Volume 63, No. 1 (March 2019)

Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf

Volume 63, No. 1

Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf, March 2019

Compiled and reviewed by Hayden Peake

CURRENT TOPICS

Dawn of the Code War: America’s Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat, by John P Carlin with Garrett M. Graff

GENERAL

The Literary Reagan: Authentic Quotations From His Life, by Nicholas Dujmovic

HISTORICAL

Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War: The Journals of the Congress of Cultural Freedom, edited by Giles Scott-Smith and Charlotte A. Lerg

Churchill and Tito: SOE, Bletchley Park and Supporting the Yugoslav Communists in World War II, by Christopher Catherwood

Code Name Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Decorated Spy, by Larry Loftis

A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland, by Seth G. Jones

The Secret History of KGB Spy Cameras 1945-1995, by H. Keith Melton & Lt. Col. Vladimir Alekseenko with Michael M. Hasco & Detlev Vreisleben

Spy Pilot: Francis Gary Powers, The U-2 Incident, and A Controversial Cold War Legacy, by Francis Gary Powers Jr. and Keith Dunnavant

The Spy Who Was Left Behind: Russia, the United States, and the True Story of Betrayal and Assassination of a CIA Agent, by Michael Pullara

The Third Reich Is Listening: Inside German codebreaking in 1939-45, by Christian Jennings

The Watchdogs Didn’t Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror, by John Duffy & Ray Nowosielski

MEMOIR

Nine Lives: My Time as the West’s Top Spy Inside al Qaeda, by Aimen Dean with Tim Lester and Paul Cruickshank

Terrorism, Betrayal & Resilience: My Story of the 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings, by Prudence Bushnell

INTELLIGENCE ABROAD

Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy, by Rory Cormac

Inside The Wilderness of Mirrors: Australia and the Threat From The Soviet Union in the Cold War and Russia Today, by Paul Dibb

Pakistan Adrift: Navigating Troubled Waters, by Asad Durrani.

CURRENT TOPICS

Dawn of the Code War: America’s Battle Against Russia, China, and the Rising Global Cyber Threat, by John P Carlin with Garrett M. Graff. (PublicAffairs, 2018) 464, endnotes, index.

Early in 2004, the FBI discovered that a hacker had obtained the password of every employee including the director, Robert Mueller. Fortunately, the hacker was himself an FBI employee and was quickly caught. The software the hacker had used was readily available off the internet and the FBI had been warned about it when the software creators, L0pht (pronounced “loft”)Heavy Industries, testified about cyber vulnerabilities before the Senate in 1998. This was the same firm that had previously criticized “Microsoft . . . for its ‘kindergarten crypto’ protection. (122-23) Twenty years later in May 2018, LOpht testified again, this time before the House, and cautioned that its previous warnings still applied; risks remained. But in the interim, the intelligence community had implemented cybersecurity programs designed to better detect and neutralize cyber penetrations. And equally important, the Justice department had shown it could prosecute and convict the perpetrators. Author John Carlin played a major role in that multiagency effort. Dawn of the Code War, tells that story.

Carlin joined the Justice Department as a trial attorney right out of Harvard Law School in 1999. He was soon working on cases involving cybercrimes, since being 20 years his colleagues’ junior, he “knew how to use email… make printers work.” (73) Among later assignments, he served as chief of staff to FBI director Mueller, and ended his government career in 2016 as head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. At each step along the way he dealt with ever more frequent and complex forms of individual, corporate, and nation-sponsored cybercrime cases which the country was unprepared to deal with technically and legally. He provides numerous examples.

The “first national-scale computer crime” began on November 2, 1988; before the world-wide-web existed. Dubbed ‘The Morris Worm’ after its creator—a Cornell University student— it was self-replicating and shut down from 8-10 percent of all the computers on the internet ovenight. Institutions affected included MIT and other universities, the RAND Corporation, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and the Army’s Ballistic Missile Laboratory. In reporting the story, the New York Times used the word ‘internet’ for the first time. (92) Morris hadn’t intended what happened. Fortunately, since the FBI “had only a single agent who specialized in computer crime,” he was quickly caught. (93) The Morris Worm set a vital precedent for the FBI.

Carlin goes on to document an ever growing case load and the new government and civilian organizations and laws created to deal with them. The types of attacks range from extortion, vengeance, espionage, theft of personal data and intellectual property, and cyber-terrorism. Some involve individual hackers, but the most serious result from nation-state attacks with North Korea, Iran, ISIS, Russia and China being the main offenders. The magnitude and persistence of their efforts were nearly overwhelming. Carlin describes how new techniques were developed, often with the help of private security firms, to identify and catch offenders. But it is near impossible to get ahead.

Equally important and interesting, he tells how he overcame political and organizational obstacles in what became his passion: to demonstrate that offenders could be successfully prosecuted, a process once thought to be near impossible

Dawn of the Code War is an appropriate title. It documents an ongoing threat that shows little evidence of diminishing anytime soon As Carlin concludes, our cybersecurity “is likely to get worse in the years ahead before it gets better… our approach as a nation and as a society remains inadequate.” (395) He offers a number of suggestions for the future beginning with education. This book tells an ominous story. If ever the appellation that a book should be required reading is appropriate, this is it.

[Top of page]

GENERAL

The Literary Reagan: Authentic Quotations From His Life, by Nicholas Dujmovic. (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019) 346, bibliography, no index.

Former CIA historian Nicholas Dujmovic (pronounced: du mo vich) is now an academic at Catholic University. His previous book, The Literary Spy, written under the penname Charles Lathrop, compiled a collection of quotations on the intelligence profession.

In the current work Dujmovic notes that even during his presidency Ronald Reagan was mocked as something of an intellectual buffoon. Besides being called “an amiable dunce” by Clark Clifford, novelist Gore Vidal “joked that the Reagan library had burned down and both books were lost, including the one Reagan had not finished coloring.” (x) Others commented that if Reagan said anything worthwhile, it didn’t originate “from the man himself.” (xi) The Literary Reagan refutes these perceptions in the words of the man himself.

Dujmovic has arranged the quotes in sixty-four categories each preceded with explanatory remarks that also list other categories where related material may be found. Each quote is annotated as to circumstance of origin. The time frame extends from Reagan’s youth to the early 1990s.

