Spycraft Secrets: An Espionage A-Z

by Nigel West, David Petraeus (Foreword by)

Overview

Tradecraft: as intriguing as it is forbidden . . .

Tradecraft is the term applied to techniques used by intelligence personnel to assist them in conducting their operations and, like many other professions, the espionage business has developed its own rich lexicon. In the real, sub rosa world of intelligence-gathering, each bit of jargon acts as a veil of secrecy over particular types of activity, and in this book acclaimed author Nigel West explains and give examples of the lingo in action. He draws on the first-hand experience of defectors to and from the Soviet Union; surveillance operators who kept terrorist suspects under observation in Northern Ireland; case officers who have put their lives at risk by pitching a target in a denied territory; the NOCs who lived under alias to spy abroad; and much more.

Turn these pages and be immersed in the real world of James Bond: assets, black operations, double agents, triple agents ... it's all here.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750968980
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	10/06/2016
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	756 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

NIGEL WEST has written numerous books on security and intelligence topics and was voted 'The Experts' Expert' by The Observer. He is the recipient of the US Association of Former Intelligence Officers' first Lifetime Literature Achievement Award and has spent many years at the Counterintelligence Centre in Washington DC. His highly acclaimed works include Double Cross in Cairo: MI5 in the Great War, Operation GARBO: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Spy of World War II, Churchill's Spy Files and Spycraft Secrets (2017).

NIGEL WEST has written numerous books on security and intelligence topics and was voted ‘The Experts’ Expert’ by The Observer. He is the recipient of the US Association of Former Intelligence Officers’ first Lifetime Literature Achievement Award and has spent many years at the Counterintelligence Centre in Washington DC. His highly acclaimed works include Double Cross in Cairo: MI5 in the Great War, Operation GARBO: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Spy of World War II, Churchill’s Spy Files and Spycraft Secrets (2017).

Read an Excerpt

Spycraft Secrets

An Espionage A-Z

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By Nigel West

The History Press

Copyright © 2016 Nigel West
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6898-0

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CHAPTER 1

THE A TO Z OF SPYCRAFT

A

ABDUCTION

The abduction of opponents of the Bolshevik regime became almost commonplace in Paris before the Second World War, the known victims being mainly White Russians, and some supporters of Leon Trotsky.

The Soviets also employed the technique on an almost industrial scale in post-war Austria and Germany when numerous scientists, technicians and other targets were routinely seized off the street and forced to work in Soviet labour camps. A GRU defector, Grigori Tokaev, was prompted to seek political asylum from the British in 1947 precisely because of the disagreeable nature of his duties, which included instructions to abduct Focke-Wulf's chief designer, Dr Kurt Tank. Typical was the abduction of Dr Walter Linse who had fled East Germany in 1947 and later became the anti-Communist leader of the Society of Free Jurists. He was taken from West Berlin in July 1952 and died in a Soviet prison camp in December 1953. Similarly, Bohumil Lausman, a prominent Czech anti-Communist who fled to the west in 1949, disappeared from Vienna in 1953 and was driven to Prague where he was imprisoned. Ukrainian nationalists were also targeted, with Dr Alexander Trushnovich seized in West Berlin in April 1954 and Valeri P. Tremmel taken from Linz in June 1954.

In February 1964 a CIA assessment of Soviet kidnappings, drawn up for the Warren Commission, referred to incidents in Calcutta in January 1958 when Aleksandr F. Zelenovskiy tried to defect, and in Rangoon in May 1959 when Mikhail I. Strygin was physically prevented from seeking asylum at the US embassy. Such interventions were not unusual, as was demonstrated by the removal of Konstantin Volkov and his wife from Istanbul in September 1945, days after he had offered to defect to the British.

In the modern era such abductions are relatively rare; rendition, as the process is now often known, is not recognised by international law as a legitimate alternative to extradition proceedings. In July 1984 a former Nigerian minister, Umaru Dikko, was grabbed off a London street by Mossad agents working on behalf of the Nigerian government in an abortive attempt to fly him back to Lagos from Stansted Airport. Similarly, in September 1986 an Israeli technician, Mordechai Vanunu, responsible for newspaper leaks about his country's stockpile of nuclear weapons, was lured from London to Rome where he was bundled aboard a ship, eventually to face trial in Tel Aviv.

