Spy Blog from the International Spy Museum

Dr. Thomas Boghardt, Historian

                Espionage can be a dangerous business. Just consider the case of Soviet intelligence defector Walter Krivitsky. Born Samuel Ginsberg in Austria-Hungary in 1899, Krivitsky adopted his nom de guerre when he joined Soviet military intelligence in 1917. His assumed name loosely translates as “crooked” or “twisted”—an irony Krivitksy must have been aware of. After running a number of successful espionage operations in Germany, Austria, and Italy, in 1937 he was posted to The Hague where he managed Soviet espionage operations throughout Western Europe.

                Initially an ardent communist, Krivitsky gradually became disenchanted with Joseph Stalin’s violent and erratic purges. When Stalin’s henchmen killed his friend, Soviet intelligence defector Ignace Porevsky, in Switzerland, Krivitsky himself defected in Paris. With World War II looming, he came to the United States in 1938.

                Even though he dreaded Soviet reprisals, Krivitsky hardly missed a beat before publicly denouncing the machinations of Moscow’s secret service. When a Soviet agent murdered Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940, Krivitsky feared he would be next. “If I am ever found apparently a suicide, you will know that the N.K.V.D. [Soviet intelligence] has caught up with me,” he told a group of friends. But largely ignored and unable to fully integrate in his host country, Krivitsky became increasingly despondent.

                About a year later, on 2 February 1941, Krivitsky was found dead in The Bellevue, a seedy Washington hotel (today known as the posh Hotel George), with three suicide notes by his bed. While the police eventually ruled his death a suicide, others claimed he had committed a “Kremlin suicide”—forced by one of Stalin’s henchman to write suicide notes and then kill himself, in return for a promise that his family would be left unharmed.

Whatever happened at The Bellevue, Krivitsky was a haunted man long before his death. A CIA officer once noted that “every defector has just committed emotional suicide.” And whether Krivitsky killed himself or was forced to do so, he was caught in a maelstrom beyond his control and paid the ultimate price for being in the spy business.

Nothing is what it seems.

Dr. Thomas Boghardt, Historian

The world of intelligence is populated by intriguing, amazing, and occasionally outright bizarre characters. One of my favorites remains Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, aka Mata Hari. She fascinates me not so much because of her espionage career, but because her image has so powerfully shaped our perception of women in espionage.

Born in 1876 in the Netherlands, Margaretha Zelle spent several years in Dutch Indonesia as the wife of a Dutch colonial officer. After falling out with her husband, she returned to Europe, adopted the stage name “Mata Hari,” and launched a sensational career as an exotic dancer. Promiscuous, flirtatious, and openly flaunting her body, she captivated her audience (mostly men) virtually overnight.

During World War I, Mata Hari apparently got involved with German intelligence, using her female wiles to worm secrets out of high ranking Allied military officers. While the details of her brief espionage career remain murky, in 1917 French counter-intelligence intercepted an enemy telegram implicating her as a German spy. The French arrested, court-martialed, and executed her by firing squad in 1917.

Mata Hari had long been a master of deception. For example, she successfully spread the notion that she was a Javanese princess, performing an ancient sacred dance of her homeland. In reality, she was plain Dutch, but her claim conferred an aura of authenticity on her autodidactic dance performances. As the war ended, the myth created by herself exploded. Rumors purported that she had refused to be blindfolded and blown a kiss to her executioners. More fiction than fact, the 1931 movie Mata Hari, starring Greta Garbo, fully turned her into an icon.

Today, female spies are often referred to as “Mata Haris.” In reality, such allusions usually miss the point—the real Mata Hari was not much of a spy, and of course not every female (or male) spy uses seduction to gather intelligence. But I can’t help suspect that Mata Hari herself would be delighted to have become the symbol of the female spy as seductress. Despite her premature death, she may have the final laugh after all. 

Nothing is what it seems

With over 30 years in the CIA, SpyGuy answers some frequently asked questions about current issues in the SPY world.

SpyGuy’s Q & A

Q. You were an Intelligence operative for over 30 years; don’t you think Obama is throwing in the towel on the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)?  In March this year, the Pentagon even stopped using the words, “the GWOT” but instead began referring to an “Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO).”   We hear the same from DHS Secretary Napolitano, State Secretary Clinton, and other Administration mouthpieces. 

Reply:  Words make a difference.  Look at the wrangling over our goal in Afghanistan.  Are we trying to “win” or “succeed?”  They’re not the same.  Using one instead of the other is critical to rallying the government and the country around a common goal.  Too, the “GWOT” raised Osama’s band of murderous fanatics to world stature instead of labeling them more precisely as a small gang of extremists operating on the fringe of one of the world’s great religions.  

Q.  Will ratcheting down our goals then enable Obama to change course away from the previous vigorous campaign against al-Qaeda?