In his prefatory remarks on intelligence and the CIA, Dujmovic notes Reagan’s experience with intelligence prior his presidency on the Rockefeller Commission and adds that while president, “he read the daily intelligence briefing as well as longer assessments.” (170) The quotes include comment on covert action, the media, congress, and the Intelligence Community. He is often candidly critical of congressional committees, as when he says of the “House intelligence Committee… they are really lousing things up.” (175)

The Literary Reagan includes many of the president’s popular comments as for example those made after he was shot and those at the Berlin Wall. Throughout the book, Reagan’s humor is ever present. In a toast to his friend and opponent, Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, he said, “Tip, if I had a ticket to heaven and you didn’t have one, too, I’d sell mine and go to hell with you.” (314)

Professor Dujmovic has crafted a fine collection of Reagan quotes that reflect his true nature and correct earlier conception of the man and his presidency.

[Top of page]

HISTORICAL

Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War: The Journals of the Congress of Cultural Freedom, edited by Giles Scott-Smith and Charlotte A. Lerg. (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017) 331, end of chapter notes, bibliography, index.

The Congress of Cultural Freedom (CCF) was formed in 1950 by Western liberals to counter the propaganda offensive from the Soviet Union. Actively supported by communists and fellow-travelers, they argued communism was the culturally superior path to the future. After CIA sponsorship of the CCF was revealed by the New York Times, in 1966, historians from both sides of the political spectrum published accounts that analyzed CCF’s contributions. On the one hand, some saw it as essential to winning the ‘battle of ideas. On the other it was characterized as a morally bankrupt endeavor contaminated by CIA dollars and control. Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War provides an interesting summary of the various positions, but the book’s main purpose is suggested by its subtitle: to address the journals the CCF published and their cultural significance.

Between 1948 and the present, the CCF published 23 journals in 15 countries and 10 languages. The first, Monat, began in Berlin before the CCF was formally founded. Seven are still in existence. Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War discusses their contributions in 15 articles by 16 authors under five categories: Science, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and Asia. (16)

In the pre-internet world, the journals were an erudite and often controversial source of cultural commentary that spanned the globe. The articles about them discuss their origins, content, production issues, and editorial battles. The impact of the CIA connection in each case varied, and its potential influence was mitigated, according to the editors of this volume, because “efforts at coordination would still need to pass through several layers of negotiation before a journal saw the light of day, watering down the assumption of CIA control.” (12) Still, some, for example the Arabic journal Hiwār, ceased publication shortly after the revelations.

The two most prominent journals, Encounter, published in London from 1953–1990, and Quadrant published in Sydney from 1956–present, are illustrative of the issues all the journals faced in varying degrees. Jason Harding’s article presents a comparative analysis that seeks “to calibrate the impact of Encounter on the cultural Cold War… during its controversial lifespan.” He considers “the extent to which editors, contributors, readers, and antagonists” of Encounter and the other magazines, enriched “our understanding of the CCF” as they dealt with competing political and cultural agendas. (107) The revelations concerning CIA funding, however, had serious consequences—Steven Spender the editor resigned—and its reputation “was irreparably damaged.” (120)

Quadrant, on the other hand, as John Chiddick writes, is “a literary as much as a political journal, providing space for poetry and short fiction [and] topics of intellectual interest.” (303) While its support for the Vietnam War was at odds with the other journals, and certainly the CCF executive in Paris, its content reflected multiple positions on the subject and did not threaten its existence. Neither did the CIA funding issue, though it left a bad taste with some. While one editor characterized CIA dollars as “a deplorable fact, ” another pointed out that “the amount that trickled down from Paris was trifling” and had never influenced a single word published.” Still as one editor conceded “it was CIA money.” (311)

Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War tells the story of a global effort to demonstrate the value of free expression as opposed to a party line. Its candid assessments refute claims of undue CIA influence and is thus an important counterweight to those with extreme opposing views.

Churchill and Tito: SOE, Bletchley Park and Supporting the Yugoslav Communists in World War II, by Christopher Catherwood. (Frontline Books, 2017) 216, end of chapter notes, bibliography, appendix, photos, index.

In December 1943, Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to actively support the resistance forces led by Yugoslav leader Josip Tito and deny further backing to anti-fascist forces led by Draza Mihailovic. The decision infuriated some of the SOE personnel who were with Mihailovic at the time. Some historians later concluded they were justified. Two wrote books in 1990, documenting their views. In The Rape of Serbia, British author Michael Lees, who had served with Mihailovic, argued passionately that Churchill had been fed misinformation by Soviets agents serving in Cairo.[1] The late American journalist David Martin, author of The Web of Disinformation: Churchill’s Yugoslav Blunder reached the same conclusion.[2] In 2011, BBC journalist Peter Batty published Hoodwinking Churchill, in which he supported his predecessors while adding a new twist: Tito had fed the British false information that was accepted without corroboration.[3]

Churchill and Tito says they are all wrong. It asserts that Churchill based his decision on ULTRA material that showed Mihailovic had stopped fighting the Germans and was even cooperating with them. Furthermore, it points out that those who argue, as each of the books mentioned above do, that SOE Cairo had communists on its staff were correct, but they were not ULTRA cleared and were in no position to influence Churchill on the Yugoslavia.

The Lees, Martin, and Batty books are sourced; it is their interpretation of the evidence that can be questioned. Catherwood has some sources, but many important quotes are not specifically sourced, though they may be attributed to a person. And from time to time he makes unforgivable errors, for example calling Donald Maclean “an agent of the GRU.” (34)

It is tempting to accept Catherwood’s analysis as it is persuasive in many respects. But students of the topic desiring a well-documented result, are left with a challenge that only archival research will resolve.

Code Name Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Decorated Spy, by Larry Loftis. (Gallery Books, 2019) 384, endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.

Odette Marie Celine Brailly Sansom Churchill Hallowes, code named LISE, was one of the more than 50 female agents who served the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) behind enemy lines in WWII. Most were trained as radio operators, or as in Lise’s case, couriers. Many didn’t survive. Those, like Lise, who did often endured public criticism for exaggerating their contributions. Lise was denounced for exaggerating the importance of her work with the SPINDLE network or circuit in France, where it was said “she spent much of her time in bed with her commanding officer.” It was also claimed that she survived Ravensbruck because she had an ongoing affair with the commandant.” Even more serious, it was charged that “she made up the stories of her torture,” which included being burned with a red hot iron and having her toenails pulled out while she revealed nothing to the Gestapo. (268) Code Name Lise refutes these charges while telling a compelling story of personal heroism.

