Suggestions for Resolving the Conundrum of Chinese Intelligence Operations in the US: Fragments Developed from a Master’s Precepts

Posted on February 26, 2021 by greatcharlie

The People’s Republic of China Consulate in San Francisco (above). The Consulate has been a bit troublesome. On occasion, it has been linked to suspected Chinese espionage efforts on the West Coast. However, Chinese intelligence operations in the region, which holds world-leading science and tech firms, have more often been tied to state-owned businesses, private firms, academic institutions, or research institutes than the Consulate. In a January 31, 2021 post, greatcharlie reviewed James Olson’s To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence. In Chapter Six, Olson lists 10 “benefits of a counterintelligence operation” and explains how to reap them. In this essay, greatcharlie presents some suggestions on how Olson’s precepts might be applied to help defeat Chinese espionage efforts throughout the US.

In its January 31, 2021 post, greatcharlie reviewed James Olson’s To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence (Georgetown University Press, 2019. In Chapter Six “Double-Agent Operations,” Chapter Seven, “Managing Double-Agent Operations,” and Chapter Eight “Counterintelligence Case Studies,” in particular, Olson provides a generous amount of information on how counterintelligence operations have been conducted by US counterintelligence services. Readers are also favored with many of the logical principles that Olson would practice and expound during training during his service in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) counterintelligence. Included among what he presents is a list of benefits US counterintelligence seeks to gain from a double-agent operations: spreading disinformation; determining the other side’s modus operandi; identifying hostile intelligence officers; learning the opposition’s intelligence collection requirements; acquiring positive intelligence; tying up the opposition’s operations; taking the oppositions money; discrediting the opposition; testing other countries; and, pitching the hostile case officer. Many of the tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods of US counterintelligence are laid out. Some portions are couched in anecdotes illustrating practices used in the past. Each to an extent is a display of the imagination and creativity. One discovers how double-agents were dangled to garner interest from adversarial intelligence services, false information spiked with just enough truths, “chicken feed,” was transmitted, and nuanced communications between the double-agent and his handler were managed. In 12 case studies, Olson finally presents a classical series of demonstrations along with lessons learned. He tells it all in an apposite way. Virum mihi, Camena, insece versutum. (Tell me, O Muse,of the skillfully man.)

In fairness, Olson’s work should not be judged in terms of his reaction to the prevailing national security crisis at the time of this writing: Chinese intelligence penetration into the foundations of US power. A criminal strain is observed running through the thinking of the Communist Party of China as it dispatches Chinese foreign intelligence services to steal volumes, tons of information from the most secure locations in the US. Perhaps what the future may hold is made darker by the fact that among its central members, are individuals of immense intellect, making them a far more dangerous threat to US interests. In greatcharlie’s view, there is much that can be extracted from To Catch a Spy that might constructively provide some suggestions on how to address this crisis. With the objective of being transparent, greatcharlie must disclose that on the matter of Chinese espionage in the US it is partisan, giving its complete support to the US, the homeland. That does not imply that a bias colors its discussion. No information is skewed or bent with preconceived ideas. What it does mean is that readers will likely discern facts are interpreted from that perspective.

In Chapter Six of To Catch a Spy, Olson lists the 10 “benefits of a counterintelligence operation” related in particular to double-agent operations and explains, in brief, how to reap them. In this essay, greatcharlie may albeit step out on shaky ground to present some discreet suggestions on how 9 of Olson’s 10 precepts might be applied in efforts to defeat Chinese espionage activities in the US. The suggestions are the result of some creative thinking on what if anything new might be said on the matter. In the essay’s discussion, greatcharlie hopes to avoid any appearance of instructing counterintelligence officers on what to do. Rather, the only desire is to offer all readers its suggestions, leaving it up to those in US counterintelligence to observe, reflect, and act as they may. It would be satisfying enough to know that some of what is presented here might resonate with a few of them. It is presumed by greatcharlie that Olson’s precepts harmonize to a great degree with those that currently guide US counterintelligence officers in active service and thereby anything resulting from them would not be deemed too fanciful or even recherché. Applying Olson’s precepts to developments on the Chinese intelligence front in greatcharlie’s would have been beyond its scope of its preceding review of To Catch a Spy –although some readers noting the review’s length might sardonically query why there might be any concern over a few thousand words extra. In response to such concerns, greatcharlie has attempted to apply Olson’s teachings to the discussion here without making it an exercise in “large data processing.” It should also be noted that from the corpus of work on Chinese intelligence, a great influence upon greatcharlie are the writings of Peter Mattis. Since leaving the CIA, where he was a highly-regarding analyst on China, Mattis has published a number of superlative essays on Chinese intelligence and counterintelligence. Mattis, along with a former military intelligence officer and diplomat, Matthew Brazil, published Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer (United States Naval Institute Press, 2019), a book which is nothing less than brilliant.

Additionally, upon consideration of what it could offer to support the development of more effective approaches to defeat Chinese human intelligence and electronic intelligence collection activities against the US, greatcharlie bore in mind that it would need to be somewhat Delphic in its discussion. Therefore, what is offered are fragments of ideas with the aim of leaving a figurative trail of breadcrumbs that a few officers in the US counterintelligence services might pick up. Hopefully, after testing their virtue, they will find something useful. Given this approach, greatcharlie apologies in advance to other readers who may find the discussion somewhat cryptic or a bit “undercooked” at places. De minimis grandis fit magnus acervus. (From the smallest grains comes a big heap.)

Chinese Foreign Intelligence Versus US Counterintelligence

Resolving the problem of halting the torrent of successful Chinese intelligence operations against targets inside the US has hardly provided mental exaltation for the rank and file in US counterintelligence services operating in the field. US counterintelligence has lived with failure too long. Surely, a great cloud has covered any happiness of their work. The inability to put an appreciable dent in Chinese efforts has likely had some measurable impact on the morale of earnest US counterintelligence officers. Indeed, the abstruse puzzle that Chinese intelligence operations pose has most likely been an anxiety generating challenge that has pressed those given to believe it is their purview to know things others cannot know. At the top, senior executives and managers must account for the failing of their respective US counterintelligence services. Imaginably, they resent the deficiency. Surely, they are feeling terribly unsettled by regular reports of so much being blown, so much intellectual property and classified material being lost. They have certainly had a bellyful of the failure rate against the Chinese intelligence networks. There has been so much scandal–or at least what should be scandal–with US political leaders becoming entangled with Chinese intelligence operatives, from interns, drivers, fundraisers, to “camp followers.” Expectedly, senior executives and managers should be wondering whether the rank and file of US counterintelligence has gone on hiatus. To use contemporary sports vernacular in the US, US counterintelligence services “have not shown up” in the struggle with China. They may also be wondering, given the array of tools and considerable resources available to them, whether the rank and file, led by squad, shop, or unit supervisors and commanders, have told them the whole story. Perhaps harshly, they would question whether the rank and file were organizing valid plans or going off on profitless “school boy larks,” not remotely sufficient to defeat a most cunning opponent. Against the Chinese style intelligence operations, it may very well be the case that the ordinary principles of trade craft and security have gone to the wall. French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as saying: “You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.” Directors and commanding officers of US counterintelligence services can only come to the US Congress for hearings on oversight and appropriations seeking sympathy not approval or report any real success.

Perchance little has really been provided in any official assessments of why US counterintelligence efforts have been so unsuccessful. Perhaps senior executives are not asking the right questions or any questions. When one is overmatched, one will usually lose. Some enhanced intelligibility in the discussion of what has been occurring would help to bring at least the US public around to a better understanding of what where things stand and the prospects for success. Without that, policy analysts and other observers are left to presume that the Chinese are that much better. Indeed, as of this writing, the suggestion that has frequently been voiced in certain quarters concerned with the crisis, and has even spilled out into the newsmedia, is that the professional, diligent officers of the US counterintelligence services–and sadly those qualities cannot be ascribed to the entire group–are simply unable to get a handle on the Chinese threat. That suggests there has been a complete eclipse of their faculties. However, that should not be taken as the gospel truth. Surely, the men and women of the US counterintelligence services, correctly focused, will be able to gain and retain the initiative and start pulling apart Chinese intelligence networks. The renowned US industrialist Henry Ford once remarked: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” The US counterintelligence services maintain their vigil.

Olson’s Precepts from To Catch a Spy

On “Spreading disinformation”

Olson begins his veritable “mini manual” by explaining double-agents can be used to provide the opposition service with false or misleading disinformation, but this a relatively infrequent objective. Deceiving the enemy in this manner requires tremendous planning and subtlety because adversarial foreign intelligence services are not easily deceived. Very often they possess the means to verify the provenance of the double-agent’s reporting. Moreover, if the double-agent reports that some action will take place in the future and it does not, the double-agent’s credibility is seriously undermined. According to Olson the use of disinformation in a double-agent operation would only make sense when the stakes are unusually high or the opposition has limited means of verification.

With reference to “Determining the other side’s modus operandi”

Olson explains that a double-agent is in a perfect position to report back on the opposition’s modus operandi. For any counterintelligence officer responsible for monitoring and thwarting hostile services operations, it is invaluable to know how the service conducts its business. Olson recalls that when he was tasked with developing counterintelligence programs at CIA field stations, the first thing he did was review all of the double-agent operations that any US government agency had run in that location. What he wanted to learn was how the target services operated. Among the questions that he would ask were the following: “Did they meet their agents in safe houses, cafes, parks, vehicles, or some other location? What time of day did they prefer for agent meetings? Were there sections of the city they overused? Did they incorporate initial contact points into their modus operandi, and if so, what kind? What kind of equipment and training did they provide for their agents? Did they use electronic communications of any kind? Where were their dead drops and what did their concealment devices look like? What type of signal device did they prefer?”

Olson remarks that It was especially helpful to have double-agent history in the same city that you are operating, but there was value in reviewing any foibles of double-agent operations run by the target service anywhere. As Olson explains, the case officers of the service have all had the same training and follow the same operational doctrine. They tend to fall into habits and use operational techniques that have worked for them elsewhere. The result can be predictability–a major vulnerability in spying that can and should be exploited by the opposition’s counterintelligence.

Concerning “Identifying hostile intelligence officers”

Foreign intelligence services take great pains to hide their case officers under a variety of covers according to Olson. They can pose as diplomats, trade officials, journalists, students, businessmen or businesswomen, airline representatives, employees of international organizations, and practically any other profession that gives them an ostensible reason for being in the country. US counterintelligence is tasked with piercing those covers and identifying the spies. One of the best tools available for this task is the double-agent.

In some cases the handling officer is the recruiting officer. If the recruiting officer first met our double-agent dangle when he was providing the dotting and assessing venues in true name, then the double-agent can provide a positive identification from the beginning. As standard practice, however, the case officer will use an alias in meeting with the double-agent. The double-agent can still provide a detailed description of his or her handler and can often make an identification through a photo spread. Also, since counterintelligence service running the double-agent operation knows when and where the case officer will show up, for example to meet to meet the double agent, to service a dead drop, or to mark a signal, it has technical options to assist in identification. The case officer usually comes from a known pool of officials from the local embassy, consulate, the UN, a trade mission, or some other official installation. Olson claims that it never takes long “to make” who the handler is.

Double-agent operations that go on for an extended period, as many of them do, Olson explains that they will lead usually to additional identifications of hostile intelligence personnel. Case officers rotate regularly to other assignments, and their agents doubled or otherwise, are turned over to a new case officer for handling. Other case officers are sometimes introduced into the operation as a back-up or as a subject expert. The primary case officer may handle the day-to-day operational aspects of the operation but may not have the in-depth knowledge required to debrief the double-agent effectively on a highly technical subject. Olson says it is not uncommon in these cases for intelligence services to insert a more knowledgeable debriefer into an operation from time to time. He continues by explaining that If the primary case officer may not be able to get a surveillance break to pick up a dead drop, for example, or may not have cover to mark or read a given signal. In that event a colleague from the residency is called on to help out–and can be identified by employed cameras or other surveillance techniques nearby. Olson states that in some long term double-agent operations, as many as twenty or thirty opposition case officers and support personnel have been exposed in this manner.

Olson warns that things get funny when the handling or servicing officer if a double-agent operation is an illegal or nonofficial cover officer (NOC). Case officers in these categories face arrest or imprisonment if caught. For that reason, illegals or NOCs are used carefully and as a rule only handle or support a case in which the bona fides of the operation are considered airtight.

With respect to “Learning the opposition’s intelligence collection requirements”

In what Olson calls “the cat-and-mouse game” of counterintelligence, even the slightest advantage can be the difference between winning and losing. A good double-agent operation can provide a winning edge by alerting the sponsoring service to the opposition’s collection requirements. Knowing what the double-agent is being asked to provide the handler is a valuable window into what the opposition’s priorities and gaps are. A question posed would be “How much pressure is being put on the double-agent to collect intelligence in a certain area?” He says that the range of tasking is limited, of course, to what the double-agent professes his access to be, but a good double-agent might hint at the possibility if expanded access to smoke out the opposition’s response. For example, a high technology double-agent might tell his handler that his future duties might include research in high technology devices. Olson says the question then would be: “Does the opposition service respond either alacrity or lassitude?” According to Olson, the latter reaction could indicate that this requirement is being covered by another agent.

Olson demonstrates another ploy that can be used to learn the adversary’s collection priorities which was to have a military double-agent, for example, announce to his handler that he is up for reassignment and is about to put in his wish list for a new posting. Olson says the double-agent would be prompted to ask his handler: “Where would the service like him to go? Where does the service not want him to go? For what kind of bullet should he be applying?” Olson explains that how the handler responds can indicate the services collection priorities and gaps in locations where it thinks it can handle the double agent safely.

Olson further explains that intelligence services do not task their agents haphazardly. The requirements are generated by a systematic process that includes input from all the interested parties. In the US, for example, requirements for the intelligence community result from an elaborate consultation and give and take managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The process is far from casual. Any intelligence service can learn a lot by analyzing the requirements given to its double agents. There is significant meaning in what the opposition service is asking for and what it is not.

Regarding “Acquiring positive intelligence”

Olson reveals that occasionally, a foreign intelligence service so believes in the trustworthiness of a double agent that it shares with that double-agent positive intelligence information. The purpose may be to give the founder agent background information to assist in his or her collection efforts. Another reason for doing so might be that the case officer-double-agent relationship may become so critical that the case officer assumes the double-agents ironclad loyalty and “talks out of school.” Olson also says a case officer may try to enhance his or her standing with the double-agent by boasting about past or current accomplishments.

With reference to “Tying up the opposition’s operations”

Every minute an opposition case officer spends on a double-agent, proffers Olson, is a wasted minute. The handlers time is wasted. Also tied up in the operation for no productive purpose are technical teams, linguists, surveillance, and analysts. Olson goes on to note that It is perhaps a perverse but still undeniable pleasure for a US counterintelligence officer to sit back to survey his or her double-agent operations and to gloat about owning a big chunk of that adversary’s time and energy. Every useless thing that a foreign intelligence service does in handling one of our double agent operations leaves less time for it to hurt us with real operations. In the great game of counterintelligence, these are gratifying victories.

As to “Taking the oppositions money”

Foreign intelligence services vary tremendously in how much they pay their agents, but Olson admits that with the right kind of material, a good double-agent can command big money. He explains that the willingness of an adversarial service to pay our double-agents large amounts of money is a good indicator of how deeply we have set the hook.

About “Discrediting the opposition”

Commenting generally, Olson says intelligence services hate to lose face. Enough of them around the world have acquired such bad reputations for violating human rights, torture, other violent acts, and murder, that there is not too much for the many to lose in terms of good standing. They want to project to the world an image of competence, professionalism, toughness and discipline. Olson explains that any publicity that highlights their failures can undermine their support from their government and demoralize their troops. He notes that in closed societies like the Soviet Union, East Germany, China, and Cuba, intelligence services were hardly accountable to the press and public as those of Western democratic societies. However, he maintains that they still did everything they could to protect their reputations. Olson says that the same is true today of our major counterintelligence adversaries.

The US is reluctant to publicize expired double-agent operations out of fear of revealing sensitive methodology or subjecting the American principal of notoriety. In selected cases, Olson states that he would like to see US counterintelligence be more proactive in capitalizing on the other side’s failures. He believes that by doing so the US can make them gun shy about engaging in future operations against its citizens. He asserts that the US could publicize how they fell into our trap and how much they gave away to us in the process. He suggests that once they are lured into operating inside the US, counterintelligence services can do a splashy expulsion of case officers who have diplomatic immunity and arrest those who do not. As a benefit, Olson suggests the hostile service looks bad for letting itself be duped by our double-agent operation, and should pay a price for it. It loses some of its operational staff, its reputation for professionalism suffers. He feels that no mistake by the opposition should go unexploited.

The People’s Republic of China Minister of State Security, Chen Wenqing (above). Resolving the problem of halting the torrent of successful Chinese intelligence operations against targets inside the US has hardly provided mental exaltation for the rank and file in US counterintelligence services operating in the field. US counterintelligence has lived with failure too long. Surely, a great cloud has covered any happiness of their work. The inability to put an appreciable dent in Chinese efforts has likely had some measurable impact on the morale of earnest US counterintelligence officers. Indeed, the abstruse puzzle that Chinese intelligence operations pose has most likely been an anxiety generating challenge that has pressed those given to believe it is their purview to know things others cannot know.

Suggestions Drawn from Olson’s Precepts

Do Not Fume, Think!

In Greek Mythology, there was Até, an unpredictable figure, not necessarily personified, yet represented rash, chaotic, ruinous responses by both gods and men to a situation. She was famously mentioned in Act 3, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, when Mark Antony addresses the body of Caesar and predicts civil war: “And Caesar’s spirit ranging for revenge,/ With Até by his side, come hot from hell,/ Shall in these confines, with a monarch’s voice,/ Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.” Até has been described as a chain reaction, a mechanism in which evil succeeds evil. In finding a handle to the current espionage crisis with China, it is not a time for a “gloves off” attitude. Minds should be directed toward getting at the opponent to send a message, to bully or even to overwhelm, The requirement in this situation is subtlety, nuance, thinking, not any heavy-handed business. If any US counterintelligence officer involved cannot sustain that, he or she is working the wrong target. Informed by experience, greatcharlie is aware that it is a predilection among not all young special agents in a particular US counterintelligence service, but some, to be frightfully eager to prove something to their cohorts and to themselves. Ira furor brevis est; animum rege. (Anger is a brief madness; govern your soul (control your emotions)).

Practicing what is compulsory for all investigations in the Chinese crisis is sine qua non. However, if one’s thinking is not yielding satisfactory outcomes, then one must focus upon how and what one thinks. A corrective step must be to concentrate to enhance one’s ability to summon up new ideas and insights, study, understand, and consider the deeds of personalities. It is one thing to supposedly see everything–certainly the tools available to US counterintelligence services allow them to see an extraordinary amount of things, but another thing to properly reason from what one sees. US counterintelligence officers must think harder and conceptualize better. They must ruminate on events in relation to those that proceed them and meditate on what the future may bring. They must practice forecasting decisions by their adversary that may shape what might come and then proof their efforts by watching events unfold in reports.

The question that must beat the brain of every US counterintelligence officer working on the matter is most likely: “Where will they strike next?” As a practical suggestion, the focus of many investigations–if not all investigations–of Chinese intelligence networks send operations might be placed on two points: those controlling networks and running operations in the field; and the composition of operations in the field.

Know Who Controls the Chinese Intelligence Networks

As it was discussed in the July 31, 2020 greatcharlie post entitled, “China’s Ministry of State Security: What Is This Hammer the Communist Party of China’s Arm Swings in Its Campaign against the US? (Part 1),” personnel of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the civilian foreign intelligence service of China, are usually assigned overseas for up to six years, with a few remaining in post for 10 years if required. In most countries, MSS officers are accommodated by the embassy. In the US, there are seven permanent Chinese diplomatic missions staffed with intelligence personnel. MSS personnel are usually assigned overseas for up to six years, with a few remaining in post for ten years if required. In most countries, the local MSS officers are accommodated by the embassy. Having stated that, it is near certain that presently far greater numbers of MSS officers as well as officers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Communist Party of China intelligence units are operating without official cover throughout the West. (Note: The four key bodies of the Communist Party of China’s bureaucracy at the central level for building and exercising political influence outside the party, and especially beyond China’s borders are the United Front Work Department, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the International (Liaison) Department, and the Propaganda Department.) Instead of embassies and consulates, they operate out of nongovernmental, decentralized stations. They are known to often operate out of front companies created solely for intelligence missions or out of “friendly” companies overseas run by Chinese nationals, “cut outs“, who are willing to be more heavily involved with the work of MSS and other Chinese intelligence services than most Chinese citizens would ever want to be. This approach may be a residual effect of pollination with Soviet intelligence in the past.

There is a common misunderstanding about the Soviet KGB Rezidentura. While it is generally believed that all intelligence activity by KGB in another country was centralized through the Rezidentura in the embassy or consulate, under a Rezident with an official cover, as fully explained by former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin in his memoir, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West (St. Martin’s Press, 1994), there were also nonofficial Rezidenturas that operated away from Soviet diplomatic centers. Those nonofficial Rezidenturas had their own Rezident or chief of station, chain of command, missions, and lines of communication to Moscow. One might suppose that when the relationship during the Cold War was still congenial, had doubtlessly demonstrated to the Chinese, the benefits of operating two types of Rezidentura overseas, official and nonofficial. In a July 9, 2017 National Review article entitled “Everything We Know about China’s Secretive State Security Bureau”, Mattis explains that the MSS’ thirty-one major provincial and municipal sub-elements of MSS more than likely possess most of the officers, operatives, and informants and conduct the lion’s share of the operations. For some time, those provincial and municipal sub-elements performed mostly surveillance and domestic intelligence work. These provincial and municipal state security departments and bureaus By the time of Mattis’ writing, they had become small-sized foreign intelligence services. They were given considerable leeway to pursue sources. In Mattis’ view, that independence accounted for variation across the MSS in terms of the quality of individual intelligence officers and operations. At the present, the provincial and municipal state security departments and bureaus may be operating entire networks of their own in the US with appropriate guidance from MSS Headquarters and the Communist Party of China.

There are likely many unexplored possibilities that perhaps should be considered about the managers of Chinese intelligence networks in the US. Anything that can be gathered or inferred about the individuality of such a person must be put forth for study. A constant effort must be made to understand what makes the network manager tick. Using some of what is publicly known about how Chinese intelligence services have been operating in the US from a variety of sources, to include US Department of Justice indictments and criminal complaints, one might conceptualize traits that could be ascribed to those managers possibly on the ground in the US, controlling operations day-to-day, are: energy, enthusiasm, and creativity. Among their traits, one might expect that they would exude a positive attitude that encourages officers, operatives, and informants to do their utmost in the field. That energy is transmitted to US citizens and Chinese émigrés being recruited to serve the purposes of their intelligence services and, of course, the Communist Party of China. There would very likely be the hope among Chinese intelligence services and the Communist Party of China that following the detection of each of their victories by US counterintelligence services there is an opposite effect upon the officers of those organizations. Chinese intelligence services would surely hope that a sense of defeat reaches deep into the psyche of US counterintelligence services rank and file and firmly sets within them a sense of disponding woe, sorrow, and discouragement. They doubtlessly want them to feel gutted.

The managers controlling operations of Chinese foreign intelligence networks in the US have undoubtedly been selected due to their proven mental alertness, quick thinking, adaptability, and curiosity. They surely have the right stuff to be open-minded and imaginative, within authorized parameters, and are willing to adapt. Surprisingly given the iron-grip culture among managers and executives in Beijing, these “field managers” have apparently been given some leeway to use their initiative to achieve progress. It likely accounts for how the Chinese are able to react quickly to any changing circumstances. To an extent, it may also explain why Chinese intelligence services may appear to some to be so disdainful of any danger that US counterintelligence efforts might pose to their operations despite knowing that they are actively being pursued by them by the hour. To be on top of everything, the network managers are likely sharp as a tack and no doubt endlessly study what is known by Chinese intelligence about US counterintelligence tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods, concepts and intent, and the latest counterintelligence tools US counterintelligence has fielded. Among such individuals, a solid foundation of information likely allows for the development of viable inferences and strong insights which in turn allows for confidence in using their intuition on what may come or what is coming their way. These network leaders are also likely able to identify any “bad habits” that may have ever brought US counterintelligence services too close for comfort.

There remains the possibility that the network manager may not even be located in the US. Still, someone must be present on the ground in the US, to relay, with authority, directions from the manager and respond to inquiries and urgent matters from those operating in the field. It could be the case that they maintain modest lodgings not only to reduce costs and keep a low-profile in general. However, the presumption of a low-profile manager could also be entirely incorrect. It may very well be that they are individuals who have achieved considerable success and prominence in areas such as business and finance. As such, they, as a professional requirement, would both have access to and daily accumulate knowledge far beyond average boundaries of the latest events in industry and government. They would know what is important and urgent, what is moving things forward, what is the next big thing, who and where are the individuals influencing events and how to make contact with them and get connected to all of it. In their fields, they may be among the most capable at doing that and may have the recognition, awards, and the financial benefits that would confirm it. It would appear that they avoid engaging in any surreptitious or malign efforts in their own companies or in their own fields. However, it is still a possibility.

Such prospective network managers would very likely be untainted by any apparent or questionable affiliation with Chinese universities, the PLA, and the Communist Party of China. (That does not mean family members who may reside in China would not be thoroughly connected to such organizations.) If the individuals have family ties back to China, there would be nothing apparent about them that would make them suspicious. They would likely have no overseas travel or contacts that would create suspicion. Doubtlessly, an endless list of notables from their fields might be prepared to vouch for them. All the while, though, they would be managing intelligence operations of their networks in an exquisite fashion, and feeding back information to China vital to US national security and the key to helping US businesses maintain their competitive edge against foreign rivals. (If the manager is situated in the US, oddly enough, there may actually be a number of creative ways to draw out such senior managers of field operations. As aforementioned, greatcharlie will never offer any insights even from its position outside the bureaucracy that it believed might result in any negative outcomes for the US as it seeks to resolve the China crisis. That being stated, as stated in the December 13, 2020 greatcharlie post entitled, “Meditations and Ruminations on Chinese Intelligence: Revisiting a Lesson on Developing Insights from Four Decades Ago,” if one were to mine through the US Department of Justice’s very own indictments and criminal complaint against those few Chinese officers, operatives, and informants that have been captured, reading between the lines very closely, one can find to more than few open doors that might lead to successes against existing but well-cloaked Chinese intelligence networks and actors. Not one case has been a “wilderness of mirrors.”)

Perchance those of a younger generation would say that Chinese intelligence network managers in the US, as described here, as being “woke,” or as the Germans would say, “wach,” both words roughly refer to them as being awake. In greatcharlie’s view, spying on the US is not woke. Nonetheless, everyday, the network managers place their keen eyes on the world around them and have a deep understanding of how people tick, how they fit in and feel where they live and work, and how they can get the ones they have targeted tangled up in their respective espionage enterprises.

