THE LOOKING-GLASS SPIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500042-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: July 26, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500042-9
ARTICLE APPS :::D
ON PAGE
Looking -lass
S p *1 e s-__~.
1,'L4,SHL%1GTON POST
26 July 1981
THE KG& Tb. Eyes. of Russia. By Harry Rositske.
Doubleday. 295-ppo $14.95
~La.- s??:_By DAVID WISE
CWMESTRSi M mentalitp;""foinoer:'
s tatio thief Harry Rositzkenote ' s rooted in a.
conspiratorial vi iir of the world someone out there- is=
plotting againsC mar Since the world it a threatening
place, only secretoamter-action can guarantee survival"''
Reeitzke is writing about. the KGB, the- Soviet secret
service, but whethwunconsciously or not; his words could
also provide the rationale for the CIA's own. covert opera-
tions around the lobe. It is, in fact;' precisely the rationale
Reagan and to increase its covert activities- (although not,.
To some extent, the KGB and the CIA are reflections of-
each other. The minor image shimmees throughout The?
KGB The Eyes of Russia. For example; theKGB has an
"Executive Actioa"-'department is charge of assassinate
tions. When the: CIA.. set up. its- assassiriation unit . in-
1961, it was- called=Executive Action?' That same
year, the CIA moved-from Washington across the Poto
mac to Langley, Virginia. Later, the KGB moved the
headquarters of its First Chief -Direcorate, which ban-.
dies all foreign operations; from the Soviet capital to a
r ew building near the Moscow beltway. A pict re of t
building appears in John Barion's ' book;.-KCB, (1974)
and as the caption notes; the building's architecture un-
cannily resembli;e that of the CIX-- '7-1``,4'_
There are ces .oo course :=The:. KGB is: dearly
the instrsmteatrof tulitana erely~authontar
ran) goveram c{in or espionage andtov_
ert action but fo to `tte Soviet'people
cally
them.lovingl',ydetailed 6j Rsitz?ie,,The KGB; for exam
ple, places -much' greater- emphasis. than any westernser
?
their; spies to; steal. documents..Ak-C
vice-on- gettiiigi
man, by contrasC-prefers--to dedrwith written "or o:
spaces; the sitbp be r the= countryside 4w here they
spot cocmtersTuveillance--lather -than iindoois. TFie.
KGB has better language skills than the CIA and Rosi-:
tike says the KGB's- assassin st (unlike CIA's) have' not
gone after paliticai leaders of other countries and have
not targetedanyoneahroad a incx 2962~^'
DAVID .WS
ieritesfi+equently
abat;
o
=n-ge"c-
_
_
_
Jr
most recent-book: is+Spectr un, mnoveLabout.a. staugl
for power inside thS CIA- 3T r .;:t 1.i
"- b1fJ@MPFrvrco:.MI for The wdjpp Pew
Yet, it is the similarities between .the ? clandestine
agencies of the two- superpowers that stand out more f'
than the differences As-Rositzke points out, theyspend
a great deal of time trying- to recruit each other. (The
KGB's going price-for'an attempted recruitment of a
CIA agent, according to Rositzke; is in the neighborhood
of a quarter of a million dollars. Inflation is everywhere.)
Rositzke knows a good deal about the-KGB's agents
because he- has operated against them. 116-is a veteran
CIA man, now retired, who ran penetration operations
against the Soviets from Munich during the- height of
the Cold War; when Germany was?-the center of espio-I
nage activity.-Rositzke's job was to send. agents into the
Soviet Union by parachute.- From 1957 to. 1962, he was
chief of station in New Delhi; where he lunched once a
month with one of his opposite numbeia;.the resident of
thef GRU, thSoviet military iatelligence`arm::Is the:
late 1960s .he was chief of the "U S: 'statfon," which had
the task of r'ecnuting` Soviet diplomats=in-Washington
and New York. --
' `Having served is the front lines of the Cold War, as it
were, Rositzke.ought to be able-to reveal-tfie'secrets' of
the KGB, but of course he cannot.. As he freely admits?
much-of'the'good stuff rein-gin lockedup is the KGB's
vaults in Moscow:`Howemany Soviet "illegals". Iagents.
-operaL#i g_without_diplomati cover). are- there in the
United States? How many Soviet `-`moles," if any,
ride
the CIA? We can only guess.. - z.