ACCESS AGENT

An intermediary who is employed by an intelligence agency for the specific purpose of introducing a case officer to a potential recruit is known as an access agent. The scenario created for the meeting, known as 'the bump' may range from a small dinner party, to a major academic conference.

ACTIVE CONCEALMENT

A concealment device that fulfils two functions, to provide a hiding place and to work as intended, is referred to as an active concealment. Classic examples include cigarette lighters that really work, but contain a cavity in which microfilms can be stored, hand-held torches in which one of the battery cells has a hollow space, or tubes of branded toothpaste that have been repackaged to conceal something incriminating.

ACTIVE MEASURES

A Soviet term for an aggressive operation or propaganda campaign, often involving disinformation, and roughly equivalent to the CIA definition of covert action, active measures embrace every component of aggressive operations.

AGENT AUDIT

Introduced to the CIA by DCI Admiral Stansfield Turner who had expressed doubt about the performance of sources run by the DO, Agent Audit was a mandatory assessment of individual agents intended to weed out those considered unproductive.

Turner, a teetotal Christian Scientist who headed the CIA between March 1977 and January 1981 and never disguised his preference for technical intelligence, undertook an unprecedented review of the DO's staff in 1977 which became known as the Halloween Massacre and resulted in the premature retirement of 820 staff, some of whom were the most experienced case officers of the era. The CIA lost two Deputy Directors of Operations (DDI), William E. Nelson in May 1976 and William W. Wells in December 1977. In addition Turner transferred Jack McMahon from the Directorate of Science and Technology in January 1978 and Bill Wells, a Mandarin-speaking Far East expert who had been in the DO since 1962, and had served in Manila, Taipei, Tokyo and Hong Kong, was replaced.

Morale at the CIA plummeted as the Agency was cut to 14,000 personnel and the annual budget reduced to $6 billion. Bob Gates, who was Turner's executive assistant, recalled that, 'with the people fired, driven out or lured into retirement, half our analysts had less than five years' experience. And our analysis wasn't all that sharp, forward-looking or relevant. Our paramilitary capability was clinically dead. What covert action we did carry out was super-cautious and lacked any imagination.'

The problem with Agent Audit was that sometimes a human source would lose access to the required information, but experienced handlers knew that such individuals often regained access, or could find a replacement, and in any event were always grateful for continued support during a difficult period. Any loyalty demonstrated was often repaid with dividends, while termination, though a short-term expedient, would create resentment.

When, in November 1979, sixty-six Americans, among them the CIA station chief Tom Ahern and three of his subordinates, were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran, the DO was left with virtually no agent network in Iran, and not a single DO officer fluent in Farsi. As a consequence, the CIA was obliged to rehire a retiree to head its Iranian Task Force.

AGENT OF INFLUENCE

Such an individual, usually associated with fellow travellers and sometimes a confidential contact of a local foreign embassy, is not a conventional intelligence source, but is usually ideologically motivated. During the Cold War such agents often occupied posts that enabled them to exercise influence on behalf of Moscow.

Following the defections of Oleg Gordievsky in 1985 and Vasili Mitrokhin in 1992 evidence emerged that several well-known British leftwing journalists had allegedly received undeclared financial support from the KGB, among them the Guardian's literary editor Richard Gott, and the long-serving editor of Tribune, Dick Clements.

Not all agents of influence are necessarily conscious, although Michael Foot, one of Tribune's editors, who would become leader of the Labour Party, would be criticised for apparently not noticing a large subsidy from the Soviet embassy for what purported to be a volume subscription to the weekly journal.