Perhaps reading this, one might get the impression that greatcharlie was attempting to convince readers that Jupiter himself was running the Chinese intelligence networks. That is surely not the case. However, it must be recognized that the sort controlling those networks are likely of a very special nature. Surely, with regard to politics which is all so important in the regime of the Communist Party of China, one would expect that network managers deployed against the US, despite not having much physical contact with anyone in Beijing, would be the fair-haired boys or gals among one or more of the senior executives in MSS or even a senior leader of the Party, itself.

Whatever any US counterintelligence service may attempt to do in an effort to break Chinese intelligence operations, its officers must be mindful that this may likely be the sort of individual they are seeking to maneuver against. Without the ability to get up close to these managers, it might be enough to conceptualize them, given the pattern of activity and interrogations of intercepted officers, operatives, and informants and reinterviewing the handful of “recent” defectors in US hands. (It is wholly plausible that the officers, operatives, and informants working in the US have never seen and do not know the identity of their network manager on the ground. They may only recognize the individual by code via orders, rectifications, responses to inquiries and requests, and inspirational messages.) If the abstract entity, de créature imaginaire, constructed here is, by coincidence, correct in every particular, there may be the rudiments to get started on trying to “steal a march” on perhaps a few of the Chinese intelligence network managers. Shaping one’s thinking against thinking and conceptualized tratits of de créature imaginaire, may be enough to open new doors. Perhaps in time, such in-depth study of these aspects will allow informed counterintelligence officers to develop true intimations, not valueless surmisals or absurd speculation, of what may be occurring and what is about to occur. In “A Story of Great Love,” published in the Winter 2011 edition of the Paris Review, Clarice Lispector writes a sentence that is amusing yet conceptually germane to what is discussed here: “Once upon a time there was a girl who spent so much time looking at her hens that she came to understand their souls and their desires intimately.”

The People’s Republic of China Consulate in Houston (above). From this now closed building, China directed government, economic, and cultural activity across the southern US. Ministry of State Security (MSS) personnel are usually assigned overseas for up to six years, with a few remaining in post for 10 years if required. In most countries, the local MSS officers are accommodated by the embassy. Having stated that, it is certain that presently far greater numbers of MSS officers as well as officers from the People’s Liberation Army and Communist Party of China intelligence units are operating without official cover throughout the West. Instead of embassies and consulates, they operate out of nongovernmental, decentralized stations.

Discover the Composition of Network Operations

One might suppose the Chinese intelligence networks in the US, as a primary purpose, unlikely conduct operations in which they blithely seek out new targets day-after-day, although there are perhaps some operations underway that serve to monitor individuals in positions that might be interest and sites of information of interest with the guidance of MSS headquarters, provincial bureaus and municipal departments based on available intelligence. The settled, more fruitful networks that have nettled US counterintelligence services the most are likely set up to run operations on targets of a certain type, rich with prospects at locations in which Chinese intelligence operatives and informants are well ensconced. One could reasonably expect that there will be a commonality in location for both predator and prey. (Although, nothing can really be certain for espionage is a deke business.) The Chinese intelligence operation will be set up in proximity of a figurative “happy hunting ground,” a high-tech firm, laboratory, academia, political network, foreign, national security, economic, trade policymaking office, agribusiness, and aviation, and energy business to list only a handful. In addition to propinquity, there will be a common functionality of any Chinese owned business that may establish themselves in the hunting ground, and very apparent efforts to create employee links by them with their likely targets.

Control remains essential in the authoritarian (totalitarian) regime of the Communist Party of China and therefore there is a certain specificity intrinsic to every operation–despite nuance in design, methods, and other imaginative approaches attendant–that will presumably allow for monitoring, oversight, and audits. If it ever was detected that an odd Chinese intelligence network was skillfully mixing tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods in operations conducted following an aggregate rollup of known Chinese intelligence efforts in the US, it is unlikely that particular network’s approach, while perhaps creative to the extent possible, will never stray too far from any observances that would be laid down by their respective Chinese intelligence services. If the tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods used by Chinese intelligence networks are really so similar, one could say their operations will likely have a common “DNA.” The adversary’s known practices are undoubtedly cataloged by US counterintelligence services. It will be necessary to more closely study the common functionality of networks and operations. As much information on their operations must be collected as possible. Study what has been learned by allies. Identify common vulnerabilities in every network. Identify, study, and exploit their deficiencies.

As much of what the networks Chinese intelligence services are exactly doing day-to-day in the US remains unknown publicly at least, it is impossible to say with certainty how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their operations. One can imagine there has been some impact. Nevertheless, given that reality, in considering how COVID-19 factors into their efforts, one must again enter the world of supposition in which one analysis of how those networks are not only operating, but more specifically, how managers of those networks are communicating with Beijing and with their officers, operatives, and informants, can be just as good as another.

Even before COVID-19 hit, for Chinese intelligence networks on the ground in the US, managing communications in any direction was imaginably no mean feat. As it was discussed in the August 31, 2020 greatcharlie post entitled, “China’s Ministry of State Security: What Is This Hammer the Communist Party of China’s Arm Swings in Its Campaign Against the US? (Part 2).” Perhaps, the main lesson for Chinese intelligence services was that it was not safe to continue creating and maintaining secret communications or reports, any truly important documents, electronically. It was the same as leaving an open door to foreign intelligence service penetration. The transition back to paper would be the best answer and easy enough. Indeed, the use of hard documents and files was what the most seasoned foreign intelligence and counterintelligence officers were most familiar with using. Moreover, they are very likely individuals of conservative habits, and never became so familiar with computer work as their younger counterparts. The return to paper files would certainly lead to the collection of what would now be thought of as considerable amounts of documents. File rooms and vaults have very likely been rebuilt or returned to service. Urgent issues concerning diplomatic matters were likely communicated via encrypted transmissions. There was very likely a sharp increase in transmissions once the consulate received notice that it was being forced to close. Use of that medium would provide some reasonable assurance that content of the communication would be protected. Nothing of any real importance was likely communicated by telephone given that the US would surely successfully eavesdrop on the conversation.

One might venture to say that a likely move to hard documents may have been evinced when the world observed presumably Ministry of Foreign Affairs security officers and MSS intelligence officers using fire bins to burn bundles of documents inside the compound of the People’s Republic of China Consulate in Houston, Texas as it prepared to close. It might be the case that burning the documents is standard operating procedure for Chinese diplomatic outposts in such instances as an evacuation. MSS counterintelligence would hardly think that US intelligence and counterintelligence services would pass up the fortuitous opportunity to search through or even keep some or all of the documents consulate personnel might try to ship or mail to China while evacuating the building, even if containers of documents were sent as diplomatic pouches.

From what is publicly known, it appears that Chinese intelligence networks do not recruit after simply spotting a potential operative or informant. If that were the case, the success rate of US counterintelligence services against them would be far higher given the opportunities such activities would present and given the experience of their organizations in dealing with such a basic set up. Chinese intelligence services clearly work wholly on their own terms, investigating only those “targets” who they choose to investigate, essentially ignoring anyone that may have the slightest appearance of being dangled before them. It is a benefit for them to operate in what could be called a target rich environment in the US. Recruitment is “by invitation only.” If one is not on the figurative guest list, one does not get in! As part of their investigations of targets for recruitment, doubtlessly it is important to identify the psychological profile of a person, his political orientation, his attitude towards his motherland, China or towards the US, where he or she has become a citizen or visiting for school or long-term employment. And then, after accumulating a sizable amount of material (based on a whole array of undertakings: plain observation, audio- and video-surveillance of the places of residence, agency-level scrutiny, including “honey traps”), on the basis of the analysis, a decision is made about a transforming the investigation into a recruitment with appropriate conditions (such as through compromising materials or a voluntary agreement) or about wrapping up the whole matter by “educating” a foreigner, conveying a favorable message on China and the wave of the future, Chairman Mao Zedong’s vision of Communism.

After studying what is being specifically done by a network long enough, one will begin to see dimly what a network or specific operation is driving at. After finding a few missing links, an entirely connected case will not always, but can be obtained. Once a clear picture emerges, one can start developing attack vectors against Chinese intelligence networks with a forecast of nearly assured fruits. Lately, the identification and aim at any networks has clearly been far less than accurate. Do not use individuals lacking good judgment and sanguine required based on one’s own standard. Create the best team possible. Know your people well. Keep a close eye on neophytes. (As touched on in the discussion of Olson’s “Ten Commandments of Counterintelligence” of Chapter Four in greatcharlie’s review of To Catch a Spy, a supposition verging on the ridiculous must be seen as such by a supervisor and appropriately knocked down. A keen interest must be kept on how subordinates, especially novices, are reasoning with facts. A supposition verging on the ridiculous might involve imputing criminal motive or involvement on a party that could not have been part of a criminal conspiracy or ascribing characteristics to an individual who could not possibly possess them or has not displayed them. A good case could be blighted by such wrongheadedness.)

Gnawing a bit further at the matter of using young, novice counterintelligence officers on such delicate cases concerning Chinese intelligence, one should avoid the pitfall of allowing them to manage surveillance work for a case and turn it into something that might more reflect the work of a security service in a totalitarian country to soothe their egos. Be mindful of the use of time, energy, and budget by them such as placing heavy, wasteful surveillance on the street not to advance the casework but to prove some immature point of power. Casting some wide net will bring in nothing but a lot of extra things that time, energy and money cannot be wasted upon. Differ nothing to their judgment. Every mistake or misstep made by US counterintelligence, whether the result of a manager’s use of some clever misdirection or whether self-inflicted, represents a success for a Chinese intelligence network manager. Keep firmly in mind the managers of Chinese intelligence networks are flexible enough in their thinking that they appear to be able to change horses in midstream while maintaining the metaphoric helm on a steady heading so to speak.

Concerning contractors, by their nature, they are owned and managed by businessmen out to make money as priority. That focus among many of them can be boiled down to the precept, “minimum effort, maximum gain” and that can be most apparent in how they conduct their so-called operations on the street. As already alluded to here, their “operatives,” often poorly vetted before being “hired,” many times find it difficult in the field, physically surveilling a target or trying to open a clandestine conversation, to be their higher selves. They are often too aggressive, even ruthless, and engage in what could politely be called “aberrant behavior.” Strangely enough, for many contractors, the reality that their operatives display these characteristics is a point of pride.. As it was discussed in greatcharlie’s January 31, 2020 review of To Catch a Spy, the negative behavior of contractors witnessed in the field by an adversarial intelligence service’s officers, operatives, and informants could very likely have an impact on their impressions of US counterintelligence services beyond what has already been inculcated within them by their masters. It should be expected that any negative impressions could have the deleterious effect of negatively impacting a decision to defect or be recruited if the idea might ever cross their minds. It is impossible to calculate, but it surely can be imagined that a number of potential defectors and recruits may have been deterred from taking the first step over this very issue. Recognizably, there is a reduced ability to effectively oversee what contractors are doing at all times on behalf of US counterintelligence services. At best, the managers of a particular counterintelligence operation that they may be hired to support will only know what the contractors divulge about their efforts. Close observance of them in operation, done furtively by managers of US counterintelligence services, would doubtlessly substantiate this.

Those in US counterintelligence services considering what is noted here might cast their minds back to the observation of the renowned 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal in Pensées (1670): “Justice without power is inefficient; power without justice is tyranny. Justice without power is opposed, because there are always wicked men. Power without justice is soon questioned. Justice and power must therefore be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.”

Surely at one time the relationship between contractors and US counterintelligence services was quite beneficial as they provided real assistance through manpower and talent, but again, the situation has since changed considerably. They are shadows of what they once were in terms of quality. Beyond some possible invaluable assistance they may be providing through precious outside of the bureaucracy analysis and advice on Chinese intelligence activities in the US, in the China case, US counterintelligence services should severely minimize or eliminate contractors if possible. There may be a place for such contractors and their ways in counternarcotics, organized crime control, human-trafficking or some other kind of criminal investigations. However, up against the sophisticated intelligence services of a determined adversary as China, those contractors are not a credit to US counterintelligence services. They are nothing but a liability. The China case is too important to indulge in any uncertainties. On an additional point, technical intelligence tools must be utilized effectively and appropriately. Monitor only those who need to be monitored. Resist the urge to play George Orwell’s “Big Brother.” That urge is another weakness. Nimia illæc licentia profecto evadet in aliquod magnum malum. (This excessive license will most certainly eventuate in some great evil.)

The continued success Chinese intelligence services and counterintelligence services in being able to conceal their massive espionage efforts may suggest that conceptually, they may approach establishing their presence in the US with the thought of “peacefully coexisting” in the same environment as US counterintelligence services. The relationship that they seem to have sought with US counterintelligence services in order to ensure the security of their networks and operations is not “cat and mouse” or combative. It is strangely, but logically, symbiotic.

That symbiotic relationship, however, is malignant, and designed to be parasitical. To that end, managers of Chinese intelligence and counterintelligence services in the US likely respond to any detection of the presence of US counterintelligence personnel or activity not by avoiding them, but by connecting in some smart way to them. Connecting to them, to give a couple of simple examples means having operatives work for a contractor engaged in physical surveillance, or take on low level employment in or around offices of those contractors. From such positions and similar ones, they would enable themselves to monitor the most well-orchestrated, well-conducted activities from the inside. Some operatives, finding work as operatives in the agencies of contractors for US counterintelligence services could actually become, and have very likely actually been, part of those operations. Note that operatives of Chinese foreign intelligence and counterintelligence services directed to get close to US counterintelligence services personnel and activities may not necessarily be ethnic Chinese. (For a fuller discussion of that matter, see the July 31, 2020 greatcharlie post “China’s Ministry of State Security: What Is this Hammer the Communist Party of China’s Arm Swings in Its Campaign against the US? (Part 1).”) Such a precaution would likely be deemed less necessary by managers of Chinese foreign intelligence and counterintelligence services for operatives placed within or close proximity of contractors offices and personnel as those managers have likely become well-aware of the astonishing lack of due diligence and security practiced by them. Surely, US counterintelligence activities of greatest interest would be those against Chinese foreign intelligence networks and operations. However, there would undoubtedly be significant and considerable value in being aware of physical surveillance activities by US counterintelligence services against the other adversaries of those services. There is every reason to believe cooperative relationships exist among the intelligence services of US adversaries. To say the least, there would be some monetary value in information collected by China of that kind.

Much as some parasites, those operatives who might successfully penetrate any organizations of or pertaining to US counterintelligence services would never act directly to destroy those personnel or organizations but would rather only nourish themselves off of them by collecting critical information from them for the security and survival of Chinese Intelligence activities in the US. Reminding again of what might be called Olson’s maxim from To Catch a Spy, “Penetration is the best counterintelligence.” One can almost be certain that senior executives and managers in adversarial foreign intelligence services surely believe that, too! That is something for US counterintelligence services to be very concerned about.

With regard to working with quantitative data, broken down to the essentials, it must continually be used to keep US counterintelligence officers cognizant and well appraised of activity by confirmed Chinese intelligence officers, operatives, and informants tied to diplomatic missions. With quantitative data, users ought to drill down on data concerning their daily and hourly activity from communications to commuting. One must be able to discern even the slightest changes in activity, whether increased or decreased. Data should be reviewed daily to identify the slightest changes from the aggregate numbers. Revisiting data that has already been rolled up and aggregated is also advised. It should be mined through for more details, clues. (One should never get so caught up with data to believe that an opponent’s actions can be reduced to an algorithm. The opposition’s leaders are living, breathing, agile, flexible and–despite working in Communist China–potentially unconventional thinkers.)

Getting Results

Measures of success of the practices suggested here may hopefully be a marked increased prospective opportunities to: neutralize; displace; and, intercept, even recruit, from a targeted Chinese intelligence network.

1. Displace

If the purpose of US counterintelligence is to displace a Chinese intelligence network or operation, the rapid shutdown of an operation would be a sign of success in that endeavor. The threat of intercept or the very public revelation that an officer, operative, or informant in the network has been apprehended would naturally spur such an action. If the environment is made hot enough for the network, its managers and the remainder of their string of officers, operatives, and informants will indubitably go to ground with the hope of resurrecting their network with its diffuse operations at a more favorable point in time. However, if an operation has packed up and moved out, there will be a palpable change in the working atmosphere for the counterintelligence officer who has had their noses to grindstone working the case. In a frenzied rush to exit the US, individual suspected Chinese intelligence officers, working in academia or industry, in physical isolation from their compatriots, or ones that may appear to be operating independently and farthest away from their network compatriots and resources, may no longer see the need to carry on with any pretenses. It is also interesting to see that there is never mention of any effort by Chinese intelligence officers, operatives, or informants to figuratively throw dust in the eyes of those investigating, plant false leads or use other means to misdirect, as they make their escape.

Interviews can be used as a psychological tool to prompt displacement. For the network manager who is logical, visits to the residence or workplace of a subject of investigation by US counterintelligence officer to invite them for an interview in the respective office of their service, or to interview them at that location, may be viewed as probing based on some insight possessed by the adversary. There is the odd chance a network manager might believe a US counterintelligence service was on to something. However, it would seem they would more likely think a US counterintelligence service would “hold its cards a little closer” if it had something solid to act on. If the network manager is thinking in that way, it would mean he or she has been trying to see through all things cooked up by US counterintelligence. Surely, for the Chinese intelligence services as much as those of the US, studying their oppositions modus operandi is as important a task as anything else.

Operatives and informants, on the other hand, may become jittery. However, such a visit may not unnerve the network manager. The reaction of a network manager may be no visible reaction at all. He or she will likely continually display nerve and knowledge. The possibility of such interviews has likely already crossed the managers mind. The network manager has likely already assessed how officers, operatives, and informants in his or her retinue will act or react when approached. The task of the network manager will be to deduce what triggered the interview, reason from cause to effect what is the likely course of events to follow, and act accordingly. That being stated, activities and especially the communications of those approached for interviews must be monitored. New travel plans by individuals with some association to those interviewed, scheduled closely by date, must be examined.

2. Neutralize

To assist in determining where to interdict, stand up a “Red Team” on a non-stop basis, using templates properly constructed from everything known and insights and inferences on Chinese operations and to continue to build up a legend for de créature imaginaire with the objective of achieving increasing accuracy. Among tools that should be made available for use in neutralizing Chinese intelligence officers, operatives, and informants, should be heavy financial rewards for “coming forward”; and whistle-blower-like protections. Casting one’s mind back to the “Chieu Hoi” program used to contend with the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, US counterintelligence services, using an approach certainly not the same but conceptually similar to that, may very well be able net a few long-time operatives and informants of China see intelligence services with deep involvement in their efforts, who may have had their fill of the whole business and want to get out, but safely. Cela n’a rien d’évident. (The fact that the Chieu Hoi program was implemented in an Asian country is purely coincidental. No deliberate connection regarding a region, race, or political philosophy was made. The parallel is that much as the Viet Cong, Chinese foreign intelligence officers in particular, but any operatives and informants as well are often “true believers,” who act out of conviction. Similar to the Viet Cong, they are driven by a deep-seeded ideology. In their unique case, it is usually the erroneous belief that China is the champion of the oppressed and will become the dominant power in the world.) In case the point has been misunderstood, heavy financial rewards for them would mean steep rewards. Ideally, the result will be to threaten the rewards structure, financial and psychological, of the Chinese foreign intelligence and counterintelligence services. If money would not be the elixir to turn any Chinese intelligence officers, operatives, or informants, US counterintelligence services would only need to pose the question to themselves: Deployed to the US and caught in the business of spying, what else would truly satisfy them enough to cause them to defect or to become a double? If the situation becomes desperate enough, ask the targeted Chinese intelligence officer, operative, or informant: “What do you want? Name it!” (In other words, at least to get things moving, do whatever it takes, but within reason!) Turning Chinese operatives and informants should ideally take on the appearance of something akin to a business enterprise while actually being a counterintelligence task, if successful. Cela encore n’a rien d’évident. (Note, however, that money can become poisonous in both directions, creating temptation among those in service ranks unfortunately disposed to transgressions. Therefore, its distribution must be very carefully supervised.)

To be succinct, the hope of US counterintelligence should be to come in contact with an officer, operative, or informant with an albeit idealistic vision of China as the dominant power and shape of the world for the future, but with reservations, serious reservations. Those sentiments would need to be worked on. The next best hope would be to find the officer, operative, or informant who is not doing things for an ideal, and whose reasons for turning on China would be venal. Pretio parata vincitur pretio fides. (Fidelity bought by money is overcome by money)

3. Intercept

Non capiunt lepores tympana rauca leves. (Drumming is not the way to catch a hare.) This could be entirely off the mark, but it appears that aggressive counterintelligence appears to have been directed at targets of opportunity versus the industry-centric networks of Chinese intelligence in the US. While there may be a meretricious benefit to this practice, it accomplishes nothing in terms of tearing down Chinese intelligence networks or smothering greater espionage operations. Again, elevated thinking is required. There must be an inflexion point at which US counterintelligence services become the fox, and the days of being the chicken come to an end. Better use must be made of tools available and good practices. There must be better use of deception. To lure Chinese intelligence networks into traps, network managers and higher ups in the Chinese system must be convinced that the figurative cheese in the trap is something worth the risk of trying to take. Psychological operations must be used to draw them closer to targets US counterintelligence can cover while remaining concealed. As part of the information warfare campaign with China, an effort must be made to surreptitiously “assist” Beijing in discovering a novel target worth pursuing. Chinese intelligence services have enjoyed a halcion season of success. They apparently have no intention of being thrown off their pace and streak of victories by what they in all likelihood suspect are attempts by US counterintelligence to score a victory against their effort during their moment of glory.

US counterintelligence officers must do their utmost to go beyond the normal scope in determining what will attract Chinese intelligence network managers. They must not proceed by pretending to know. There is no room for guesswork. Approaches developed must not be derivative. They must put as much time as necessary into developing them to become as certain as humanly possible that any new approaches will work. Any enticement or manipulation must not give off any indication of being a plant nor chicken feed. It must appear as genuine gold dust. Under extremely controlled circumstances, it may need to be actual gold dust! What is left is to wait for the network to show itself. There is nothing else to do otherwise. Efforts to stoke or prompt the adversary will lead to blowing the entire set up. Impatience is what the Chinese will look for because that is what every other foreign intelligence service expects of US counterintelligence.

Logically, it would be a capital mistake for Chinese Intelligence services to adulterate what could likely be characterized as an operation in which every aspect was well-known with individuals of ultimately unknown character, loyalties, or reliability and targets of likely no immediate unknown value and of no prior interest or desire. As senior executives and managers in Beijing might assess, if anything suddenly put before them was truly of any immediate value or desirable to China, the individuals or the information would have respectively been recruited or stolen already. Assuredly, that is the pinch for US counterintelligence services when it comes to getting decent double-agent operation off the ground.

John le Carré, the renowned author of espionage novels of the United Kingdom who served in both both the Security Service, MI5, and the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, during the 1950s and 1960s, offers the statement in The Honourable Schoolboy (Alfred A. Knopf, 1977): “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.” US counterintelligence officers must be mindful of what may be perceived in the conference room as an advantage over the opposition intelligence network manager may be the ugly product of groupthink. They must judge perceptions in view of what is actually known about that opponent, even if he or she remains de créature imaginaire and how that manager may act in response to what they plan to put in his or her way. Use of aggressive tactics or overwhelming superiority can be turned into a liability by an agile thinker. It is also important to understand that no matter how the Chinese intelligence network or operation may be approached, everything done, particularly if successful, will be studied by superiors in Beijing so that all gaps that may have been exploited in a disrupted, displaced, or destroyed network will be rapidly and quietly set right in all remaining networks. Operational missteps that might have been exploited will be identified and never made again. (Be observant for changes in practices among networks and operations being traced.) In view of what Beijing may learn from an initial attack, adjustments in the next US counterintelligence strike against a Chinese intelligence network or operation must be considered even before the first is executed. In a cycle, this approach to attacking Chinese intelligence networks and operations must be adjusted for each new situation and repeated.

To go a step further, one might speculate that having achieved countless victories with near impunity inside the US, Chinese foreign intelligence services now very likely conduct counterintelligence exercises in the field, likely in a nondisruptive way vis-a-vis ongoing operations, to ensure that in their present state, their intelligence networks are free from US counterintelligence detection and interference and that no intelligence service from anywhere could play havoc with them.

It is unlikely that the senior executives and managers of Chinese foreign Intelligence services are sitting back and gloating about their victories. Rather, it is very likely that everyday they work harder and harder to make their networks and operations better and more effective, pushing their espionage capabilities far-beyond the reach of the counterintelligence services of the countries in which they operate. All of that being said, one might still imagine that soon enough, in a gesture aimed at figuratively putting some dirt in the eyes of US counterintelligence services, the Chinese foreign intelligence services may spend some hours planning some upheaval that their networks could cause in the US to embarrass US counterintelligence services. It would imaginably be designed to knock them well-off track and symbolically mark China’s domination of their opponent on his own home ground. China would also be sending a message concerning its dominance throughout the espionage world. Of course, despite its meretricious effect, whatever such a potential ploy might be, it would doubtlessly be conducted in such a way that the government in Beijing and the Communist Party of China would feel enabled to plausibly deny China’s connection to the action. (These are only some thoughts, ruminations, on the situation. Hopefully, this should not cause any undue concern. Or, cela n’a rien d’évident.)

The Chinese have likely concluded US foreign intelligence and counterintelligence services are under stress and are bound to take risks to score a victory or win the whole ball game. To that extent, it is unlikely Beijing wants its intelligence services reaching after anything when their plates are already full follow up on leads they created for themselves. It is possible that the Chinese foreign intelligence services have never seen US counterintelligence services get anything substantial started against their networks in terms of penetration. However, the Chinese will unlikely mistake quiet for security. They probably never really feel secure in the US. It is hard to imagine what might ever be worth the candle to Chinese intelligence services to reach after. Assuredly, impatience in any US operation would be anathema.

People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping (above). Given the success of Chinese intelligence services in the US, China might soon enough choose to send a message to symbolically mark China’s domination of their opponent on his own home ground. and its dominance in the espionage world. Chinese foreign intelligence services operating in the US may spend some time planning an upheaval that would figuratively put some dirt in the eyes of US counterintelligence services. Despite any meretricious effect such an act might have, whatever such a potential deplorable ploy might be, it would doubtlessly be conducted in such a way that the government in Beijing and the Communist Party of China would be able to plausibly deny their connection to the action.

The Way Forward

Month after month, US counterintelligence services discover another set of occasions when China has incommoded a federal agency, a private firm, an academic institution, or research institute by stealing from them classified information or intellectual property most often vital to the national interest. Leave it to say, having engaged in an empirical study of public facts coming in what has been transpiring, the potential trajectory of China’s malign efforts is breathtaking. By 2021, it should have been the case that MSS networks were being regularly penetrated by US counterintelligence and rolled up in waves at times chosen by US counterintelligence services. Ongoing and developing MSS operations should have already been heavily infiltrated and those infiltrated operations which are not destroyed should be used as conduits to push disinformation back to China. As for individuals recruited by MSS, many should have already been identified as a result of US counterintelligence infiltration of MSS networks and at appropriate moments, those operatives and informants should have been intercepted, neutralized, and recruited as counterespionage agents. However, that is not the case. Perhaps in some allied country, success against China will be achieved showing US counterintelligence services the way forward. With a long history of successfully defending the United Kingdom from foreign spies, it may very well be that MI5 will not have the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, the exalted person herself, wait much longer for good news.