Nor is! the. CIA-which=leaks information -about:- the
KGB when it suits its-purpose-likely to reveal very muchi
of the really, significant.knowledge it: possesses:: about
.Soviet intelligence, -As-a. former. operative, Roeitzke_wasl
obliged to. dear: his, book with- the. agency, lest-he stiffen
Snepp-like penalties-and-be-forced to turn over his royal-
ties tar the' government Rasitzko did . submit-his manu-
script'to the CIA;-although?that fad appears nowhere in
.the preface or.the_contents-of his-book, Both:the author
,-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500042-9
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500042-9
and Doubleday would have been more forthcoming to
have shared this information with-the-reader (Doubleday
is not unworldly or-naive about such matters; it published
The Penkovskiy Papers for the CIA in 1965.) Rositzke
has said subsequently that the CIA made only three
changes in his~book, all dealing with:references to non-
Soviet foreign intelligence agencies. -
The KGB: The Eyes of Russia offers-little that-has
not appeared. before in other books on Soviet espionage,
including accounts by Soviet defectors;-and lit congres-
sional'-liearings. Nor is Rositzke's.book: meant as enter-
tainment; those-looking' for summer hammock reading
or suspense will have to look elsewhere; or go, to the la-
test James"Bondmovie. At the same time, the. book is
neither substantial enough nor long enough to qualify as
a comprehensive, academic study of.Sovietintelligence.
There are no chapter notes or bibliography
On the other=hand; Rositzke~has.producedra?-service-
able primer on the'KGB; usefur for. anyone.wbo is. inter-
ested in. the operations' of the=Soviet. spy . service,..but
whose interest does not extend to plowing through a lot
of individual books, oa=the' subject:; Forrsuch a, reader,
Rositzke has pulled enough-material togetfier o:give?at
least a good general portrait o?th&KGR, --
And Rositzke manages to avoid a good deal (although
not all) . of. thvcustomary bombast,:-rid-baiting,. and
ideological - point-scoring that 'characteria - most.-other
works?aboutthe~KGB Aiormer assistaatp-rofessor of
English, he writes,_for the most part with a:cool; reason.
ably detached tone, one professionaisizing up another.
And he o same in teresting opinions: that f;ee
Harvey Oswald was not a KGB 'agent- (the- Russians
would have used-& professional); th$tYuri.Nosenko, the
controversial -Soviet defector, was mbablly i a aced- not
a KGB "plant"-an- argument that. stri rages inside the i
CIA and was the subject- of- David- C -Martin's- recent
book, Wilderness of Mirrors; that the KGB does not di-
rect international- terrorism; and . that the primary con-
cern of both KGB and CIA- officers-Is-to protect not
their own identities but the identities: of their agents.
(Congress, please note.)
But there is an subtle problem facing anyone `who
writes about the KGB, from which Rositzke does not es-
cape. If the KGB's agents are 10 feet tall,. each.a.Super-
man It, then wein the-Free_Worldmust indeed: be ever
vigilant agai nsttheisnefarious plots Tfie jacket' of Rosi
tzke's- bookztrompets:_ The secret: 6peratiom'of 'the
world's bestintelligence-organzzati'oiK": -(Italics added.).
Is this just publisher jacket hype we are dealing with
here, or does Rositzke really mean the Soviets-are better
than the CIA? Aren't our guys just as good? (In fairness
to Rositzke, in the book itself he says the KGB provides
"the best professional training of any intelligence serv-
ice in the world," but he does not go as far as the jacket
line.) On the other hand, Rosttzke also tells- us that often
the KGB are bumblers. But if so, we-needn't worry
much about them a - - -
And therein lies the catch-22. Only by painting the
Soviets as superspies can we really getfolks exercised
about KGB "agents of influence" in, the. media and... the
government, about sinister KGB- disinformation that
is brainwashing our unsuspecting citizenryand- all the
rest of the piddling package - of paranoia- being peddled
to the public; as our old friend Spiro Agnew' might-have
-put it: But to the extent that-the power of the KGB is
magnified, the worth of the. CIA is. downgraded: -leis a
trap from which there is no exit: , `-aj
Rositzke does have- one. cheerful note about-the KGB'
Soviet espionage' "reduces- apprehension= int. -Moscow."
The Russians ]mow so much about NATQ plans --from
their spying that they don't worry. -sue ~? _ '
As-Rosrt ke ba3 earn , an s with us, 'A spy is,
like any man, unique and complicated." And' spies must
sometimes wonder if it- is- all worth it. When Rositzke
was parachuting agents into the Soviet Union- out of
Munich -in the 1950x, most- of them were -caught' But
one, he assures us, did eventually become. a- Soviet-offi-
cial, a successful mole. Where? In the Moscow sanitaT
tion department.
-. ~~.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807500042-9