One Soviet channel was Pierre Charles Pathé, son of the movie magnate and one of the leading French journalists of his era. He was arrested in July 1979 and convicted of having accepted undeclared payments over the previous twenty years from two KGB officers, Yuri Borisov and Igor Kuznetsov, and for having inserted pro-Soviet articles into his magazine, Synthesis. Pathé was sentenced to five years' imprisonment but was released in 1981. In the same category was François Saar-Demichel, a French businessman who had fought in the resistance during the Second World War and until 1947 served in the DGSE, but was honeytrapped in Moscow in 1961. Later he became close to the Elysée Palace and acted as an informal foreign policy adviser to President Charles de Gaulle on East–West relations until his activities were investigated by the DST in 1970, which effectively terminated his access.

AGENT PROVOCATEUR

Defined as a person conducting themselves in a manner to entrap others, the classic agent provocateur will lead a target to incriminate themselves, and then warn the appropriate authorities so action can be taken.

During the Second World War one of the longest and most sophisticated agent provocateur operations was run by MI5's F3 section to identify Nazi sympathisers and fifth columnists in Britain, and to determine the scale of the threat they posed. An MI5 officer fluent in German, John Bingham, adopted the alias of Jack Roberts, code-named JACK KING, and posed as Gestapo officer in London on a mission to verify the credentials of potential supporters who could be relied upon to assist a Fascist government after a successful invasion.

The first victim was Irma Stapleton, a factory worker and ardent Nazi. Her case was referred to by MI5's director of counter-espionage, Guy Liddell, as explained in his diary entry for 18 November 1941:

We had a Directors' meeting and I raised the question of Irma Stapleton. From the transcript notes taken by mike [sic] of her last interview with John Bingham posing as a representative of the German secret service there seemed no doubt that she was prepared to go to any lengths and that she could quite easily bring out a whole shell from the factory where she works. She has swallowed our bait hook, line and sinker. If we went on with the case there seemed little doubt that we could get her seven years' at the Old Bailey. We were to some extent forced to adopt these methods because if we interned people under 18(b) because we felt they were a potential danger, they were almost invariably released. I rather wondered how far it would be worth the expense and trouble of trying to get a woman of this type sentenced to seven years, particularly since the case could not be held in an open court. The Director-General said he would give this matter his consideration.

On 19 November Stapleton was arrested, and Liddell observed the following day:

Irma Stapleton was arrested last night. She had brought an empty shell out of the factory, and a note in her own hand-writing giving the position of Wade's garages. She also gave John Bingham full production figures for Wade's garage. Her reaction was immediately to denounce Bingham as a Gestapo agent who she was intending to hand over to the police at the earliest opportunity. She insisted on making a statement which is said to be a tissue of lies. Bingham was arrested at the same time and carried away struggling and handcuffed. This morning she was remanded at Bow Street for fourteen days.

Stapleton subsequently was convicted under the Defence of the Realm Act and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, although the full role played by MI5 in the case was not disclosed in court.

For three years from November 1941 Bingham presented himself as working for the Gestapo, and cultivated Marita Perigoe, a woman known to have expressed disloyal, strongly anti-Semitic views, whose husband Bernard had been detained in Brixton prison. Through her, KING was introduced to Hans Kohout, a former member of the British Union who wanted to spy for Germany, but was persuaded he could undertake more valuable tasks than espionage. KING was also able to gather information about internees held in the Isle of Man and their attempts to maintain contact with Germany. An MI5 summary dated July 1942 set out what KING had accomplished:

All disloyal persons are extremely suspicious of so-called members of the German Secret Service or Gestapo as they are well aware that this technique is used by all Security Services to find out who is loyal and who is not. It would not be an exaggeration to say that during thirty percent of Jack's time with the fifth column, members firmly believe that he is in MI5; it is only owing to his outstanding ability that this idea has been dispelled and he has been able to continuehis work. Mrs Bray, to whom reference will be made later, recently stated to another member of the organisation that it was obvious that Jack was a member of MI5. If the Germans had another good organisation in this country as one might think from what Jack said, why should they bother to send spies over here by parachute or disguised as patriotic escapees from occupied countries? Furthermore, she was aware that all espionage within this country was now done through the Spanish Embassy, and she proposed to send a piece of important information which her husband had recently acquired to that embassy. Jack dissuaded her from taking this course and the information is now in MI5 ... It is difficult to indicate how delicate and lengthy a process it is to gain the confidence of these disloyal persons. This case started two years ago and it is doubtful if it will have reached a point when a prosecution would be possible or worthwhile for at least another year, it is only in the last few weeks that Jack has persuaded Marita to accept payment ('expenses') for her work. She is paid £2 a week, the money being sent in a double envelope, the inside one being blank, in pound notes. Letters are posted from different parts of London every Thursday evening. Although Marita is fully aware that the British authorities impose HOWs, she was persuaded by Jack to accept payment through the post. She feels secure because the money is sent in a double envelope so that 'if any curious person at the GPO were to hold the letter up to the light, he would not see the pound notes inside. Photostats of the banknotes are obtained from the HOW on Marita's correspondence and the legal implications of the matter have been discussed with Major Edward Cussen. Marita has provided this office with the names of disloyal persons with whom she, or her sub-agents, are in contact.

