Soviet recruitment of the Cambridge Five spy network

History Of Espionage Class Reading Study Guides

Jeffrey Burds, Chapter 19 of World of the Shadows: An International History of Espionage (The Golden Age of Soviet "Illegals")

This chapter opens with a quote from Stalin, who in 1937 questioned the prevailing belief that bourgeoisie states would refrain from sending "spies, wreckers, saboteurs and assassins" into socialist states.

Chapter 19 then moves to a discussion of the so-called "Cambridge Five," a group of five British nationals who spied for the Soviets during WWII.

Donald Maclean (1915-1983), Foreign Office secretary, Paris, Washington, Cairo, London.

Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (1910-1963), BBC broadcaster, agent in MI6, secretary to Deputy Foreign Minister

Harold Adrian Russell ("Kim") Philby (1912-1988), journalist, agent in MI6, "The Third Man"

Anthony F. Blunt (1907-1983), tutor of French, art historian, art adviser to Queen Elizabeth, agent in MI5 during World War Two, "The Fourth Man"

John Cairncross (25 July 1913 -- 8 October 1995), the suspected "Fifth Man"

The "Cambridge Five" passed documents and information to the Soviets throughout and after WWII, and "According to Russian archives, between 1941 and 1945, Cairncross supplied the Soviets with 5,832 documents."

The Chapter then moves on to discuss Alexandre Orlov, whose Handbook of Intelligence and Guerrilla Warfare was published in 1963. Orlov was a trusted Communist party member who helped design the Golden Age of Great Illegals in Soviet spy networks in the 1930's. In 1938, Orlov was recalled to Moscow and he suspected he would be executed as a part of Stalin's "purge," so he fled to America with a forged passport.

Orlov published the Handbook of Intelligence and Guerrilla Warfare to help avoid financial destitution, and his book covered many of the Soviet's most effective tactics for Verbovka, or the recruitment of sources for espionage activities. In his review of recruitment techniques, Orlov revealed that blackmail and other coercive methods of controlling informants were not used by the Soviets, despite American claims that their citizens had been forced to conduct illicit spying activities.

To bring the chapter full circle, we learn how Orlov himself helped to recruit many of the "Cambridge Five," with his luring of Philby standing as the most impactful maneuver. We learn that Orlov escorted Philby on a trip to Berlin, to see the horrors of fascism firsthand, and that Orlov eventually helped to mastermind the recruitment of the "Cambridge Five."

The chapter concludes with a discussion of The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Second World War, including a review of Neville Chamberlain's infamous 1938 meeting with Adolf Hitler, during which the British Prime Minister allowed himself to be fooled into a policy of appeasement.

October 21st -- L. Dvoinikh and N. Tarkhova, "What Military Intelligence Reported Historians Have a Chance to Analyze: Soviet Intelligence Dispatches on the Eve of War"

This reading discusses the German invasion of the Soviet Union from the perspective of intelligence gathering agencies within Soviet regime.

The authors dispute the traditional Russian view of the Nazi invasion as being a surprise, sneak attack launched suddenly and unexpectedly, and the reading represents the author's attempt to prove that Soviet intelligence did indeed know a German attack was imminent.

According to the authors, "in December 1940, Razvedupr [the Intelligence Directorate] of the General Staff of the Red Army drew up a "mobilization report" on Germany," and the reading includes several other points of evidence suggesting that the Soviets were prepared to anticipate an attack from their Nazi "allies."

In explaining the Soviet's slow response to German advances, and a series of military failures during the first few months of engagement, the authors point to the "Great Terror" of the 1930s, a purge which left the Soviet military structure devoid of experienced leaders.

The intense campaign of disinformation which was used by the Germans at this time is also discussed, as is the impact of this subterfuge on the Soviet military's ability to prepare troops, plan strategies and deploy resources appropriately.

The chapter concludes with an analysis of actual correspondence between Soviet intelligence officials during the run-up to Germany's invasion. This exercise is highly informative, as it allows the reader to follow the convoluted chain of command which was used to report German troop movements, mobilization capabilities, and other crucial factors for intelligence-based war planning.

