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How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
61–68 of 68 posts
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#62So... 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,…
>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.
Isn't "passport control officer" the main go-to title for agents working under diplomatic cover?
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#63> How to explain the.... Is grammatically correct in American English? Sounds weird. In UK, Aus, you'd ask " How do you explain the ... "
This is pretty stanard KGB English typical for Russian native speakers. So it is not uncommon in KGB/FSB promotional materials.
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most anglosphere communists I know have a term for such people: tankies. And they hate them: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tankie
Maybe if you're talking about anglosphere 'communists' who follow people like Vaush online. Nothing communist about them.
I am not talking about them. I am talking about people who are all about worker rights, unions and class struggle — you know — the things that are in the actual communist manifesto.
Whether that fits the people arround that "Vaush" — I don't know — but I can tell you as somebody who studied philosophy at a highly political campus, that the amount of communists who think the soviets (or china for that matter) are anything else than a failure is very low. A few of those strange people exist, but I wish the number of right wingers who think Hitler was a great guy was equally low.
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#65For 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…
> The book mentions the increased difficulty of doing anything undercover or assumed identity in the modern digitally connected world.
What does state of the art facial recognition do to operational technique in China ?
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#66Traffic analysis but applied to leave, advancement and record keeping. Second order effects indicative of first order function. If you can obtain the telephone directory and track it over time and it has job titles you can probably reconstruct the history of IBM, which party is in power, whatever, for the institution which publishes it. And what the role and career progression is for the longterm players. What does i…
I heard from coworkers about how in the 70s in New Jersey, headhunters would get ahold of a phone directory from some facility in Bell Labs and just go thru the entire directory.
But what if they weren't headhunters ? What if they were... Chinese operatives ?
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#67So... 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,…
Isn't the "cultural attaché" the guy who hangs out at receptions scouting for other-side folks who can't hold their liquor and/or want to reach out ?
Anyways always remember the difference between diplomatic immunity and consular immunity. The former covers the nuclear family, and includes criminal activity. The latter most decidedly does not.
There was a case where a Brazilian (IIRC) diplomat's kid killed a local in a traffic accident. Off scot-free.
Re: How to explain the KGB's success identifying CIA agents in the field (2015)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you ask someone who can't tell you what they do, what they do, they'll give you a quick and really dull answer. Anyone implying that they "can't really talk about that" is most likely a service-desk technician.
We had a family friend that everyone knew was a spook. If you asked him his job, he'd say he was "attached to the Foreign Office".
And in the same vein, Elizabeth Ray (1976) was a "staff director".