Jack's role with the employees of Siemens Schuckert (GB) Ltd was that of a disloyal Englishman anxious to help the enemy but not knowing how. It was hoped that he would be talent-spotted by someone in Siemens Schuckert, and this would lead to profitable results. Marita, as mentioned above, was found to be a different proposition and it was decided that Jack would have to change his role. Bearing in mind the general dangers of provocation techniques and the bad psychological effects that certain unfortunate episodes in other cases have had on MI5 agents who are now nervous of being accused of being agents provocateurs, it was decided at the start to obviate any possibility of this accusation by the following method. Jack, after weeks of cautious preparation, stated that he was an English representative of the Gestapo. He said he was not a representative of the German Secret Service, which is concerned with the acquisition of intelligence, and he was not interested in espionage nor sabotage. His job in this country was to check up on persons who might be loyal to the Fatherland. On instructions from Head Office, he has carefully avoided any suggestion that Marita or the other persons with whom she is in touch should engage in espionage, as it was not his job: all he required was the names of persons who were believed to be one hundred percent loyal to the Fatherland; he would relay these names to Germany for use in time of invasion, particularly from the point of view of giving food, lodging and hiding to invading forces. Although this was satisfactory for MI5 in that we could never be accused of provocation, it had disadvantages. One person in touch with the Duke of Bedford's group pointed out to Marita that the technique employed by Jack, as if he was a Gestapo agent, was exactly the technique that an MI5 agent would use. An MI5 agent would dissuade persons who were loyal to the Fatherland from committing any act which might endanger the security of this country, though at the same time such an agent would attempt to find out who was disloyal, with a view to view to interning them in time of emergency.

Another disadvantage that the decision to discourage all forms of espionage has incurred is that Marita and certain of her friends are so anxious to take a more positive role than the mere acquisition of information about sympathisers all over the country that it has been found impossible to control her. On more than one occasion she has spontaneously committed acts of espionage involving considerable ingenuity, against our instructions. Whenever such acts have occurred, we consulted Major Cussen with a view to proceedings at a later date.

It is inevitable, as our head agent is a woman, that there should be a tendency for women to come to notice first; but Jack's organisation now includes an almost equal number of men. It is proposed at a later stage to provide all members of the organisation with badges, which will probably take the form of some innocuous object like the Union Jack, which they will be instructed to hide until orders are given from headquarters. From then onwards they will wear them. The object of this plan is to enable the police easily to identify members of this fifth column organisation in time of emergency. It is also hoped to arrange for them to go to specific addresses in time of invasion.

The introduction of Jack Bingham was achieved by intercepting the mail of a Siemens employee, Walter Wegener, who was interned, but not before his letters had identified his sister Dorothy Wegener, a lonely neurotic, as a likely target. She was a member of a correspondence club which Bingham joined to cultivate her, and after they had met, and exchanged suitably pro-Nazi sentiments, 'Jack King' confided to Dorothy that he worked at the Kryn & Lahy metal factory in Letchworth, and had stolen a blueprint for the Vickers tank which he wanted to pass to Germany.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Spycraft Secrets by Nigel West. Copyright © 2016 Nigel West. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by David Petraeus, Former Director of the CIA,
Acknowledgements,
Acronyms and Abbreviations,
Introduction,
Chronology,
The A to Z of Spycraft,