Author Larry Loftis is not the first to tell Lise’s story. Jerrard Tickell’s 1949 account, Odette, though undocumented—SOE records were still secret then—was well received and ended with Lise’s escape to the US Army in 1945.[4] Loftis draws on it heavily. M.R.D. Foot’s official 1966 history, S.O.E. In France, perpetuated the story that Lise was arrested by the Abwehr while in bed with Peter Churchill, SPINDLE’s commander—and no relation to the prime minister.[5] Lise sued and won a substantial sum. The first edition was withdrawn and reprinted with changes. Code Name Lise covers the same ground as the earlier works while continuing Lise’s story until her death in 1972 and adding details about her service from interviews and material that came to light with the recent release of surviving SOE files.

There is no doubt that Lise was an extraordinary women. Having survived polio and a year of blindness as a child in her native France, she married an Englishman and moved to Britain, where she had three children before the war. With her husband in service, she offered to translate for the War Department and ended up joining SOE after convincing her superiors she could make arrangements for her children’s care. After regular SOE training, she was sent to Southern France by boat in 1943 and assigned to work with the SPINDLE circuit under Churchill.

Code Name Lise describes her work as a courier, her takeover of the circuit while Churchill was away in London, and her betrayal by a colleague when he returned. After resisting Abwehr interrogator Sgt. Hugo Bleicher’s (aka: Colonel Henri) attempts to get her to identify her comrades, she was turned over to the Gestapo. It was then that she was tortured, a fact subsequently documented by medical records. In May 1944, having achieved nothing from their interrogations, Lise was sent to Karlsruhe with several other SOE female agents. By then she had convinced the Gestapo that she was married to Peter Churchill and that he was a relative of the prime minister. She was the only survivor of the women sent to the Karlsruhe prison and in July 1943, was sent to Ravensbruck, the concentration camp for women north of Berlin. Between then and May 1945, she endured solitary confinement except for short periods in the infirmary. Only when the commandant realized the war was lost and the Russians were coming did he bundle her into his car and escape. Saving Lise was to be his “meal ticket” when they reached the Americans. But when they encountered a US Army roadblock, Lise turned in the commandant.

After the war, Lise married Peter—they later divorced—testified at the Ravensbruck war crimes trial, received an M.B.E., and became the first woman to be awarded the George Cross. These are the awards alluded to in the subtitle of Code Name Lise, although Loftis acknowledges that a more accurate phrasing would be “the war’s most highly decorated woman.” (358) Notoriety followed the awards that in turn led to the book by Tickell and a movie—with Peter Ustinov— before Lise, now known as Odette, died in 1995. Loftis concludes by telling what happened to the other characters—German, French, and British—featured in the book, thus closing the circle on the story of a patriotic agent.

A Covert Action: Reagan, The CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland, by Seth G. Jones. (W. W. Norton, 2018) 418, endnotes, photos, index.

On 12 December 1981, Poland’s Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in the country then beset by strikes, sabotage, and mass demonstrations linked to the Solidarity movement led by Lech Walęsa. (4) It was not a total surprise to the National Security Council thanks to Colonel Ryszard Jerzy Kukliński, a Polish army staff officer and CIA agent recently exfiltrated to the United States. While the CIA’s initial assessment was that martial law “was possible though unlikely,” (8) it had developed options for both possibilities. A Covert Action tells the story of America’s response, codenamed QRHELPFUL, according to Jones.

QRHELPFUL was nothing like the attempted para military action at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs or most recently in Afghanistan. As Jones describes the operation, the United States provided money for demonstrations, equipment for printing publications, and hardware for radio and TV broadcasts that advocated Solidarity’s positions and activities. A key factor enhanced the chances of success: Solidarity was “a grass roots organization that was already legitimate among Poles” whose members were likely to—and did—cooperate. (10)

In A Covert Action, Seth Jones, the Harold Brown chair and director of the Transnational Threats Project (TNT) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), tells the story of QRHELPFUL from US and Polish perspectives—opposition and government—based on interviews with participants and materials recently released from archives of both countries. Jones tells the story chronologically, switching from activities in the Solidarity movement to those at the CIA. He also takes note of the pope’s participation and that of a number of other European countries.

For example he describes how the CIA recruited the necessary agents in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, essential to smuggling equipment and funds. At the same time, he reveals how Solidarity used the assistance clandestinely in the hostile Polish political environment where surveillance was continuous. Progress was slow and success was not achieved until April 1989, when Solidarity was legalized, elections held, and Walęsa became Poland’s first freely elected president. In November 1989, President Walęsa addressed a joint session of the United States Congress.

A Covert Action tells a unique story of a successful covert action that allowed anti-communist Poles to achieve their goals by doing their own heavy lifting, while stimulating the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. It is a valuable contribution to the intelligence literature and an exemplar of successful covert influence action.

The Secret History of KGB Spy Cameras, 1945–1995, by H. Keith Melton and Lt. Col. Vladimir Alekseenko with Michael M. Hasco and Detlev Vreisleben. (Schiffer Military History, 2018) 192, bibliography, photos, glossary index.

In now seemingly ancient times, before digital cameras, intelligence officers employed photography to copy documents provided by their agents; to record clandestinely images of their opponents and the facilities from which they operated; and to acquire images of their latest military hardware. All without knowing, for hours or even weeks after the event, whether their photographic efforts were successful. Thus, the cameras required to accomplish their mission had to meet strict performance criteria to assure success. During the Cold War, the cameras employed by the KGB and the GRU were both high-end foreign products and those especially designed and built locally to meet unique requirements. The Secret History of KGB Spy Cameras 1945–1995 provides a pictorial and written record of their efforts.

Each of the authors possesses unique knowledge. The late Vladimir Alekseenko was a KGB technical officer with extensive experience overseas, where he specialized in microphotography and cryptography for covert agent communications. He also secured the cooperation of former colleagues, which was vital in gaining access to the material for this book. Keith Melton is a renowned collector of espionage artifacts and the author of books on the OSS and on espionage paraphernalia generally. Michael M. Hasco and Detlev Vreisleben are also collectors of espionage memorabilia and provided assistance in important areas. The foreword by retired FBI supervisory special agent Gerald Richards is a significant endorsement. He spent much of the Cold War working against the KGB and the GRU in the United States and understands how they employed their cameras.