October 21st -- Peter Kahn, "The Intelligence Failure of Pearl Harbor"

This reading provides a detailed review of the circumstances which preceded the Japanese attack on American naval interests in Pearl Harbor. The author begins with an anecdote about Frank B. Rowlett, a civilian employee of the U.S. Army tasked with cracking the PURPLE code used to cipher Japanese diplomatic cables, before moving on to a historical review of the tense relationship between Japan and the U.S.

The reading then delves into a comprehensive review of American/Japanese relations during the 20th century, highlighting instances of diplomatic duplicity wherein American codebreakers used their knowledge of internal Japanese messages to force their hand during major negotiations.

In 1929 Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson issued a mandate to avoid the use of codebreaking, saying that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail," and just two years later now-unemployed cryptanalyst Herbert O. Yardley published a book revealing the extent of American intelligence gathering against Japanese interests.

This revelation was a major embarrassment for the Japanese government, and soon afterward the nation's encryption system was strengthened considerably, leaving American intelligence agencies in the proverbial dark as Japan began initial preparations for the Pearl Harbor attack.

On September 20th, 1940, with European nations falling to the Axis powers and Japan expanding its military capabilities, William H. Friedman and his team of cryptanalysts including Rowlett (first bullet point) -- finally cracked the PURPLE code.

In 1941, several PURPLE coded messages indicating that Japan was preparing for imminent war were deciphered, but these messages were diplomatic rather than military in nature, and thus did not provide information on naval movements, exercises, etc.

Nonetheless, the study of Japanese naval traffic patterns produced a viable pattern of ship deployment and radio darkness during major operations, and the intelligence community had several other legitimate clues that the Pearl Harbor attack would soon be launched. Despite the mounting evidence, however, American leaders discounted the possibility of a sneak attack as improbable, and the nation's naval centerpiece in Pearl Harbor was left relatively undefended.

The reading concluded with a review of American intelligence failures prior to Pearl Harbor, including the deciphering of only diplomatic cables, a bigoted cultural dismissiveness towards Japanese capabilities, and the targeted use of intelligence "noise" by the Japanese for the sake of distraction and disinformation.

October 21st -- Ken Kotani, Japanese Intelligence in World War II, pp. 55-58, 76-86.

This reading expands on the previous entry by discussing Japanese intelligence gathering activity targeting American interests prior to and during WWII.

The author talks about the division between the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), which operated as two separate entities and did not always share information efficiently.

According to Kotani, the Japanese military directed much of its intelligence gathering capabilities to observing their aggressive and unpredictable Soviet neighbors, a strategy which eventually resulted in an "intelligence deficit" as Japan engaged in armed conflict with American forces in the wake of Pearl Harbor.

Kotani provides several intriguing statistics to underscore the lack of intelligence utilized by the Japanese military, including the starting fact that "only eight staff officers were dedicated to U.S. And UK intelligence within the Army General Staff during the battle of Guadacanal."

Only after the Japanese were defeated soundly at Guadacanal, and again at the battle of Leyte Gulf, did their military leadership shift the intelligence gathering priority from the Soviet Union to America.

The reading then moves on to a review of accelerated and improved Japanese intelligence gathering techniques, including the work of Naosada Koshiba, an IJN operative who pioneered the nation's use of naval human intelligence (Naval HUMINT) throughout China and the Pacific theatre.

The story of ex-British officer F.J. Rutland is also reviewed, as this man was employed by the IJN for a number of years, helping to lay the groundwork for Japanese naval espionage on American soil during the 1930s.

October 21st -- Jeffrey Burds, Chapter 20 of World of the Shadows: An International History of Espionage

This chapter covers the infamous German invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941

also known as Operation Barbarossa -- from an intelligence gathering perspective.

The chapter discusses Stalin's increased paranoia regarding Winston Churchill's supposed plan to lure the Soviets into a war with their ostensible allies in Nazi Germany, as he willfully ignored no less than 84 reports on German troop buildups, demonstrating that viable intelligence is useless if not wielded effectively by competent state leaders.