 Reply:  It sure doesn’t sound like it. His advisor on terrorism John Brennan spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on 6 August, saying that the President wants to focus on the real adversaries, al-Qaeda and its allies, and not just on “terror” which is simply a term describing a tactic, not an adversary. 

Q.  Okay, but do you really think this Administration is going to go after Al Qaeda as vigorously as Bush did?   Obama seems to be just running around talking to everyone with no action.

Reply:  Brennan was emphatic:  “Obama will not tolerate Afghanistan or any other country being a base for terrorists determined to kill Americans.”  Al Qaeda, Brennan said, is the most serious threat we face as a nation and Obama has….a clear policy – “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its allies.”  He said Obama has approved operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and encouraged his counterterrorism forces to be more aggressive, more proactive and more innovative….to seek out new ways and new opportunities to take down the terrorists.   Now, that’s more than just running around.  Those words would leave no doubt in my mind as an Intelligence professional about the President’s mandate. 

Q.  Why are you people in Intelligence so hung up on wordsmithing and definitions?  Can’t you just go out and do your jobs?

Reply:  Because knowing what the Chief Executive wants is our job.  We’ve learned the hard way that Intelligence gathering and covert action are nearly worthless unless they’re in response to policymakers’ needs and in sync with the country’s foreign policy.

 Thomas Boghardt, SPY Historian

It is tempting to label historical figures either as heroes or villains. But when you are dealing with intelligence history, you’ll find a lot more shades of gray than charcoal black and ivory white.

A good example for the moral ambiguity spies and intelligence agencies operate in, is the British double-cross system in World War II. Whenever British counter-intelligence caught a Nazi spy, they would try and turn, rather than arrest and execute them. In this endeavor, the Brits virtually always succeeded. And you can’t really blame the spies for turning coat—after all, who would want an Iron Cross if the price was a British bullet? Thus, the British gradually extended control over the entire German spy system in the United Kingdom. Throughout the war, they used it masterly to feed disinformation to the Abwehr (German intelligence) who were convinced their agents in Britain were doing a sterling job.

But where lay the true loyalties of these double agents? Some were evidently beacons of moral rectitude. Juan Pujol (codename GARBO) was a genuine anti-fascist who joined the Abwehr with the sole intention of subsequently spying for British intelligence—a hero, if you like. When it comes to other double agents, though, I am not so sure. Take, for instance, Eddie Chapman, a small-time British crook and notorious skirt chaser, jailed for theft in Jersey when the Germans overran the tiny Channel island in 1940. Recruited as a spy by the Abwehr and sent on a clandestine mission to Britain, Chapman quickly revealed himself to British authorities, becoming a classic double-agent. Perhaps tellingly, the British codenamed him ZIGZAG. 

I’ve never been quite able to figure out where Chapman’s true loyalties were. Officially, his heart had always been with the British, and he was feted as one their ace agents after the war. Yet he developed a genuine friendship with his German handler and even visited him after the war, presumably to talk about the good old times.  The Germans awarded him an Iron Cross. Is it conceivable that the Nazis would have proclaimed Chapman one of THEIR ace agents, had they won the war? And would that make him a hero or a villain?

NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS

Doc Know’s first post. As you can imagine, he has a lot to say.

Not many people will remember the date, but 45 years ago, on August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. This measure authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to use military force in Southeast Asia (read: Vietnam), notably without a formal declaration of war by Congress. If you think about it, this procedure was very similar to the one adopted through the Iraq War Resolution, which in 2002 authorized the administration to invade Iraq. It almost seems to me that, whenever we try to relegate the Vietnam War to the back pages of our history books, the conflict comes back to teach us another lesson.  

Vietnam as well as Iraq and Afghanistan have forced the U.S. military to engage in asymmetrical warfare—regular troops, using the latest military equipment, fighting primitively armed but highly motivated guerrilla forces. In the 1970s as well as today, U.S. commanders have drawn on the intelligence services, especially the CIA, to wage this kind of counter-insurgency. In Vietnam, the CIA developed and led the so-called Phoenix program: small teams of South Vietnamese paramilitary troops and American “advisers” would systematically seek out known or suspected Vietcong cadres and “neutralize”—i.e., arrest, interrogate, or kill—them; by 1972, over 80,000 Vietcong had been neutralized, of which over 25,000 were killed.

At the time, Phoenix incurred much criticism. Small wonder—taking the war to the villages, Phoenix teams often “neutralized” Vietcong cadres and innocent civilians alike. But if you talk to experts on Phoenix today, they will mostly tell you that the program was effective and dealt severe blows to the Vietcong infrastructure in South Vietnam.

As an avid student of intelligence history, I am keen to learn if and how the lessons of Vietnam can or should be applied in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I am asking myself: Is it legitimate to hunt down and selectively “neutralize” our enemies, even at the risk of killing innocent civilians? Or should we refrain from adopting Phoenix-style operations, both for moral considerations as well as concerns over possible backlashes in public opinion abroad?

Nothing is what it seems.