Melton and Alekseenko, the principal authors, began work on their book more than 10 years ago. The result is an unprecedented, richly illustrated record of 94 KGB and 12 GRU operational cameras—still and motion picture—with technical details, auxiliary equipment, and examples of their use.

After a short historical account of the KGB and GRU services, the authors review the origins of their photographic units from 1930 to 1945. They then discuss each document-copying camera, and each camera devoted to surveillance. The former category includes the then revolutionary GRU rollover camera developed in the mid 1950s. It contained its own power and light source, film supply with automatic advance, and rolling optical bar that placed the image on the film as it was passed over a document. It was, in effect, a predecessor to the modern scanner. Slightly larger than a standard index card and about ¼ inch thick it was as easy to conceal as it was to use.

The KGB F21 or Ajax-12 camera is illustrated in multiple applications. It is shown as a buttonhole camera, mounted on a brooch, attached to a belt buckle, and in numerous concealment devices. As with all entries, descriptions and technical details—lens focal length, film type, cassette capacity—are accompanied by color photographs and in many cases graphic illustrations—in the very recognizable Russia style—showing typical working conditions.

There is a chapter devoted to “compromise” photography, sometimes called “honeytraps,” that includes pinhole cameras—placed in walls—with various supporting equipment. The accompanying illustration establishes the overall setup, and the photographs are from an actual KGB operation and show how a diplomat was compromised.

The KGB also employed commercial cameras when circumstances demanded, as was the case with Richard Sorge, their agent in China and Japan. The German Minox is another example. The authors present two detailed accounts of their use by well-known agents. The first is KGB agent and US Navy Warrant Officer John Walker. The second is GRU officer and US-UK agent Oleg Penkovsky. Both sections show the Minox cameras they employed and, in Penkovsky’s case, some of the surveillance photos the KGB took of him before he was arrested.

The Secret History of KGB Spy Cameras is a comprehensive treatment of how Soviet agents collected and communicated material and how they surveilled their targets. The book is a fine and unique contribution to the intelligence literature.

Spy Pilot: Francis Gary Powers, The U-2 Incident, and a Controversial Cold War Legacy, by Francis Gary Powers Jr. and Keith Dunnavant. Foreword by Sergei Khrushchev. (Prometheus Books, 2019) 312, endnotes, photos, index.

“Did Francis Gary Powers betray his country?” is a tough question for a son to answer about his father. Spy Pilot explains why he asked and how he discovered the answer. (159)

Gary Powers Jr. was born in 1965, 15 years after the Soviet Union shot down the U-2 his father piloted on 1 May 1960 and caused a major international incident. President Eisenhower, assured that the pilot and plane could not have survived, proclaimed the official cover story that the U-2 was on a weather-related mission and had strayed off course. Only after Soviet Premier Khrushchev produced the pilot alive and photos of the U-2’s wreckage, including its cameras, did the president admit publicly that the mission’s real purpose was aerial espionage. Powers was given a public trial during which he pleaded guilty and apologized before being sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Further embarrassment followed when Khrushchev walked out of an already scheduled summit meeting with Eisenhower.

Then, in February 1962, thanks to his father and the CIA, Powers was exchanged, for KGB colonel Rudolf Abel, an event memorialized in the 2015 movie Bridge of Spies.

The lengthy CIA debriefings that followed Powers’s release raised questions in some minds about the accuracy of his explanation for the shootdown. An unspoken consensus arose suggesting that “by allowing himself to be captured alive . . . Powers was a traitor.” (122) When asked what he thought James Bond would have done in the circumstances, Ian Fleming replied, “I hope he would have taken his pill.” (264) In fact, Powers didn’t have a lethal pill, it was a poisoned needle and its use was optional. While the official results of his debriefing found that he had acted properly during the shootdown, at the trial, and in prison, doubts lingered in some parts of the CIA, Congress, and the Air Force—Powers official home—and even in his hometown, where his then brother-in-law noted “Some people thought he was a traitor. . . . He ought to have killed himself. That’s how a lot of people felt.” (121)

The first part of Spy Pilot presents the details of these events as background. They were largely unknown to Powers Jr. The first 11 years of his life were spent in the southern California with his father and his second wife, Claudia, Gary Jr.’s mother. Friends included celebrities, among them actor Robert Conrad and his family, who became lifelong friends. Overall the young Powers was happy, and he developed a close relationship with his father, who worked first for the Lockheed Corporation as a test pilot and then as a helicopter pilot for a Los Angles TV station reporting traffic conditions. In 1970, after some resistance from CIA, Powers Sr. published his memoir, Operation Overflight, which gave his position on the accusations often made against him.[6] Then only five, his son was too young to understand the details.

All that changed in 1977. Powers Sr. was scheduled to appear before a congressional committee to discuss the persistent controversy around his case. He planned to take 11-year old Gary with him to Washington because “it was time for his son to learn about his complicated history.” (138) Then, on the first of August, Francis Gary Powers died when his helicopter ran out of fuel.

After a brief description of his not untroubled adolescent years, Spy Pilot goes on to describe the incident that led Powers to devote much of his adult life to determining and publicizing the truth about his father. The key incident occurred in 1986 with his accidental discovery of the U-2 unveiling ceremony at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington to which he had not been invited. He went anyway and was received well. That event, he writes, was “the catalyst to a much broader and more ambitious quest, which would consume the better part of my life.” (159)

Powers’ quest began in college and continued over many years, during which he married and held various day jobs. It involved interviews with his father’s former colleagues and his critics at home and overseas. Of great importance was the discovery of audio tapes on which his father had added details of the U-2 incident that were not allowed in his book. To these sources Powers added formerly classified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)—many quoted at length—that proved much of what Powers Sr. had claimed about the sequence of events during the shootdown, including the altitude at which he was flying—70,000 feet—long withheld from the public record. Along the way, he discovered medals his father had earned but had not been awarded during his lifetime, including the POW Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the National Service Medal, the CIA Director’s Medal, and the Silver Star. They were finally awarded posthumously. (249–51)

Spy Pilot acknowledges that some will “always see Francis Gary Powers as a tainted figure.” (264) But his son is now satisfied he has revealed the truth. His father would be proud.