Simply put, Stalin refused to believe mounting evidence that Hitler was plotting to betray him, and in spite of documented evidence of a looming Nazi invasion, the Soviet premier stubbornly refused to even consider the possibility.

The following question provides the foundation of this chapter's message: "How could the most extensive intelligence networks in the world have missed the German Wehrmacht's concentration of 98% of German European troop strength -- nearly 3 million soldiers -- on the western borderlands of the Soviet Union during that fateful spring of 1941?," and throughout the chapter several possible explanations are examined.

The chapter also circles back to the "Cambridge Five," and how even with Soviet spy Kim Philby placed so highly in the British Secret Service, the Soviet leader's inability to trust others effectively invalidated the expert-level espionage of the "Cambridge Five."

To conclude, the chapter reviews how Stalin's increasingly deluded worldview managed to turn Philby's incredible subterfuge -- perhaps the most important spy games ever waged -- into a useless resource, illustrating that effective intelligence gathering can only be successfully exploited by flexible leaders capable of adapting their previous positions.

October 24th -- Stephen Budiansky, "Prologue: Midway," in Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II (2000), pp. 1-24.

This reading discusses the continual struggle by both American and Japanese intelligence personnel to encrypt sensitive messages and crack enemy codes.

The author begins with a detailed description of the maneuvering which took place between Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto -- Commander in Chief of Japan's Combined Fleet -- and the American Commander Joseph J. Rochefort, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

One of these naval exercises was led by Lt. Colonel James H. Doolittle, who piloted a fleet of B-25 bombers during a covert attack on Tokyo. Upon learning of this attack, which was actually launched from the U.S. aircraft carrier Hornet, Yamamoto believed that the Pacific island of Midway represented the crucial base of operations.

The reading then moves on to an in-depth discussion of the encryption efforts used by the Japanese Navy, which hoped to secure Midway and prevent the Americans from establishing a crucial foothold in the Pacific theatre. This section also includes a thorough review of Rochefort's efforts to break the new Japanese code, which was known first as "AN" and later as "JN-25."

A geographic target of interest emerged after months of codebreaking efforts -- which was designated as "AF" -- and it soon became apparent through deductive reasoning that Midway island was Japan's latest target for an invasion force.

The reading makes it clear that the Battle of Midway, which is historically regarded as one of the most crucial in all of WWII, actually represented a titanic struggle between the intelligence gathering agencies of both Japan and the U.S., as Yamamoto sought to lure the American fleet into an ambush by disseminating false and misleading misinformation.

By employing superior codebreaking techniques, however, the U.S. was able to successfully anticipate Yamamoto's plan and essentially beat the Japanese to the punch, and the Battle of Midway was actually won before it ever began.

October 24th -- Ken Kotani, Japanese Intelligence in World War II, pp. 86-90

This reading provides a detailed examination of the Imperial Japanese Navy's (IJN) intelligence and counter-intelligence failures leading up to the Battle of Midway.

Kotani mentions many of the direct consequences of Japan's ineffective intelligence efforts, including the death of Admiral Yamamoto and the decisive and disastrous defeat at the Battle of Midway.

According to Kotani, the IJN was presented with insurmountable evidence that its encryption systems had been compromised, as he states "it is inevitable that secret documents are sometimes intercepted by the enemy and coded communications are decoded, yet the fact remains that the IJN took no counter measures, despite an awareness that secrets were being leaked."

An inability or unwillingness to respond to code failures directly led to the death of Japan's most revered military hero, Admiral Yamamoto, after "the U.S. intercepted and decoded the IJN's coded telegram 'NTF Secret, number 131755,' then ambushed and shot down the airplane of Yamamoto, who was visiting the Solomon Island."

Kotani also reviews the case of an IJN codebook and Secret "Z-Plan" document which were captured by American forces off of Cebu Island.

October 28th -- P.R.J. Winter, "British Intelligence and the July Bomb Plot of 1944: A Reappraisal," War in History Volume 13, Number 4 (2006): 468-494. (Cohen)

This reading examines the role of anti-Hitler resistance fighters working to topple the Third Reich from within Germany, as well as the connection between their efforts and the work of British intelligence services.

