrorism rather than the lack of preparedness.
The 9/11 Commission Report also pointed out the following:
“Most of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented. Many officials told us that they knew something was planned, and that they were desperate to stop it. Despite their large number, the threats received contained few specifics regarding time, place, method or target. ‘The system was blinking red.’”
This intelligence was not adequately shared with either the New York Fire Department (lead emergency responding agency in a mass disaster) or the Police Department. Thus the fourth element of an essential preparedness structure must be intelligence. The three “C’s” cannot function without it.
One would think that lessons would be learned from 9/11 that would bring changes to emergency disaster response in New York City. According to retired Deputy Chief Vincent Dunn (http://vincentdunn.com/Changes-9-11-04.pdf) these needed changes have not occurred. Specifically Dunn points out that:
1. Police and fire in New York City have no unified incident command, with a single agency in charge. The new emergency command protocol issued by the mayor's office is said by some to be ambiguous because it does not clearly define who is in charge. Union leaders representing city firefighters and fire officers have sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge criticizing the city's new emergency protocol, saying it does not meet federal requirements, and asking for a meeting to discuss their concerns.
2. Firefighter radios still are not able to transmit messages in high-rise buildings, subways and tunnels. Battalion chiefs may carry portable booster radios (each weighing 22 pounds) that enhance communications between the fire ground commanders and firefighters' portable radios. This so-called "quick fix" is nowhere near complying with the recommendation of the McKinsey & Co. consulting report Increasing FDNY's Preparedness, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta stated.
McKinsey recommended that building owners install and maintain permanent equipment (an in-building repeater) that picks up and amplifies walkie-talkie signals.
This example extends to all levels of Command and Control. Unless the four elements presented, Command, Control, Communication, and Intelligence work together the system is at risk for decapitation and chaos.
In the next blog entry this will be extended to Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or C4ISR.
Maintaining the ability to defend one’s country then requires a command structure that cannot be decapitated. Policy makers develop structures considering what parts of the command system are vulnerable and how they may remain operative even under worst-case scenarios. An example is the New York City Fire Department. When the Twin Towers disaster occurred there was no unified incident command with a single agency in charge. The responding agencies acted according to their own protocols with results that were comparable to the loss of the buildings themselves. Paramedics took their own initiative in establishing triage centers and first-line treatment sites. No one was in command, and agencies did not even have a clear understanding of what was happening beyond the obvious.
In part this was due to the loss of fire department communications, since the department’s center was in the towers and knocked out along with the building. Senior fire command personnel were also lost in the building. Thus the command structure did not work, control suffered, and communications were lost. It is interesting that the 9/11 Commission Report (the “Kean Report” found at http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf) focused on the Al-Qaeda attack and global terrorism rather than the lack of preparedness.
The 9/11 Commission Report also pointed out the following:
“Most of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented. Many officials told us that they knew something was planned, and that they were desperate to stop it. Despite their large number, the threats received contained few specifics regarding time, place, method or target. ‘The system was blinking red.’”
This intelligence was not adequately shared with either the New York Fire Department (lead emergency responding agency in a mass disaster) or the Police Department. Thus the fourth element of an essential preparedness structure must be intelligence. The three “C’s” cannot function without it.
One would think that lessons would be learned from 9/11 that would bring changes to emergency disaster response in New York City. According to retired Deputy Chief Vincent Dunn (http://vincentdunn.com/Changes-9-11-04.pdf) these needed changes have not occurred. Specifically Dunn points out that:
1. Police and fire in New York City have no unified incident command, with a single agency in charge. The new emergency command protocol issued by the mayor's office is said by some to be ambiguous because it does not clearly define who is in charge. Union leaders representing city firefighters and fire officers have sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge criticizing the city's new emergency protocol, saying it does not meet federal requirements, and asking for a meeting to discuss their concerns.
2. Firefighter radios still are not able to transmit messages in high-rise buildings, subways and tunnels. Battalion chiefs may carry portable booster radios (each weighing 22 pounds) that enhance communications between the fire ground commanders and firefighters' portable radios. This so-called "quick fix" is nowhere near complying with the recommendation of the McKinsey & Co. consulting report Increasing FDNY's Preparedness, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta stated.
McKinsey recommended that building owners install and maintain permanent equipment (an in-building repeater) that picks up and amplifies walkie-talkie signals.
This example extends to all levels of Command and Control. Unless the four elements presented, Command, Control, Communication, and Intelligence work together the system is at risk for decapitation and chaos.
