How to Explain the KGB’s amazing success identifying CIA agents in the field?

A great example of using “comparison data” and simple deduction to pull back the veil. Counterintelligence 101.-SF

As the Cold War drew to a close with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, those at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, finally hoped to resolve many long-standing puzzles.

The most important of which was how officers in the field under diplomatic and deep cover stationed across the globe were readily identified by the KGB. As a consequence, covert operations had to be aborted as local agents were pinpointed and CIA personnel compromised or, indeed, had their lives thrown into jeopardy.

The problem dated from the mid-’70s, the very time that James Angleton, the paranoid head of agency counterintelligence, was at last ushered out of office, to the relief of conscientious officers hitherto cast under a dark cloud of suspicion, their promotion delayed or, worse still, denied, and in some cases entire careers wrecked.

But could Angleton have been right? Some consistently maintained so, notably the late Bruce Bagley. Their argument was simple. How could these disasters have happened with such regularity if the agency had not been penetrated by Soviet moles?

Read the Remainder at Salon

1 thought on “How to Explain the KGB’s amazing success identifying CIA agents in the field?”

1 thought on “How to Explain the KGB’s amazing success identifying CIA agents in the field?”

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