Whether this essay for some will cause a journey from unawareness, curiosity, or a lack of clarity to knowledge, remains to be seen. There has been more than enough talk about how bad the problem with China is. That becomes by the by. There must be more talk about how to defeat it. The US must move from the defensive to the offensive, and take the game back to China and destroy all of its networks. It could be the case that US counterintelligence officers must relearn and hone the skill of lying before the water course and awaiting the big game. Many plans can be developed to advance against a problem. However, choosing the right plan, the one that will work, is the challenge. Much as with physicians, for investigators, every symptom must be told before a diagnosis can be provided. In a very small way here, greatcharlie has sought to contribute to development more effective approaches to defeat Chinese intelligence collection efforts in the US. Before writing this essay, greatcharlie fully understood and accepted that there are those singular US counterintelligence services that would be completely uninterested in, and even shun, any voice or meditations from outside the bureaucracy that would dare offer assistance to them in their struggle with China’s intelligence services. (It must be stated that greatcharlie has either been retained to supply any imaginable deficiencies of US counterintelligence services nor has it been retained for anything by any of them.) Often in the US national security bureaucracy, perspectives on adversaries can become too austere. Over time, even unknowingly, walls are built around those perspectives, fending off an effort to more accurately understand an adversary at the present that may shake the foundations of them. That sort of mindset, as suggested,, perhaps an unconscious bias, can creep its way in and become comfortable. That can spell disaster. This may very well be the case with Chinese foreign intelligence activity in the US.

With a near endless chain of losses, the following theft sometimes being a greater defeat than the one proceeding it, greatcharlie feels compelled to ingeminate the position expressed in the conclusion of its August 31, 2020 greatcharlie post US counterintelligence services should consider hiring individuals from outside the bureaucracy who are already known due to demonstrated interest in the subject matter and recognized as possessing some ability to present what may be unorthodox innovative, forward-looking perspectives. New thinkers can rejuvenate the analytical process, effectively serving to unearth directions and areas for examination and offer hypotheses, good ones, that otherwise would be ignored. In effect, surface layers could be peeled off to reveal what may have been missed for a long time. From the inside, one might characterize observations and hypotheses offered by outsiders as mere surmisals and suppositions from those perceived lacking the necessary depth of understanding that long time analysts bring to an issue. With no intent to condescend, one might assess responses of that type would be defensive and emotional, and least likely learned. The purpose of using such perspectives is to have a look at issues from other angles. Thinking outside the bureaucracy would hopefully move away from the usual track, the derivative, the predictable, especially in special cases that may be hard to crack. Indeed, what outsider brings to the analysis of an issue, through the examination of people and events and interpretation of data, is the application of different sensibilities founded on knowledge acquired after having passed through a multitude experiences that might very well have thwarted the recruitment of the outside the box thinker. One could say the length and breadth of that knowledge and experience allowed for an alternative understanding of humanity. Such an understanding also could have been sought through personal study.

The suggestion should not seem so exotic at this point. Even the adversaries of the US would likely imagine the possibility that some assistance from an unexpected source and direction could pose the greatest threat to their success. Perhaps some US counterintelligence services will never brook the idea of receiving such assistance from outside the bureaucracy. However, in the end, the US counterintelligence service which opens itself up to new, thinking, new insights, new approaches, will very likely bag its tiger. Vigilando, agendo, bene consulendo, prospera omnia cedunt. (By watching, by doing, by consulting well, these things yield all things prosperous.)

China’s Ministry of State Security: What Is This Hammer the Communist Party of China’s Arm Swings in Its Campaign against the US? (Part 1)

Posted on July 31, 2020 by greatcharlie

The Headquarters of the Ministry of State Security (above). China’s primary civilian intelligence service engaged in the political warfare struggle against the US is the Ministry of State Security (MSS). Yet, while fully involved in that work, MSS has adhered to its bread and butter mission of stealing national security and diplomatic secrets with specific regard to the US. It has also robustly enhanced another mission of grabbing intellectual property and an array of cutting-edge technologies from the US. This essay provides a few insights from outside the box on the MSS, the tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods, it believes, help to keep China secure and help to improve China’s capabilities and capacity to compete and struggle with the US.

There was a time not so long ago when discussion in US foreign policy circles concerning China centered on issues such as trade, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, North Korean denuclearization, and human rights. Now the primary focus of discussion is the coronavirus. China is where the virus originated and was surely ineptly handled, setting the stage for the current pandemic. How China has responded to the crisis turned pandemic has been a source of curiosity and absolute outrage globally. Despite preening about its own advances in science and medicine, China proved not to be up to the task of handling the outbreak that most experts agree more than likely began disastrously in a Wuhan laboratory. It is difficult to fully comprehend what on Earth went on in the minds of China’s leadership upon learning about their country’s coronavirus epidemic. Shutting down cities and restricting travel was among the means to control the spread among their own citizens but China’s government was quite derelict in ensuring the virus would not break out around the rest of the world. Worse, the Communist Party of China and the National Party Congress were unapologetic and frightfully defensive concerning all discussion of China’s role in what was happening. China very quickly became exercised with the US over the matter. They became particularly warm toward US President Donald Trump. The words of official spokespeople were certainly not seasoned in grace. Although it has found itself in an unpleasant, contentious relationship with the US as a result of its own doing, Beijing has nevertheless effectively doubled-down on the behavior that exacerbated the situation. China’s government spokespeople will most likely continue to assail the global media with waves of distortions. At the same time around the world, the number of people infected by the coronavirus continues to increase, the death toll rises, and the financial loss is being calculated in the trillions. Hopefully, People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping is well-aware of what is transpiring and has set some type of guidance on just how far this whole cabaret put on by Beijing should go. Numquam enim temeritas cum sapienta commiscetur. (For rashness is never mixed together with wisdom.)

The figurative hammer of the foreign and national security policy apparatus swung by the arm of the Communist Party of China against the US is China’s intelligence services. They are the ones on the front lines of the political warfare struggle. Among those intelligence services, the primary element engaged is the Ministry of State Security (MSS). The Ministry of State Security is the embodiment of the logic that created the Chinese system’s intimidating, authoritarian order and for years has choreographed events to accomplish the Communist Party’s purposes. To that extent, the Communist Party of China has entrusted the defense of “their creation,” the modern Communist Chinese state, to this complex government organization. China has only offered soupçons about the MSS, and even less than that lately. Unless one is engaged in diplomatic, intelligence, defense, military, or law enforcement work, MSS is an elements of the Chinese government with which most outsiders when engaged in their normal business related to China, whether inside the country, in a country near by, or even at home, will have contact, but will often be completely unaware. The ostensible purpose and task of MSS is to defend China against external as well as internal threats. By performing its mission of collecting vital information about China’s friends, allies, competitors and adversaries MSS gives the leadership of the Communist Party of China time to make decisions and space to take action. To that extent, the MSS has adhered to its bread and butter mission of stealing national security and diplomatic secrets with specific regard to the US. However, it has also robustly enhanced another mission of collecting intellectual property and an array of cutting-edge technologies from the US. The Communist Party of China is surely counting upon it to successfully take on China’s adversaries in a large way with a small footprint. Interestingly though, there has been far greater discernment worldwide of MSS political warfare activities than Beijing might have imagined. The immediate implication of that has been the infliction of considerable damage to China’s reputation as a world leader. Veritas nimis saepe laborat; exstinguitur numquam. (The truth too often labors (is too often hard pressed); it is never extinguished.)

This essay does not focus on the political warfare effort by MSS, the nuts and bolts of which are somewhat straight forward, and compressed into summary form in the March 31, 2020 greatcharlie post entitled, “Commentary: Beijing’s Failed Political Warfare Effort Against US: A Manifestation of Its Denial Over Igniting the Coronavirus Pandemic”. It focuses on what the Ministry of State Security (MSS) is and what it does, day-to-day, for China. It is presented in two sections. This section, “Part 1,” provides greatcharlie’s insights from outside the box on the MSS and the tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods it believes both help to keep China secure and help to improve China’s capabilities and capacity to compete and struggle with the US. That discussion is buttressed by a few celebrated and trusted sources. “Part 2” continues that discussion and, without an ax to grind, greatcharlie calls attention to how, over recent years, a number of less-familiar, self-inflicted wounds have hindered the prosecution of a successful campaign by US counterintelligence services against the MSS as well as other Chinese intelligence services. The extent to which those same issues concerning US counterintelligence services have impacted the Trump administration is also touched upon. Without pretension, greatcharlie states that there is no reason for it to believe policymakers and decisionmakers in the White House and among US foreign affairs, defense, and intelligence organizations, would have a professional interest in its meditations on MSS intelligence operations in the US. However, it is greatcharlie’s hope that if given some attention, perhaps in some small way it might assist those who work on matters of gravity in this province improve their approach to defeating and displacing the MSS networks and operations as well as those of its sister organizations in the US. Bonus adiuvate, conservate popular Romanum. (Help the good (men) save (metaphorically in this case) the Roman people.)

People’s Republic of China Chairman Mao Zedong (left) and Kang Sheng (right). After the defeat of Imperial Japanese forces in China and prior to 1949, the Communust Party of China’s main intelligence institution was the Central Department of Socialism Affairs (CDSA). CDSA was placed under the control of Kang Sheng, a longtime political associate of Mao with a linkage from the past to Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. With the Communist Party’s victory over Chang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces, CDSA became one among a full array of government intelligence organizations that were created to supplement Party-based intelligence services. CDSA would draw information from foreign news agencies and open sources. It was hardly a very rewarding business.

Chinese Intelligence Under the Communist Party: The Beginning

The foundation of the Chinese intelligence services was laid during the revolutionary period in which the Communist Party of China sought to establish its rule. In the early 1930s, two intelligence services existed. One was centered in Shanghai and the Communist Party, the othjer was based in the Chinese Communist government that existed in Shaanxi where Mao Zedong established his base after the Long March. The later intelligence service proved to be the stronger of the two. By the late 1930s, it was replaced by a newly created Social Affairs Department (SAD) within the Communist Party. Within the years of struggle against Imperial Japanese forces in China, there was the Yan’an Rectification, from 1942 to 1944, in which Mao consolidated his paramount role in the Communist Party of China. Yan’an was also the part of the ten year period in which: Mao established his premier role in the Party; the Party’s Constitution, endorsing Marxist-Leninism and Maoist thought as its guiding ideologies, was adopted (Mao’s formal deviation from the Soviet line and his determination to adapt Communism to Chinese conditions); and, the postwar Civil war between the Communists and the Kuomintang. Prior to 1949, the Communist Party of China’s main intelligence institution was the Central Department of Social Affairs (CDSA). CDSA was placed under the control of Kang Sheng, a longtime political associate of Mao with a linkage from the past to Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. With the Communist Party’s victory over Chang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces, CDSA became one among a full array of government intelligence organizations were created to supplement Party-based intelligence services. CDSA would draw information from foreign news agencies and open sources. It was hardly a very rewarding business.

The Ministry of Public Security was established as China’s principal intelligence service at the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. It, too, was placed under the leadership of Kang Sheng. CDSA fell into the hands of Li Kenong, a deputy chief of staff to People’s Liberation Army (PLA) chief of staff Chou Enlai and a vice minister for foreign affairs. The main role of the MPS, as with all previous Chinese intelligence services, was to serve the interests of the Communist Party of China. However, as time passed, it was also officially given jurisdiction over counter subversion, counterintelligence, and conducting espionage in Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Overseas during the 1950s, most Chinese diplomatic missions accommodated the MPS with an Investigation and Research Office for intelligence collection staffed by CDSA personnel, with analysis performed by the Eighth Bureau, publicly known in 1978 as the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. In 1953, CDSA became the Central Investigation Department (CID). In China, the MPS presence was nearly ubiquitous, as it kept a watchful eye on China’s population. It was energetically engaged in monitoring Chinese who returned from abroad. To cope with what it determined to be errant citizens, MPS ran labor reform camps. MPS personnel were known for behaving harshly among its own citizens. That behavior was said to be reflective of the violent mentality of its initial leader, Kang. Despite his alleged romance with Mao’s wife, Kang was far from a charming man. Rather, he was known for being an absolute brute. He would move on to become a member of the Communist Party of China Political Bureau, and Li Kenong moved up to take command there. In 1962, the decision was made to move Ministry of Public Security counterespionage functions over to the CID.

The 1960s were a volatile time for Chinese intelligence services as with all military institutions in China. Li Kenong died in 1962 and in 1966 he was succeeded by Luo Quinchang, who had been adopted by Kang in 1958 and ushered into the MPS. However, the MPS became involved in the power struggles that embroiled the Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution. Mao, feeling his power base was threatened mainly as a result of his failed Great Leap Forward, implemented the “Four Cleans Movement,” with the objective of purifying politics, economics, ideas, and organization of reactionaries, led by a one time ally, Luo Quinchang of MPS. His staff files were seized and mined for candidates for criticism and banishment to the lao jiao prison system.

Kang Sheng (above). The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) was established as China’s principal intelligence service at the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. It, too, was placed under the leadership of Kang Sheng. The main role of the MPS, as with all previous Chinese intelligence services, was to serve the interests of the Communist Party of China. As time passed, it was also officially given jurisdiction over counter subversion, counterintelligence, and conducting espionage in Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. MPS personnel were known for behaving harshly among its own citizens. That behavior was said to be reflective of the mentality of Kang, who was known for being an absolute brute.

Most of the leadership of the CID was sent to the countryside for reeducation and the organization, itself, was abolished for a time. Its activities and assets were absorbed by the Second Department of the PLA’s general staff taking over its duties. The Second Department oversaw human intelligence collection to include military attachés at Chinese embassies overseas clandestine collection agents sent to other countries to collect military information, and the analysis of overt sources of information. Mao turned to Kang to ensure that his ideological and security directives were implemented. Kang, Mao’s wife Jiang, Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, Zhang Chunqiao, dubbed the “Gang of Four,” worked together in a campaign to renew China’s revolutionary spirit. With the assistance of the Red Guards, a mass student led paramilitary movement mobilized and guided by Mao from 1996 to 1967, the Gang of Four set out to destroy the “Four Olds” of society: old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas. The Red Guards were particularly disruptive. Apparent moral confusion caused the base student army to rise and nearly wreck China by attacking senior Communist Party leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and by conducting mass executions. There were reports that the Red Guards cadres had engaged in cannibalism, eating students. They destroyed approximately 66 percent of China’s famous temples, shrines, and heritage sites. These included nearly 7,000 priceless works of art in the Temple of Confucius alone. The Red Guards would face resistance in major cities. Often the PLA was forced to violently put down their destructive attacks. The organization having fully flown off the rails, Mao instructed leaders of the Red Guards to end their movement.

Meanwhile, Kang had returned to the intelligence service from on high to assume responsibility for the CID cadres that remained left in limbo. Eventually, a new organization, the Central Case Examination Group, composed of CID cadres under Kang was created. That organization was instrumental in the removal of Deng Xiaoping from power. The CID was reestablished in 1971 following the death of Lin Biao and then again became entangled in another power struggle as Hua Kuo-feng and Deng Xiaoping vied for control of the party. By then, Kang had receded into the distance, viewed as too connected to the untidiness of the Cultural Revolution.

Following Mao’s death in 1976, the new leadership under Hua Guofeng initially tried to return to the pre-Cultural Revolution years and strengthen the CID. When Hua Kuo-feng and Wang Dongxing assumed power in 1977, they tried to enlarge the CID and expand the Communist Party of China intelligence work as part of their more general effort to consolidate their leadership positions. However, their hopes and dreams met their fate. Deng Xiaoping, having steadily ascended within the leadership ranks of the Communist Party of China, was uncertain of CID loyalties and his opinion of it was unfavorable. Circumstances indicated that he should order the shut down of all Investigation Offices in Chinese embassies. Although it remained part of the Chinese intelligence services, the CID was officially downgraded. According to Anne-Marie Brady in Making the Foreign Serve China: Managing Foreigners in the People’s Republic (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), the impact of the CID’s downgrade was softened by the fact that its intelligence efforts were being paralleled and to some degree occasionally outmatched by the extraordinarily secret International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, which became deeply involved in inciting and assisting international revolution by moving weapons, financial support, and other critical resources to numerous Communist and non-Communist insurgencies worldwide.

The emblem of the Ministry of State Security (above). In 1983, there was considerable frustration in the Communist Party of China with the high volume of secret information being leaked to the West. This was particularly true with regard to information about debates occurring within the Communist Party and reports of poor economic and social conditions within China. In reaction, counterespionage responsibilities were transferred from the MPS to the new Ministry of State Security (MSS). Known as the Guojia Anquanbu or Guoanbu, the MSS was stood up in July 1983 to rectify the deficiencies of the previous iterations of the intelligence function in the Chinese national security apparatus.

The Inception of the Ministry of State Security

The story of the Ministry of State Security (MSS) began thoroughly in July 1983. That year, there was considerable frustration in the Communist Party of China with the high volume of secret information being leaked to the West. This was particularly true with regard to information about debates occurring within the Communist Party and reports of poor economic and social conditions within China. In reaction, counterespionage responsibilities were transferred from the MPS to the MSS. Known as the Guojia Anquanbu or Guoanbu, the MSS was stood up to rectify the deficiencies of the previous iterations of the intelligence function in the Chinese national security apparatus. When the reorganization of the MPS was completed in 1983, it was temporarily left with only traditional police functions. Nevertheless, the change turned out to be quite positive as both organizations were allowed a new beginning so to speak. MSS represented a reimagination of the intelligence collection process abroad and the counterintelligence struggle against outside powers. It eventually bring new dimensions to China’s foreign intelligence scheme. The creation of MSS freed MPS to revamp existing capabilities and explore and adapt a new as well as more technological set of cards to play in the domestic intelligence game so to speak. It represented a reimagination of the intelligence collection process abroad and the counterintelligence struggle against outside powers.

At its nascent stage, the ranks of the MSS were filled with longtime MPS who transferred over to the office. MSS provincial branches were often staffed predominantly with PLA and government retirees. Despite the declaration of its raison d’être as a foreign intelligence organization, the MSS was initially asked to do what its rank and file knew how to do best, which was to perform as police. For that reason, the most important task that it was given after its inception, focusing on students in both China and abroad after the Tiananmen Square protests, was a natural fit. Tiananmen Square, in addition to being frightfully embarrassing to the Communist Party of China leaders, caused them to remain greatly concerned over a possible follow on move by students. That concern was thoroughly evinced when Chinese authorities announced that some 200 Chinese had been accused of spying for the Soviet Union. One might say that the counterintelligence purpose of the assignment made giving it to the MSS plausible. However, MPS had the domestic counterintelligence mission covered. Redundantly taking on the assignment concerning the student–surely MPS was on it–was a turn in a wrong direction. The MSS would eventually develop into an authentic foreign intelligence service, but it would take time. It would be an evolutionary process.

An ocean of student protesters in Tiananmen Square in May 1989 (above). At its nascent stage, the ranks of the MSS were filled with longtime MPS who transferred over to the office. MSS provincial branches were often staffed with People’s Liberation Army and government retirees. Despite the declaration of its raison d’être as a foreign intelligence organization, the MSS was initially asked to do what its rank and file knew how to do best, which was police work. For that reason, the most important task that it was given after its inception, focusing on students in both China and abroad after the Tiananmen Square protests, was a natural fit. The protests, in addition to being frightfully embarrassing to the Communist Party of China leaders, caused them great concern regarding a possible follow-on move by students.

As aforementioned, a paucity of quality information exists publicly from the Chinese government about the present-day MSS in primary or secondary sources. No official Chinese government website exists for the intelligence organization. There have been no press releases distributed or press conferences held by the organization’s public relations department. Access to information from the organization is essentially nonexistent. No significant writings have been published by security scholars in China on the MSS. Precious few defections from MSS have occurred, so little has been provided from an insider’s view. What is best known generally about MSS in the US has been superbly relayed in I.G. Smith’s and Nigel West’s celebrated Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).

The MSS headquarters is located in Beijing in a large compound in Xiyuan, on Eastern Chiang’an Avenue, close to Tiananmen Square. Within the security perimeter is snowing apartment block, Qian Men, where many of the MSS staff and their families live. The MSS is a civilian intelligence service and operates independently from the People’s Liberation Army General Staff Second and Third Departments, which also conduct military intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Although it has a central headquarters, the MSS actually was not built up as a centralized organization. It is composed of national, provincial, and local branches much as the MPS from which it sprang. Even the initial CDSA and later CID units of the MPS operated domestically under a decentralized and autonomous structure throughout China that was supported by the Communist Party of China. Their structure somewhat resembles that of the erstwhile regional and Soviet republic KGB bureaus. The provincial, and local branches receive directives from headquarters in Beijing and are financed by National Security Special Funds. Yet, only to the extent that provincial and local branches receive “administrative expenses,” could they be considered accountable to headquarters. They are largely autonomous in reality, reportedly acting as essential adjuncts to the local administration. The formal chief of the MSS holds the title Minister of State Security. As of this writing, the minister is Chen Wenqing. However, from the national level to the local levels, the MSS and its subordinate departments and bureaus report to a system of leading small groups, coordinating offices, and commissions to guide security work while lessening the risk of politicization on behalf of Communist Party of China leaders. Initially, the most important of these was the Political-Legal Commission (Zhongyang Guoja Anquan Weiyuanhui). The Political-Legal Commission was chaired by a Politburo member at the Central level with the title Secretary, who serves essentially as China’s security czar. There are Deputy Party Secretaries at the lower levels. The lower-level commissions oversee all state security, public security, prisons, and procuratorate (judicial) elements for their levels. Currently, there is a Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (Zhengfawei) who oversees China’s security apparatus and law enforcement institutions, also with power reaching into the courts, prosecution agencies, police forces, paramilitary forces, and intelligence organs Xi announced the creation of the Central State Security Commission (CSSC) in the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Party Congress in November 2013. The CSSC held its first meeting on April 15, 2014. The purpose of this new commission was twofold. First, it was intended to balance internal political power created by the expansion of the security services and their capabilities in the 2000s. Second, the commission orient’s the MSS and other security forces toward planning and preempting threats to the party-state. At lower levels, provinces, counties, and municipalities have state security leading small groups (Guoja Anquan Lingdao Xiaozu). The political-legal Commissions and State Security leading small groups overlap in personnel but not perfectly. They combine with defense mobilizations committees and 610 offices to create a kind of system of systems that oversees local security and intelligence work. Headquarters is surely kept apprised of what the provincial and local branches are doing. Each level reports to the next MSS level up and the Political-Legal Committee at that level. This florid arrangement of horizontal and vertical relationships often creates bureaucratic competition that encourages pushing decisions upward while hiding information from elements of equal protocol rank.

Intellect, will, and hard earned experience drove MSS leaders forward as they molded the MSS into a truly effective intelligence organization. What compelled the domestic focus of its initial work is further apparent in that process. The first two ministers, Ling Yun and Jia Chunwang, faced the challenge of turning a small Ministry with only a handful of outlying provincial departments into a nationwide security apparatus. The expansion occurred in four waves. In the first wave during MSS’ inaugural year, the municipal bureaus or provincial departments of state security for Beijing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Shanghai were created. A second wave appeared shortly thereafter between 1985 and 1988, including Chongqing, Gansu, Hainan, Henan, Shaanxi, Tianjin, and Zhejiang. The third wave from 1990 to 1995 completed the expansion of the Ministry across at the provincial levels, bringing in Anguilla, Hunan, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces. The fourth wave the provincial-level departments expanded vertically, taking over local public security bureaus or established subordinate municipal or County bureaus. The MSS policy of expanding representative offices in most major towns and cities was reversed in 1997. Nevertheless, when MSS minister Jia left in 1998 for the MPS, the MSS was a nationwide organization at every level. Presently, the MSS’ thirty-one major provincial and municipal sub-elements. Interestingly, as MSS moved through each growth spurt, it did not ignite efforts to rename the organization, to divide it into pieces and parcel out some of its departments among other Chinese intelligence services, or to disband it altogether in the way CDSA and MPS suffered in the two previous decades. There seemed to be an understanding system wide that the need existed for a solid civilian foreign intelligence as well as counterintelligence capability.

The Wuhan Hubei National Security Office in China, home of the provincial Ministry of State Security Bureau (above). The expansion of MSS provincial departments occurred in four waves. In the first wave, during MSS’ inaugural year, the municipal bureaus or provincial departments of state security for Beijing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Shanghai were created. A second wave appeared shortly thereafter between 1985 and 1988, creating the Chongqing, Gansu, Hainan, Henan, Shaanxi, Tianjin, and Zhejiang bureaus. The third wave from 1990 to 1995 completed the expansion of the Ministry across at the provincial levels, bringing in Anguilla, Hunan, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces. The fourth wave the provincial-level departments expanded vertically, taking over local public security bureaus or established subordinate municipal or County bureaus. Presently, the MSS has thirty-one major provincial and municipal sub-elements.

As relayed previously, MSS was initially staffed with personnel drawn largely from the MPS. Many local MPS officers transitioned overnight from being police to MSS officers. The MSS foreign intelligence capability was built up when intelligence cadres from the Communist Party of China were brought into its ranks. The new MSS was also funded in part by the MPS. The fact that MSS, in a similar way to MPS, established provincial offices, which operated under cover names, such as “Unit 8475,” has been completely uncloaked and was made fairly well-known courtesy of the Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence. To help MSS take on its mission, MPS passed some networks to the new organization. Yet, with some uncertainty that existed as to the political nature of MSS, MPS was reportedly reluctant to make such transfers. Weariness and disappointment was also apparently felt among some of the old MPS professionals who opted to move to the MSS. While there were far greater opportunities for foreign travel, the financial side-benefits of working closely with industry were no longer available to them.

Employment on the MSS staff continues to hold considerable social status and is generally thought of as a desirable career. MSS intelligence officers are usually recruited before or during their university education, and a large proportion are graduates of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), the Beijing Institute of International Relations, the Jiangnan Social University, or the Zhejiang Police College. Those requiring technical skills usually attend the Beijing Electronic Specialist School. These establishments provide training for MSS recruits, who usually come from families with MSS links or otherwise are influential and beneficiaries of guanxi. Nevertheless, however well connected the candidates are, they will have to be dedicated and disciplined although not yet necessarily Party members. Guanxi is often exercised to facilitate entry into the MSS.

