In movies, photos and books, spies are always brilliant and stylish. However, in the real life of intelligence, espionage is not an easy profession.
CIA official made a lunch date with a Soviet spy
James Jesus Angleton is a dedicated public servant, and one of the most respected counterintelligence experts in the Western world, as head of Counterintelligence at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for 21 years. . Keeping that chair after an incident below proves his talent. Kim Philby was a bright star in the British intelligence community, sent to Washington in 1949 to act as a liaison between the CIA and MI6. Every week, Angleton and Philby have lunch at a Harvey restaurant in Washington. Angleton was impressed by Philby’s Cambridge education, and feeling proud that he could drink with British spies, each lunch became a martini drinking contest.
In 1951, when two of Philby’s associates defected to Moscow, Angleton maintained his belief in Philby’s complete innocence, however, secretly destroyed all evidence relating to his lengthy lunch with him. friends from “Land of Mist”. After years of investigation, MI6 also found Philby innocent. Philby later defected to Moscow and admitted to being recruited by the Soviet Union while at Cambridge. The incident made Angleton increasingly bewildered, haunted and believed that the CIA had been systematically sabotaged by the KGB, until he left the agency.
Nazi spies operating in the US
During World War II, Nazi Germany at least three times sent spies to America. In 1942, agents code-named Operation Pastorius sent two teams of four agents each with civilian clothing, money, weapons, and explosives to the United States to sabotage the country’s energy and manufacturing facilities. , hurling explosives at Jewish department stores, bombing public transport to spread terror…
The Long Island landing group was immediately spotted by the coast guard. An American soldier discovered the group of strangers was suspicious when George John Dasch – the team leader – tried to bribe him, and another member of the team went to two of them and asked Dasch a question in German. A group of Americans return to the abandoned scene of the landing, see a submarine disappear into the water and find buried supply boxes, including German uniforms.
Legendary double agent Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby on Soviet postage stamps; Source: wikipedia.org
The German spies had already left, but Dasch and another member – Ernest Peter Burger – decided against sabotage and terrorism, called the FBI and turned themselves in. But first, Dasch spent a day and a half gambling. Then, to Washington, Burger and the rest of the members stayed at a hotel, waiting; Dasch went to an FBI office, threw all the remaining money on the desk of an FBI agent and asked to speak to Edgar Hoover.
As for the other team, two were arrested due to Dasch’s information; one of the group was American – went home to his parents, and “baked” a lot of money for the mission to buy a new car. Then he went to the FBI, explaining why he didn’t sign up for the draft. He was tracked down by FBI agents and arrested. The fourth agent went to the movies a lot, later, feeling lonely, he went to meet some friends, explaining that he had come to America on a German submarine and was on a sabotage mission and was captured.
In 1944, two German spies – one a loyal German and the other an American – an opportunist, parachuted into New York to gather intelligence. In a month, the American, William Colepaugh, spent ,500 on drinking, gambling, and having fun with girls. Just before Christmas, Colepaugh brought all the money of both agents, ,000, and after Christmas, the penniless Colepaugh went to the FBI himself and told where Gimpel was hiding. . Most of the German spies during this time were brought to military courts and executed; those with the most cooperative attitudes received lengthy sentences, being exchanged for prisoners after the war ended.
US intelligence trusts a Nazi spy
Dr. Ignatz Griebl – a respected surgeon, a pillar of the community, a member of the military reserve, and an ardent fascist, came to America from Germany in 1925. This fostered engineers and technologists, persuading them to supply American technology to Germany. Griebl organized a network of spies, earned himself a few mistresses (spending money from the German government) who were secretaries or mistresses of American military officials and obtained a list of Jews. famous in America, when the Nazis ruled Germany.
In 1938, one of Griebl’s agents was captured by the FBI and, during interrogation, gave Griebl a statement. Griebl confessed to the FBI all easily and slowly, as if he was waiting for an opportunity to be pardoned. The FBI found a Nazi transmitter and released him peacefully until he needed to be present to testify at the grand jury. FBI agents were sure Griebl would happily return to them so they could try him for espionage. But Griebl fled to Austria, where Griebl practiced medicine for the rest of his life.
Dreyfus case affects more than one country
In 1894, when Germany and France were not friendly with each other, French military intelligence had a hunch that someone was providing information to the Germans. Police suspect that the leaker of classified information is Alfred Dreyfus – a French officer of Jewish descent, unpopular but they have no evidence. Some documents were forged, and several fake meetings were held to try and find out, so Dreyfus was taken to Devil’s Island, off the coast of South America.
This case was widely reported by the French press and caused fierce debate. J’accuse, the title of an article condemning the behavior of “anti-Dreyfusards” became a popular phrase, reused many times in many different contexts.
The Dreyfus case affects national relations; Source: gizmodo.com.
The evidence had been tampered with, but as people began to check for fake evidence, officials responded with more fake evidence, concocted in secret and passed from person to person in secret meetings. secret. All the evidence, real and fake, was shredded, dug up in the press, until the case could be presented from any point of view, depending on the one one wanted to take. And so a counterintelligence operation became an experiment, a culture war.
Opponents of the Dreyfus case were traditionalists, religious, and were of the opinion that if the military passed a verdict on Dreyfus, their verdict should be respected, in order to preserve his honor. nation. The Dreyfusards are progressive, against the verdict. The incident sparked riots, marches and international political change – not just between France and Germany. There were riots in Italy related to the Dreyfus affair, and it broke the relationship between France and Italy until Dreyfus was tried again, and was acquitted of all charges and returned to his post. himself in the army. He served in World War I.