As the author reveals, Hitler was targeted for assassination more than 30 times before the WWII had even begun, and in 1943 alone six separate attempts on his life were made by disenchanted German officers.

The July Bomb Plot of 1944 was yet another assassination attempt aimed at removing Hitler from authority and ending WWII before a total defeat of Germany by Allied forces could be achieved.

Led by German Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the July Bomb Plot of 1944 commenced on Thursday, July 20th, at roughly 12:50 in the afternoon. According to the author, "At the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia, the conference hut in which he and his military advisers were meeting was blown apart by a bomb von Stauffenberg had planted just feet away from his intended victim."

The reading then explores the possibility that British intelligence services may have been capable of executing a successful assassination attempt -- or of assisting von Stauffenberg in his attempt -- but failed in this regard because they underestimated the scope of the German resistance movement.

The rest of the reading is an exhaustive historical investigation aimed at determining the level of awareness or involvement that British intelligence services had in regards to the July Bomb Plot of 1944.

October 28th -- SEE FILM: Valkyrie (2008). A very accurate portrayal of the July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler and its aftermath

The 2008 major motion picture Valkyrie presents a historically accurate portrayal of the July Bomb Plot of 1944, with actor Tom Cruise playing the role of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

The film attempts to depict the complex preparations taken by von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators, who hoped to remove Hitler from power in a coup d'etat that would empower moderate members of the German military, and hopefully lead to a surrender that preserved German lives and prevented further losses.

Filmed in a highly realistic fashion, Valkyrie illustrates several aspects of this era in global history for modern viewers, including the cult-like level of worship reserved for Hitler by his loyal subordinates, the ruthless manner of retribution used by the Nazis to punish dissenters, and the sheer audacity displayed by von Stauffenberg in his attempt to kill the most feared man on the face of the planet.

The film recreates the assassination attempt itself in visceral fashion, as well as the resulting fallout when Hitler miraculously survived the point blank bombing, including the summary executions of von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators.

October 28th -- Burds, World of the Shadows: An International History of Espionage, Chapter 22

This chapter moves the discussion from a purely espionage activity -- that is, gathering intelligence, copying documents, and cracking codes -- to the specialized position of soldier-spy necessitated by the realities of WWII.

According to Burds, this soldier-spy was capable of conducting traditional espionage activities, while also working actively to disrupt and destroy the enemy's military and infrastructure capabilities.

The duties of the special operations soldier-spy included sabotage of key facilities, bridges and factories, effecting two-way radio communication from within enemy territory, and airborne deployments or extractions using paratrooper elements.

The chapter also discusses the connection between British intelligence agencies and resistance movements operating within Nazi-occupied territories, stating that "resistance groups could be used throughout the invasion in support of conventional Allied forces. The only thing needed to make this plan into reality was an intermediary group that could locate, organize, and guarantee effective cooperation from the decentralized French Guerrilla groups."

To achieve this arm of the Allied offensive, "the British Special Operations Executive was created explicitly for the purpose of using unconventional methods to destabilize the enemy occupation of Europe, creating as much of a psychological nightmare for the Axis as it would a tangible and logistical one."

According to the chapter, American intelligence capabilities were practically nonexistent prior to the outbreak of WWII, but close cooperation with the British eventually enabled the U.S. To catch up in terms of espionage and special operations.

Also known as "shadow warfare," the use of special operations solder-spies proved to be integral in turning the tide of WWII, as entire German tank divisions were hobbled after encountering tire-puncturing spike traps, while diversionary tactics spread Axis defensive forces thin enough to permit steady Allied advances.

Operation Jedburgh = "named after the town in the Scottish Highlands where allied Special Forces personnel were trained, represented the first real cooperation in Europe between the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Special Operations branch of America's Office of Strategic Services (OSS)."

Jedburghs were used to help mobilize French resistance fighters within Nazi-occupied territory, and "The Jedburgh teams normally parachuted in by night to meet a reception committee from a local Resistance or Maquis group. Their main function was to provide a link between the guerrillas and the Allied command. They could provide liaison, advice, expertise and leadership, but their most powerful asset was their ability to arrange airdrops of arms and ammunition for local resistance fighters."