The Spy Who Was Left Behind: Russia, the United States, and the True Story of the Betrayal and Assassination of a CIA Agent, by Michael Pullara. (Scribner, 2018) 352, appendix, index.

Michael Pullara is a Texas trial lawyer whose brother had known Freddie Woodruff in high school. After Pullara read in the New York Times that Woodruff—a CIA officer—had died from a gunshot to the head on 8 August 1993 in the Republic of Georgia, he followed subsequent reports closely. On 30 December 1993, the media reported a Georgian, Anzor Sharmaidze, had been convicted of the crime and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The Georgian government concluded the murder “was not intentional, and not their fault.” The State department soon announced that Woodruff had been killed “by a random act of violence.” (6) But as Pullara understood the facts of the crime, the man convicted couldn’t have done it. Then he learned that the US government was looking into “what role, if any, [Aldrich] Ames had played in the death of Freddie Woodruff.” Ames had purportedly visited Woodruff two week before his death. (7) After the New York Times raised the question, a TASS headline responded, “Ames Case, Woodruff’s Murder, Not Linked.” (9)

There the matter rested until October 1995 when the former head of the Georgian security service publicly asserted that “Woodruff had been killed at the behest of the SVR”—the Russian foreign intelligence service. (7) Pullara promptly filed a FOIA request with the CIA, NSA, and FBI. More than a year later an FBI response added information that did not match previous accounts; this Pullara describes in prodigious and at points unsettling detail. (10)

Another four years elapsed before more FOIA material arrived, and it only raised more questions. So Pullara decided to go to Georgia and conduct his own investigation. The Spy Who Was Left Behind tells how Pullara, a private citizen—with some FBI help— developed legal, medical, law enforcement, and security service sources in Georgia before taking the unusual step of filing a petition with the Georgian Supreme Court. It was initially rejected after an extended hearing; Pullara appealed. Receiving no response, he went public and convinced producers of 60 Minutes to go to Georgia and do a story on Wodruff. It was then that President Saakashvili reopened the case. In the end, Sharmaidze was released, and the government promised to reinvestigate the case with the objective of identifying the real killer.

Using the press to keep the pressure on and recalling that the former head of the Georgian security service publicly had claimed that “Woodruff had been killed at the behest of the SVR,” Pullara develops a detailed and plausible case that this was probably true and that the GRU was also involved. The key assumption on which his theory rests is that Ames had inadvertently revealed his work for the SVR to Woodruff and Woodruff had been assassinated to keep him quiet.

The Spy Who Was Left Behind might better have been titled “the spy who was almost forgotten.” Pullara’s account does not resolve the case completely. But he does establish two irrefutable points: the original explanations for Woodruff’s murder were incorrect, and a dedicated civilian lawyer can make a difference. Both are worth remembering.[7]

The Third Reich Is Listening: Inside German Codebreaking in 1939–45, by Christian Jennings. (Osprey Publishing, 2018) 368, endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.

The codebreaking abilities of people in Bletchley Park during WWII have been described in numerous books since the publication of The ULTRA Secret in 1974.[8] The German efforts to intercept and break allied codes have received less attention. The Third Reich Is Listening takes a big step toward correcting that deficiency, with surprising results.

Toward the end of WWII, the British and Americans sent four joint teams of specialists into Germany to discover and recover materials on four Nazi programs. Team ALSIOS dealt with nuclear matters. OVERCAST was charged with material on the V-1 and V-2 rockets. Team SURGEON was concerned with avionics and jet aircraft. The most secret was the target intelligence committee or TICOM; it went after the German signals intelligence materials. The Third Reich Is Listening tells its story.

British foreign correspondent Christian Jennings has examined German cryptologic files captured by TICOM which are now available on various intelligence agency websites and in the National Archives of the United States, Britain, and Germany. His account depicts how they were discovered, what they revealed, and how the Germans applied the information they collected.

Discovery was relatively easy since many Germans were eager to cooperate. Getting to the files before the Soviets was another matter and TICOM was not always successful. In the end, material was found at the bottom of a lake, buried in the ground, in abandoned signal units, and obtained from interviews with civilian, military, and Foreign Office cryptanalysts. It was called the TICOM archive and copies were sent to Britain and the United States. (16–17, 305)

In general, what the findings revealed was surprising, although it would be years before analysts got through the volume and longer still before the material was declassified. The German SIGINT program was far more sophisticated than previously thought, and Jennings reviews its history from the prewar days until the war’s end. He shows that their SIGINT efforts contributed directly to their early victories. The naval capabilities were especially good as shown during the Battle of the Atlantic and against the Russians in Finland, to give two examples.

Jennings notes two major weaknesses in the German SIGINT program; both non-technical. The first was their assumption that the Allies would mention their ability to break Enigma in their traffic and when they did not, assumed Enigma was secure. Second he shows that there was “a lack of trust between the codebreaking agencies and their senior German leaders” that limited their ability to employ the information acquired from the intercepts. (316)

The Third Reich Is Listening provides new detail on the TICOM program and is another instance that supports the argument that intelligence does not win wars.

The Watchdogs Didn’t Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror, by John Duffy & Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy. (Hot Books, 2018) 328, endnotes, bibliography, index.

Conspiracies are a matter of historical fact. The Gun Powder Plot to blow up the British parliament, the assassination of President Lincoln, and the 9/11 attacks are well known examples. Conspiracy theories, while equally prevalent and often supported by reputable advocates, lack historical legitimacy. The Watchdogs Didn’t Bark presents two examples. The first, suggests that the CIA decision not to inform the FBI about the presence two known terrorists in the United States prior to 9/11 was an intentional act to keep secret CIA attempts to recruit at least one of them as an agent. The second, is the subsequent cover up intended to keep first secret.

Authors John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski have been advancing these conspiracy theories for at least 10 years. In their judgment, the perpetrators, whom they identify, should be held accountable.