He sent a spy to the Manhattan project
General Leslie Groves was the American in charge of the “Manhattan Engineering Project” in 1942, working with some of the world’s most famous military officials, politicians, and scientists, without making friends. This is no problem for Groves. What was unsettling for him was the fact that Britain’s allies refused to allow the US to thoroughly examine and cross out every scientist they chose to send. The British objected. In the end, the US backed down, and the British sent their respected scientists to study the atomic bomb.
One of the scientists they sent was Klaus Fuchs, who for the next six years relayed detailed information about the atomic bomb, and later the hydrogen bomb. Fuchs returned to England in 1949, starting work at the Harwell Atomic Energy Research facility. Intelligence officers cracked the Soviet code and discovered his whereabouts. He spent ten years in prison, had his British citizenship revoked, and went to East Germany. In the socialist countries, Fuchs had an even more prestigious career than the capitalist countries, even consulting with Chinese scientists on how to make atomic bombs.
Venona decodes thanks to limited printing capacity
In 1943, Gene Grabel, of the Signal Intelligence Service (a division created in 1930 responsible for cryptography, the U.S. Army’s cipher system during World War II, and in September 1945, became the Bureau of Security. Army – ND), started a project codenamed Venona to crack the extremely difficult Soviet cryptosystem. Soviet messages were digitally encoded using books that were given to the sender and receiver.
These books were used only once, making the code unsolvable, but they ran into practical problems. The numbers in the books had to be random, and because of the ongoing war, the volume of messages sent required the government to print a large number of books. The books were reprinted, sometimes reused by operators who did not or were unable to obtain new books, and by the end of the war, were reused more and more.
The Soviet cipher was simply deciphered because it was not possible to print as many books as required; Source: gizmodo.com
Messages arriving at addresses were not easy and slow, some were not decoded until the 1950s. But once some messages were decoded, others were easier and faster to decode. Project Venona warned officials about the existence of double agents – although Kim Philby was aware of the project and was regularly updated on its progress. Due to limited book resources, Venona traced the code, revealing the truth of Klaus Fuchs and Julius Rosenberg.
Communist agents take advantage of the CIA
Karl and Hana Koecher had to go through a difficult time in Czechoslovakia, even though Hana’s parents were of high status in the Communist Party. Karl is a comedian for a local radio station, and often writes satirical articles mocking the political situation in his country. That displeased the local officials, so Karl and Hana went to America. Karl is a doctoral student in philosophy, but his skills are put to practical use rather than comedy or philosophy. His foreign language proficiency and anti-communist history make him the perfect spy for the CIA. Karl was recruited in 1973 and was given access to highly confidential information almost immediately.
Karl’s case is not troubled because he is a double agent with a carefully constructed cover. Radio programs calling for the overthrow of his regime were given the green light by the Czechoslovak intelligence service. His displeasure and hatred for the party were sustained for many years. His civil front in America was well built. In fact, many times during his career with the CIA, even the KGB was unsure who Karl was actually working for.
What irks the Koechers to the intelligence community is the fact that they get a lot of information not from Karl’s job, but at parties and wife-swapping parties with officials in New York and Washington. . Not only did this give them more information, but it also made their acquaintances hesitant to reveal them, and the CIA hesitated to follow up, because exposing them would mean exposing the “agency culture.” that no one wants to make public. The pair were not arrested until 1984, and were eventually returned to Czechoslovakia as a prisoner exchange.
Pearl Harbor happened because no one wanted to share
In December 1941, a military attaché received word that the Dutch had deciphered Japanese diplomatic communications – the Japanese were planning attacks on Hawaii, the Philippines and Thailand. The Attaché reported to his superiors, but the information was ignored. In Washington, analysts intercepted a message sent to the Japanese embassy – burning cryptographic books and destroying cryptographic machines. Meanwhile, the Japanese fleet was moving south, toward the Philippines; No one noticed a few ships getting too close to Hawaii.
America’s catastrophic failure at Pearl Harbor was a failure of intelligence; Source: worldwar2facts.org.
Other analysts say the US is getting a lot of conflicting messages and that people have done the best they can with them. (For example, the United States was warned of an attack on Pearl Harbor in January 1941. This is a misinformation, as no attack was planned at the time.) One thing that most people agree on is whether this is a failure of intelligence, or a failure of understanding. The United States underestimated its adversary’s capabilities and motives, and thus enjoyed a false sense of security.
Heinrich Albert is the best or worst spy in the world
It can be seen that the humiliating mistake of one country is always the great intelligence success of another. What is bad for one country is good for another. Spy as close to a zero-sum game as possible. That’s what made Heinrich Albert Nap – a German diplomat in New York in 1914, under Ambassador Johann von Bergstorff – puzzled by doing some of the things that Americans might suspect.
Some Americans supported Germany’s position in World War I, and even wanted to join the German army, but most Americans were anti-German, with no interest in participating in “foreign” wars. Von Bergstorff is trying to shape public opinion by buying shares in newspapers covering the front and presenting stories in favor of the German position. Von Bergstorff was also in charge of creating, purchasing, or stealing passports so that German sailors could enter and exit the United States freely. Albert is the payer, raising money for all these activities and payments.
American intelligence officials suspected Albert was involved in something shady, so they monitored his activities. One of those activities is taking a nap on a warm subway car, waking up startled and leaving the train without your briefcase. It proved to be an expensive nap. American spies leaked the papers in the briefcase to the press. Many citizens were German-American and felt sympathy for their homeland, and even some with no ties to Germany supported the German cause.
Although this was not the defining moment for the United States to enter the war, the American people began to view Germany as a country that actively opposed American interests. So Albert was clearly a top-class spy, or something like that. After the war, Albert founded a law firm that represented American interests in Germany – just as before the war he represented German interests in America. This raises the question of who did he actually work for?