German Brandenburger Commandoes = "They were the first large scale unit, eventually reaching the size of a division, to be made up entirely of highly-trained soldiers designed to operate on an individual or small-group basis: the first precursor of today's 'modern' special forces."

October 28th -- Burds, World of the Shadows: An International History of Espionage, Chapter 23

This chapter focuses the discussion on the use of deception as a means of counterintelligence, and the following quote is used to underscore the importance of deception to the war effort: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Churchill to Stalin.

The chapter also begins with an excerpt from a 1945 Time Magazine article, which highlighted the U.S. Army's use of the codebreaing device "MAGIC" to score key strategic victories over the Japanese, pointing to this article as the first major "leak" of intelligence information pertaining to American use of special strategic weapons.

The machine known as MAGIC was "built after years of trial & error, of inference and deduction, (during which) cryptographers had duplicated the decoding devices used in Tokyo," and the use of MAGIC to crack Japanese codes proved to be the impetus for two of the major American victories in the Pacific theatre.

The Battle of Midway -- where American forces were able to lure the majority of the Japanese fleet into a trap, destroying most of their major battleships and carriers -- would likely have won by the enemy had Admiral Yamahoto's ambush plan not been deciphered and decoded.

Admiral Yamahoto himself fell victim to the MAGIC machine's codebreaking capabilities, and after his private travel itinerary was decoded, "this led Admiral Chester Nimitz to launch Operation Vengeance, and order a force of U.S. fighter planes to intercept Yamamoto's flight and to shoot it down on 18 April 1943, killing all on board."

The chapter then covers the same angle from the British perspective, revealing that "the British code breaking bureau in the 1930's as well as in World War II was called the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS) & #8230; (and) by 1939 its code breakers had broken the diplomatic codes of every country they deemed worth watching."

For the British, the main target of cryptanalysis and codebreaking efforts was the German's legendary Enigma machine, which "was a mechanical encryption/decryption machine that looked very much like a large typewriter. It worked by a series of rotating disks that scrambled the cipher alphabet. When a letter was input on a typewriter key an electric current would run through the rotors, becoming scrambled and scrambled again until it reached the leftmost rotor, where it would be reflected back into the machine and undergo the entire process again."

The Enigma machine threatened to give Nazi German an insurmountable intelligence advantage over the Allies, because "The Enigma machine was like nothing cryptanalysts had ever seen before. It defied all conventional methods of code breaking. On January 9 and 10, 1939, British, French, and Polish cryptanalytic representatives met in Poland to discuss work on breaking the Enigma machine. They all come to the same conclusion; that 'reconstruction of the machine solely through the study of cipher texts was practically impossible.'"

Nonetheless, Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski managed to crack the Enigma's previously indecipherable code in just a few short weeks, working alone and with the assistance of just "two German manuals describing operation of the machine, a few photographs, the intercepted German traffic, and two pages containing the machine's daily settings."

British TOP SECRET ULTRA program at Bletchley Park = The British intelligence community's top-secret program to decrypt German and Axis messages.

The XX Committee = Stands for Double-Cross and Deception, and included "representatives from all the key English ministries, including MI6 and MI5, as well as the Ministry of War, with liaisons from the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy."

The combined efforts of TOP SECRET ULTRA and the XX Committee managed to completely neutralize German espionage activity in England, because these agencies were "created as ultra-secret organizations to coordinate global deception operations against Hitler. Churchill's directive for the Committee had been simple: Globally prepare deceptions to make the enemy waste his resources; Coordinate deception plans; Make sure that everything fits into overall plan; Support all Allied deception schemes."

The XX Committee's main accomplishment, however, was the protection of invasion plans associated with Operation Overlord -- the Allied invasion of Normandy. Under the guise of OPERATION BODYGUARD, a web of deception was weaved to confuse German commanders, distracting them from the front in France so that the subsequent invasion's chances of success were maximized.