In support of the first theory, they quote an interview with the respected and very knowledgeable Richard Clarke, a White House counterterrorism advisor under presidents Clinton and Bush. In Clarke’s view, the failure to tell the FBI can only be explained if one accepts the idea that CIA did so intentionally to protect the recruitment, even though by not informing the FBI it was breaking the law. The key assumption is that the FBI was not informed. Former CIA officer Bob Baer commented on that point in a 21 September 2011 interview with the authors. He said at the time, “I always passed things to the FBI if I thought it was of interest. I didn’t ask permission. You had FBI agents in headquarters working in your unit, or they came around, or you called them up on the phone. I mean, that’s the way things are supposed to work.”[9] Baer’s comments are not included in Watchdogs. Were things working that way in Alec Station—the CIA unit monitoring the two terrorists—where the FBI had special agents assigned? The authors do not address the question directly. They do relate a story about an FBI agent who saw a January 2000 cable indicating one of the eventual 9/11 terrorists was planning a trip to the United States. When he asked permission to forward it to the FBI, he was told that it was not the FBI’s concern, and he dropped the matter. (121)

The authors also include a joint statement by former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet; Cofer Black, former chief of the counterterrorism center; and Richard Blee, former chief of Alec Station. To no one’s surprise, they dispute Clarke’s interpretation. (8-9) The balance of the book, however, cites sources—former intelligence officers and journalists—that provide anecdotal support of Clarke’s theory.

In the end, after accusing many former CIA and some NSA officers of wrong-doing, the authors conclude “Those who do wrong for the empire will be covered. That is why Tenet could perjure himself and then retire to his comfortable life.” His actions and those of CTC and Alec Station, they claim, contributed to “the largest terrorist attack in US history.” (251) Like all conspiracy theories, hard evidence is lacking, and alternative explanations are dismissed out of hand.

The Watchdogs Didn’t Bark is a contribution to the intelligence literature, but not a valuable one.

[Top of page]

MEMOIR

Nine Lives: My Time as the West’s Top Spy Inside al Qaeda, by Aimen Dean with Tim Lister and Paul Cruickshank. (Oneworld Publications, 2018) 467, endnotes, index.

Aimen Dean swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden (OBL) while holding the hand of the sheikh himself. It was 1997, the end of Dean’s third life. Having survived jihadist wars in Bosnia and the Philippines—his second life—he began his fourth life in service to al-Qaeda after training as a bombmaker in Afghanistan. By the end of 1998, disillusioned by the gratuitous killing of civilians of all faiths and plans to kill more, he had begun his fifth life as an agent of MI6.

Born in Bahrain, Dean grew up in Saudi Arabia with five brothers in a conservative Muslim family. Inclined intellectually as a young boy, he studied the Koran and soon discovered he had a photographic memory. At the time, his Islam was one that was “rich and compassionate that celebrated its history and morality.” (164) He also read the basic Muslim writings including those by Sayid Qutb, who argued for a “jihad to restore Muslim sovereignty,” (31) though the methods he advocated raised doubts, put aside at the time, that would later return. This was the period of life number one.

Nine Lives tells how the young intellectual Muslim evolved into a dedicated teenage jihadist who eventually became, with the help of the Bahrainian security service, an MI6 agent in 1998.

After his initial interviews with MI6 in Bahrain, Dean was flown to London, where his bona fides were established. The next step was deciding what to do with a Muslim agent thought to be loyal to Osama bin Laden and who knew most of his key subordinates. These included Aymen al-Zawahiri, Abu Zubaydah, and bin Laden’s biological bombmaking expert. Sending him back to Afghanistan to spy on al-Qaeda was an attractive option, but future contact would be problematic. A clever solution was worked after Dean revealed his father and grandfather had worked for the British Foreign Office in Saudi Arabia, duties not stated, and had known H. St. John Philby, whom Dean incorrectly identifies as a British spy—that was his son Kim. (170) In any case, both had British passports and that qualified Dean for one as well. Already trusted by bin Laden and his associates, Dean’s British passport allowed him to travel where they could not. In practice this meant frequent trips to London among other cities. Agent handling proved less difficult.

Nine Lives describes many missions Dean undertook in the Middle East and in the UK working with MI5 against the local radical Muslims during his eight years as an agent. For example he warned about the Millennium Plot and was able to indicate “something big” was planned but did not know about the 9/11 attacks. On the chemical front, he helped neutralize a nicotine bomb plot without being caught—life number seven.

Then in 2006, Dean received a text message that said: “Brother go into hiding, there is a spy among us.” Dean’s cover was blown; details of his penetration had appeared the book The One Percent Doctrine,[10] and soon in other US publications; his eighth life had come to an end. While he was not named and the source of the leak, according to the authors is not known, it didn’t take al-Qaeda long to identify him. A fatwa was issued authorizing his death on sight.

The chapter on Dean’s ninth life tells how he survived the manhunt—to date—married and started a family. Nine Lives concludes with Dean’s thoughtful reflections on radical Islamic terrorism and its contemporary manifestations.

Coauthors Tim Lester and Paul Cruickshank explain at the outset that the agent-handling portions of Nine Lives are based largely on non-attributable interviews. Sources for events and weapons systems discussed are provided in the endnotes. Thus much must be taken as it was written until official records are released. It has the ring of truth and is worth close attention.

Terrorism, Betrayal & Resilience: My Story of the 1998 U.S. Embassy Bombings, by Prudence Bushnell. (Potomac Books, 2018) 246, endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.

On 7 August 1998, al-Qaeda bombed the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Osama bin Laden chose Nairobi because the ambassador “was a woman whose death would generate more press.” (218) Two hundred and thirteen died, five thousand—mostly locals—were wounded. Ambassador Prudence Bushnell survived. Terrorism, Betrayal & Resilience tells her disturbing story.

Media attention in the United States was brief; the Lewinsky affair was underway. At the State Department the response, after the initial shock, was curious. When Susan Rice, the assistant secretary for African affairs called the temporary embassy in Nairobi, she said to Bushnell that “I had no idea that your embassy was so close to the street.” The ambassador replied brusquely that “I wrote you . . . and the secretary of state about it.” In fact, the cable was just the most recent notice about the embassy’s vulnerabilities Bushnell had sent during the previous two years. But her efforts had only “provoked complaints of ‘nagging’ and accusations of being obsessed,” and later she was labeled a nuisance. The only official response she received was a letter noting there were no funds for the security changes recommended. (12)

The State Department’s reaction in terms of sending help did not go well. Crisis response teams were delayed as was the evacuation of the wounded. Ambassador Bushnell was forced to improvise in a very stressful situation. But she managed to provide effective leadership and successfully fought a lethargic State Department for compensatory funds for the families of the Kenyans killed and then battled the Kenyan government for a proper location for a new embassy.