Promotions aee endorsed at both the bureau and headquarters levels. Senior branch positions require the approval of the local administration, although, in practice, the will of headquarters usually goes unchallenged. The quality of performance during the information war over the coronavirus pandemic will also likely play a considerable part in future promotion. Interestingly, although thoroughly part of the MSS, branch personnel are regarded as employees of the local government. More than half the MSS staff recruitment takes place in the region’s where the officers will be posted for the breath of their careers and where they have family links. Those family links are quite important. This structure enables the MSS to fulfill the increasingly large responsibility of ensuring social stability, considered a significant operational priority. There is no equivalent to this system in the West. Training takes place in the branches. There are no centralized, formal training academies, and new personnel are expected to learn their profession on the job by reading old and current operational files, by working with mentors, and attending occasional lecturers and conferences. Expectedly in the Communist country, during training, a heavy emphasis is placed on political indoctrination, and although probably less than 15 percent of MSS staff are women, they tend to be almost entirely Communist Party of China members. Internal transfers, and secondments are routine and occur mainly from the law and political departments of local government. There a tacit understanding that one could find a home in the MSS with all of the care and comfort imaginable during and after active service.

Mao (left) and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin (right). Immediately following Mao Zedong’s Communist forces defeat of General Chang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang Nationalist forces, China and the Soviet Union stood as the two prominent Communist countries. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin saw the victory in terms of Soviet interests, however Mao, saw the Communist Revolution in China as an achievement of the Chinese people. Despite reservations, Mao welcomed assistance from Moscow in the form of physical aid but experts and advisers. Soviet intelligence officers assisted the burgeoning Chinese intelligence service with the intention of creating a capable, parallel organization in a “brother” Socialist country, with hope of exploiting it to the greatest degree possible. However, cooperation that was established between Chinese and Soviet intelligence services ended with the split between Chinese and Soviet leaders.

Residual Impact of Soviet Intelligence Upon Chinese Intelligence?

Naturally, the once significant impact and influence of the Soviet intelligence service on Chinese intelligence has faded more and more with the coming of each new generation into the system. Yet, fragments from that past past still remain. Immediately following Mao Zedong’s Communist forces defeat of General Chang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang Nationalist forces, China and the Soviet Union stood as the two prominent Communist countries. Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin saw the victory in terms of Soviet interests, however Mao, saw the Communist Revolution in China as an achievement of the Chinese people, and to that extent was only interested in formulating the best path to Socialism for China. Mao had held reservations about overlaying China with the Soviet model, but nonetheless welcomed assistance from Moscow in the form of physical aid but experts and advisers. Nevertheless, an agreement was established between Mao and Stalin to have a Soviet advisory mission providing physical aid and significant guidance and advice on nearly all aspects of government. Concerning intelligence, Chinese and Soviet services liaised significantly and comfortably. Soviet advisers used their own service as a model to structure the organization, staffing, training, intelligence operations, and resources of Chinese intelligence services. In the end, Chinese intelligence services mirrored those of the Soviets. It became an effective tool for China’s security. What happened with the Chinese also happened with intelligence services of Eastern Bloc and other Communist governments’ intelligence services in the late 1950s. However, also much as in the Eastern Bloc, Soviet intelligence officers assisted the burgeoning Chinese intelligence service with the intention of creating a capable, parallel organization in a “brother” Socialist country that Soviet intelligence could exploit to the greatest degree possible.

Consequently, for decades after World War II, the Chinese intelligence service, even without Soviet direction, evinced some organizational and operational aspects similar to those of the Soviet intelligence services of the past. To that extent, the KGB has remained a fully useful yardstick from which one could measure, understand, and conceptualize the structure and functions of the Chinese intelligence services as they evolved. Interestingly, the period in which Chinese intelligence services received advice and closely liaised the Soviet counterparts was also a period of evolution of Soviet intelligence. As soon as one intelligence organization was opened for business in the Soviet Union, it was replaced by another with added responsibilities. Those organizations included: Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) or NKVD; 1938-1946, Narodnyi Komissariat Gosudarstvennoe Bezopasnosti (People’s Commissariat for State Security) and Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) or NKGB-NKVD, placing police and security functions under one chief; and, 1946-1953, Ministerstvo Vnuirennikh Del (Ministry for Internal Affairs) and Ministerstvh Gosudarstvennoe Bezopasnosti (Ministry for State Security) or MVD-MGB. Eventually, in 1954, all of the non-military security functions were organized in what was dubbed the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (the Committee for State Security) or the KGB. It was under odd circumstances that Soviet intelligence services would identify themselves as models for those of other countries to follow. Interestingly enough, there was a lesson for the Chinese to take away from that period of the growing pains felt by Soviet intelligence services. In effect, the evolution of the Chinese intelligence services was inevitable if it was to meet the evolving needs of the leadership in a changing world. Without wanting to declare or insinuate some causality, or proffering that there was some curious act of imitation, it must be noted that Chinese intelligence services, following the years of close contacts with the Soviet counterparts, went through a similar period of near continuous organizational and name change.

Cooperation that was established between Chinese intelligence services and Soviet intelligence services could not survive the split between Chinese and Soviet leaders. The cause was gaping differences in outlook. Mao’s perception of the right relationship between the Soviet and Chinese Revolutions was influenced by his profound identification with the Chinese national tradition, which led him to reject conceptions and political lines not sufficiently suited to the mentality of the Chinese people and to their originality and creativity. Such were the sensibilities behind the “Great Leap Forward.” Not even quiet liaison through a virtual cross border masonry between field officers of the two intelligence services would have been allowed.

Unlike its sister civilian intelligence service, the MPS, the MSS generally appears to have adhered to the non-politicization of the service. MSS senior executives have evinced an acumen for being clever with politics. Occasionally, they have not been pristine in avoiding any mix up between their true task and purpose and extraneous political matters. Indeed, MSS elements, particularly at local levels, often have provided protection services for the business dealings of Communist Party of China officials or their well-connected friends. The purges of Beijing Party secretary Chen Xitong in 1995 and Shanghai Party secretary Chen Liangyu in 2006 were understood to have involved the ministry. Following the fall of Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang, the Beijing State Security Bureau chief Fang Ke and Vice Minister Qiu Jin were ousted in rather widespread purges as a consequence of their use of MSS resources to support certain leaders in their political tussles.

How MSS Is Organized

In terms of operations and functional (administrative) duties, a common understanding has been that MSS is divided into bureaus, each assigned to a division with a broad directive and each bureau is given a specific task. On a Weibo account, reportedly associated with the MSS, a suitable outline of the first 11 bureaus was posted in November 2016. A description of that organizational structure of the MSS is easy enough to find online. The bureaus on that list, along with an additional six bureaus, was discovered on the common yet only moderately reliable source, the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia: Confidential Communication Division: Responsible for the management and administration of confidential communications; International Intelligence Division: Responsible for strategic international intelligence collection; Political and Economic Intelligence Division: Responsible for gathering political, economic, and scientific intelligence from various countries; Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau Division: Responsible for intelligence work in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau; Intelligence Analysis Division: Responsible for analysing and reporting on intelligence and collecting guidance on how to handle intelligence matters; Operational Guidance Division: Responsible for directing and supervising the activities of provincial level MSS offices; Counterintelligence Division: Responsible for gathering counterintelligence information; Counterintelligence Division: Responsible for monitoring, investigating, and potentially detaining foreigners suspected of counterintelligence activities. This Bureau is reported to primarily cover and investigate diplomats, businessmen, and reporters; Internal Security and Anti-Reconnaissance Division: Responsible for protecting the MSS from infiltration by foreign entities by monitoring domestic reactionary organizations and foreign institutions; External Security and Anti-Reconnaissance Division: Responsible for monitoring students and institutions abroad in order to investigate international anti-communist activities; Information and Auditing Division: Responsible for the collection and management of intelligence materials; Social Research Division: Responsible for conducting public opinion polling and surveying the population; Science and Technology Investigative Division: Responsible for managing science and technology projects and conducting research and development; Science and Technology Investigative Division: Responsible for inspecting mail and telecommunications; Comprehensive Intelligence Analysis Division: Responsible for the analysis and interpretation of intelligence materials; Imaging Intelligence Division: Responsible for collecting and interpreting images of political, economic, and military targets in various countries through both traditional practices and through incorporation of satellite imagery technologies; and, Enterprises Division: Responsible for the operation and management of MSS owned front companies, enterprises, and other institutions. (Additionally, In 2009, the MSS was reported by a former official to have a Counterterrorism Bureau.)

Since leaving the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where he was a highly-regarding analyst on China, Peter Mattis has published a number of superlative essays on Chinese intelligence and counterintelligence. Among a number of issues, Mattis expressed a view compatible with greatcharlie’s here in a 2012 article, “The Analytic Challenge of Understanding Chinese Intelligence Services” Studies in Intelligence Vol. 56, No. 3 (September 2012) 47, that “Protecting the integrity of US intelligence and policy processes is an important task for the US Intelligence Community, but clear understanding of Chinese intelligence serves more than the CI [counterintelligence] mission. At the core, analysis of Beijing’s intelligence institutions is about trying to understand systematically how the Chinese government uses information to inform its policy formulation, guidance to diplomats and security officials, and the execution of its policies.” Along with a former military intelligence officer and diplomat, Matthew Brazil, Mattis published Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer (United States Naval Institute Press, 2019), a book which is nothing less than brilliant. In covering the web of Chinese intelligence services that engage in intelligence operations, Mattis and Brazil present a great deal about the super secret MSS which one can be sure is cutting edge stuff. For many analysts in defense, foreign affairs, and intelligence worldwide, it presents nothing less than a treasure trove and should find a permanent place in syllabi in college and university courses worldwide for years to come. (Regular reference is made to Mattis’ writings in this essay.)

Mattis and Brazil share the view that MSS headquarters is organized into numbered bureaus. They further explain that it is spread across at least four compounds in Beijing. However, in their assessment, they believe MSS is organized a bit differently than in the outline of its departments aforementioned. They state that at the present, the MSS is believed to possess at least eighteen bureaus. Unlike the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) where military unit cover designators offer a way to track units, MSS elements, they explain, are not so readily identified. In Mattis’ and Brazil’s own words, “The following designations are ones in which we possess a modicum of confidence”: First Bureau: “secret line” operations by MSS officers not under covers associated with Chinese government organizations; Second Bureau: “open line” operations by MSS officers using diplomatic, journalistic, or other government-related covers; Third Bureau: unknown; Fourth Bureau: Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau Bureau; Fifth Bureau: Report Analysis and Dissemination Bureau; Sixth Bureau: unknown; Seventh Bureau: Counterespionage Intelligence Bureau, gathers information and develops intelligence on hostile intelligence services inside and outside of China; Eighth Bureau: Counterespionage Investigation, runs investigations to detect and apprehend foreign spies in China; Ninth Bureau: Internal Protection and Reconnaissance bureau, supervises and monitors foreign entities and reactionary organizations in China to prevent espionage; Tenth Bureau: Foreign Security and Reconnaissance Bureau, manages Chinese student organizations and other entities overseas and investigates activities of reactionary organizations abroad; Eleventh Bureau: China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, performs open source research, translation, and analysis. It’s analysts also meet regularly with foreign delegations and spend time abroad as visiting fellows; Twelfth Bureau: Social Affairs or Social Investigation Bureau, handles MSS contributions to the United front work system; Thirteenth Bureau: Network Security and Exploitation (also known as the China Information Technology Evaluations Center (Zhongguo Xinxi Anquan Ceping Zhongxin) may manage the research and development of other investigative equipment; Fourteenth Bureau: Technical Reconnaissance Bureau conducts mail inspection and telecommunications inspection and control; Fifteenth Bureau: Taiwan operations linked to the broader Taiwan Affairs work system. It’s public face in the Institute of Taiwan Studies at the China Academy of Social Sciences; Sixteenth Bureau: unknown; Seventeenth Bureau: unknown; and, Eighteenth Bureau: US Operations Bureau for conducting and managing clandestine intelligence operations against the US.

Chairman Deng Xiaoping (above). Under the Second Chairman of the Communist Party of China, Deng Xiaoping, China began authentic economic reform partially opening China to the global market. China’s economy grew rapidly soon afterwards. In a five-year economic plan 2006-2010, the Communist Party of China outlined that China must maintain fast and stable economic growth and support the building of a harmonious society. However, countries such as India and Vietnam had begun competing with China to offer cheap manufacturing bases for Western companies. Chinese industry needed to retain a competitive edge. Espionage has offered a relatively cheap, quick, and easy method to obtain information that could help Chinese companies remain competitive. Many of China’s largest companies are state owned, or have close linkages to the government. They receive intelligence collected by Chinese intelligence services. They undertake commercial espionage for their own benefit as well.

Intelligence Targets of Today’s MSS

Having created the space and acquiring the flexibility over the past few decades to allow the service to evolve into the elite, very capable intelligence service the Communist Party of China originally wanted it to be, it would seem MSS senior executives and managers have now figuratively declared “game on!” to China’s competitors and adversaries. The mission, as originally intended, has not changed much since 1983. Overall, it is now defined as collecting solid intelligence from the inner workings and the very top of foreign military, diplomatic, political, economic, financial, scientific, educational, media, communications, and social institutions. That is primarily what Beijing wants and that is what MSS is chasing after. Its tactics, techniques, procedures and methods are surely more refined. By conventional wisdom, one would proffer that as a priority, Chinese intelligence services target a broad range of US national security actors, including military forces, defense industrial companies, national security decision makers, and critical infrastructure entities. Infiltration of these operations by an adversary as China would certainly have far-reaching implications for US national security. Although the PLA would most interested in US military equities in its region and elsewhere in and around Asia, the MSS would expectedly support that work by collecting what it could on the instruments that the US uses to make conventional war and nuclear war. The intelligence threat China has posed to US national security further extends overseas, as China’s foreign intelligence service seeks to infiltrate the systems of US allies and partners. This particular aspect is seen as potentially having grave implications for US alliance stability and the security of US national defense information. Lately, the chief feature of the intelligence war between the US and China has been the economic front. Indeed, economic espionage, one might venture to say, holds perhaps a prominent place among the bread and butter activities of the MSS and is best known to industries around the world most of which could easily become one of its victims.

Deng Xiaoping and the Emphasis on Economic Espionage

Under the Second Chairman of the Communist Party of China, Deng Xiaoping, China began authentic economic reform partially opening China to the global market. China’s economy grew rapidly soon afterwards. In a five-year economic plan 2006-2010, the Communist Party of China outlined that China must maintain fast and stable economic growth and support the building of a harmonious society. The Communist Party of China’s aim was to raise the country’s gross domestic product by 7.5% annually for the next five years. In order to achieve such rapid economic growth, However, countries such as India and Vietnam had begun competing with China to offer cheap manufacturing bases for Western companies. Further, the increased demand for raw materials such as oil and iron ore, and new environmental and labor laws led to cost increases, making manufacturing in China more expensive which caused some factories to close. China sought to diversify its economy, for example, through the manufacture of better made high end products. However, that diversification of the economy required the Chinese to increase their knowledge of design and manufacturing processes. Espionage has offered a relatively cheap, quick, and easy method to obtain information that could help Chinese companies remain competitive. Many of China’s largest companies are state owned, or have close linkages to the government, and receive intelligence collected by Chinese intelligence services. Those firms have also proved to be capable of engaging in commercial espionage themselves.

During the administration of US President Barack Obama, economic espionage by Chinese intelligence gained real traction. Startled US government officials began to sound the alarm particularly over the destructive impact of Chinese commercial espionage upon US national security. Intrusions by Chinese actors into US companies and other commercial institutions harm both the individual companies and the overall US economy, to the benefit of China. Indeed, in July 2015, Bill Evanina, who was the National Counterintelligence Executive in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and remains in that position as of this writing, stated point blank, “Economic security is national security.” Nevertheless, the vociferous statements of those tasked with China’s operations had no real effect on the Obama administration’s course and Chinese intelligence activities steadily intensified. The leadership of the Communist Party of China has not concealed the fact that they recognize the link between economic and national security, and its commercial and national security espionage efforts function in tandem to exploit it.

US Attorney General William Barr (above). The present US Attorney General William Barr is both troubled and angered by China’s espionage efforts against the US and he intended to defeat those efforts. Barr insists China is working to supplant the US as the leader in technology in all areas, by literally stealing away the future of the US. He explains that to accomplish that, China has continuously sought, through a variety of clandestine ways, to grab whatever about US technologies, developmental practices, and manufacturing practices. Barr wants the US business community to accept these realities and become part of the answer. In making deals with China, US businesses are often selling out their own long-term viability of us companies sold out for short term gain. As dangerous, China has been able to cultivate relationships with their employees and recruit them for spying.

US Attorney General William Barr, in a June 21, 2020 interview on FOX NEWS “Sunday Morning Futures,” proffered that the US for decades has been a leader in technology. China would like to overcome US dominance in the field. To that end, China has been stealing all US technologies, developmental practices, manufacturing practices. Barr stated: “The way I look at is, this is a fundamental challenge to the United States. Since the late 19th century, our opportunity and our growth, our prosperity as a country has come from our technological leadership. We have been the technological leader of the world. In the last decade or so, China has been putting on a great push to supplant us, explicitly. They want to be the leader in all the future technologies that are going to dominate the economy. And so what’s at stake is the economic opportunity of our children and our grandchildren, whether we can continue to be the technological leader of the world. The Chinese have embarked on a very aggressive program during this time of stealing and cheating in order to overtake us. They have stolen our intellectual property. When they steal our secrets about future technology, they’re stealing the future of the American people.”

Barr left no doubt that China was quite some distance from competing fairly. He insisted that it was the intention of the Trump administration to put a halt to China’s very open efforts at robbery. Barr explained: “The Chinese efforts run the gamut from more traditional espionage of recruiting people to work for them, explicitly, to cultivating relationships that they are then able to use. And the people frequently are not completely attuned to the fact that they are being used as essentially stooges for the Chinese. So, it runs the gamut of things. And, sometimes, some of these programs, high-sounding programs, are used to the advantage of the Chinese.” Barr expressed concern over how educational programs have been used by Chinese intelligence services to penetrate US academic institutions and take away the knowledge, training, and research offered for use in China’s efforts to overwhelm the competitive edge the US possesses. Barr explained: “We are clearly cracking down on researchers and others that are sent over here to get involved in our key technological programs. And, by the way, this is not just weapons systems. This is agriculture. This is medicine. This is robotics. This is artificial intelligence and so forth. It’s the whole gamut of important technologies going forward.”

Dimensions of MSS Intelligence Collection

In its intelligence campaign against the US, EU Member States, and other advanced industrialized countries, the MSS has taken a multidimensional approach. Three more apparent dimensions include: illicit technology procurement, technical collection (cyber attacks), and human intelligence collection. Assuredly, the illicit procurement of specific technology by MSS is executed through the use of Chinese front companies. It is a relatively soft approach to intelligence collection, but it has had a devastating impact. According to Mattis in his 2012 article, “The Analytic Challenge of Understanding Chinese Intelligence Services” cited earlier here, FBI analysts reported that over 3,200 such companies had been quietly set up as fronts for intelligence collection purposes. Other relative short-cuts in espionage included tasking scholars, and scientists to purchase information before they travelled to countries that possessed targeted technologies. MSS has also encouraged Chinese firms to buy up entire companies that already possessed the desired technology.

With regard to the cyber attack, it is perhaps the most prolific type of attack against industry in the US, EU, and within other advanced industrialized countries. This dimension of Chinese intelligence collection is perhaps the most aggressive, and hackers locate doors that they can rapidly pass through and grab whatever might be within reach. It is by no means a supplemental or mere attendant method of espionage relative to running human agents. It is a full-fledged dimension of China’s intelligence campaign strategy. If human intelligence were the only focus, constraints on manpower resources would always be a big problem to overcome. Cyber collection complements all other forms of penetration and collection very well.

By far, the most complex and risky dimension of MSS intelligence collection are its human intelligence operations. Least challenging are MSS operations in China. No resource constraints hinder the MSS in terms of both manpower to use against foreigners there. The efforts of foreign counterintelligence services typically face great limitations in terms of ways and resources to stem Chinese efforts against their foreign intelligence colleagues on the ground. The close proximity of other countries in the Far East would appear to make operating in these countries easier, too! Difficulties begin when tries to take a bite out of more advanced industrialized countries in the region. Japan, for example, has historically been a difficult country for Chinese intelligence services to operate within. Against Japanese targets, attempts to cultivate operatives and informants still occur, but a greater reliance is surely placed on technical collection by MSS. Outside of its region, in target rich US, EU Member States, and other advanced industrialized countries, even the Russian Federation, Chinese intelligence services as a whole initially encountered some difficulty figuring out how to go about approaching a target using officers. They would also naturally be concerned over facing considerably stiffer resistance from more adept counterintelligence services such as those of Japan. Interestingly, as time went on, they managed to find a number of sweet spots from which, and methods with which, they could conduct human intelligence collection operations with some degree of success. Lately, it seems to have been easy enough for Chinese intelligence services to establish networks of operatives and informants, and reportedly even sleeper agents, in the US, placing them in locations from which they could do considerable harm.

Collection through Front Companies and Operatives

The use of front companies is a very quiet, ubiquitous and pernicious approach to intelligence collection by Chinese intelligence services the US. Most US citizen can look direct at the activities of what appear to be benign companies and not observe or discern that it is fully engaged in a form of foreign attack against their country. With little threat of being discovered, Chinese front companies set up where they can best acquire companies, technologies, brain power in the form of students, and even intelligence operatives and informants. Some US firms that have unwittingly linked themselves to seemingly innocuous, but actually nefarious institutions in China, business, academic, scholarly, or otherwise, that are tied to the government, particularly the Chinese intelligence services, may often have Chinese intelligence operatives working out of them, thus providing a convenient cover for their activities. In July 2019, a federal grand jury in Chicago indicted Weiyun “Kelly” Huang, a Chinese citizen, on fraud charges, charging her with providing fake employment verifications. A grand jury indicted her two companies, Findream and Sinocontech, on charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud. The two companies incorporated by Huang did not exist, except on paper. Federal authorities allege the Findream and Sinocontech were front companies used to provide false employment verification for Chinese students, convincing immigration officials that they were here legally. Huang made use of a website based in China, chineselookingforjob.com, and the China-based “WeChat” platform, as well as Job Hunters of North America, to recruit for her companies. Court records explain that over 2,600 Chinese students declared themselves as employees for either Findream or Sinocontech from September 2013 to April 2019. In a bungling oversight Huang claimed to have employed so many young people that according to a 2017 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement list, Findream and Sincocontech ranked among the top US-based companies that hired students under the federal Optional Practical Training program. Findream ranked number 10, just behind Facebook. Sinocontech ranked number 25, just behind Bank of America. Surely, that served to call some attention from US counterintelligence services to its activities. Tragically, on LinkedIn, it is indicated that great numbers of graduates from schools from around the country wrote in their online biographies that they were employed by either Findream or Sinocontech as data analysts, web developers, consultants and software engineers. Huang compiled approximately $2 million from the alleged fraud scheme. Prosecutors state that the citizen of “Communist” China indulged herself lavishly at Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Chanel, Hermes, and other luxury retail stores.

In a September 2018 criminal complaint from the US Department of Justice, Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese citizen, was charged with one count of knowingly acting as an agent of a foreign power, China. While Ji was still in school in China, an intelligence officer from the Jiangsu State Security Department, a provincial bureau of the MSS, approached him at a recruitment fair. They recruited Ji and tasked him with gathering biographical information on eight naturalized, ethinc-Chinese, US citizens after he arrived in Chicago to begin his studies. Reportedly, Chinese intelligence wanted to recruit those individuals, most of whom “worked in or were recently retired from a career in the science and technology industry, including several individuals specializing in aerospace fields.” Ji performed the task of collecting the information. After graduating with a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2015, he remained in the US through a temporary work program known as Optional Practical Training. That program allows international students to stay for up to two extra years if they have earned degrees related to science, technology engineering and mathematics. After Ji graduated with a master’s degree in electrical engineering in 2015, he remained in the US through a temporary work program known as Optional Practical Training. The program allows international students to stay for up to two extra years if they have earned degrees related to science, technology engineering and mathematics. Ji stated that he was employed as a software engineer for a company called Findream LLC. According to court records, Ji’s responsibilities included writing “well designed, testable, efficient code by using best software development practices.” Although Findream was advertised as a startup technology company based in Mountain View, California, the company did not exist, except on paper. In April and May of 2018, the FBI made clandestine contact with Ji via an undercover agent. During the May meeting, Ji revealed that he was first approached by the MSS. In October 2017, email and MSS messages exchanged between the MSS officer and Ji were uncovered by the FBI.

Technical Intelligence Collection and Cyber Attacks

MSS technical collection can include the use of high-tech tools covering phone calls and all forms of messaging to relatively low level actions against electronic equipment such as mobile phones and computer networks. While technical intelligence collection, cyber attacks by Chinese intelligence services upon targets in the US, have been deplorable, the skill displayed and their list of accomplishments has been impressive. What have essentially been standard targets of cyber attacks from Chinese intelligence services in recent years have been those levelled against US national security decision makers and government organizations, particularly during the Obama administration. The objective of that targeting has been to access any classified information they might possess. Through that information, MSS would surely hope to develop insight into highly sensitive US national security decision making processes. Several instances of such cyber attacks have been made public, among them: in 2010, China reportedly attempted to infiltrate the email accounts of top US national security officials, including then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and then Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead; in July 2015, the US Office of Personnel Management announced that hackers had extracted personnel records of roughly 22 million US citizens. The hackers were reportedly affiliated with the MSS. Some of the stolen files contained detailed personal information of federal workers and contractors who have applied for security clearances. Among the information extracted were the fingerprints of 5.6 million people, some of which could be used to identify undercover US government agents or to create duplicates of biometric data to obtain access to classified areas; and, in May 2016, the then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated there was indicia supporting a concern that foreign actors had targeted the 2016 US Presidential Campaigns with cyber operations. Those foreign actors plausibly included Chinese intelligence services, as well as actors in the Russian Federation and other countries. During the 2008 US Presidential Election, evidence existed that indicated China infiltrated information systems of the campaigns of then Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. The experience gained and the lessons learned by MSS in those cyber operations primarily against national security and political targets during the Obama administration allowed for a rapid development of the organization’s cyber warfare capabilities and capacity. Rather than figuratively apply the law of lex talionis and a bit more to knock MSS back on its heels, defensive actions and push back by the Obama administration was so slow and so frightfully slight that the MSS was allowed the space and the time to even ratchet up its cyber game. An indictment unsealed in October 2018 revealed that US was made aware of at least a portion of MSS directed cyber operations aimed at swallowing up technologies researched and developed by firms in the US and other advanced industrialized countries.

In October 2018, the US Department of Justice unsealed charges leveled on 10 Chinese nationals, alleging a persistent campaign by Chinese intelligence officers and their recruits to steal aerospace technology from companies in the US and France. In a thoroughly complex operation, from January 2010 to May 2015 a provincial bureau of the MSS, the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (‘JSSD”), headquartered in Nanjing, China, conspired to steal sensitive commercial technological, aviation, and aerospace data by hacking into computers in the US and other advanced industrialized countries. According to the indictment, MSS officers managing the operation included Zha Rong, a Division Director in the JSSD, Chai Meng, a JSSD Section Chief, and other MSS officers who were not named. Both Zha and Chai supervised and directed human intelligence and activities by one or more members of the conspiracy aimed at hacking into the computers of targeted firms that were used in and affecting interstate and foreign commerce and communications, and steal information, to include intellectual property and confidential business data, and to use these companies’ computers to facilitate further computer intrusions into other companies.