After WWII concluded, American democracy assured that information regarding MAGIC was soon released to the public, but several decades would pass before the British government released a shred of confirmation as to the existence of TOP SECRET ULTRA and the XX Committee.

October 31st -- Kathryn S. Olmsted, "Blond Queens, Red Spiders, and Neurotic Old Maids: Gender and Espionage in the Early Cold War," Intelligence and National Security Volume 19, Number 1 (Spring 2004): 78-94.

This article is intended to shed light on the role of female spies during the post-WWII and pre-Cold War period.

In 1948, a woman named Elizabeth Bentley confessed to leading a ring of Soviet spies working in New York City and Washington, D.C., admitting her espionage activities and defecting to the FBI.

Bentley was initially described as a young, beautiful blonde woman, but when her identity was confirmed her short brown hair and aging features minimized her impact in the public consciousness.

The article goes on to examine the case of Bentley, and fellow female spies rooted out during the late 1940s and early 1950s, from the perspective of gender-based stereotyping.

Rather than examine the use of female spies in any meaningful way, the American media focused on superficial issues like sexual liaisons with high-ranking officials, and this perception eventually led to a diminished level of vigilance against female spies during the Cold War.

Mata Hari = "Dutch erotic dancer who had been executed by the French for allegedly passing state secrets to the Germans during World War I."

Judith Coplon = "another single woman who de-ed espionage stereotypes. In March 1949, the FBI arrested Coplon, a 27-year-old Justice Department employee, on charges of spying for the Soviet Union. Agents stopped her as she attempted to meet with Valentin Gubitchev, a Russian engineer attached to the United Nation. Her urse was stuffed with top-secret documents."

Priscilla Hiss = "After State Department of-cial Alger Hiss was accused of espionage, his wife, Priscilla, was vili-ed by reporters, prosecutors, investigators, and even alleged friends as the siren who had led her husband astray."

Ethel Rosenberg = "Also blamed for her husband's alleged transgressions. She and her husband, Julius, were arrested in the summer of 1950 for conspiring to steal intelligence about the atomic bomb and pass it to the Soviet Union." The Rosenbergs were charged with wartime espionage and were ultimately executed via electric chair in 1953.

October 31st -- Burds, World of the Shadows: An International History of Espionage, Chapter 24

This chapter examines the series of geopolitical shifts which occurred in the wake of WWII, preventing hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union from escalating and creating the Cold War.

John Lewis Gaddis = Historian and author of We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (1997).

In his book, Gaddis attributes the Cold War period primarily to Stalin himself, arguing that "[O]nce Stalin wound up at the top in Moscow and once it was clear his state would survive the war, then it looks equally clear that there was going to be a Cold War whatever the west did. Who then is responsible? The answer, I think, is authoritarianism in general, and Stalin in particular."

Melvyn P. Leffler = Challenged Gaddis' accepted view of Soviet blame, arguing that "U.S. words and deeds greatly heightened ambient anxieties [of Soviet leaders] and subsequently contributed to the arms race and the expansion of the Cold War into the Third World . . . (and) the Cold War was not a simple case of Soviet expansionism and American reaction."

New Cold War History = A term used to describe the adjusted way of thinking regarding "blame" for the Cold War which resulted from the release of previously classified documents following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Advocates of the New Cold War History believed that the traditional view of Soviet causation, as expressed by Gaddis, could be proven to be erroneous by reviewing the multitude of covert actions and provocations engaged in by American and British intelligence agencies.

Containment = A term used to describe American foreign policy in the 1940's, when simply halting the progress of Communism around the globe was the primary objective. Containment consisted primarily of diplomatic efforts, treaties and resolutions designed to remove the incentive for Soviet expansion.

Rollback = A term used to describe the evolution in American foreign policy during the Cold War, as America attempted to "destabilize Soviet power from within by actively supporting nationalist, anti-Soviet rebel groups operating on Soviet territory." Rollback consisted of more direct efforts, including special operations soldier-spying activity, traditional espionage, the funding of resistance groups, and occasionally, direct military intervention.

