How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
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Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#2They are also easy to spot online
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#3No post body was provided.
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#4For someone wanting a bit more of this with great anecdotes, I direct you to the Mitrokhin Archive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive) sourced pair of tomes (The Sword and the Shield (1999) and The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (2005)).
An incredible source covering more than a century of operations, predating the revolution, and spanning all continents. The first book dives quite deeply into this exact topics, with double, triple and sometimes quadruple crossings. I loved the part about the prep for large-scale sabotage in eastern seaboard of USA in the events of hostilities, something I had no idea about but would have been quite an bold move. There was also a lot of unbelievably dumb stuff.
The book mentions the increased difficulty of doing anything undercover or assumed identity in the modern digitally connected world. All of those undercover things are pretty much the thing of the past now, with OSINT being able to find just about anything about anyone.
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#5So... I like spy novels and such and I've always wondered how the hell one would keep it a secret which 50% of an embassy are secret service. So many possible patterns! Turns out, one doesn't, unless extremely careful.
I also seem to remember that "who is secret service at the embassy" was never an important line of defense against counterespionage, something the article doesn't mention.
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#6For someone wanting a bit more of this with great anecdotes, I direct you to the Mitrokhin Archive ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive ) sourced pair of tomes (The Sword and the Shield (1999) and The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (2005)). An incredible source covering more than a century of operations, predating the revolution, and spanning all continents. The first…
Wow, this is incredible. Thank you.
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#7So... I like spy novels and such and I've always wondered how the hell one would keep it a secret which 50% of an embassy are secret service. So many possible patterns! Turns out, one doesn't, unless extremely careful. I also seem to remember that "who is secret service at the embassy" was never an important line of defense against counterespionage, something the article doesn't mention.
A friend of mine is a diplomat, and apparently in diplomatic circles it's common knowledge who on the other side is a spy. In Soviet times, the lowest-ranked, blandly-named "member of delegation", typically an older gentleman with a military crewcut, was invariably KGB, while in many embassies including the US the "cultural attache", a position that has minimal qualifications and has almost no real responsibilities, is so commonly a spy that the whole title has become a bit of an in-joke.
All of this is kind of beside the point though, since embassy staff are known, heavily surveilled and guarded by diplomatic immunity. The "real" spies are the local people they recruit, and recruiting and keeping tabs on them without blowing their cover is the actual hard part.
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#8So... I like spy novels and such and I've always wondered how the hell one would keep it a secret which 50% of an embassy are secret service. So many possible patterns! Turns out, one doesn't, unless extremely careful. I also seem to remember that "who is secret service at the embassy" was never an important line of defense against counterespionage, something the article doesn't mention.
A friend of mine is a diplomat, and apparently in diplomatic circles it's common knowledge who on the other side is a spy. In Soviet times, the lowest-ranked, blandly-named "member of delegation", typically an older gentleman with a military crewcut, was invariably KGB, while in many embassies including the US the "cultural attache", a position that has minimal qualifications and has almost no real responsibilities,…
Yes, right. Dead drops, secret meetings and all that. (I ninja-added a second paragraph before I saw your comment.)
I remember a cultural attaché or two from John le Carré novels ;)
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#9So... I like spy novels and such and I've always wondered how the hell one would keep it a secret which 50% of an embassy are secret service. So many possible patterns! Turns out, one doesn't, unless extremely careful. I also seem to remember that "who is secret service at the embassy" was never an important line of defense against counterespionage, something the article doesn't mention.
In a place I used to work at, I attended a workplace party where I was approached by a newly hired staff member. His many questions was all very leading, along the lines of: 'I like drugs, do you like drugs?' Apart from the clumsiness of his technique, what gave him away was his haircut (very military).
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#10For someone wanting a bit more of this with great anecdotes, I direct you to the Mitrokhin Archive ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive ) sourced pair of tomes (The Sword and the Shield (1999) and The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (2005)). An incredible source covering more than a century of operations, predating the revolution, and spanning all continents. The first…
A strong argument in favor of rooting out ideologically unaligned thinking.
Would you want a communist working in the US government? Clearly they would be far more likely to sympathize with the Soviet Union than a capitalist would.