As for their computer savvy MSS operatives, Zhang Zhang-Gui, a computer hacker who operated at the direction of the JSSD, tested spear phishing messages and established and maintained infrastructure used in multiple intrusions. Zhang also coordinated hacking activities and shared infrastructure with Liu Chunliang, a fellow computer hacker who operated at the direction of the JSSD, and coordinated the activities of other computer hackers and malware developers, including Gao Hong Kun, Ma Zhiqi, and an identified unindicted co-conspirator (‘UCC-1″). Among his activities, Liu established, maintained and paid for infrastructure used in multiple intrusions, deployed malware, and engaged in domain hijacking in connection with the intrusion of a San Diego-based technology company. The hacker Gao Hong, who operated at the direction of Liu and was an associate of Zhang, engaged in the computer intrusions into Capstone Turbine, a Los Angeles-based gas turbine manufacturer and an Arizona-based aerospace company. Ma Zhiqi, also mentioned, a computer hacker who operated at the direction of LIU, was a personal acquaintance of Liu and UCC-1 as well. Zhuang Xtaowei, a computer hacker and malware developer, who also operated at the direction of Liu, managed malware on an Oregon-based aerospace supplier’s systems and stole the firm’s data from no earlier than September 26, 2014, through May 1, 2015. On February 19, 2013, one or more members of the conspiracy hacked into a second French aerospace company’s server affiliated with Liu, using credentials Liu had provided to Ma on December 14, 2012. Gu Gen, the Information Technology Infrastructure and Security Manager at the French aerospace manufacturer with an office in Suzhou initially mentioned, provided information to JSSD concerning the firm’s internal investigation into the computer intrusions carried out by members of the conspiracy while under the direction of an identified JSSD intelligence officer. Tjan Xi, an employee of the same French firm who also worked in its Suzhou office as a product manager, unlawfully installed Sakula malware on a computer of the firm at the behest of the same unidentified JSSD Intelligence Officer.

In July 2020, the US Justice Department indicted two Chinese nationals, Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi (above), for participating in a decade-long cyber espionage campaign that targeted US defense contractors, COVID researchers and hundreds of other victims worldwide. Experience gained and the lessons learned by the MSS in those cyber operations primarily against national security and political targets during the Obama administration allowed for a rapid development of the organization’s cyber warfare capabilities and capacity. Rather than figuratively apply the law of lex talionis and a bit more to knock MSS back on its heels, defensive actions and push back by the Obama administration was so slow and so frightfully slight that the MSS was allowed the space and the time to even ratchet up its cyber game.

In July 2020, the US Justice Department indicted two Chinese nationals, Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, for participating in a decade-long cyber espionage campaign that targeted US defense contractors, COVID researchers and hundreds of other victims worldwide, stealing terabytes of weapons designs, pharmaceutical research, software source code, and personal data from targets that included dissidents and Chinese opposition figures. The 27-page indictment alleges that both Li and Dong were contractors for the Guangdong State Security Department of the MSS. Prosecutors also allege that the MSS, prosecutors said, supplied the hackers with information into critical software vulnerabilities to penetrate targets and collect intelligence. The indictment mostly did not name any companies or individual targets, but The indictment indicated that as early as January 2020, the hackers sought to steal highly-valued COVID-19 vaccine research from a Massachusetts biotech firm. Officials said the probe was triggered when the hackers broke into a network belonging to the Hanford Site, a decommissioned US nuclear complex in eastern Washington state, in 2015. US Attorney William Hyslop in a public statement on July 21, 2020 emphasized that there were “hundreds and hundreds of victims in the United States and worldwide.” Indeed, their victims were also located in Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The MSS has been known to utilize contractors for its cyber espionage operations. Clearly, MSS is not adverse to putting its faith in the young hackers to compromise security and deeply penetrate US systems to steal untold amounts of information. Integrating contractors in its cyber espionage operations allows the MSS access to a much desired wider pool of talent. Under China’s National Security Security Law, they are obligated to serve the needs of the government of course with some remuneration, a point which will be explained later in this essay. To some degree, it provides some plausible deniability of the hackers work against some countries, but as demonstrated by this case it provides MSS a limited shield from US capabilities. Li and Dong both studied computer application technologies at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, in Chengdu. As a modus operandi, Dong would research victims and find potential methods of remotely breaking into computer systems. Li would then compromise the networks and steal the information. The truth is rarely pure and never simple in the intelligence arena, so it remains unclear whether US counterintelligence, following the identification of these hackers and their activities, has managed to neutralize them and set up satisfactory defenses to prevent further Interference by MSS hackers. Oddly enough, there was some benefit gained by Beijing, perchance unknowningly by the Communist Party of China. To the extent that the hackers are young and ingenious, they are somewhat relatable to contemporaries and even younger people fascinated by Internet technology inside and outside of China. Presumably, Li and Dong still reside safely in China.

MSS Human Intelligence Collection

As human intelligence collection in the field is perhaps the most complex dimension of MSS operations, it is presented here in greater detail than those aforementioned. It has been generally understood in the West for some time that the standard approach to human intelligence collection by MSS has been to co-opt low-profile Chinese nationals or Chinese-American civilians to engage in the acquisition of mid-level technology and data. Travellers businessmen, students, and visiting researchers are often approached to undertake intelligence tasks, and the MSS maintains control of them through inducements and personnel connections (guanxi) and the potential threat of alienation from the homeland. Members of the Chinese diaspora residing in Western countries, especially new émigrés, who possessed the requisite expertise and appropriate positions in a public or private organization and family members remaining in China, would be compelled to perform tasks and to steal information of interest that they came across for the intelligence services. This method of intelligence collection also followed the concept of keeping things simple. It is still being put to use.

In August 2020, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma (above), a 15-year veteran of the CIA and a former Chinese linguist in the FBI’s Honolulu Field Office, was charged with violating US espionage laws. It has been generally understood in the West for some time that the standard approach to human intelligence collection by MSS has been to co-opt low-profile Chinese nationals or Chinese-American civilians to engage in the acquisition of technology and data. This method of intelligence collection also followed the concept of keeping things simple. It is still being put to use.

In August 2020, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a 15-year veteran of the CIA and a former Chinese linguist in the FBI’s Honolulu Field Office, was charged with violating US espionage laws. According to court documents, twelve years after he retired from the CIA in 1989, Ma met with at least five MSS officers in a Hong Kong hotel room, where he “disclosed a substantial amount of highly classified national defense information,” including facts about the CIA’s internal organization, methods for communicating covertly, and the identities of CIA officers and human assets. After providing that information to MSS officers in March 2001, Ma and a relative that assisted him, also worked for the CIA, were paid $50,000. Prosecutors were not fully aware of how much Ma was paid by the MSS following the initial payment. They are aware, however, that Ma returned from one trip to China with $20,000 and a new set of golf clubs. In an effort to gain access to additional sensitive information, Ma secured a position in 2004 as a contract Chinese linguist for the FBI. He used his new position and security clearance to copy or photograph classified documents related to guided missile and weapons systems and other US secrets and passed the information to his Chinese intelligence handlers. In 2006, Ma arranged for his wife to travel to Shanghai to meet with his MSS contacts and pass a laptop to them. (Interestingly, Mao’s wife was not named in the criminal complaint.) The FBI eventually saw Ma straight and according to court documents, special agents intercepted Ma using an undercover FBI employee posing an MSS officer conducting an audit of his case. The undercover operative also claimed to be tasked with looking “into how Ma had been treated, including the amount he had been compensated.” In a clandestine video recording a of a meeting with the FBI undercover operative, Ma is seen counting $2,000 in cash the operative gave his supposedly to acknowledge his work on behalf of China. Ma, who was born in Hong Kong, is recorded saying that he “wanted ‘the motherland’ to succeed” and admitted that he provided classified information to the MSS and that he continued to work with some of the same intelligence officers who were at the 2001 meeting. Prosecutors stated that the relative of Ma, who assisted him, is now 85-years-old and suffers from “an advanced an debilitating cognitive disease.” Given that mitigating circumstance, he was not charged.

In February 2019, Zhao Qianli, a 20-year-old Chinese national, pleaded guilty in court for taking photos of the US Naval Air Station Key West in Florida. He received a sentence of one year in prison. Zhao came to the US as an exchange student, however, the record of his activities indicates that the young operative was not in the US to just brush up his English. When Zhao was actually arrested in September 2018, investigators discovered photos and videos of government buildings and an antenna field on his digital camera and smartphone. Eyewitnesses saw Zhao ignore a sign clearly indicating the area was restricted and walk directly toward the antenna field and take photos. Although Zhao had actually studied in a summer exchange program that ended in September 2018, his visa had already expired when he was arrested. In his defense, Zhao alleged that he was just a tourist who got lost. By successfully denying that he was engaging in espionage, Zhao avoided being expelled from the US, persona non grata, but that did not prevent his prosecution for taking photos in a prohibited place. Court documents indicate none of the photos and videos found on his cell phone and digital cameras were of any tourist attraction sites in Key West. Reportedly, Zhao was in touch with Chinese intelligence officers inside the US before he took photographs at the base. During his interrogation, Zhao told the FBI that he was the son of a high-ranking Chinese military officer and that his mother worked for the Chinese government. The fact that the young spy was tasked to take photographs at an extremely high security location with the great risk of being detained perhaps meant that there was a certain urgency to collect the information. (With so many internal political squabbles remaining largely unknown, it seems odd that the young man would be sent on a near Kamikaze mission into the figurative dragon’s lair, knowing that there was better chance than not that he would be caught, very likely causing some embarrassment for his father and mother.)

In February 2019, Zhao Qianli, a 20-year-old Chinese national, pleaded guilty in court for taking photos of the US Naval Air Station Key West in Florida. He received a sentence of one year in prison. Zhao came to the US as an exchange student. Travellers businessmen, students, and visiting researchers are often approached to undertake intelligence tasks, and the MSS maintains control of them through inducements and personnel connections (guanxi) and the potential threat of alienation from the homeland. Particularly with regard to students, Chinese intelligence agencies often use the “flying swallow” plan, whereby overseas Chinese students who serve as spies work with a single contact in China—just as swallows pick up only one piece of mud at a time to build their nests. The students do not have their personal files inside China’s intelligence system, so if they are caught, there is little information to be revealed.

As this approach has resulted in a reasonable degree of success, and MSS officers could continue to capitalize on a cultural and language affinity, a preconception had actually developed in the minds of interested parties in the US that the MSS would continue to take that course. Support could also found for that view looking at the success of MSS in Taiwan, with its ethnic Chinese population. Most recently, in May 2020, Taiwanese authorities detained Major General Hsieh Chia-kang, and a retired colonel, Hsin Peng-sheng, for allegedly passing classified defense information to China. Hsieh once served as the deputy commander of the Matsu Defense Command and had overseen the Air Defense Command when apprehended. He reportedly had access to the specifications for the US-made Patriot missiles as well as the Taiwanese Tien-kung III and Hsiung-feng 2E cruise missiles. Reported, Chinese intelligence officers recruited Hsieh’s comrade Hsin with all of stops out while he was in China, leading a Taiwanese tour group. Hsin, a former colleague, allegedly first approached Hsieh about working for Chinese intelligence. According to the prosecutors, Hsieh traveled to Malaysia and Thailand to meet his handlers. The indications and implications of Hsieh’s pattern of travel are that he may have been working for Chinese intelligence since 2009 or 2010. In addition to collecting and passing classified materials, both Hsieh and Hsin agreed to assist Chinese intelligence in spotting and recruiting other sources.

In March 2010, Wang Hung-ju, who was arrested because of his connections to an espionage case. Wang was a former official in the Special Service Command Center in the National Security Bureau, and served for a short period as the bodyguard for Taiwanese Vice President Annette Lu before retiring in 2003. The Taiwanese press repeatedly reported that Wang was uncovered as part of the investigation of a Taiwanese businessman, Ho Chih-chiang. MSS intelligence officers, plausibly from the MSS bureau in Tianjin, recruited Ho in 2007 and used him to approach Taiwanese intelligence officials. Ho’s handlers instructed and empowered him to offer money and other inducements to recruit serving officials. Supposedly, Ho was in contact with Wang, which led to his travelling to China where he was recruited by the Tianjin State Security Bureau. Wang reportedly attempted to recruit two friends into his intelligence network, including an officer in the Military Police Command. While the shift to recruiting a broad base of foreign recruits in China was an important step in the evolution of Chinese intelligence, the process still had its limitations. Nearly all foreign-born operatives were recruited within China, rather than their home countries or elsewhere.

Retired Taiwanese Major General Hsieh Chia-kang (center) MSS officers continue to capitalize on a cultural and language affinity in the recruitment of ethnic Chinese worldwide. Most recently, in May 2020, Taiwanese authorities detained Major General Hsieh Chia-kang, and a retired colonel, Hsin Peng-sheng, for allegedly passing classified defense information to China. Hsieh once served as the deputy commander of the Matsu Defense Command and had overseen the Air Defense Command when apprehended. He reportedly had access to the specifications for the US-made Patriot missiles as well as the Taiwanese Tien-kung III and Hsiung-feng 2E cruise missiles.

However, while ostensibly being a satisfactory solution, MSS found itself simply working on the margins targeting ethnic Chinese as a priority. It proved too reserved, too limiting. Not wanting to confine themselves to a small set of targets for recruitment, the logical next step was to attempt the recruitment of operatives and agents from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. According to William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon, and Anna B. Puglisi in Chinese Industrial Espionage: Technology Acquisition and Military Modernization (Routledge, 2013), cases at the time of the book’s writing suggested that was exactly what Chinese intelligence services did as a whole. Tradecraft was observably broadened to include the recruitment non-ethnic-Chinese assets as well. MSS still uses this method. One can better estimate how active and well MSS officers and operatives are performing by who has been recently caught among their recruits and what they have been discovered doing.

In April 2020, Candace Claiborne, a former US Department of State employee, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the US. The criminal complaint against her alleges that Claiborne, having served in a number of posts overseas including China and having held a top-secret security clearance, failed to report contacts with suspected intelligence officers from a bureau of the MSS. Claiborne’s MSS handler used the cover of operating an import-export company with a spa and restaurant on the side. The MSS tasked with collecting and passing information on US economy policy deliberations and internal State Department reactions to talks with China. They more specifically told Clairborne that her reporting on US economic policy was “useful but it is also on the Internet. What they are looking for is what they cannot find on the Internet.” In accord with her instructions, prosecutors claim Claiborne provided copies of State Department documents and analysis. In return, Claiborne and a co-conspirator received “tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and benefits,” including New Year’s gifts, international travel and vacations, fashion-school tuition, rent, and cash payments.

In May 2019, Kevin Mallory was charged under the Espionage Act with selling US secrets to China and convicted by a jury last spring. In May 2020, sentenced to 20 years in prison; his lawyers plan to appeal the conviction. Mallory’s troubles began in 2017 when his consulting business was failing and he was struggling financially. In early 2017, prosecutors said, he received a message on LinkedIn, where he had more than 500 connections. It had come from a Chinese recruiter with whom Mallory had five mutual connections. That recruiter, Michael Yang, according to the LinkedIn message, worked for a think tank in China, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and was interested in Mallory’s foreign-policy expertise. Mallory was deployed to China for part of his career and was fluent Mandarin. The message led to a phone call which led to Mallory boarding a plane for Shanghai to meet Yang. Mallory would later tell the FBI he suspected that Yang was not a think-tank employee, but a Chinese intelligence officer, which apparently was okay by him. Yang was an MSS intelligence officer. Mallory’s visit to China initiated an espionage relationship with the MSS by which he received $25,000 over two months in exchange for handing over government secrets. Reportedly, the FBI eventually caught him with a digital memory card containing eight secret and top-secret documents that held details of a still-classified spying operation.

Kevin Mallory (above). Mallory was charged in May 2019 under the Espionage Act with selling US secrets to China. In targeting ethnic-Chinese for recruitment, MSS found itself simply working on the margins. The method was too reserved, too limiting. Not wanting to confine themselves to a small set of targets for recruitment, the logical next step was to attempt the recruitment of operatives and agents from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Tradecraft was observably broadened to include the recruitment non-ethnic-Chinese assets as well. In early 2017, prosecutors said, Mallory received a message on Linkedin from a Chinese recruiter, who allegedly worked for the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and was interested in Mallory’s foreign-policy expertise. He was actually an MSS intelligence officer. Other communications led to Mallory’s visit to China and the creation of an espionage relationship with MSS. When the FBI eventually caught him, he possessed a digital memory card containing eight secret and top-secret documents with details of a still-classified spying operation.

In the wild kingdom, ambush predation, a behavior displayed by MSS officers in the instances just presented, works well instinctively for many animals, but it requires possessing an innate patience. The prey must enter a well-set trap of some kind. The haul of victories will be determined by how target rich the environment in which the trap set is with the prey the predator wants. Increasing the number of those targets would mean becoming proactive, going out and hunting that desired prey down. Thus, in the third and most recent step in the evolution of Chinese intelligence, MSS officers have become willing to recruit agents while abroad. The risk was greater, but the potential fruits would be greater, too! According to Mattis, the new approach was first identified by Sweden in 2008, when its intelligence services and law enforcement determined Chinese intelligence officers operating out of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Stockholm, had recruited a Uyghur émigré to spy on fellow émigrés inside as well as outside of Europe. German intelligence and counterintelligence services identified a second instance in 2009, alleging the existence of a spy ring controlled by a Chinese intelligence officer operating out of the Consulate of the People’s Republic of China in Munich.

Once determined to go after even a broader pool, MSS naturally thought strongly about collecting intelligence with might and main throughout the US. Fast forward three years and one will discover how successful Chinese human intelligence penetration has been at some of the finest academic institutions in the US: in January 2020, the chair of Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Charles Lieber, was alleged to have violated federal law by failing to disclose his involvement in China’s Thousand Talents Plan to Harvard administrators, who allegedly then passed along false information to the federal government. Lieber was reportedly paid more than $1 million by China in exchange for agreeing to publish articles, organize international conferences and apply for patents on behalf of a Chinese university; in December 2019, a Chinese Harvard-affiliated cancer researcher was caught with 21 vials of cells stolen from a laboratory at a Boston hospital; in August 2019, a Chinese professor conducting sensitive research at the University of Kansas was indicted on charges he cloaked his links to a university in China; and, in June 2019, a Chinese scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles was convicted of shipping banned missile technology to China. The National Counterintelligence Executive, Evanina, has explained, “A lot of our ideas, technology, research, innovation is incubated on those university campuses.” He further stated, “That’s where the science and technology originates–and that’s why it’s the most prime place to steal.” However, MSS does not limit itself to seeking big things from big places such as Harvard. Desired information on national security matters can be found just about anywhere in the US. Consider, in April 2016, a Florida woman was charged by the US Department of Justice, in an 18-count indictment for conspiracy to illegally export systems, components, and documents on unmanned underwater vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, and autonomous underwater vehicles to China.

Selecting Prospective Recruits

Visits to China by foreigners may be viewed by the Ministry of Tourism as an opportunity to display China’s cultural richness and advancements in all areas. The MSS would only characterize those visits by foreigners as intrusions into China. The foreigner, to them and their sister intelligence, counterintelligence and law enforcement organizations, will always represent a potential threat. MSS could only imagine exploiting the situation by seeing opportunities to recruit new operatives. Commonly acknowledged among experts in this province is that domestically, the MSS exercises responsibility for the surveillance and recruitment of foreign businessmen, researchers, and officials visiting from abroad. The MSS Investigation Department surveillance of dissidents and foreign journalists is often quite obvious. It is supported by more clandestine measures taken by state ministries, academic institutions, and the military industrial complex. The various Chinese intelligence services can identify foreigners of interest in China through a number of means such as trade fairs, exhibitions, and business visas. Once identified, an intelligence officer using a cover may try to develop a friendship or business friendship often using lavish hospitality and flattery. The Chinese intelligence services have also been known to exploit relationships such as sexual relationships and illegal activities to pressure individuals to cooperate with them. Sometimes efforts will be made via social media to spot potential recruits. A variety of ploys will be used to get to the target to travel to China where the meat and potatoes of the recruitment process will get underway.

In the current environment, US citizens especially will be closely investigated by a provincial MSS office. That kind of investigation would not be conducted with a view to recruit immediately. For the MSS, it was important to construct a psychological profile of a person, his political orientation, his attitude towards his home country and towards the country he was visiting for some reason. What is very clear about the recruitment of foreign operatives and informants by the MSS in China is that rigor is used in the selection process. The ostensible way MSS to determine whether a foreign official should be targeted would be to investigate whether they ticked certain boxes through evaluating their actions and other information available. Among those boxes were likely the following examples: standing and influence within his organization, access to required information; standing and influence own people given position; standing and influence among specific people given position and access to decision making process and required information; and, the ability to provide secure access to information for MSS officers.

The likes and dislikes of the target and observed particular appetites of the target that may have left the door open to manipulation by seduction or blackmail are vigorously investigated. If a file secreted from the target organization can be collected by MSS agents in a position to grab it. It would be copied or stolen and included in the target’s file. A background that included an exceptional interest in China, left-leaning sympathies, and even affiliation with Socialist or Communist groups would make the target even more attractive for MSS to recruit for China’s case and the Communist Revolution. Particularly useless are observations and “insights” that merely verify generalizations, derivative, or even bigoted preconceived ideas about the target. After accumulating a sizable amount of material using plain observation, clandestine contacts and conversations, and use of a suite of technical tools for audio- and video-surveillance of the places of residence, all the information is analyzed and conclusions are reached on it. A decision is then made about transforming the investigation into a recruitment. The MSS officer who attempts the recruitment in China will exploit whatever has been collected about the target. Information acquired while the recruitment is underway will also be made available to the officer and his manager. The MSS officer will appeal to the target’s discretion. Ideally, the target wil be led to voluntarily agree to work for MSS. However, under exigent circumstances, compromising materials might be used, however, in this day and age it is hard to determine what behavior is recorded would qualify as compromising–”Goodness knows, anything goes!.”

The same rigorous selection process of operatives and informants would be used overseas as in China. By the time of their recruitment of a target, MSS would be fully aware of their recruits’ particulars. Productive operatives are a true sign of a successful recruitment. Sometimes, the prospective recruit will be asked to travel to another country where MSS officers will more formally bring in the target and introduce him or her to the world of espionage. Additionally as in China, the objective of an overseas recruitment may not always be collection. The goal can also be to educate a foreigner, conveying a favorable image of China and how it represents the best future for the world.

Within the Chinese intelligence services, the belief is that foreigners lack the strength of connection, patriotism, that Chinese have for their country is dogma. With ethnic Chinese émigrés, the belief is that the strength of their connection to China can be exploited. For decades the line emanating from Beijing has been that the people of the West for that matter are rich, sick, and filthy. With specific regard to the US, world’s chief superpower, a guiding idea in China’s geopolitical and geostrategic struggle with it has been that the US is a terminal empire. The belief that the US is collapsing from within flourishes despite the country’s decades long record of economic success and steady ascent. In current times, Beijing’s line has become nuanced to express the view that the US is spiraling downward under the weight of racism endemic to all institutions and neo-fascism. To that extent, the liberal democracy is suffocating on its own self-aggrandizement. China sees its quest for dominance over the US further aided by the fact that the US citizen, in the face of an ever encroaching China, would prefer to enjoy an easy life, a lazy existence, and would hardly be concerned with providing any resistance. So far, MSS has been able to add one successful recruitment after another to its tally.

The Minister of State Security, Chen Wenqing (above). The male MSS officer deployed from Beijing Headquarters or a provincial bureau who one might encounter in the US will not appear as a run of the mill joe. He or she will be well-spoken, well-mannered, well-minded, well-built, well-dressed, well-groomed, and well-knowledged, certainly leaving a target well-impressed. Their comportment resembles that of the MSS Minister Chen Wenqing, seen above. All of that is done to have an added impact among targets that they are dealing with someone special, becoming part of something special, and doing something special. However, shrewd MSS managers are aware that taking a “one size fits all” approach to doling out assignments to recruit and run agents in the field would be self-defeating. Managers, when resources are available will consider which officer on the team would best be able to recruit the target and complete the task at hand. While one target may respond well to the gun barrel straight male MSS officer with a commanding presence, another target may be assessed to be likely more responsive to a female officer with a lighter touch.

Some Specifics on How It Is Done: The MSS Officer on the Beat in the US

Based on information gleaned from defectors, MSS personnel are usually assigned overseas for up to six years, with a few remaining in post for 10 years if required. In most countries, the local MSS officers are accommodated by the embassy. In the US, there are seven permanent Chinese diplomatic missions staffed with intelligence personnel. Having stated that, it is also very likely that far greater numbers of MSS officers as well as officers from the PLA and Communist Party of China intelligence units are operating without official cover throughout the West. Instead of embassies and consulates, they operate out of nongovernmental, decentralized stations. More often than not, they operate out of front companies created solely for intelligence missions or out of “friendly” companies overseas run by Chinese nationals, “cut outs“, who are willing to be more heavily involved with the work of MSS and other Chinese intelligence services than most Chinese citizens would ever want to be. This approach may be a residual effect of pollination with Soviet intelligence in the past. There is a common misunderstanding about the Soviet KGB Rezidentura. While it is generally believed that all intelligence activity by KGB in another country was centralized through the Rezidentura in the embassy or consulate, under a Rezident with an official cover, as fully explained by former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin in his memoir, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West (St. Martin’s Press, 1994), there were also nonofficial Rezidenturas that operated away from Soviet diplomatic centers. Those nonofficial Rezidenturas had their own Rezident or chief of station, chain of command, missions, and lines of communication to Moscow. One might suppose that when the relationship during the Cold War was still congenial, had doubtlessly demonstrated to the Chinese, the benefits of operating two types of Rezidentura overseas, official and nonofficial.

Possunt quia posse videntur. (They are able because they appear able.) The MSS officer deployed from Beijing Headquarters or a provincial bureau who one might encounter in the US will not appear as a run of the mill joe. He or she will be well-spoken, well-mannered, well-minded, well-built, well-dressed, well-groomed, and well-knowledged, certainly leaving a target well-impressed. All of that is done to have an added impact among targets that they are dealing with someone special, becoming part of something special, and doing something special. MSS is results oriented, and that is always foremost in the minds of good managers. Actions taken will never be perfunctory, and situations should not be forced. In the field, operating against an opponent, nothing can be thought of as too trivial to disregard. After being read-in on reports, must let nothing escape a manager’s consideration. Every target for recruitment is unique, requiring some nuance. Thus, shrewd managers in MSS are aware that taking a “one size fits all” approach to doling out assignments to recruit and run agents in the field would be self-defeating and counterintuitive. Managers, when resources are available will consider which officer on the team would best be able to recruit the target and complete the task at hand. While one target may respond well to the gun barrel straight male MSS officer with a commanding presence, another target may be assessed to be likely more responsive to a female officer with a lighter touch. That might make the target more comfortable and easier to handle once the collection process begins. This is not any reference to sexual enticement or manipulation. Rather, the touch of a female officer may prove more effective. For some operatives, the female officer may be able to effectively take a “motherly approach,” comforting them and making them more responsive. Having stated that about female officers, in some cases, it may be discovered after the initial approach that a woman may prove to be, for a variety of reasons, too intimidating for a target and make the interaction difficult and likely unsuccessful. The target may simply hold a bias against women, and perhaps may find working for a woman disagreeable. Such are the realities of human interactions.