November 4th -- Burds, World of the Shadows: An International History of Espionage, Chapter 25

This chapter discusses the role of espionage during the development of atomic weaponry.

John Cairncross, a member of the "Cambridge Five" described above, helped to inform the Soviets as to Anglo-American intention to build a nuclear bomb, and "verifying the reliability of this intelligence, another member of the Cambridge Five, Donald Maclean, reported similar information with regards to British intentions to develop an atomic bomb."

Maud Report = a Top Secret British analysis of the feasibility of the atomic bomb completed in June 1941

The Soviets learned much of their knowledge of atomic weapon theory directly from American scientists working on the Manhattan Project, "including crucial information from physicists Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi, who were identified in Soviet security files under the code name 'Star.' Most historians agree that the scientists themselves were, like Oppenheimer, completely unaware either of their 'recruitment,' or of their contributions to Soviet espionage."

German physicist Albert Einstein, who was working closely with the Americans on the Manhattan Project, was repeatedly targeted by Soviet covert activity.

The chapter focuses on the difference between traditional espionage and scientific espionage, observing that "even though the Soviets had the complete plans for constructing a nuclear weapon by June 1945, they did not in fact manage to complete the construction of a bomb device until August 1949. The lesson here? It is one thing to steal secrets. But it is quite another to construct a prototype on the basis of those stolen secrets."

Pavel Sudoplatov = Head of the secret intelligence operations that stole the secrets of atomic weapons.

The Soviets' choice to steal secrets as a path to developing an atomic weapon ultimately slowed their progress, because Soviet scientists were simply copying procedures rather than innovating, and "in developing the atomic bomb, Soviet scientists had followed the American path. In developing the hydrogen bomb, they had blazed their own trail."

The far more powerful hydrogen bomb was pursued doggedly by the Soviets, and eventually completed in the 1950s, and this chapter reveals that the Soviet's decision to forego spying in favor of scientific development accelerated their progress with this weapon of mass destruction.

November 4th -- Burds, World of the Shadows: An International History of Espionage, Chapter 26

This chapter touches briefly on the Red Scare and McCarthyism -- two terms used to describe the period of societal suspicion of subversive Communist activity on American soil.

Senator Joseph McCarthy = Held a series of Congressional inquiries in the 1950s designed to expose Communist spies working within the American government. Although McCarthy's accusations ruined dozens of careers and lives, his suspicions regarding the extent of Soviet espionage in American have been found to be wildly exaggerated ideas bordering on paranoid delusion.

Verona = "In February 1943, the U.S. Army's signal intelligence organization, often called "Arlington Hall" after the location of its headquarters in Virginia, began a secret program to examine encrypted Soviet diplomatic telegrams between Moscow and Soviet missions abroad. Not until 1946, however, did Arlington Hall begin to recognize that these so-called diplomatic communications contained thousands of messages of the NKGB (the Soviet espionage agency) and GRU (the Soviet Army General Staff Intelligence Directorate). This project eventually was named "VENONA."

The Defection of GRU Lt. Igor Gouzenko = "On September 5, 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a GRU or Soviet Military Intelligence code clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada, stuffed 109 Soviet Top Secret documents under his shirt -- including pages from the diary of the GRU rezident. Gouzenko succeeded in defecting with his wife and infant child Andrei and obtaining protection from Canadian authorities."

Gouzenko's defection was a historic event because events such as this were exceedingly rare in this era of history, and he ultimate provided a wealth of usable intelligence. According to the chapter "when the police began translating Gouzenko's documents and interviewing him they discovered a major Soviet espionage effort in Canada -- where Gouzenko's evidence showed that the Soviets had managed to penetrate the Department of External Affairs cipher room, the Royal Canadian Air Force intelligence Department, Parliament, the National Research Council, the Department of Munitions and Supply, and in the person of Allan Nunn May, Canada's atomic research laboratories."

Konstantin Volkov = "The second event in the early stages of the Cold War that brought heightened awareness of Soviet covert operations in the West was an event that almost happened, but did not. Even greater alarm was caused by the attempted defection of an NKGB officer in Turkey, Konstantin Dmitryevich Volkov."

