Agent Link: The Spy Erased from History

by Raymond J. Batvinis

Overview

Agent Link: The Spy Erased from History is a biography of William Wolfe Weisband who one colleague described as a “charter member” of America’s top-secret Cold War codebreaking pioneers. Every day for years he worked with cryptanalysts as they struggled to tease out secrets from a mind-numbing jumble of numbers. As breakthroughs emerged, codebreakers sought his help for insights and meanings before the startling revelations were passed to US policy makers. What no one knew, however, was that with every new breakthrough, Weisband was keeping his KGB masters informed about American progress. The Army Security Agency, NSA’s codebreaking predecessor, had simply swept the scandal under the rug. Government leaders said, “nothing about the case in public, and little in private either,” an NSA history recorded. America’s codebreaking hierarchy “simply wanted the case … to go away.” Weisband was air – brushed out of history and the new NSA organization wanted it kept that way. This one insider spy experts say “did greater damage to America’s national security” than later traitors like Jack Dunlap, William Martin and Bernon Mitchell, and Ronald Pelton: even more than Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. Weisband’s story has never been told. A half a century after his death, the mystery surrounding this man remains.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538184905
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/15/2024
Series:	Security and Professional Intelligence Education Series
Pages:	354
Product dimensions:	5.95(w) x 9.03(h) x 0.78(d)

About the Author

Raymond J. Batvinis is an author, lecturer, historian, retired FBI agent and former Professional Lecturer at The George Washington University. He holds a doctorate from The Catholic University of America and is the author of two previous books on the history of the FBI’s counterintelligence program.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Reader’s Note

Prologue

Chapter 1: Lies

Chapter 2: Hotels

Chapter 3: Double Lives

Chapter 4: A Washington Committee

Chapter 5: Zero

Chapter 6: Radio School

Chapter 7: Pollock

Chapter 8: Failure

Chapter 9: Blerio

Chapter 10: Brooks and Werner

Chapter 11: Coos County

Chapter 12: Needle and Link

Chapter 13: Soldier

Chapter 14: Farm

Chapter 15: ETO

Chapter 16: Rendezvous

Chapter 17: Arlington Hall

Chapter 18: Settling In

Chapter 19: Disaster

Chapter 20: Disaster Times Two

Chapter 21: Top-Secret Cream

Chapter 22: Charter Member

Chapter 23: Mabel

Chapter 24: Jimmy’s Place

Chapter 25: Top Secret Glint

Chapter 26: Big Stuff

Chapter 27: The Jewels in the Amber

Chapter 28: Strange Odyssey

Chapter 29: Vladimir Arrives

Chapter 30: Catastrophe

Chapter 31: Reckoning

Chapter 32: Face Off

Chapter 33: Flight

Chapter 34: Aftermath

Chapter 35: Endgame

Chapter 36: Epilogue

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

I’m pleased that my friend Ray has followed the Weisband case, a case that I worked on for many years to its conclusion.

Robert Louis Benson

I thought I knew the story of William Weisband, arguably the most damaging Russian spy in history, but it turns out I didn’t have a clue. Ray Batvinis has unearthed FBI files that reveal for the first time how the hard-drinking, high-living Weisband wormed his way into the inner sanctum of American code breaking and gave away its most closely guarded secrets. And for his crime, he served less than a year in prison. Incredible!

David C. Martin

Raymond J. Batvinis is one of our great authorities on American counterintelligence. But he is not merely a scholar. He is himself a former FBI Special Agent, a gifted investigator who learned how spies operate by catching them. With his new book, Agent Link, he has brought to light an espionage tale that has been unjustly forgotten. William Weisband was a roguish American who became perhaps the most valuable double agent ever to work in the service of the KGB. Batvinis lays out the full story in all its noirish glory, presenting the reader with a gripping narrative full of character and incident. Hollywood, are you listening?

Peter Duffy

This is an extremely important book about a very, very damaging counterintelligence failure long (hidden or obscured whichever you would judge the better word) by NSA and written by an experienced FBI Special Agent who is also a trained historian. A must read for anyone left in the U.S. Government seriously interested in Counterintelligence.

Paul Redmond

Agent Link is more than a spy story. Weisband almost disappeared from the attention of historians and the appreciation of his important role in world affairs. Fortunately, Batvinis has countered this neglect by writing his deeply-researched, well-written, colorful and valuable contribution to spy literature.

David Charney