In the next blog entry this will be extended to Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or C4ISR.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
08. Tetrykov dies
08. Sergei Tretyakov Dies (July 16, 2010)
Sergei Tretyakov, reportedly, a former top Russian spy who defected to the United States after running espionage operations at the United Nations, has died aged 53. Although Tretyakov died on June 13, 2010, his death was not announced until July 9, 2010. No cause has been released. Tretyakov was born on October 5, 1956 in Moscow. He joined the KGB, rising quickly through its ranks to become second-in-command of its office in New York from 1995 to 2000.
In an odd timing of the events, his death was announced on Friday, July 10 by his wife and friend Pete Earley on the same day that Russia and the United States completed their largest spy swap since the hazy days of the Cold War. Earlier on Friday, 10 Russian spies rounded up in an FBI swoop in June were deported and flown straight from New York to Vienna, where they were exchanged for four top ex-Russian spies as Moscow and Washington seek to warm ties long chilled by an atmosphere of growing suspicion.
The spy saga fueled suspicion that Tretyakov had tipped off US authorities about the alleged Russian agents, who were mostly living under the cover of unremarkable American suburban lifestyles. But in announcing his death, his widow Helen Tretyakov told WTOP radio in Washington that her husband did not know the arrested group of 10. Tretyakov told US officials when he was debriefed about Russia's "illegal" operations but was not personally familiar with the people who were arrested, Earley said, citing an "informed" source.
Sergei Tretyakov was perhaps the most important Russian spy to have defected to the United States since the end of the Cold War. He is thought to have revealed details of Russian spying operations in America, and of an operation to skim half a billion dollars from Iraq’s Oil for Food program.
Tretyakov began supplying American officials with information around 1997, when he was officially an aide to the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov. In reality Tretyakov was an officer with the SVR spy agency that succeeded the KGB, and by the time he turned his coat had been running all Russia’s espionage operations at the UN for two years.
The haul of information he brought with him included thousands of classified cables and documents, as well as charming snippets of so-called “tradecraft”, such as the revelation that, for fear of being bugged, Russian spies liked to call contacts from the pay phones at Bloomingdale’s department store. Other colorful details from the world of espionage, notably the story that he once met a Russian businessman who claimed to keep a nuclear bomb at his dacha, were less comforting.
He named Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state under President Clinton, as an “extremely valuable intelligence source” who had been “tricked and manipulated by Russian intelligence”. Talbott has always denied any wrongdoing. Tretyakov also said that Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister who died in 1978, had been a KGB target, though he did was not confirm whether she had been secured as an informant for the spy agency.
Sergei Tretyakov, reportedly, a former top Russian spy who defected to the United States after running espionage operations at the United Nations, has died aged 53. Although Tretyakov died on June 13, 2010, his death was not announced until July 9, 2010. No cause has been released. Tretyakov was born on October 5, 1956 in Moscow. He joined the KGB, rising quickly through its ranks to become second-in-command of its office in New York from 1995 to 2000.
In an odd timing of the events, his death was announced on Friday, July 10 by his wife and friend Pete Earley on the same day that Russia and the United States completed their largest spy swap since the hazy days of the Cold War. Earlier on Friday, 10 Russian spies rounded up in an FBI swoop in June were deported and flown straight from New York to Vienna, where they were exchanged for four top ex-Russian spies as Moscow and Washington seek to warm ties long chilled by an atmosphere of growing suspicion.
The spy saga fueled suspicion that Tretyakov had tipped off US authorities about the alleged Russian agents, who were mostly living under the cover of unremarkable American suburban lifestyles. But in announcing his death, his widow Helen Tretyakov told WTOP radio in Washington that her husband did not know the arrested group of 10. Tretyakov told US officials when he was debriefed about Russia's "illegal" operations but was not personally familiar with the people who were arrested, Earley said, citing an "informed" source.
Sergei Tretyakov was perhaps the most important Russian spy to have defected to the United States since the end of the Cold War. He is thought to have revealed details of Russian spying operations in America, and of an operation to skim half a billion dollars from Iraq’s Oil for Food program.
Tretyakov began supplying American officials with information around 1997, when he was officially an aide to the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Sergei Lavrov. In reality Tretyakov was an officer with the SVR spy agency that succeeded the KGB, and by the time he turned his coat had been running all Russia’s espionage operations at the UN for two years.
The haul of information he brought with him included thousands of classified cables and documents, as well as charming snippets of so-called “tradecraft”, such as the revelation that, for fear of being bugged, Russian spies liked to call contacts from the pay phones at Bloomingdale’s department store. Other colorful details from the world of espionage, notably the story that he once met a Russian businessman who claimed to keep a nuclear bomb at his dacha, were less comforting.
He named Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state under President Clinton, as an “extremely valuable intelligence source” who had been “tricked and manipulated by Russian intelligence”. Talbott has always denied any wrongdoing. Tretyakov also said that Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister who died in 1978, had been a KGB target, though he did was not confirm whether she had been secured as an informant for the spy agency.