Among scientists, technicians and engineers, it may be the case that the target would be best approached by a more compatible, “bookwormish,” reserved and understanding officer, who can connect with the target not only on a professional level, being able to discuss technical details of information sought and the work in which the target may be engaged, but on a social level, perhaps having many of the same interests as the target. In every case though, the main pitch to the target would include something along the lines that Just as humanity has no nation, science has no nation. The line that would soon follow is how China would be the dominant power and be the country to lead humanity to excellence and so on.

As mentioned earlier, possessing a diverse team of male and female officers for operations is not likely to be the case for most MSS managers operating under either official cover or non-official cover. For this reason, it has become necessary for MSS to seek to the cooperation of scientists, technicians and engineers from other government branches or civilian enterprises who would be directed to attend lectures, conferences, conventions trade shows and the like, and make contact with targets and establish an interaction that could lead to passing the target of to an MSS officer or actually engaging in the tradecraft necessary to recruit the target and manage the target’s activities, use tradecraft to collect information procured and provide requirements collection and solutions to problems.

For an intelligence officer recruiting agents, speech is everything. Word choices must build confidence, create trust, console, assure, inspire, and comfort. To create compliant agents, the right word choice must be made every time. Some submission of operatives and informants to the words of the officer must take place, causing the operatives and informants to put aside what they may know or imagine and accept the new knowledge the officer puts before them. While of course in reality, all operatives and informants are being manipulated and corrupted by their foreign intelligence officer handlers, a relationship akin to a teacher and student or mentor and mentee is established in optimal cases. As in those sort of relationships, the operative or informant becomes the responsibility of the officer. Further, as in such relationships, it should be the hope of the officer that the operative or informant performs superbly and exceeds all expectations.

The less certain the recruit is about the objective truth, the more likely the individual will be drawn to a false reality. Many who are successfully recruited ultimately would believe that their actions were humanitarian contributions to peace. It is very unlikely that the operative will ever know the degree to which that furtive bit of information he or she is stealing will support any nefarious plans the officer and his country may have cooked up for the US or another country. That is always thrown into the bargain. The MSS officer’s relationship with the operative is only professional. Friendship is established due to necessity. All appearances will be false. Intriguingly, the intellects of the majority of recruits are unable to confound insincerity. Targets of MSS recruitment indeed often fail to realize that if it were not for the officer’s need to collect information from, or pass the Communist Party of China-line to, the operative, the officer would hardly have anything to do with anyone of such character that they would willingly betray their own homeland. The only reality for the recruit is that they are being molded, groomed to do nothing more than committing treason at the behest of a hostile intelligence service of a foreign country. It is all certainly not some childish parlor game. Quid est turplus quam ab aliquo illcieli? (What can be more shameful than to be deceived by someone?)

In a number of cases in the US in which economic espionage has occurred identified as having a Chinese nexus, indications were that nontraditional actors have been used in Chinese intelligence operations for quite some time. Just how many nontraditional actors are in a position and willing to serve the interests of the Chinese intelligence services could only be known based on intercepted information, informants working for US intelligence and counterintelligence and after they may be activated to collect information or materials. A conversation on the margins of a professional gathering that begins with innocuous banter. There could be a clandestine contact, an email or letter, sent to the target requesting to discuss a matter in the target’s field to assist with the writing of an article or book, to assist with academic or other scholarly research, or to discuss a grant or prize from an overseas nongovernmental organization of some type. The next contact, if any, might include leading comments or questions on technical matters or one’s work, might appear odd. That would be an almost sure sign that the inquisitive interlocutor, if not simply socially inept, was probing. If the target had even the slightest awareness of the efforts of Chinese intelligence services to recruit spies, it is at that point the individual should realize that he or she is in a bad situatupion and break that contact immediately. If the MSS officer notices that the target realizes his or her questions were compelled by more than a thirst for knowledge and does not run, the officer knows he may have hooked his fish.

As part of their tradecraft, MSS officers would prefer hole-in-corner meetings with prospective recruits in small, quiet locations such as cozy, dimly lit establishments, conversing over coffee or tea, perhaps a dash of brandy or even a bite to eat. It would be a far better site for a furtive discussion than some crowded establishment or a spot nearby some busy thoroughfare. Other sites usually selected are hotel rooms, gardens, and parks. The MSS will also want to have an unobstructed view of passersby and other patrons to at least determine whether observable surveillance activity is being directed upon the meeting. The MSS officer will want to eliminate as many distractions as possible as he or she will want to focus wholly on communicating with the prospective recruit and have reciprocate with the same level of attention. The officer will want to analyze the individual close-up and personal and every response to his or her remarks. If a full-on recruitment effort is not made right away, everything will be done to establish a close association for the moment with the target. The figurative “contracted specialist,” will engage in similar activities, and much as the MSS officer, would also try to become a close associate of the prospective recruit. Much as an intelligence officer would be, the contracted agent would doubtlessly be placed under the close supervision of an MSS manager most likely operating under non-official cover, but potentially under officer cover. If a prospective “contracted specialist” left no doubt in the minds of MSS officer that he or she would be unable to perform the more hands-on job of recruiting operatives and informants, they might be called into service to “spot” experts at professional gatherings or even at their workplaces who MSS desires or to collect information from available databases and files there.

The Tianjin State Security Bureau (above). The thirty-one major provincial and municipal sub-elements of the MSS more than likely possess most of the officers, operatives, and informants and conduct the lion’s share of the operations, taking into account that they perform mostly surveillance and domestic intelligence work. These provincial and municipal state security departments and bureaus are now essentially small-sized foreign intelligence services. They are given considerable leeway to pursue sources. In Mattis’ view, that independence accounts for variation across the MSS in terms of the quality of individual intelligence officers and operations.

Overseas Espionage by the Provincial Bureaus: A Dimension within the Human Intelligence Dimension

It is important point out that although the bureaucratic center of gravity may reside in its Beijing headquarters, in a July 9, 2017 National Review article entitled “Everything We Know about China’s Secretive State Security Bureau,” Mattis explains that the MSS’ thirty-one major provincial and municipal sub-elements more than likely possess most of the officers, operatives, and informants and conduct the lion’s share of the operations, taking into account that they perform mostly surveillance and domestic intelligence work. These provincial state security departments and municipal state security bureaus are now essentially small-sized foreign intelligence services. They are given considerable leeway to pursue sources. In Mattis’ view, that independence accounts for variation across the MSS in terms of the quality of individual intelligence officers and operations. He further explains that unless specific units are referenced, reality will contradict general assessments. The indication and implication of this is that defeating MSS efforts in the US will require a broad-based strategy that accounts for the scale of the intelligence organization and compartmentation.

The Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) has surfaced in several US espionage cases. The record its uncloaked operations leaves no doubt that SSSB is constantly looking for opportunities to collect foreign intelligence. It was actually SSSB intelligence officers that approached Clairborne and requested that she provide information on US economy policy deliberations and internal State Department reactions to talks with China. It was SSSB that recruited Mallory. It was SSSB that approached a freelance journalist focused on Asian affairs, received SSSB requests for short, interview-based papers related to US policy in Burma, US contacts with North Korea, and US talks with Cambodia related to the South China Sea. Away from the US, in a case involving South Korean diplomats in Shanghai, a Chinese woman, in exchange for sex, requested and received telephone and contact information for senior South Korean government officials. Beyond government documents, the woman also used her influence to help Chinese citizens acquire expedited visa approvals to South Korea. SSSB reportedly blackmailed a Japanese code clerk working in the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai in 2003 and 2004 over his relationship with a prostitute. Allegedly, the illicit relationship began at a karaoke parlor that may have been owned by the SSSB and that catered to Japanese diplomats and businesspeople. Once the code clerk in the grips of the SSSB, its intelligence officers demanded background information on Japanese diplomats posted to the consulate and the schedule for diplomatic pouches going back to Tokyo. Counterintelligence plays a key role in SSSB efforts, too! When the SSSB blackmailed the Japanese code clerk, the organization reportedly asked him to name all of the Chinese contacts of the Japanese consulate in Shanghai.

Other evidence available indicates the SSSB is responsive to the global needs of the MSS and China’s central decision makers. A job announcement, likely errantly circulated publicly around Shanghai universities in 2015, encouraged students who spoke English, Japanese, German, French, Russian, Taiwanese, or the languages of China’s recognized minorities to apply to the SSSB. Mattis proffers that the request for those specific language skills are suggestive of foreign-intelligence targets, counterintelligence coverage of foreigners inside China, and domestic intelligence work for monitoring the party-state’s internal enemies. The job announcement also emphasized that skills in information security, computer software programming and telecommunications as being desirable. In its recruitment efforts, SSSB benefits from a local pool that includes some of the best universities in China, including Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong. Shanghai’s universities, think tanks, businesses, and modern infrastructure draw a large, high-quality pool of foreigners from which the SSSB can recruit operatives. Shanghai Jiaotong University, one of China’s most prestigious universities, has been linked to military thefts in cyberspace, leaving open the possibility that such students also might seek work with state security. Admittedly, the job announcement did not describe whether such skills were required in technical support or operational positions. A recently-passed intelligence law prescribes “[combining] open work and secret work” in intelligence operations. Thus, SSSB capabilities very likely exceed human-intelligence operations to include computer network operations.

As the Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence revealed it to be the pattern within the provincial departments and municipal bureaus, the SSSB leadership appears to come from within the bureau or at least the MSS. The current bureau director is Dong Weimin, who has run the organization since 2015. Unlike the Beijing State Security Bureau’s leadership, service in the SSSB unlikely provides for upward mobility to other parts of the MSS. The directors of the Beijing State Security Bureau regularly move into the MSS party committee and become vice ministers. The most notable among these are Qiu Jin and Ma Jian. The only example of an SSSB director promoted upward in recent memory seemingly is Cai Xumin. He led the SSSB from 2000 to 2004, when he was promoted to MSS vice minister. Cai would eventually return to Shanghai to serve as the city’s deputy procurator in late 2006.

Away from the economic espionage and technology theft in particular, MSS officers regularly have operatives engage in something akin to a Hollywood depictions of “secret agent spying” by taking photographs of restricted areas, gaining entry into restricted areas, and collecting documents, materials, and other property from a restricted area. Those types of activities are perhaps more commonplace that most ordinary citizens might believe. It is only after an MSS officer is captured, or officer of another Chinese foreign intelligence service such as the Second Department of the PLA, that they are made aware that such activity is taking place. Greater awareness that is occurring is the only chance of thwarting suspicious activity when it occurs. When Chinese nationals engaged in such activity are occasionally captured, usually found in their possession is a cache of surveillance equipment. There is typically so much that it evinces the agent believed, with a high degree of confidence that he or she would be able to act without relative impunity in or around a targeted restricted area. It may also very well have been the precedence of previous success spying on the site that helped fashion that notion. Despite the regularity of such activity, the use of MSS officers to recruit agents to do the dirty work of spying has been a fruitful approach.

MSS Informants: Motivations

Attendant to any discussion of the use of actual research scientists across the spectrum of advanced technologies as operatives, as surrogates for MSS officers in the field, would be the discussion of civilian informants and responsibilities of Chinese citizens under China’s National Security law. In the West there usually would be a variety of motivations for citizens to more than likely violate their own Constitution to engage in surveillance and higher levels of activity on behalf of US intelligence and counterintelligence services and law enforcement. Against a foreigner, they might see it as a Patriotic duty. To surveil another citizen might cause pangs of dismay anxiety for there would be the real possibility of violating the 1st Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights of a fellow citizen under the US Constitution. Sadly the motivations of money ideology, conspiracy, and excitement, as well as a healthy dose of indifference will often cure any anxieties or nervousness about another citizens Constitutional rights. Different from Western democracies, however, for the Chinese citizen, such motivations do not factor in such a decision to come to call of their country’s intelligence services. The law requires them to do so. If any motivations at all could be said to factor in a Chinese citizen’s decision to obey the direction of the intelligence service, expectedly the Communist Party of China would list faith and adherence to the ideals of the Communist Revolution, the Communist Party of China, patriotism, the homeland. Supposedly, revolutionary zeal drives the heart of China as one beating heart so to speak.

The National Security Law of the People’s Republic of China, as adopted at the 15th session of the Standing Committee of the Twelfth National People’s Congress declares under Article 9 that in maintenance of national security, priority shall be given to prevention, equal attention shall be paid to temporary and permanent solutions, specialized tasks shall be combined with reliance on the masses, the functions of specialized authorities and other relevant authorities in maintaining national security shall be maximized, and citizens and organizations shall be extensively mobilized to prevent, frustrate, and legally punish any conduct that compromises national security. Article 11 decrees that there will be no tolerance shown for the failure to meet one’s obligation to maintain national security. The article states: “All citizens of the People’s Republic of China, state authorities, armed forces, political parties, people’s groups, enterprises, public institutions, and other social organizations shall have the responsibility and obligation to maintain national security.” Authorities in China understand that extraordinary powers are entrusted in the hands of many, such as MSS officers, who work on national security matters. Contractors, and even informants, who might work on their behalf are placed under the same scrutiny. Those who have attempted to cross the Chinese government have faced stiff reprisals. The shadow of sudden death can hang over the head of any individual arrested for such betrayal. As stated under Article 13: “Whoever as an employee of a state authority abuses power, neglects duty, practices favoritism, or makes falsification in national security work or any activity involving national security shall be held liable in accordance with the law.” The article further declares: “Any individual or organization that fails to fulfill the obligation of maintaining national security or conducts any activity compromising national security in violation of this Law or any relevant law shall be held liable in accordance with the law.” The furtive work of Chinese citizens at home and abroad under the direction of the MSS does not need to be without guerdon. As explained under Article 12: “The state shall commend and reward individuals and organizations that have made prominent contributions to maintaining national security.”

On MSS Informants Overseas

The immediate impression created when one learns that China regularly makes full use of Chinese nationals to support the intelligence collection process is the mind boggling prospect of a multitude of adults from China’s population, which according to the World Population Review as of this writing is put at nearly 1,439,239,000. While there may very well be several Chinese national informants moving around Western countries on a given day, that number is certainly not in the millions. Certainly, not every adult in China will be directly asked to be an informant overseas. Seasoned members of the service have decades of experience approaching young Chinese travelers. Usually prospective informants are approached just before travelling overseas for business or tourism or early in their overseas education or career. The younger the informant, the more time they might have in place and more likely they might be responsive to an MSS officer’s entreaties to take on the job. It is not a matter of taking anyone who comes along. MSS officers are looking for a safe pair of hands; those with cool heads, who can comfortably kick around foreign parts. They must be the very soul of discretion and not easily rattled.

Glenn Duffie Shriver (above). Often in the recruitment of US operatives, as well as those of other countries, prospective targets will be approached who may not at the present time have much by way of an access but potentially could establish that access in time. The recruitment is conducted quietly and low-key to successfully avoid raising suspicion or pose concerns to anyone. The relationship between the MSS officer or contractor and the recruit, seemingly having no importance, will evolve gradually on a schedule set by observant, diligent, and patient MSS managers. A number of cases that conform to this type of recruitment have been made public. In a notable one, Glenn Duffie Shriver after graduating college decided to live in China after a short period of study there from 2002–2003. MSS officers convinced him to assist their efforts in the US for pay. Shriver reportedly received more than $70,000 from the Chinese intelligence to apply to the US Foreign Service and the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. In October 2010, pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide US national defense information to the MSS.

Recruiting Spies for the Long-Run: MSS Style

Often in the recruitment of US operatives, as well as those of other countries, prospective targets will be approached who may not at the present time have much by way of an access but potentially could establish that access in time. This was also a method that Soviet intelligence was famous for. To that extent, the recruitment process is conducted quietly and low-key to successfully avoid raising suspicion or pose concerns to anyone. The relationship between the MSS officer or contractor and the recruit, seemingly having no importance, will evolve gradually on a schedule set by observant, diligent, and patient MSS managers. As for the recruit, the motivation is typically emotional, somewhat ideological. For example, from the moment of contact with the MSS, they may sense that they are able to shape the fate of the world through their furtive activities. If the recruitment takes long enough, the target will even be passed on to another officer for development. When the recruit “matures” to the point of getting into position in a business, think tank, government organization, academic institution, or some other targeted location, the MSS officer handling the individual will begin full-fledged tasking. All forms of espionage and active measures will get under way full throttle. All in all, the speed differential with other forms of recruitment is not as critical as the depth of penetration by the recruit. What MSS gets from the effort is a highly prepared mole buried deep within the US foreign and national security policy apparatus.

A number of cases that conform to this type of recruitment have made public. In a notable one, in October 2010, Glenn Duffie Shriver pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide US national defense information to a SSSB intelligence officer. Shriver, a recent US college graduate decided to live in China after a short period of study there from 2002–2003. Apparently finding Shriver to be a viable target, Chinese intelligence officers successfully pitched him the idea of assisting their efforts in the US for pay. Shriver reportedly received more than $70,000 from the Chinese intelligence to apply to the US Foreign Service and the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. If he managed to be hired by either, he would have been obligated to communicate classified US national defense information to their organization. The apparent intent of the SSSB’s was to collect a stream of reporting on US foreign policy. It was seemingly inconsequential that only some of a portion of it would have been directly related to Asia and particularly China.

Honey Traps

As noted in the discussion on the overseas intelligence operations of MSS provincial bureaus, Chinese human Intelligence officers have also been known to exploit relationships such as sexual relationships and illegal activities to pressure individuals to cooperate with them. Indeed, a bog-standard method of snagging traveling businessmen is the honeytrap. As defined more specifically in Henry S. A. Becket, The Dictionary of Espionage: Spookspeak into English (Stein & Day, 1986), a honey trap is a method of sexual entrapment for intelligence purposes, usually to put a target [such as Kalugin] into a compromising position so that he or she can be blackmailed. The approach would be made once MSS intelligence or counterintelligence managers believed enough had collected enough about the target and the target’s activities, that they understood how the foreign national thought, and whether he would respond favorably to an effort to make that sort of clandestine contact with him, the approach is made by a selected female or make operative.

According to Kalugin in First Directorate, to further the KGB’s mission, he loosed those alluring qualities his personal appearance and attributes and those of other handsome males and females as weapons very effectively against Western officials and especially secretaries working in key offices in the US foreign and national security policy apparatus when he believed something considerable could be gained by doing so. If lucky, the target may already have become in contact with a woman from a house of elegant pleasure, and the recruitment of the prostitute is what is required. However, there are cases in which the prostitute may not have the background to engage the target in a way that is best for the MSS to establish appropriate level of contact to move forward toward effectual recruitment.

Prospective MSS intelligence officers?: Freshmen of Nanjing Campus of China Communications University in military training in 2015 (above). The MSS has been known to exploit relationships such as sexual relationships and illegal activities to pressure individuals to cooperate with them. It is a bog-standard method known as the honeytrap. While prostitutes and “contractors” are often used for this purpose, female officers may be put in a position to take on a honey trap role. Insisting that female officers surrender themselves to act as lures for potential targets for recruitment is surely not in line with that goal. MSS officers, particularly to young female officers, have been forced to choose whether to engage in such behavior to support the MSS mission. The question is posed, “Which comes first, love of self and honor or love of country and dedication to the Communist Revolution?”

The true humanist by the Marxist definition, seeks to understand human nature with the notion that all can be brought into an ideal Communist World. Insisting that female officers surrender themselves to act as lures for potential targets for recruitment is surely not in line with that goal. Nevertheless, when MSS officers, particularly to young female officers, are forced to choose whether to engage in such behavior to support the MSS mission, the question is posed, “Which comes first, love of self and honor or love of country and dedication to the Communist Revolution?” The female officer would certainly need to consider what her family would say and what her community would say about her taking on such an assignment. The final answer would be founded on the officer’s own self-respect, dignity, self-worth, conscience. In a system where the desires of the individual must be subordinated to the needs of the state, the only answer is to give primacy to love of country and support the Communist Revolution. That being the case, for the majority of female officers, engaging such work would still be simply outside the realm of possibility. Ad turpia virum bonum nulla spies invitat. (No expectation can allure a good man to the commission of evil.)

Discussion will be extended in Part 2, to be published later

Response to a Reader’s Comment and Challenge Concerning Our Book Review of Oleg Kalugin’s First Directorate

Posted on May 31, 2020 by greatcharlie

A young KGB Lieutenant (later KGB Major General) Oleg Kalugin (center left) with his Soviet cohorts at Columbia University in 1958. For decades, foreign intelligence services have sent young officers and operatives to US colleges and universities to: prepare them to operate in the US; gain useful positions and ascend within diplomatic, intelligence, military, scientific, engineering, high-tech, business, and media organizations; or, return home to make good use of knowledge acquired. During Kalugin’s time at Columbia and years working undercover in the US, FBI counterintelligence kept a close eye on him. There were even several attempts at establishing clandestine contact with Kalugin, but the results were abysmal.

After publishing the April 30, 2020 post entitled, “Book Review: Oleg Kalugin, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West (St. Martin’s Press, 1994)”, the fascinating memoir of Soviet super spy, former KGB Major General Oleg Danilovich Kalugin, greatcharlie received a number of comments about it almost immediately. The quondam Soviet Union’s Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (the Committee for State Security) or KGB, was responsible for Soviet internal security, foreign intelligence, and counterintelligence during the greater part of the Cold War era.What readers think about greatcharlie’s posts matter to its editor, and all comments are given due consideration. Among the first comments received was one admonishing greatcharlie for its criticism of 1950s and 1960s Ffederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) counterintelligence efforts to reel in the book’s author through the use of honey traps. The comment, limited to two sentences, included the phrase, “Many can criticize, but few can do better,” and attached to it was an erroneous Latin translation of that sentence, “Acta non verba.” The well-accepted translation of that well-known phrase, said to be the last words of Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, is “Action, not words.” Although the word “action” is part of the phrase, the emphasis is not on one’s capability or capacity to act. The accepted interpretation of the phrase is one’s behavior should match one’s words. If the author had done a little homework, perchance the error would have been detected. Father George Ruther, S.T.D., defines a sense of humor as essentially “a balanced mind’s perception of imbalance. Unbalanced people laugh at what is not funny. Fanatics, by definition, are a little off kilter, and so they have no sense of humor.” If the intent of the reader’s comment was to be waggish, greatcharlie must admit that it has had difficulty understanding how it might be amusing. The addition of the erroneously translated Latin quote was presumably an attempt to mock, perhaps even ridicule, greatcharlie’s penchant for including Latin quotes within its essays. Seemingly, the intent of the comment’s author was not just to be plaintive, but downright negative. It was a far cry from the rather jolly messages greatcharlie usually receives from its readers.

Under normal circumstances, greatcharlie would hardly imagine its meditations on Soviet intelligence would garner interest among professionals to such a degree that any would exert time and energy into fashioning a rebuttal of this sort. Yet, it could be imagined by greatcharlie that some in the US intelligence industry or law enforcement, to include their contractors, would become a bit defensive over its analysis of Kalugin’s discussion of how the FBI counterintelligence operated against him. By the manner in which the foregoing comment was “condensed” to only two sentences strictly by the book, and other indications, the implications are that some young intelligence, counterintelligence, or federal law enforcement officer, or perhaps one wearing two of the three hats, is the comment’s most likely author. If one were to presume that the learned, insightful, forward leaning posterity of the special agents of prior decades would examine the mishandling of Kalugin’s case with a discerning professional eye, and find lessons to learn from it, one would be mistaken. Informed by experience, greatcharlie is aware that it is a predilection among not all young special agents, but some thrusting, bumptious neophytes, who in reality may be uncertain of the world around them and frightfully eager to prove something to their cohorts and to themselves, to feel compelled to seize upon an opportunity to respond defensively to anything critical of their organization without authorization. There is no need to postulate on a candidate organization in which the comment’s author very likely resides. Ascribing fault to that degree would seem a bit much for greatcharlie. It is enough to spotlight, out of mere academic interest, the many curious aspects of the comment.

The aim of greatcharlie in writing a review of Kalugin’s First Directorate was not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but rather, to present a book that provides a good framework for understanding what Russian Federation intelligence services are doing right now. To that extent, First Directorate better enables readers to peer into the future, with all of its mysteries, to better conceptualize what those intelligence services might do under the present leadership in Moscow. Most of all, the book provides a good look into the art that moved the mind of one of the most capable spymasters of the 20th century. As a practice, greatcharlie only reviews books that it enjoys and believes its readers will enjoy and will not review a book it did not find satisfying. A good book not only can edify, but allows for relaxation and refreshment, a connection to something personal or even an escape from the daily routine. By presenting what it feels are goods books, greatcharlie hopes it is helping to create such positive moments for its readers. Such was clearly not the reaction of the author of the comment to greatcharlie at issue. What intrigued greatcharlie most about the comment was the implication that proposing a more efficacious way to draw in Kalugin through clandestine contact would be too difficult if not impossible to do. What greatcharlie has set out to accomplish here, confessedly with a bit of dry humor, is meant to be instructive by demonstrating that is not the case. The Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, was quoted as saying: “Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.”

To recapitulate the segment of the book review at issue, it was noted that FBI counterintelligence, Kalugin’s main opponent in the field in the US during the Cold War, engaged in near endless attempts to intercept him and perhaps neutralize and recruit him, came in the form of clandestine contacts. Those attempts confirmed that he had actually been under surveillance as the FBI would only have undertaken such an effort if counterintelligence managers believed that had collected enough about him and his activities that they were convinced he was a Soviet intelligence officer, that they understood how Kalugin thought, and that he would respond favorably to an effort to make clandestine contact with him. The method used by FBI counterintelligence to reach Kalugin was the employment of women as honey traps. As defined in The Dictionary of Espionage, a honey trap is a method of sexual entrapment for intelligence purposes, usually to put a target–such as Kalugin–into a compromising position so that he or she can be blackmailed. Perhaps it would be enough to say Kalugin displayed restraint and elegance in the face of advances by the female FBI counterintelligence operatives. As mentioned in the April 30, 2020 post, he displayed a sensibility akin to what the French call “bof” (whatever) to it all.

