In 1894 the French army obtained a letter revealing that a high-ranking officer was selling secrets to Germany. Suspicion fell on Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer. Ignoring the fact that Dreyfus’ handwriting did not match the letter, an anti-Semitic court convicted him of treason and imprisoned him on a barren island.

Eventually the truth emerged: the real traitor was Major Ferdinand Esterhazy, a close friend of an officer in the French Intelligence Bureau. But the military ignored this new evidence until public pressure forced a retrial. Once again, Dreyfus was convicted, and only a presidential pardon eventually secured his freedom. But it took another century until French President Jacques Chirac offered an apology for Dreyfus’ maltreatment, and officially rehabilitated him in 2006.

The International Spy Museum’s permanent exhibition ends with the following quote: “The most successful spies—those too clever to be caught, too loyal to defect, too shrewd to speak up—will never be recognized, their missions never revealed.” This statement is largely true. It is in the nature of spies and secret services to stay covert, and we usually hear only about those spies who were caught. But sometimes we get a glimpse of what lies beyond.

I was recently visited by an inconspicuous-looking gentleman who told me that he used to work for the foreign ministry of a Soviet Bloc nation. He calmly elaborated that, while serving as a diplomat in a Western country in the 1970s, he contacted the CIA and provided information to the agency up to the end of the Cold War. It is a remarkable story, given that most Cold War Human Intelligence (Hummit) espionage operations known to the public lasted far shorter than a decade, and a reminder of how much there remains to be learnt about the “secret history of history.”

Our Museum will remain in touch with the above-mentioned gentleman who has by now returned to his home country. He has already generously donated some of his spy gear to our collection, and we are hoping to tell more of his fascinating story in the future. Stay tuned as an amazing tale of Cold War espionage unfolds!

Nothing is what it seems

Dr. Thomas Boghardt, Historian

Intelligence agencies are facing two principal challenges—the acquisition of secret information, and its twin, the peril of information overload. The difficulty of finding the proverbial needle in the haystack has exponentially grown since the introduction of the Internet and the explosion—and availability—of human knowledge. Every day, intelligence agencies must sift through literally millions of pieces of information—satellite images, blogs, intercepted phone calls, emails, blogs, etc.—to determine what is going on in the world. Evidently, human beings cannot accomplish this task alone.

Several years ago, the CIA commissioned its investment arm, In-Q-Tel, to devise a scheme to mine and evaluate information on the web. In-Q-Tell, in turn, hired the software company Visible Technologies to monitor and analyze social media. Now, the company crawls over half a million web sites a day, mining more than a million posts and discussions taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. Every hit is categorized, thus making the mass of online information easier to digest for human end users at Langley and elsewhere in the intelligence community.

At this point, Visible Technologies limits its monitoring to openly available sources. The process is designed to provide U.S. intelligence an “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally,” says an In-Q-Tel spokesman. In fact… if you are using any of the common online tools—and since you are reading this blog, you probably are—chances are, you’ve already been mined.

Nothing is What It Seems.

Q.  What’s the story on this retired State Department officer and his wife who were arrested for spying in June, Walter and Gwendolyn Myers?  According the New York Times 19 June 2009 http://bit.ly/VdlpA, the FBI warned the State Department about a suspected mole there in 2006.  And yet the Myers weren’t arrested until three years later.  It seems there’s always a long delay before the FBI makes an arrest in so many of these spy cases.

Reply:  First, we don’t know the basis for the FBI’s suspicion if indeed it did warn State about a suspected mole.  It might have been a leak from the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS), information from a Cuban defector, or even information derived from intercepts of the CuIS transmissions to the Myers.  And we certainly don’t know if the FBI had identified the Myers in 2006.  Even if the bureau had reason to suspect the Myers, it has to develop solid evidence to back up its suspicion to enable the Justice Department to bring a case to trial.

Q.  Don’t you agree that the CuIS didn’t place much value on the Myers as agents since they used such low tech methods to communicate with them, short wave radio transmissions and exchanging shopping carts in the Safeway with their CuIS handlers?

Reply:  I wouldn’t disparage their use of low tech communications; it worked for almost 20 years.  The CuIS has routinely used similar low tech methods for communicating with some of its most valued agents in the United States including Anna Montes, the senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst.  Motivated by her strong feelings for Cuba, she spied for the CuIS for some time before she was arrested in 2001.  She also received direction from the CuIS by shortwave radio.  Many intelligence services including our own still use low tech means for covert communication when it is considered appropriate.   Intelligence services work hard to match the right communications method to a particular agent.

Q.  Was passing information from 200 reports to Cuban Intelligence the only damage they did?

Reply:  Remember that was in just 2007-08.  Having an agent in the State Department’s Intelligence office, INR, would be solid gold to the CuIS.   The public has a pretty shaky grip on what real spies do – and how much damage they can do.  Pop culture in books, TV, and especially Hollywood perpetuate the James Bond myth:  spying is all squealing tires and shots in the night.  No wonder we are shocked – shocked! – when we read about yet another spy in the government.  Walter Myers had the access to provide their CuIS handlers with information about sensitive and classified U.S. foreign policy issues; information and gossip about colleagues: their political leanings and personal weaknesses: and a whole range of information gleaned from his being an insider.  The CuIS regards intelligence about the U.S. as a commodity worth selling and bartering with other intelligence services.  Walter Myers was in an ideal position to deliver valuable product.

 This week marks the 31^st anniversary of the murder of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident killed in 1978 in London. And even though Markov died over thirty years ago, questions about the circumstances of his death continue to linger.

An outspoken critic of the Bulgarian regime, Markov regularly produced anti-Communist programs broadcast by the BBC and Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe (RL/RFE) into Bulgaria. In retaliation for his propaganda work, Markov was assassinated by Bulgarian intelligence at the direct order of the country’s hard-line ruler, Todor Zhivkov. But who did it, and how?

Numerous media reports have suggested that a Bulgarian agent codenamed PICCADILLY executed Markov. According to these accounts, PICCADILLY used an umbrella that KGB technicians had transformed into a weapon capable of injecting a tiny pellet containing the lethal toxin ricin into the victim’s leg.

 But sifting through newly released Bulgarian documents, a few researchers have recently cast doubt on the established story line. Richard Cummings, a former RL/RFE security director, and Hristo Hristov, a Bulgarian journalist, argue that PICCADILLY with his umbrella may have merely served as a diversion. The actual murder would have been committed by another agent with a small pneumatic weapon, a device much easier to handle than the unwieldy umbrella. 

Whatever the truth, the assassin is likely to get off scotch free. Even though Bulgaria’s 30year statute of limitations for murder was extended for another five years in 2008, the trail seems to have gone cold. There now appears little chance of catching the perpetrator and Markov’s murder is likely to remain one of the great mysteries of the Cold War.

Nothing is What it Seems

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

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.