07. World Nuclear Weapons Stockpile
07. World Nuclear Stockpile Report
What countries are members of the “nuclear club, that is, who has the capability, or near capability (a “screw’s turn away”) of using a nuclear arsenal? It may be in a country’s interest to reveal that it has an arsenal, or to let the assumption live that it has nuclear weapons. Members of the “club” certainly are taken seriously in the community of nations. It is not, however, in a country’s interest to disclose how many weapons compose its arsenal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, The “Nuclear Notebook” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the nuclear appendix in the SIPRI Yearbook, all make highly informed efforts to determine what countries are members of the club and what constitute the stockpiles of the members.
While exact numbers are not known, it is clear that the combined stockpile of nuclear weapons is still vast overkill. Best estimates put the total number of warheads at about 23,300. Of these weapons more than 8,190 warheads are considered operational, of which approximately 2,200 U.S. and Russian warheads are on high alert, ready for use on short notice.
These estimates are compiled and maintained by Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists and Robert Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council (both with support from Ploughshares Fund) and are based on publicly available information and occasional leaks. As of 2010 the status of World Nuclear Forces are as follows.
States who have carried out verified nuclear tests.
Known Members of the Nuclear Club
Country Strategic Non-Strategic Total Operational Total
Russia 2,600 2,050 4,650 12,000
United States 1,968 500 2,468 9,600
France 300 n.a. ~300 300
China 180 ? ~180 240
United Kingdom 160 n.a. <160 185
Probable Members of the Nuclear Club (2010)
Country Strategic Non-Strategic Total Operational Total
Israel 80 n.a. n.a. 80 Pakistan 70-90 n.a. n.a. 70-90
India 60-80 n.a. n.a. 60-80
North Korea <10 n.a. n.a. <104
TOTALS 5,600 2,550 7,900 22,500
Despite two North Korean nuclear tests, there is no publicly available evidence that North Korea has operationalized its nuclear weapons capability. A 2009 world survey by the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) does not credit any of North Korea's ballistic missiles with nuclear capability.
All numbers are estimates and are further described in the Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the nuclear appendix in the SIPRI Yearbook. (The "Full Reports" referenced in the table above are the most recent country-specific analyses published in the Bulletin.) Unlike those publications, this table is updated continuously as new information becomes available. Additional reports are published on the FAS Strategic Security Blog, where this information originally appeared.
What countries are members of the “nuclear club, that is, who has the capability, or near capability (a “screw’s turn away”) of using a nuclear arsenal? It may be in a country’s interest to reveal that it has an arsenal, or to let the assumption live that it has nuclear weapons. Members of the “club” certainly are taken seriously in the community of nations. It is not, however, in a country’s interest to disclose how many weapons compose its arsenal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, The “Nuclear Notebook” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the nuclear appendix in the SIPRI Yearbook, all make highly informed efforts to determine what countries are members of the club and what constitute the stockpiles of the members.
While exact numbers are not known, it is clear that the combined stockpile of nuclear weapons is still vast overkill. Best estimates put the total number of warheads at about 23,300. Of these weapons more than 8,190 warheads are considered operational, of which approximately 2,200 U.S. and Russian warheads are on high alert, ready for use on short notice.
These estimates are compiled and maintained by Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists and Robert Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council (both with support from Ploughshares Fund) and are based on publicly available information and occasional leaks. As of 2010 the status of World Nuclear Forces are as follows.
States who have carried out verified nuclear tests.
Known Members of the Nuclear Club
Country Strategic Non-Strategic Total Operational Total
Russia 2,600 2,050 4,650 12,000
United States 1,968 500 2,468 9,600
France 300 n.a. ~300 300
China 180 ? ~180 240
United Kingdom 160 n.a. <160 185
Probable Members of the Nuclear Club (2010)
Country Strategic Non-Strategic Total Operational Total
Israel 80 n.a. n.a. 80 Pakistan 70-90 n.a. n.a. 70-90
India 60-80 n.a. n.a. 60-80
North Korea <10 n.a. n.a. <104
TOTALS 5,600 2,550 7,900 22,500
Despite two North Korean nuclear tests, there is no publicly available evidence that North Korea has operationalized its nuclear weapons capability. A 2009 world survey by the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) does not credit any of North Korea's ballistic missiles with nuclear capability.
All numbers are estimates and are further described in the Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the nuclear appendix in the SIPRI Yearbook. (The "Full Reports" referenced in the table above are the most recent country-specific analyses published in the Bulletin.) Unlike those publications, this table is updated continuously as new information becomes available. Additional reports are published on the FAS Strategic Security Blog, where this information originally appeared.
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