Surely, Kalugin was neither ignorant of, nor surprised by, such attempts. Perchance, he just never considered getting involved with such nonsense or pondered having anything to do with such women while on the beat. His resistance to such abysmal efforts at manipulation might also simply be chalked up by some to Kalugin’s self-discipline, his Apollonian nature. In the field, Kalugin was always dedicated to his country, the Communist Movement, and his mission. He was laser focused on his responsibilities as a KGB officer to spot potential recruits, collect information, even passively, and report observations, engage in active measures, and not fall prey to the women used against him. Still, Kalugin’s response should not be underestimated, it spoke much about his character. There would likely be more than a few trained intelligence officers, and certainly ordinary individuals, who would have succumbed to their pressure.

The reality that Kalugin when on the beat in the US was an attractive, intelligent, charming, debonair, and thoroughly married KGB officer under 40-years-old should not be ignored. If greatcharlie’s understanding of humanity is correct, on first impression, one would hardly get the idea that Kalugin would ever be so desperate for female companionship. One could imagine that meeting attractive women anywhere by no means would have been a problem for him. If anything, Kalugin would be the type to act, not react, in an amorous situation, and would not be drawn in by any enticements. Interestingly enough, he seemed to have been made curious about what would cause the women involved to willingly dispose of their virtue, as it was the late 1950s and early 1960s, and such behavior by women was generally frowned upon in the society. His discussion of the entire matter from that perspective demonstrated that he has quite an attractive wit.

Repeatedly attempting to ensnare Kalugin with their sensual masquerades, which was the case, became just silly. Perhaps what drove the continuous use of honey traps against Kalugin was the proof and precedence of previous successes with less capable, less adroit, or simply inept KGB officers, along with some likely unsupported, doctrinaire, Cold War era preconceptions concerning the Russian male libido, convinced FBI counterintelligence of the correctness and efficaciousness of that method of clandestine contact with Kalugin. The focus was on the physical, the carnal, not the intellectual. Even at the most elementary level of decisionmaking on the matter, some recognition that a mental attraction, some cerebral connection between Kalugin and a female operative foisted upon him might be required. In the intelligence game, nothing about making contact with an opponent in the field can be considered too trivial to disregard. Yet, that aspect was apparently ignored or disregarded by the FBI, presumably counting upon an id-explosion that would overwhelm Kalugin. It was a considerable miscalculation. The failure to open the door to Kalugin in the first few tries resulted in repeated attempts by the FBI to kick it in. Non omnibus ægris eadem auxilia conveniunt. (The same remedies do not suit every patient.)

Regarding the FBI counterintelligence special agents who pursued him, their efforts may also have been a shrieking manifestation of their own thinking, a projection of their own desires and needs. After Kalugin gave professional consideration to using his personal appearance and attributes and those of other handsome males and females to further the KGB’s mission, he loosed those alluring qualities as weapons very effectively against Western officials and especially secretaries working in key offices in the US foreign and national security policy apparatus when he believed something considerable could be gained by doing so.

In First Directorate, Kalugin discusses a remarkable document which he claims to have received from a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer entitled “Detection and Approaches to Psychologically Vulnerable Subjects of the Enemy.” The long paper cited US efforts to recruit Soviets worldwide and painted a portrait of Soviet citizens most likely to become spies. Kalugin quoted part of the document which was still in his possession when he wrote, First Directorate. Cited here is everything that Kalugin quoted, too precious to compress:

Soviet citizens are a highly disciplined group of people who have undergone extensive indoctrination, who are vigilant and extremely suspicious. Russians are very proud and extremely sensitive to any signs of disrespect. At the same time, many of them are adventurous, and they seek to break free from existing restrictions.

Acts of betrayal, whether, in the form of espionage or defection, are in almost every case committed by morally or psychologically unsteady people. Treachery is essentially atypical of Soviet citizens. That can be concluded from the fact that of the hundreds of thousands of Soviets who have been abroad, only a few dozen turned traitors, and only several of those became our agents. Normal, psychologically-stable people–connected with their country by close ethnic, national, cultural, social, family ties–cannot take such a step. The simple principle is confirmed by our experience of Soviet defectors. All of them are single. In every case, they had a serious vice or weakness: alcoholism, deep depression, psychopathy of various types. These factors were in most cases decisive in making traitors of them. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that no [CIA] operative can consider himself an expert in Soviet affairs if he hasn’t had the horrible experience of holding a Soviet friend’s head over the sink as he poured out the contents of his stomach after a five-day drinking bout.

What follows from that is that our efforts must mostly be directed against weak, unsteady members of Soviet communities. Among normal people, we should pay special attention to the middle-aged. . . . People that age are starting their descent from the physiological peak. They are no longer children and they suddenly face the acute realization that their life is passing, that their ambitions and youthful dreams have not come true in full or even in part. At this age comes the breaking point in a man’s career when he faces the gloomy prospect of pending retirement and old age. . . . The stormy forties are of great interest to a [CIA] operative.

The document Kalugin describes specifically concerned the recruitment of Soviet agents by CIA case officers and not FBI counterintelligence, but one might fairly assess that there were sufficient similarities with regard to tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods of recruitment. Even so, none of the negative qualities described in the alleged official document Kalugin collected from the CIA traitor could be ascribed to him. He was nothing close to a luckless joe. As already enlarged upon, Kalugin was at all a “soft touch.” Oddly enough, the document’s author, imaginably an expert, unskillfully interchanged the national identity of “Soviet” with “Russian.” Even more, there is a discernible flavor of bias against Russians as an ethnic group in the words of the document’s author. What greatcharlie sought to illuminate along similar lines in its review was that bias and surmisal appeared to serve as the basis for developing the FBI’s plan for establishing clandestine contact with Kalugin. That choice left FBI counterintelligence operating in darkness, unsure of each step. Focus could have been placed on Kalugin’s known interests and strengths in a surprising and pleasing, yet entirely plausible way. Here is a quote from Augustus Caesar in which the author of the comment to greatcharlie might be interested: “Iuvenes quibus auditis senex iuvenes senes cum audierint.” (Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.)

A “Target-centric” Proposal for Clandestine Contact with Kalugin:

One learns in First Directorate is that a recreational interest of Kalugin in New York was attending The Metropolitan Opera. The FBI would certainly call it a “friendly” organization, and its staff, much as today, would gladly agree to any requests made of it by counterintelligence special agents. During an intermission, a casual encounter, seemingly occurring purely by happenstance could be arranged between Kalugin and a highly skilled operative posing as a frightfully pleasant beau monde and opera devotee, absolutely familiar with opera and the management of The Metropolitan Opera. Appropriately, the operative would need to be a refined, well spoken academic or scholar with considerable credentials in order to reduce the chance that Kalugin would be annoyed or bored by the conversation. That conversation could have led to a tantalizing invitation, to all appearances on a lark, to perform as a guest singer with The Metropolitan Opera Chorus. The invitation would be compelled by the FBI operatives recognition of “the scintillating quality and shocking potential of his voice.” The very brief embedding of journalists, which was after all Kalugin’s KGB cover, in such groups to write interesting stories about them from the inside was not something too unusual. Kalugin had already demonstrated that he liked to get involved in the nitty-gritty of things. Recall that at Columbia University, he did not just matriculate but became a member of the Student Body Council! The effort would be made to subsume Kalugin in a type of on-the-job, rapid training for an upcoming performance. To perform, Kalugin would not need to be proficient in a language of the opera, Italian, French, or German. (Kalugin was proficient in German.) He could easily perform lyrics using phonetical singing. That challenge might further interest him in the whole idea. His training for the performance could have been amply provided by a very capable member of the opera chorus, recruited and rapidly, but thoroughly trained to serve effectively as an FBI counterintelligence operative for a bit of time before the initial contact is attempted. The interactions between Kalugin and the operative could have been designed to lead to the ostensible development of a friendship between them.

Without fleshing out the entire hypothetical proposal, suffice it to say, the approach presented here would have been a plausible, thoughtful way to establish what was so difficult, clandestine contact with Kalugin. Hopefully, presenting it has not furthered any undeserved notion that greatcharlie has sought to be beastly toward US intelligence and counterintelligence services and law enforcement. It would be intriguing to hear Kalugin’s assessment of the proposal’s prospect for success. Periculosum est credere et non credere; ergo exploranda est veritas, multum prius quam stulta prave judicet sententia. (It is equally dangerous to believe and to disbelieve; therefore search diligently into the truth rather than form foolish ideas that would pervert your judgment.)

Book Review: Oleg Kalugin, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West (St. Martin’s Press, 1994)

Posted on April 30, 2020 by greatcharlie

In The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West, published in 1994, Oleg Kalugin, a former major general in the erstwhile Soviet Union’s KGB details the realities about the KGB foreign intelligence service and to a great degree provides a good framework for understanding what Russian Federation intelligence services are doing right now. It also provides a framework by which readers are enabled to peer into the future, with all of its mysteries, and better conceptualize what those intelligence services might do under the present leadership in Moscow. Most of all, First Directorate provides a look into the art that moved the mind of one of the most capable spymasters of the 20th century. Kalugin’s work surely earned him a place among the era-defining geniuses of the intelligence industry of the Eastern Bloc.

The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West is the memoir of Oleg Danilovich Kalugin, a former major general in the erstwhile Soviet Union’s Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (the Committee for State Security) or KGB. The KGB was responsible for Soviet internal security, foreign intelligence, and counterintelligence during the greater part of the Cold War era. It is fairly well-understood now that the KGB was the embodiment of the Soviet systems intimidating, inhumane, authoritarian order. The book’s title First Directorate referred to Pervoye Glavnoye Upravieniye (First Chief Directorate) or PGU of the KGB which was the element responsible for foreign operations and intelligence activities. The manner in which Kalugin details the realities about the KGB foreign intelligence service in First Directorate provides a good framework for understanding what Russian Federation intelligence services are doing right now. To that extent, First Directorate better enables readers to peer into the future, with all of its mysteries, to better conceptualize what those intelligence services might do under the present leadership in Moscow. Most of all, the book provides a good look into the art that moved the mind of both a superlative foreign intelligence officer and a foreign counterintelligence officer. Kalugin was one among of a number of era-defining geniuses within the intelligence industry of the Eastern Bloc. Surely, he could be rated alongside luminaries such his mentor, former Chairman of the KGB and eventual Soviet Premier, Yuri Andropov, and the chief of the German Democratic Republic’s Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (Main Directorate for Reconnaissance) or foreign intelligence service, Colonel General Markus Wolf. Based on information that has been made public from US intelligence services and law enforcement records since the end of the Cold War, Kalugin was viewed by them as an extremely clever antagonist. While Kalugin was on the beat, the US tried to play down the degree of damage Kalugin’s success had inflicted but it could hardly be denied that his efforts left US intelligence services limping back to the barn a bit. One would be completely off the mark if one expected a diatribe from Kalugin in First Directorate about his former US adversaries of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The US not only became the host of Kalugin and his family, but granted them US citizenship.

In First Directorate, Kalugin does not engage in an esoteric discussion of the strong-arm security apparatus of the Soviet Union, what 20th century US philosopher and political theorist, Hannah Arendt, best described as a totalitarian and authoritarian Communist regime in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Indeed, he discusses it in a manner easily perceived from a KGB-officers-eye-view, from junior worm up to the top of the heap, effectively illustrating how completely alien the KGB culture was to Western attitudes and inclinations. At the same time, Kalugin offers readers a reality a bit different from what are very common perceptions of the activities and inner workings of the KGB foreign intelligence service and to a large extent, present-day foreign intelligence service of the Russian Federation. He achieved much in terms of recruiting spies who were already well-placed in the US national security apparatus and collecting some the most secret information concerning the defense of the US and Western Europe. Although Kalugin considers fair the assessment notion among many Western experts of an ultra-labyrinthine structure and system that existed within the KGB that thwarted even officers’ understanding of how the organization worked, he knocks it down describing how it’s system worked with a certain simplicity and consistency, once one became accustomed to it. Condensed, everyone had a particular job, and knew their responsibilities. However, he notes that the manner in which some KGB officers performed their jobs would vary from what was expected. Therein lies the rub. Indeed, the peculiar behavior of some officers ignited a near catastrophic end to Kalugin’s career. It became an inflection point in his life story. While narrating a story, Kalugin explores such situations with readers and provides edifying answers. One might go as far as to state that he takes on the role of instructor, introducing nuanced details about certain matters in his lecture as if he were trying to impart the full benefit of his experience to nescient, young KGB officers at the erstwhile Yuri Andropov Training Center housed at Leningrad State University or Red Star in the Yasenevo District of Moscow, preparing them for what they might face on the beat overseas. Of course, he certainly is not part of that anymore.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a deluge of information put out about the KGB. Numerous books were written by the organization’s former intelligence officers. Given the quantity and quality of a big portion of what has been made available about Soviet and Russian Federation foreign intelligence services, it was surprising how many self-declared and presumptive experts on this subject, ignored or were blissfully unaware of the realities about such work that rather casually accused US President Donald Trump of being an agent for Moscow. (If the basis was his four visits to Moscow over a 25 year period, once for a beauty pageant, then potentially any US citizen could be vacuously accused of spying for any country they may have visited more than once for tourism, business, or any other Innocuous reason. All countries have intelligence services and all are interested in the US at all levels.) Surely, Trump’s accusers believed that they fully understood as much as they needed about the Russian Federation intelligence services to reach that conclusion. Surely, in all seriousness, that purported knowledge was augmented with what they may have extrapolated from James Bond and Jason Bourne films, as well as streaming television programs about spying. They are all banal amusements, mere jumped up versions of 19th century penny dreadfuls and “adventure stories for boys.” Even Members of both chambers of the US Congress among Trump’s political adversaries, who actually receive briefings from the US intelligence community, hold hearings in committees in order to get questions about any information answered, and are allowed access to intelligence, appear more influenced by such “data” from Hollywood. Such is the state of national politics and political discourse in the US today. A problem arising from it all is that many US citizens have been bewildered by such absurd propositions from supposedly reliable sources as Members of Congress. Argumentum ad veracundiam. (Argument from authority.)

In The Second Book of his work, The History of Britain, That Part Especially Now Called England, (1670), the great 17th century English poet and intellectual, John Milton, explains: “Worthy deeds are not often destitute of worthy relators; as for a certain fate, great acts and great eloquence have most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honoring each other in the same age.” As is the case with his memoir, Kalugin is a worthy relator of his own actions. Surely, with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to enumerate all of the mistakes, the poor choices, Kalugin made. With regard to that, Kalugin clearly was willing in the text to consider the propriety of his choices and actions or at least at that point he seems to have begun that sort of post-mortem self-evaluation. That process takes place on paper as he candidly conveys his personal experience within the system that turned against him. As one learns about Kalugin through First Directorate, not creating his own record of what he did in the KGB, what KGB had done, and what the Soviet system was really all about, would have been tantamount to admitting to never having had a spark of dignity or decency.

In First Directorate, Kalugin creates a sense of immediateness to what he writes. He would often build tension on the book’s pages while doing that. Indeed, many anecdotes he relates, great and small, are truly edge of seat, nail-biting stuff. Of the cases that he selected to detail, each had its own set of intriguing complications, stirring and engaging the interests of the reader. As for what he shares, his style of presentation, his pace, Kalugin’s efforts are nothing less than brilliant, and greatcharlie has come across nothing better. He beautifully provides the mise en scène using crisp descriptions of surroundings. He marvellously constructs in the mind’s eye of readers a certain atmosphere and desired theatrical effect.

About the Author

Kalugin was born in Leningrad on September 6, 1934. He is of medium height, and for his age, which as of this writing is 85. He has maintained an excellent build, and was at least at one time, quite athletic. Even into his 60s and 70s was known to go on long distance ocean swims. In public, he keeps himself well-groomed, well-attired. Apparently, he is appreciative of a good suit. He has been also blessed with being handsome for a lifetime, possessing what would be popularly described as “manly good looks.” Indeed, it is hard to imagine how anyone would hire Kalugin as an intelligence officer, believing he would be able to avoid notice in public or fade into the background. However, by his countenance, one could immediately recognize his was not just “a pretty face.” Beyond his becoming smile, there has always been a discernable depth to Kalugin even during his earliest years. Nearly everyone who has met Kalugin has called him a charming man with a big and ready laugh and an attractive wit. In conversation, he is talkative, but does not dwell long on unpleasantries. In the US, Kalugin lived in a suburb north of Washington in Silver Spring, Maryland. His wife Ludmila was part of that life for 47 years. They fell in love in 1951, the same year that he made the firm decision to join the intelligence service. She saw Kalugin through all of the rough days of his career, particularly the false allegations, his demotion, the transfer to Leningrad, his stand against the KGB after retirement, his difficulties with Putin’s regime, and the self-imposed exile. His wife was also at his side in the US when she died of cancer in 2001. Doubtlessly, at least at some point, it was difficult for Kalugin to keep it together over her loss. Kalugin is known to entertain visitors to his home by showing off mementos of his intelligence career. Initially upon his independent return to the US, he served as a lecturer at Catholic University. Since then, Kalugin has become a much sought out speaker, and has lectured at a multitude of venues, traveling his new homeland, from state to state “without papers,” enlightening audiences primarily on Putin’s Russia and the often stunning actions of his intelligence services. Currently, he is a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.

Kalugin’s connection with Soviet intelligence began at an early age. After graduating from high school in Leningrad in 1952, and completing his mandatory military service, Kalugin was admitted to study at the Institute of Foreign Languages in Leningrad run by the Ministerstvh Gosudarstvennoe Bezopasnosti (Ministry for State Security) or MGB, the precursor of the KGB foreign intelligence service. After graduation from there in 1956, with honors, he was sent as a young officer to study at the Higher Intelligence School No. 101 of the KGB in Moscow which actually fell under the USSR Council of Ministers. The KGB leadership selected Kalugin for assignment to the First Department of First Chief Directorate which concerned foreign intelligence operations in and against the US and Canada. In 1958, Kalugin, who was considered a graduate of the faculty of journalism, was deployed to New York to undertake journalism studies at Columbia University. After briefly returning home, he was deployed again to New York, working in the early 1960s as a journalist for Moscow Radio at the UN. Kalugin was very competent as a reporter. He was not just a spy, but a successful one. One might say that spying seemed to be Kalugin’s metier. His working habits as a KGB officer, as he describes in First Directorate, were to be envied. He was always honorable and discreet, using mental agility and memory, acting gradually and with a certain gentleness. Kalugin let nothing escape his examination. In 1964, due to the threat of being arrested, he was recalled to the Soviet Union, and assigned as press officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, he was not in Moscow long. He was soon sent back to the US, on that occasion to Washington. There, Kalugin would serve as the equivalent of the deputy KGB station chief under the guise of a deputy press attaché of the Soviet Embassy. In 1971, according to Kalugin, he was suspected of treason, but the Chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, knocked the matter down deciding the case in his favor. Andropov, as elaborated upon further later in this review, was a mentor for Kalugin and took an interest in his career trajectory. He was transferred to the external counterintelligence service. By 1974, at the age of 40, Kalugin received the rank of KGB Major General. It was at this stage that the Kalugin’s activities were more reflective of Soviet behavior that caused most to deem the country as an immoral, worldwide menace, and threat to global peace and security.

For Kalugin, there was unlikely any real opportunity, in the midst of his work against the West, to view matters from a broader or humane perspective. Comparing Kalugin’s efforts side-by-side versus his opposite numbers in the West boil down to efforts to apportion wickedness. There was a balance of terror in the Cold War. Deception, subversion, and countersubversion was what it was all about. The 18th and 19th century French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was quoted as saying: “In war, as in politics, no evil–even if it is permissible under the rules–is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.” It was easy enough in the West to understand that during the Cold War, intelligence services fought under the conundrum of knowing how much could be done to defend a free and decent society while remaining a free and decent society worth defending. The Soviet Union was governed under an authoritarian, Socialist and Marxist-Leninist system directed under the auspices of the de facto one-party rule of the Communist Party. As aforementioned, instrumental in maintaining order to allow for the implementation of revolutionary precepts was the KGB, which often in the performance of its domestic security mission showed little regard for the human rights of Soviet citizens. To that extent, its behavior observed domestically would be reflected in its foreign intelligence activities overseas. Yet, despite what may have been the concept and intent of KGB headquarters concerning the conduct of its officers, not all, but many performed, without ethics, without any moral creed. Certainly, Kalugin had well-served the Soviet Union and the Communist Movement. There was never any indication in First Directorate that Kalugin had a sense that he had sacrificed his own humanity during his career. In Kalugin’s mind, whatever he did for the service, even if it skirted what was morally questionable by his own ethics, was for the greater good, not to soothe his own ego. If Kalugin caused anyone any suffering through this process, he most likely would say it was regrettable but the best option at the time.

Facilis descensus Averni: Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis; Sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras, Hoc opus, hic labor est. (The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies.) While there was a tacit understanding that a recruit could find a home with all the care and comfort imaginable during and after active service in the KGB, the Soviet government made no real promises that the link would be permanent through thick and thin. When things were going well, there was a duplicity between Kalugin and the KGB that he loved. That meant that he, as with others, would support and tolerate what he knew was wrong. When things were not going well, especially between managers and a staff or field officer, Kalugin demonstrates that the KGB could become a very brutal place internally for that officer. By the time Kalugin had been demoted and sent to Leningrad, long since renamed St. Petersburg following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he had become jaded by what he experienced on the front line of the Cold War. Alas, all of his efforts may have felt futile to him. Indeed, in the end, his struggles with the West, his extertions over the years, proved to be Sisyphean. Kalugin metaphorically was left standing alone on a dark and stormy night, apparently feeling abandoned by the Soviet government that he loved so dearly, to which he was loyal to the core. Due to all of this, Kalugin had to face the painful reality of many loyal Soviet citizens, which was that the hand of the Soviet state that they were taught early on, was benign, caring, comforting, encouraging, and infallible, as not always extended open palmed toward them and their needs. Kalugin had to lift his head above those of his adversaries. He would eventually recognize the need to make up for quite a sin of promoting such an organization. Kalugin retired from the KGB on February 26, 1990, and became a vocal independent critic of the Communist system. When one who lacks political power is unable to implement change, one can still voice opposition. Levels of success and failure will vary due to circumstances. It was Kalugin’s inability to stand by quietly that brought down upon him the full weight of the intelligence industry, the oppressive reputation of which he helped to build. Kalugin’s continuous attacks on the KGB garnered him notoriety and a political following. In 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was rash enough to sign a decree stripping Kalugin of his rank, decorations, and pension. If Gorbachev only had a hint of what was coming his way from the same KGB management that his decision supported, perhaps he most likely would have made another choice. Gorbachev would restore all that was taken from Kalugin in August 1991, after the coup attempt. Kalugin loved his homeland, Mother Russia and the Soviet Union, and presumably still does today. Certainly, he does not love the regime that controls it. After retirement, Kalugin served as a deputy in the Supreme Soviet, representing the Krasnodar region from September 1990 to December 1991. Kalugin ventured into politics to change the security apparatus, reform it. That was simply not in the cards. Doubtlessly, Kalugin never planned to become an expat, or more accurately, live in a self-imposed exile. He had little choice otherwise for existential reasons. He could not change his circumstances, so he had to change his perspective. Kalugin conquered the uncertainties of his life in Russia by leaving his homeland and embarking on a new journey in the US. It is from the US that he produced his memoir.

Nullius addictus lurare in verba magistri. (No master can make me swear blind obedience.) Vladimir Putin came on the scene ostensibly as a reformer, hand picked by Yeltsin. Apparently, Putin came highly recommended by other self-declared reformists and he managed to curry favor with President Boris Yeltsin of the nascent Russian Federation. Yeltsin, known for being earnest, was a bit too trusting. Putin ostensibly embraced the idea of a new beginning for Russia. At that point, it would have been counterintuitive for Putin to bemoan the Soviet Union’s collapse. What lurked beneath the surface would eventually set the path upon which he placed his country. Kalugin was able to see Putin straight. Alarm bells started to ring in his head, and he could see what was coming. By the time he wrote First Directorate, he was already feeling terribly apprehensive. Little was done directly by Kalugin to set himself up for what became a near David and Goliath schema of independent, capable man taking on the monstrous Evil Empire as well as its second-self, Putin’s Russia. Indeed, left in control of the Russian Federation by Yeltsin after 1999, Putin, rather than reform the system, gradually made it look more and more as the old Soviet one, particularly with regard to the intelligence services. Putin wanted all of the former KGB men, many of whom had become extremely popular among the Western think tanks, academia, the news media and law enforcement and intelligence services, to become Lotus Eaters. Much milk had been spilled concerning Eastern intelligence operations after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dutiful Kalugin had been tasked one more time by his “former” masters in Moscow, to get some of it back into the bottle. Putin felt that there was a threat posed by revelations by KGB officers eager to please book publishers, magazine editors, and television producers than an effort to establish power over the intelligence service left over from Soviet times, including the old boy network of retirees. If any talking had to be done, Putin likely would have preferred pushing out a message strictly controlled by the Kremlin amounting to a curious sort of ventriloquism. Active measures had come home. Kalugin came to the personal attention of Putin himself. Kalugin from what was presented was the very soul of discretion. There was presumably nothing to fear from him. He was not snooping round corridors. However, there was an apparent sense of anger toward Kalugin in the Kremlin not only because he ostensibly traded in on his knowledge of the service, but that he told enough to stir a sense of betrayal. Among Kalugin’s former KGB colleagues who would eventually people Putin’s government, were the same adversaries from the organization who could not hold a candle to him in the industry. They did not have his stature, only reputations for wrongdoing, oppression. Thus, envy and jealousy were also the likely culprits for their odium toward Kalugin as much as anything else. Kalugin would be solely portrayed in a negative light by Putin and his senior aides and advisors. To hear Kalugin speak of Putin, it is clear that the leader had become a perfect monster in his eyes. While Kalugin was lecturing in the US in 2002, he was put on trial for treason in absentia in Moscow, in part for certain revelations placed in First Directorate, and consequently sentenced to 15 years in prison. Kalugin now appears relatively serene. Through his words, one recognizes that he has come to terms with his role in an extremely dangerous and dynamic organization. Kalugin became a US citizen on August 4, 2003. Kalugin would insist that Putin would love to send a message to the US by harming him. At the present, with Donald Trump as US President, the harsh consequences of Moscow doing such would with assurity far outmatch any possible gain, psychic or otherwise.