These defections exposed the extent of Soviet spying in North America, exacerbating tensions and escalating the conflict into what is now known as the Cold War.

November 7th -- Burds, World of the Shadows: An International History of Espionage, Chapter 27

This chapter focuses on one of the most precarious situations humanity has ever confronted: The Cuban Missile Crisis.

Oleg Penkovsky = Member of the GRU (Soviet Intelligence Agency) who covertly sent a letter to the CIA in 1960, offering to work as an agent-in-place and provide the American government with a steady stream of Soviet secrets.

According to the chapter, Penkovsky "had photographed every Top Secret document he had encountered over the previous years, adding to this notes reflecting his own intimate knowledge of Soviet military technology. Penkovsky also added several tips on Soviet cryptography. And -- eventually -- he would manage to identify hundreds of GRU agents serving in covert posts throughout the world. In an interview he gave in 2001, KGB Chief from 1961 to 1967, Vladimir Semichastnyi, readily admitted that the Soviets "were forced to recall some 200 spies from overseas because Penkovsky knew them personally."

The Missile Gap and the Nuclear Warhead Gap = "The United States at the time had roughly 5,000 strategic nuclear warheads, and U.S. Intelligence analysts estimated that the Soviets had perhaps 300, more likely as few as 150. U.S. Intelligence believed they had a 17-to-1 numerical advantage. General Curtis LeMay, Kennedy's Head of the Joint Chiefs, felt it was imperative to engage the Soviets while the United States enjoyed a substantial numerical advantage, and not to wait for the Soviets to catch up."

Penkovsky's defection resulted in years of "saber-rattling" between the two superpowers, with the Soviet's exploiting their victory in the "Space Race" and the launch of the Sputnik orbital satellite as a propaganda coup, while the Americans openly spoke of their second-strike capability, effectively threating global annihilation in the event of a Soviet first-strike attack.

The theory of "mutually assured destruction" emerged from this era, as by the 1960s both the U.S. And the Soviet Union had equipped themselves with an arsenal of weapons capable of eradicating human life on the planet. Advocates of Mutually Assured Destruction asserted that advancement in mankind's lethality was actually a point of progress, as now warfare could be practiced as an acceptable form of conflict resolution.

Penkovsky's defection played a direct role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as "Penkovksy's information made it possible for the Americans to use the process of triangulation, which is 'positive confirmation of the kind of missile being deployed in Cuba and its operational characteristics,' & #8230; (because) this information convinced President Kennedy that resolute U.S. action was necessary, and that diplomatic channels alone would not be sufficient to resolve the crisis."

The Soviets employed deception perfectly during the Cuban Missile Crisis, convincing the American government that missile deployments in Cuba represented an sign of Soviet strength, rather than a preemptive move designed to prevent an American attack at a time when the Missile and Nuclear Warhead gaps were still wide enough to give the U.S. A decided tactical advantage.

ZEFF = An acronym used to describe the effective nuclear charge of an atomic weapon. This figure was used to calculate the power of atomic arsenals.

November 14th -- "The Great Molehunt" in Jeffrey T. Richelson, A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 286-292.

This article describes the 1961 defection of Soviet intelligence operative Anatoliy Golitsyn to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After several high-profile defections of American and British spies to the KGB, the CIA was intensely concerned that the agency had been penetrated by Soviet "moles."

James Jesus Angleton = The CIA official responsible for protecting the agency from such moles. Angleton debriefed Golitsyn after his defection.

Golitsyn revealed a wealth of information on Soviet espionage activities, and "his clues aided the unmasking of Admiralty spy John Vassall; John Watkins, a former Canadian diplomat; and Canadian professor Hugh Hambleton, who had worked in NATO."

"Golitsyn also suggested that the [French] SDECE [Service de Documentation Exterieur et de Contre-Espionage] had been penetrated by a ring of KGB agents. That suggestion led to a letter from President Kennedy to President de Gaulle, delivered by courier in the spring of 1962, informing him that according to a Soviet defector the French government, including its secret services, had been penetrated by the KGB."