A subsequent report prepared for incoming President Bush by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, confirmed her assessment of the State Department’s dismal response to the bombing. It concluded, “the apparatus of U.S. foreign policy making and implementation . . . is in a state of severe disrepair. The Department of State suffers from long term mismanagement, antiquated equipment, and dilapidated and insecure facilities.” (106–107)

A mandatory Accountability Review Board investigation took place, but its report neither placed blame nor answered basic questions, such as what preventive measures should have been taken. Neither did it recommend specific follow-up actions. A more informative account was leaked to the New York Times.[11] It quoted parts from Bushnell’s many communications forewarning the department and added that the CIA and FBI had “been amassing increasingly ominous and detailed clues about potential threats in Kenya prior to the bombing.” It even revealed that an unidentified walk-in to the Nairobi Embassy had warned about the attacks, but had been dismissed by the CIA as unreliable without follow-up in Nairobi. (82)

Besides establishing the essential facts of the bombing and its immediate aftermath and longer term consequences, Ambassador Bushnell weaves three sub-themes into the narrative that will be equally rewarding to many readers. One covers her background and answers the question how did a woman become ambassador to Kenya? Another presents what and how she learned about bin Laden and what the intelligence services knew about him and the terrorism threat generally. The third sub-theme follows her career after Nairobi. She served as ambassador to Guatemala, at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, where she developed and presented courses on leadership. In the end, accepting that she could not overcome the subtle but persistent internal resistance—for reasons she explains—to further assignments, she retired. Civilian life led to some occupational oscillation until she decided to write this book and put her leadership knowledge on a profitable basis by giving lectures and courses on the topic.

Terrorism, Betrayal & Resilience is a memoir of unusual importance. It is at once a modern woman’s story and a contribution to the study of intelligence and terrorism. But is not a revelation of the State Department’s finest hour.

[Top of page]

INTELLIGENCE ABROAD

Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy, by Rory Cormac. (Oxford University Press, 2018) 394, endnotes, bibliography, index.

This book is about covert action, often called the third option or what a nation does when diplomacy or military force won’t accomplish an objective. University of Nottingham historian, Rory Cormac, acknowledges at the outset that the term is “most commonly. . . associated with the Americans, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and paramilitary activities during the Cold War.” But, he goes on, “few appreciate that for the UK, a country seemingly in perennial decline . . . covert action has been even more important. The British are just better at keeping it covert.” (2) He does not account for the possibility CIA has conducted covert actions about which he has no knowledge. In any case, Disrupt and Deny reviews Britain’s long history in covert action and assesses its utility with frequent comparisons with the record of its American ally.

After a short summary of British covert actions beginning in the reign of Elizabeth I, Cormac focuses on operations from post 1945 to the cyber age that span the world. After acknowledging that much more has been written about US than British covert actions, he asserts that it would be misleading “to view British operations through this prism, given Washington’s more rigid approach.” (10) An approach, he goes on to suggest without specifics, that includes “the domain of so-called ‘rogue elephants’ acting of their own volition.” (11) The British, by comparison, initially adopted the “pinprick” tactics recommended by Sir Stuart Menzies, chief of MI6, which linked traditional intelligence and covert action and provided a gradual learning curve. (60)

In its chronological assessment of British covert action, Disrupt and Deny covers the policy issues where covert action was recommended as a solution and how they were dealt with by factions within the government. It also assesses the views of the principal implementers, mainly the Foreign Office, the intelligence services and Special Forces elements. The bureaucratic conflicts were considerable and international. For example, suggestions for countering communism behind the Iron Curtain ranged from economic disruption to subversion. Questions of who should do what were complicated even more when it was learned the Americans were contemplating similar issues. Cormac reveals that what came to be a joint effort was initiated because if “the Americans worked alone, they would make a mess of it.” (27) In the end, what amounted to an ad hoc approach to liberation policy, their joint efforts failed, in part due to Philby’s betrayal, but overall because it was a joint mess.

An example of success, the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, began as a singleton British effort employing bribery and attempts to interfere in Iranian elections. Foiled when the Brits were expelled before they could take action, they turned to the United States for help. Although initially unreceptive, the CIA ultimately agreed to cooperate and Operation Ajax—the British called it Operation Boot—returned the shah to power. Cormac describes the concerns raised by both sides, the oscillating positions taken by the Foreign Office and the delicate issues that determined actions. Although Churchill and senior diplomats found working with the Americans frustrating,” writes Cormac, “cooperation paid off in the long run. With the CIA taking the lead, the UK suffered less criticism.” (98) Operation Boot also changed British thinking about covert action as a policy tool; “it would be used repeatedly across the Middle East in the coming decade” and many examples are provided. (108)

In the final chapter, “The British Way,’ Cormac summarizes important policy distinctions that separate the British and US approaches to covert action. These include its use as a defensive tool—even when it is offensive in application—as a means to preserve the status quo rather than regime change, as a way of sustaining influence, and as a means, in Britain’s case, “to prevent or mask decline.” (267)

Disrupt and Deny is a very important component of the covert action conversation—to use a contemporary term—encompassing its suitability and its value in international politics. Cormac has provided the first history of British covert action. It is a seminal contribution.

Inside The Wilderness of Mirrors: Australia and the Threat from The Soviet Union in the Cold War and Russia Today, by Paul Dibb. (Melbourne University Publishing, 2018) 173, endnotes, index.

From his current position as Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Paul Dibb writes that “It is commonplace in today’s strategic thinking to believe that Australia did not play an important role with regard to intelligence or military operations against the Soviet Union.” (xiii) Inside The Wilderness of Mirrors is intended to correct that misapprehension. In conveying his message, Dibb’s follows his own career, highlighting his contributions to the events discussed.

He begins his story in August 1965, while serving in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Returning from an authorized visit to the Soviet Embassy in Canberra in connection with a planned visit to the Soviet Union to discuss agricultural matters, he was summoned to ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Service). His embassy visit had gone well, he was informed, and they had some questions for him. It was the beginning of 20 years as an ASIO source, a relationship he valued and maintained while holding a number of high level government positions.

His main ASIO tasking was to report on the Soviets, and later Russians, whom he met in the course of his work at home and overseas. By the 1980s, he had become a Soviet expert, and his contacts included the KGB rezident, Lev Koshlyakov, later described in Volume 3 of the ASIO Official History “as one of the most dangerous KGB officers ever posted to Australia.” (18)

Among his later assignments, Dibb served as head of the National Assessments Staff, deputy secretary of defense for strategy and intelligence, and director of the Joint Intelligence Organization (D/JIO). In each position he had frequent contact with CIA and NSA officers. In Australia, the subject was often the joint US-Australian Pine Gap SIGINT facility. In Washington, discussions focused on the Soviet Union.

