THE SPY GAME IS USUALLY PRETTY DREARY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000200070040-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2001
• Sequence Number: 40
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2001/03:rLR
The Spy Game Is Usually Pretty Dreary
BY RALPH McGILL
\ F W YORK A. Russian spy story recently made headlines
tar a dav. A U.S. employe in a plant doing classified military
v, ork as passing on information to Soviets attached to the UN
and consulate offices. The FBI had done its usual good job-
watchin,e the suspect since April.
We will never know, but it
would he interesting to see and
hear the Sovi-
ets who eval-
uate the work
of their agents.
i'he company
employing the
Russian - born
cncineer who
t, a s turning
user papers to
those who had
bought h i m
had been co-operating with the
Fl3l for about seven months.
We may, therefore, ass.itne
that the data and drawings
which the American was hand-
ing over were very accurate
in appearance and detail-but
not truly so. They were, one
,may guess, valid in appearance
so that the Russians would
spend hours and hours, and
perhaps even large sums of
money, to work them out.
What happens, one wonders,
when the purchasers of classi-
fied material find they have
been had?
IT HAS BEEN only since
World War II that we have be-
come really aware of "spying."
In the old days we thought of
"spies" in terms of beautiful
women who seduced a govern-
ment official who was privy
to \ aluahie information. For
some years, in the 1920s, the
movies were greatly at,racteci
to this sort of plot. Brief cases
were stolen on international
trains; the unsuspecting, or
careless, envoy was made
drunk or given knockout
drops, and then robbed of his
papers. Or, enchanted by some
beautiful seductress, he bab-
bled away the vital information
of when armies were to march.
WHAT CHIEFLY im-
presses us today is the amount
of intelligence and counterin-
telligence work and the realiza-
tion there is not much, if any,
romance in it. It is at once a
routine, hack, dreary business
(in which all nations, large and
small, engage) of poring over
the daily mass of information
available, classifying and eval-
uating it. It is the continual ef-
fort to find out what new
weapons, machines, technical
processes, and scientific break-
throughs are being made.
There are agents who work
at trying to discover the po-
litical trends of nations: their
economic successes and fail-
ures, the attitudes of their
labor unions, the so-called
masses, intellectuals, and the
activities of the extreme right.
And, of course, there are the
eyes and minds directed to-
ward military and space oper-
ations. The business of "spy-
ing" is tougher today since all
these things are a part of the
whole in a highly industrial
scientific complex.
WE HAVE become almost
accustomed to reading about'
our CIA "failures" in Viet ;
Nam and Cuba. But, as for-
mer CIA chief Allen Dulles;
says in a recent book, we bear:
only of the failures. The suc-
cesses are not publicized, and
the latter far outweigh the for-
mer. Mr. Dulles also lets us
know how huge has grown the
tack of carrying on what is one
of the oldest professions.
A few months ago some of
the U.S. Embassy staff in Mos-.
co", were expelled for "spy-
ing." A British business man
was sentenced to prison in Rus-
sia for spying. A Russian colo-
nel was executed for having
sold secrets for a number of '
years. Now we have caught'
some of theirs. "The game"
goes on. We can only hope
ours are the best.
Approved For Release 2001/03/02 : CIA-RDP70-00058R000200070040-8