During one visit to CIA Headquarters, while Dibb was D/JIO and after he had published his book The Soviet Union: The Incomplete Superpower (University of Illinois Press, 1986), he met with Deputy Director Bob Gates who told him, “The CIA has read your book . . . and the Agency believes you are wrong.” (107) It was not the first time the two agencies disagreed. Dibb considered CIA views “alarmist” and found the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysis concerning the Soviet Union to be “more measured . . . nuanced.” (109) He was also critical of the US response to the Exercise Able Archer scare with the Soviet Union in 1983. (39ff) His CIA judgments were not always on the mark, however, for example the bizarre statement that “Kim Philby . . . helped with the creation of the CIA.” (23)

Dibb also writes about disagreements with Australian analysts and policy makers—often over his views on the Soviet Union—some causing him career difficulties. And while he attributes the book’s title to problems related to his service as an ASIO source, it could well apply to his career dealing with the government bureaucracy.

In the end, Inside the Wilderness of Mirrors provides a singular insider’s view of the Australian intelligence community and is worth close attention.

Pakistan Adrift: Navigating Troubled Waters, by Asad Durrani. (C. Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd. 2018) 273, endnotes, index.

Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani is a soldier, diplomat, and author. His military assignments included service as the director of military intelligence (DMI), head of the National Defense College, and from 1990–92, the director-general of Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). As a diplomat, after retirement, he was ambassador to Germany and Saudi Arabia. His 2018 book, The Spy Chronicles, was co-authored with A. S. Dulat, the former head of the Indian intelligence service.[12] The Pakistani government was less than pleased with the book—so much so that it reportedly stripped him of his pension—in part because he argued that the madness between India and Pakistan should end and then added that the army probably knew ahead of time about the raid to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.[13] Pakistan Adrift should cause the government less angst.

The concept of being adrift is embodied in Durrani’s description of Pakistan’s government since its inception in 1947. While nominally a parliamentary democracy, its frequent changes of leadership have been imposed more by coup or assassination than elections. Thus national purpose or strategic outlook tended to be volatile, subject to the whims of the current leader and the pressures brought by outside forces. Durrani deals at length with the problems that result and the individuals responsible as he observed them throughout his career.

The main outside forces of his attention are India, Afghanistan, and the United States, which was often involved in Pakistan’s relations with the others. For example, Durrani notes that “between ISI and the CIA . . . communication and coordination worked well as long a the Soviets were in Afghanistan. . . . Though that did not mean that they trusted each other. Differences surfaced as soon as the Soviets withdrew.” (135) After 9/11, when Pakistan joined the US-led coalition, albeit “with a gun to its head,” a decision that “did not amuse India,” (97) “key ISI operatives, were vilified, allegedly for having favored the more radical of the Afghan groups. The charges that the Agency [ISI] was infested with rogue elements have continued ever since. Twice under American pressure there were major purges of ISI’s rank and file. The CIA was clearly at odds with our declared objective to help the Mujahedeen.” (136)

When it comes to speaking truth to power, the current ISI, writes Durrani, “can claim to be better than the rest. The CIA and the others in the West may have more resources and superior technology, but quite often they succumbed to political pressure and adjusted their assessments accordingly.” He goes on to say that during the runup to the Iraq War, “the CIA and its affiliates counterfeited the required evidence.” (138) A strong opinion, not documented.

From a foreign policy point of view, Durrani suggests the United States doesn’t understand Pakistan’s position or is just consumed by imperial hubris when insisting on greater action against Afghanistan and less contact with Iran. Durrani points out that Pakistan must live with both countries long after Americans goes home. Then he emphasizes that US interventions in the Middle East have not brought peace, while each has brought death. By way of explanation, he posits that “no one has ever denied that. . . the State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA more or less acted independently of the Presidency” and thus the turmoil caused by the United States was an “unintended consequence” rather than a well-conceived policy. (218)

Pakistan Adrift is a memoir and is not sourced. Nevertheless, it conveys the forthright views of a seasoned and respected observer. They may conflict with US judgments in some areas, and for that reason alone, they are worth close attention. General Durrani has provided a useful and valuable contribution on Pakistan’s political history and its view of American foreign policy in the Middle East.

* * *

The Reviewer: Hayden Peake has served in the CIA’s Directorates of Operations and Science and Technology. He has been compiling and writing reviews for the “Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf” since December 2002.

[Top of page]

Footnotes:

[1] Michael Lees, The Rape of Serbia: The British Role in Tito’s Grab for Power 1943–44 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1990).

[2] David Martin, The Web of Disinformation: Churchill’s Yugoslav Blunder (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1990).

[3] Peter Batty, Hoodwinking Churchill: Tito’s Great Confidence Trick (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2011).

[4] Jerrard Tickell, Odette: The Story of a British Agent (Chapman & Hall, 1949).

[5] M.R.D. Foot, SOE In France (HMSO, 1966).

[6] Francis Gary Powers with Curt Gentry, Operation Overflight: The U2 Spy Pilot Tells His Story For The First Time (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970).

[7] CIA publicly lifted Woodruff’s cover and revealed his service for CIA in Georgia in May 2012, during its annual memorial ceremony at the Memorial Wall. Woodruff’s Memorial Star had been inscribed on to the wall in 1994.

[8] F. W. Winterbotham, The ULTRA Secret (Harper & Row, 1974).

[9] http://911truth.org/who-is-rich-blee/.

[10] Ronald Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, 2006), 216–17.

[11] James Risen and Benjamin Weiser, “Before Bombings, Omens and Fears,” New York Times, 9 January 1999.

[12] A. S. Dulat, Asad Durrani, and Aditya Sinha. The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace (Harper-Collins India, 2018). The book was reviewed in Studies 62, no. 3 “Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf.”

[13] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistans-army-strips-ex-spy-chief-of-pension-over-book/2019/02/22/70211d54-36a4-11e9-8375-e3dcf6b68558_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.156559231fe0

[Top of page]

Posted: Mar 27, 2019 06:53 AM

Last Updated: Mar 27, 2019 06:53 AM