Critiquing First Directorate

Perhaps it may be revealing too much, but without pretension, greatcharlie must admit initially feeling somewhat ambivalent about reviewing First Directorate, unsure of being knowledgeable enough to judge the written work of such an extraordinary professional as Kalugin. Suffice it to say that it must be left to readers of this review, who will hopefully also read First Directorate, to determine whether greatcharlie got it right. Seeking out Kalugin’s memoir, one might discover as greatcharlie did that his1994 book was published in English under two titles: First under First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West published by St. Martin’s Press, as it is reviewed here; and, Spymaster: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West published by Smith Gryphon Publishers. In a 2009 revised edition of Spymaster: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage against the West, rev. ed. (Basic Books, 2009), in which the text is enhanced with greater details about his cases. In a new Epilogue, discusses developments in his personal life since the book’s first publication. Upon examining the text of each edition, one cannot help but be impressed by the care invested in the creation of this work. As indicated on the cover of both titles, Kalugin completed the book with the assistance of the journalist and former head of theMoscow Bureau of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fen Montaigne. Surely Montaigne’s contribution was useful and important. Still, anyone fortunate enough to have heard Kalugin speak publicly or review recordings of his many news media interviews and presentations at colleges, universities, think tanks, foreign policy associations and societies on YouTube, could attest that his command of the English language is superb. Indeed, he writes First Directorate in a way that is clear, concise, and flawless grammatically. Surely, Kalugin would have had little difficulty actually establishing himself as a novelist or nonfiction writer in the West if he had chosen to do so. Kalugin initially developed his proficiency in English to serve as an element of his tradecraft overseas. It did, as he used the unofficial cover in the US of Soviet journalist. He had to comfortably communicate with others and fully comprehend the world in which he was immersed. Kalugin was also proficient in German and Arabic.

Kalugin hangs what he provides In First Directorate’s 374 pages on two chronologies: the chronology of his career; and a historical chronology, neatly pairing events of his times and experiences he had which were directly connected to them. The titles of books chapters mark milestones of a life lived. They include: “A Stalinist Boyhood”; “Washington Station”; “The Spy Game”; and, “Exile”. Kalugin jumps into his story as early as the Prologue with an anecdote from his formative years as a KGB officer, working in the US under non-official cover. Indeed, Kalugin offers readers bits and pieces on the Cook case, which involved a US scientist from the US defense contractor, Thiokol, who became his and the KGB’s prize recruit. It proved to be a particularly important episode for Kalugin. He later discusses how the echoes of that case ultimately shaped the outcome of his career. Having set the reader off on that track, Kalugin then formally begins the memoir, allowing the reader to learn about his formative years. Readers are provided an understanding of how he came to accept Communism from top to toe in the traditional sense, how that shaped his worldview, his choice for a career, and how he got into the KGB. As he retraces his steps, he begins skillfully peopling the world in which he allows his readers. For instance, readers learned about his father and the psychic influence that he had on Kalugin due to his position in the the Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) or NKVD, a forerunner of the KGB. He provides enough about each personage, allowing for the creation of a full image of the individual in the reader’s mind. Having shared memories from his early years, Kalugin begins discussing his career in Soviet foreign intelligence. Interestingly, his connection to the intelligence service began as early as the years of his formal education. It all neatly blends together.

First Directorate is far from dull, plodding, or pedantic. As for the mechanics of his method, once Kalugin decided what he is going to offer, he did so with a pace that could be called a very smooth and normalized ejection fraction–stealing a term from the medical industry concerning the measure of blood pumped out with each heartbeat. The anecdotes told are the blood which keeps makes Kalugin’s story lively, informative, edifying, and satisfying. Kalugin does not simply unload ideas and hope the reader does not get lost in the weeds when they encounter what seems to be abstraction, due perhaps to a lack of in-depth knowledge about the spy business. One will discover that as the situations he describes evolve, characters evolve, and Kalugin evolves. Kalugin makes no assumptions about the reader’s ability to grasp all that is going on in the text in terms of tradecraft and the spy business. He does not take for granted how much the reader can absorb from what he teaches. Rather, he takes control of that process, apportioning how much of the story he feels would be appropriate. When he feels the reader should be ready for more, Kalugin increases quantity and complexity in his anecdotes. To that extent that he does all of this, Kalugin uses what could be best described as a pedagogy for developing the reader’s understanding of the world he is moving them through.

Kalugin creates a sense of immediateness to what he writes. He would often build tension on the book’s pages while doing that. Indeed, many anecdotes he relates, great and small, are truly edge of seat, nail-biting stuff. Of the cases that he selected to detail, each had its own set of intriguing complications, stirring and engaging the interests of the reader. As for what he shares, his style of presentation, his pace, Kalugin’s efforts are nothing less than brilliant, and greatcharlie has come across nothing better. He beautifully provides the mise en scène using crisp description of surroundings. He marvellously constructs in the mind’s eye of readers a certain atmosphere and desired theatrical effect. Unless greatcharlie is extremely mistaken, he paints with words in a way that will cause First Directorate’s readers to find themselves, at the same time while fortunately sitting in at some safe spot, feeling as if they are actually present on the scene that he describes, watching everything transpire perfectly through the mind’s eye.

It would be an understatement to say First Directorate did not have paeans written about in 1994 when published in the US. Indeed, Kalugin’s book was not really appreciated or welcomed. Through book reviews, one can pick up on a reviewer’s disposition generally, and can gain a good insight about a reviewer’s perceptiveness and thinking. (In that vein, readers can perhaps gain some degree of insight into how greatcharlie thinks given what is noted here as important about First Directorate.) Perhaps 1994 reactions were due to the proximity of the book’s publishing to the so-called end of the Cold War, marked with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Feelings within journalistic and literary circles about the Soviet Union and all connected to it were still decidedly negative, even hostile. It was likely those sensibilities that influenced the thinking of reviewers of First Directorate. The following is a sample of the reviews it received. In a October 13, 1994 review in the Washington Post, Amy Knight did little to conceal her disdain for Kalugin. Knight wrote: “Though he proclaimed himself a democrat in 1990 and denounced the KGB, Kalugin had spent more than three decades determinedly trying to undermine Western democracies. His book tells us a great deal about the KGB’s operations during the Cold War, but it also raises anew the question of how we should react to the confessions of erstwhile enemies.” Distrustful of his intentions in the foregoing statement, she evinced her concern over Kalugin’s integrity with the words: “Kalugin can hardly be criticized if he wrote this book simply to make money. After all, we in the West have been encouraging Russians to become entrepreneurs. But did he have another, darker purpose? Is it possible that Kalugin’s much-publicized denunciation of the KGB was stage-managed to give him credibility in the West, so that he would be believed when he told people that he knew of no KGB moles in the CIA?” In a December 25, 1994 review in the Baltimore Sun, entitled, “The Spy Who Loved It: Tales from a KGB Life”, Scott Shane begins by stating: “In ‘The First Directorate,’ written with the assistance of former Philadelphia Inquirer Moscow correspondent Fen Montaigne, Mr. Kalugin tells his engrossing story and tells it well. Focusing on Kalugin as KGB intelligence officer, he notes: “A spy lives by his powers of observation and memory, and they equally serve the autobiographer.” Shane reveals his suspicions of Kalugin, writing: “Mr. Kalugin, whose perpetually raised eyebrows give him a look that is at once untrusting and untrustworthy, nicely illustrates the habit of lying spies naturally develop. Indeed, Mr. Kalugin is so candid about the cheerful Iagoan malice with which he did his dirty work that his occasional, self-described twinges of conscience come across as unconvincing. As his story almost unconsciously makes clear, it was not the KGB’s brutality that turned him against the agency.” Having stated that, Shane completes his review somewhat positively, saying: “One need not wholeheartedly admire Mr. Kalugin, however, to enjoy his story. It is a reminder that in the wake of the Soviet collapse, we have learned a good deal more about the KGB than we have learned about the CIA and its sister agencies on the other side of the Cold War.” On November 9, 1994 in composite review of post-cold-war scholarship on Lenin, the atomic bomb, and KGB espionage in the Christian Science Monitor, Leonard Bushkoff stated about First Directorate: “After the beautifully crafted books by Holloway and Kapuscinski, there is a letdown in The First Directorate: My 32 Years In Intelligence and Espionage Against the West, the bureaucratic memoirs of Oleg Kalugin, a retired KGB major-general whose authoritative visage has graced American television. His book–written with Fen Montaigne–is filled with lively tidbits about operating in the United States, recruiting agents, roaming the world on this or that mission – and enjoying the perks. Bushkoff goes on the say: “The ideological disillusionment that Kalugin insists began in the 1980s is unconvincing in this ambitious career-minded official, who now presents himself as a liberal, democratic political figure.” Among professional reviewers, there seemed to be more of a willingness to beg off on uncoated expressions of suspicion over Kalugin’s intentions and actions, and even more, his character as with the foregoing. In Booklist, a book-review magazine that has been published by the American Library Association for more than 100 years, Gilbert Taylor wrote in August 1994: “After he had been cashiered from the KGB in 1990, Kalugin blazed into prominence as a critic of the pervasive spy empire. But oddly enough, he remains a professional loyal to the spook’s ethos: tell no tales out of school. Although frank about generalities, he ventures few blockbusting specifics that haven’t popped up elsewhere in the post-cold war wave of espionage books, but this memoir of a stellar career in the secret service is, nonetheless, engrossing for aficionados.” Taylor finishes his review noting: “Filled with anecdotes linked by personal journey from Stalinist true believer to champion democrat, Kalugin’s account of life in the secret world will haul in all spy buffs–a number to be augmented by a full-press publicity push.”

Given Kalugin’s former profession, spying, it would be fair to ponder whether the book relates truth, fiction, or something in between. Indeed, some readers may wonder whether one of the main elements of spying, promoting fraud, influenced his writing of First Directorate. As aforementioned, Kalugin has the skills to provide a colorful description of a man, and ascribing vibrant characteristics, impressive associations, and intriguing experiences to him. It also cannot be stated with absolute certainty by greatcharlie Kalugin actually loosed-off a full-frontal on himself as well as the KGB. However, greatcharlie is convinced that while there may very likely be certain omissions from his anecdotes, Kalugin presents the truth about himself in First Directorate. That truth about himself is rich enough, and would hardly require any embellishment. Although Kalugin’s intelligence career was amazing and his superb work in the KGB that made him more desirable to his new country’s government, there was more to Kalugin than his work. Some might feel Kaligin does quite a bit of preening in First Directorate. However, perhaps a second thought might be given to that idea backed by the consideration that among specialists, masters of a particular craft, there is typically a desire to look over their shoulders, to detail what has transpired, and to scrutinize themselves and their actions technically and tactically. Chronicling the past on paper, the convivial Kalugin also seemed to recount it all in his soul and spirit. As Kalugin dredges around himself, to discuss his contacts with people and memories of events, he willingly opens the kimono on his conscience. In the Preface of The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts, the 18th century English romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote: ”The highest moral purpose aimed at in the highest species of drama is the teaching the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself.”

The symbol of the KGB (above). It should not be overlooked that all that Kalugin discusses in First Directorate is actually couched in an overarching discussion of the operations of the giant Soviet state security service, the KGB. The KGB was gloriously called the Soviet Union’s ”Sword and Shield” and the “Vanguard of Communism.” Its primary responsibilities of the KGB were: foreign intelligence; counterintelligence; operatives investigatory activities, protecting the Soviet border, protecting the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government; organization and security of government communications; and combatting nationalism, dissent, and anti-Soviet activities.

What Was the KGB?

It should not be overlooked that all that Kalugin discusses in First Directorate is actually couched in an overarching discussion of the operations of the giant Soviet state security service, the KGB. At the risk of being perceived as tiresome to those who already know much on the subject, some of the basics about the behemoth Soviet security organization are laid out here by greatcharlie for those less-familiar with it. The KGB was gloriously called the Soviet Union’s ”sword and shield” and the “Vanguard of Communism.” Its primary responsibilities of the KGB were: foreign intelligence; counterintelligence; operatives investigatory activities, protecting the Soviet border, protecting the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government; organization and security of government communications; and combatting nationalism, dissent, and anti-Soviet activities. Headquartered at Lubyanka Square, 2 Moscow, the KGB was well-situated, well-equipped, to cope with external, foreign threats to the system, counterrevolutionaries and reactionaries internally, as well as organized criminals and the black market. Its manpower would steadily grow in parallel with its activities and influence, reaching a total of 496,000. A large portion of that number included the Pogranichnyie Voiska KGB CCCP (Border Troops of the KGB USSR), a defense against threats from land, air, sea to Soviet territory. In 1989, the organization’s strength was estimated at 230,000 covering 63,000 kilometers of the Soviet border. There were additional smaller formations and independent units. Its land air and maritime troops and sailors functioned under the Main Directorate of the Border Troops which was subordinated to the First Deputy Chairman of the KGB. The Vtoroye Glavnoye Upravleniye (Second Chief Directorate) or VGU was the Internal Security Service of the KGB. Among Soviet citizens at home and abroad, it was the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate in a paranoid search for Soviet enemies and never ending quest to maintain total control over the Soviet Union’s population that unnerved and struck terror in their hearts as they tried innocently going about their daily business. In Hollywood, a sure-shot way to create a dark, mystifying picture of life in the Soviet Union was to depict scenes in which ordinary Soviet citizens would occasionally be taken aside by the KGB and asked: “Show me your identity card” or, make the more polite request, “Identity card please.” It would capture the flavor of Soviet rule and have the chilling effect on audiences, accurately illustrating how alien and atrocious life was in the Soviet Union and under Communism in general. The KGB was to be avoided by the ordinary Soviet citizen as best as possible. During Kalugin’s time, the KGB truly had a grip on everything except the Communist Party organization. Even then, the KGB was also known to play an important part in the allocation of power and authority by Soviet leaders after Stalin’s death, being drawn into the arena of internecine conflict among them. Perhaps it could be said that all Soviet citizens sailed the same sea but KGB members did so in different boats. The nomenklatura in the Soviet Union, or high ranking management of government bureaucracies and Communist Party functionaries, reigned as the main authorities in the country, ironically becoming the de facto aristocracy in its society, and entitled themselves to opportunities and privileges unavailable to ordinary citizens. The apparatchiks, or government bureaucrats, who actually oversaw the KGB’s abhorrent work of keeping the Soviet people under the thumb of their government, saw themselves as being indispensable members of an indispensable Soviet instrumentality. Most generally believed that as a benefit of being a member of the KGB, there was little chance that the conditions which beset ordinary Soviet citizens would impact their circumstances until discovering otherwise. Nimia illæc licentia profecto evadet in aliquod magnum malum. (This excessive license will most certainly eventuate in some great evil.)

The history and organization of the KGB’s foreign intelligence service, which directly concerns Kalugin’s career, well reflected the nature of its global mission and how that mission was performed. In 1917, the post-Bolshevik Revolution Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) secret police was founded and designated Vserossiyskaya Chrezvychaynaya Komissiya Po Borbe S Kontrrevolyutsiyey I Sabotazhem Pri Sovete Narodnykh Komisarov RSFSR (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution, Speculation and Sabotage under the Council of People’s Commissary of the RSFSR) better known as the Cheka. It was Soviet Premier Vladimir Lenin, himself, who characterized the Cheka as the sword and shield of Communism. In those postwar years, Soviet internal security, foreign intelligence, and counterintelligence organizations went through a period of transformation donning an alphabet soup of titles. As outlined in Henry S. A. Becket, The Dictionary of Espionage: Spookspeak into English (Stein & Day, 1986), its various iterations included: 1922-1923, Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie (State Political Administration) or GPU; 1923-1934, Obedinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenye (Unified State Political Administration) or OGPU; 1934-1938, Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) or NKVD; 1938-1946, Narodnyi Komissariat Gosudarstvennoe Bezopasnosti (People’s Commissariat for State Security) and Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) or NKGB-NKVD, placing police and security functions under one chief; and, 1946-1953, Ministerstvo Vnuirennikh Del (Ministry for Internal Affairs) and Ministerstvh Gosudarstvennoe Bezopasnosti (Ministry for State Security) or MVD-MGB. Eventually all of the non-military security functions were organized in what was dubbed the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (the Committee for State Security) or the KGB. Founded upon the experiences of other iterations of Soviet state security, the new KGB had no need to shed baby fat as it were. It was populated by men and women made of the same solid stuff of those who around 20 years before defended Leningrad and Stalingrad and drove Germany and its allies eastward until they reached Berlin. However, things are seldom perfect in any organization.

KGB’s leadership included its Chairman, the First Deputy Chairman (there could be more than one), Deputy Chairman (as many as 4 to 6), a policy Collegium, which included a chairman, a deputy chairman, the directorate chiefs, and the KGB chairmen of the Soviet republics. As aforementioned, Pervoye Glavnoye Upravieniye (First Chief Directorate) or PGU of the KGB which was the element responsible for foreign operations and intelligence activities and concerned Kalugin’s work. As such, the First Chief Directorate would provide for the training and management of covert agents, intelligence collection administration, and the acquisition of foreign and domestic political, scientific and technical intelligence. According to Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, Comrade Kryuchkov’s Instructions: Top Secret Files on KGB Foreign Operations, 1975-1985 (Stanford University Press, 1993), the KGB included the following directorates, services and departments during Kalugin’s years there. Included among the directorates and services were: Directorate R: Operational Planning and Analyses; Directorate S: Illegals (agents inserted into societies, blending in, but carrying out orders from Moscow.

Forged documents, establishes themselves as citizens of the host country.); Directorate T: Scientific and Technical Intelligence (collected scientific, technological, and military information through espionage. Targets were in the Western industrial sector.); Directorate K: Counter-Intelligence: (infiltration of all the foreign special service operations: intelligence, counter-intelligence, police forces worldwide); Directorate OT: Operational and Technical Support; Directorate I: Computers; Directorate RT: Operations in USSR; Directorate V: “Wet affairs” (track down traitors, sabotage, assist international revolution, terrorism, and act in time of war.); Service A: Active Measures (disinformation, propaganda, forgery; support of front organizations, underground movements, revolutionary insurgencies, criminal and terrorist groups; Service R: radio communications; and, Service A of the 8th Chief Directorate at the First Chief Directorate (the code section).

Operations broke down regionally and functionally in the following departments: First Department: US and Canada; Second Department: Latin America; Third Department: United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Malta; Fourth Department: East Germany, West Germany, Austria; Fifth Department: Benelux countries, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania; Sixth Department: China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea; Seventh Department: Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines; Eighth Department: non-Arab Near Eastern countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Israel; Ninth Department: English-speaking Africa; Tenth Department: French-speaking Africa; Eleventh Department: liaison with Socialist states; Thirteenth Department: direct action, “assassination,” of enemies abroad and at home; Fifteenth Department: registry and archives, security of government installations; Sixteenth Department: signals intelligence and operations against Western code clerks; Seventeenth Department: India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma; Eighteenth Department: Arab Near Eastern Countries and Egypt; Nineteenth Department: Soviet Union Emigres; and, Twentieth Department: liaison with Third World states. It must be noted that special attention was given to the UN by the First Chief Directorate. The UN provided a peaceful, respectful, diplomatic forum for international dialogue, yet it was the site of extensive Soviet activities inside the UN during the Cold War. Impartial UN employees from Eastern Bloc also employed by KGB. Ideals and goals of the UN not followed. The orders that they would obey only came from KGB.

Beyond its own operations, the First Chief Directorate very successfully directed and controlled other Eastern Bloc intelligence services that were very often operating under the radar in many countries around the world. The officers of those aligned intelligence services certainly did not in any form akin to the Malgré-nous of the Alsace-Moselle performed for the German Waffen-SS during World War II. The product of many Eastern Bloc intelligence services actually far exceeded expectations as well as the capabilities of their Soviet task masters. Case in point was the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance), the foreign intelligence service of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic). Under the skilled leadership of Markus Wolf, its Western foes even had to acknowledge that it was probably the most efficient and effective such service on the European continent

The author as a teen (above). As a teen, Kalugin devoured the books of Arkady Gaidar, which included stories of young characters doing courageous and noble deeds for Motherland. It planted seed in Kalugin’s mind of becoming a secret service officer. Those feelings were intensified when he attended camp for children of secret police. He met with university students attending the Security Ministry’s Higher School. Kalugin saw them as confident, fun loving. Kalugin stated: “I wanted to be like those dashing officer trainees, and a career in the Intelligence Service beckoned.” At 17, he decided to join the intelligence service. With an English proficiency and strong academic capabilities, he was well qualified.

Kalugin’s Early Years and Career Choice

In illo viro, Tatum robur corporis et Naomi fuit, it quocunque loco Angus esset, Fortuna facturus. (In that man there was such oak-like strength of body and mind that whatever his rank by birth might have been, he gave promise of attaining the highest place in the lists of fortune.) As has been the case with previous reviews, greatcharlie most enjoys examining a memoir to understand what sort of individual develops into who the author became. In its review of First Directorate, greatcharlie explores how, from youth to his earliest years in the KGB, how Kalugin evolved into the man he is today.

At least from what he shares, his early life was entertaining, pleasurable to recall rather than filled with dissatisfaction, disappointment, and hard lessons. Indeed, Kalugin relates the days of his youth with a subtle humor, recounting the efforts of a young man trying to make his way through life. Kalugin was raised in a “sleeping district” outside of Leningrad, something akin to a French banlieue. His circumstances seemed relatively ordinary, however, his father worked for the NKVD. Kalugin’s father, Danil, was a dark haired, handsome man with facial features revealing a Tartar blood trace. He was not well educated, but by Kalugin’s description a solid man, who cared for his family. After serving In the Red Army in the 1920s, he sought work in Leningrad, and that is when he landed a job as security guard for the secret police, then known as the NKVD. When Kalugin grew up, his father was working at the Headquarters building in Smolny. (Interestingly, in the KGB, officers who were the children of officers and former officers of the security services are affectionately referred to as Chekisty (Chekists), a name derived from the first security service in Communist Russia mentioned earlier, the Cheka. Some would come from families whose “roots” go back to the beginnings of the Communist Party as Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. Children raised in the Chekist community, attending schools and a university Chekists’ progeny typically attended.)

Kalugin’s mother Klavdia, came from a family of skilled factory workers from St Petersburg for more than a century. Based on the manner in which he described himself, Kalugin was clearly a bon garçon, born with a good soul, nourished by a fine family and appropriate associations in his youth. Unfortunately, he was born during a wave of terror in which 29 to 40 million Russians were killed, and a dark shadow hung over Russia. When Nazi Germany invaded Russia, Kalugin travelled wuth his mother to stayed in Omsk, Siberia. His father remained in Smolny, guarding Party elite. Kalugin and his mother returned to Leningrad after a 900 day siege. Only her sister survived the war. Other seven members among 27 million lost during war. This clearly had an impact on the young Kalugin. Dogma among Russians in the immediate postwar period was to say that Russia’s victory in the so-called Great Patriotic War proved Communist system was best. The defeat of the Nazis proved to Kalugin and his young compatriots that Soviet Union was invincible. Still, it went much further for Kalugin. He confirms in First Directorate that from the days of his youth he was absolutely subsumed by Communism; he was a true believer, and that perspective colored every decision he made. He yearned for the opportunity to defend his political ideals, defend his country, and fight on behalf of the Communist Movement. Kalugin’s political leanings did not make him a zealous firebrand.

Unless greatcharlie is terribly mistaken, as he grew, Kalugin appears to have been gentle in temperament, but at the same time a mature boy, not showy, but within possessing a burning ambition with an idea of where to place it. Kalugin undertook the path toward excellence as a Communist with a great sense of ritual. He joined the Young Pioneers at an early age, and in his teens, he became involved with Kommisol. These were the sort of activities that types such as Kalugin went for. One could posit that as a result of his indoctrination in the Soviet Union, Kalugin genuinely viewed Communism as a coherent ideology and provided a clear direction. For the Communist, too, hope supported imagination and drove the individual’s faith in the system. Faith supported and drove the individual’s action to achieve. Despite violent outcomes of KGB dealings with his fellow citizens, Kalugin would have likely confided that there was no reason to argue the point. In his heyday during Staliin’s era of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, Kalugin likely would have looked any Western accusers directly in the eye and declared it all as Western disinformation, compelled by their bourgeoisie sense of morality to falsely critique the “superior” Soviet system any way they can. Much of what Soviet citizens were told about their country’s government, its security apparatus, its leaders, and its place in the world was filtered out by Moscow leaving what was reasonably bad out. Given the Kremlin insistence on concealing the truth about the country, many indoctrinated adherents of the system would contribute to their misunderstanding of it by doing their own filtering. Thus, the rest of what was understood of the Soviet Union, typically shaped by the desire to create the best picture of their country as possible, was usually just conjecture. It also made reasonable sense to those as Kalugin, psychically bound to the Soviet system, that there would always be the occasional differences of opinion over how efficiently something was done or how the government might have handled a matter more effectively under the Socialist framework. Amabilis insania. (Fond illusion.)

As a teen, he devoured the books of Arkady Gaidar, which included stories of young characters doing courageous and noble deeds for Motherland. It planted seed in Kalugin’s mind of becoming a secret service officer. Those feelings were intensified when he attended camp for children of secret police. He met with university students attending the Security Ministry’s Higher School. Kalugin saw them as confident, fun loving. They sang songs in English and Russian to campers to younger students. Kalugin stated: “I wanted to be like those dashing officer trainees, and a career in the Intelligence Service beckoned.” Kalugin had never assumed that he would have an ordinary life. Kalugin saw possible work in the state security service as more than a job. For him, it was a grand opportunity to support and defend his political ideals. Kalugin and his cohorts believe they were born to be men of action. Each wanted to be a pride to his fellow countrymen. For Kalugin, as with most of his young colleagues, the KGB offered a solid basis for believing that the Soviet system could be protected and sustained. The KGB, as a central organ of the government, ostensibly had the know-how and the resources to prevent the Soviet Union, and the contiguous countries of the Eastern bloc that it led, from falling into a chaotic condition. There was a perspective once common in the Soviet Union, and perhaps holds a place today in the Russian Federation, that in an heroic way, Kalugin and his KGB comrades were making good on the sacrifices of the previous generation of Soviet citizens in the Motherland’s defense. Kalugin explained that at 17, he decided to join the intelligence service, then called the MGB. With an English proficiency and strong academic capabilities, he felt qualified. Kalugin’s father, Danil strongly objected. As he worked for the NKVD, his father knew only too well what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin, and. Indeed, he witnessed first-hand–from the screams he heard as a jail guard to the countless Communist Party bosses he saw disappear during his days at Smolny–what the glorious security services were doing to the Soviet people. Danil Kalugin secretly told his son about what he had seen and heard in the security forces. He explained to Kalugin that was what the NKVD was really all about; violence, torture, death. He did not want his son involved with the dirty work of the NKVD.

Isthuc est sapere non quod ante pedes modo est videre sed etiam illa quæ futura sunt prospicere. (True wisdom consists not in seeking that which is immediately before our eyes, but in the foresight of that which may happen.) Strangely enough, Kalugin explains that his father’s stories made the life of a secret policeman seem even more intriguing. Kalugin put it this way: “After all, wasn’t the KGB on the front line of the battle against capitalism and world imperialism? The thought of dying for one’s country and the Socialist ideal stirred my blood. His talk of screaming prisoners didn’t sound nice, but I asked myself, What else can you expect in a bitter struggle with our enemies?” Kalugin was held captive by the idea and ideals of Communism and too easily overcome by the seeming prestige, the power, and the draw of it all. With his romanticized visions of a career in the state security service, he was too excited to look both ways, too young and inexperienced to intuit where it all might lead. While Kalugin’s very caring father did his level best to dissuade his son from joining the security service but was not able to fully comprehend what he was telling him, that the security service was not something ideal, not an organization of “superheroes,” but a real place with real people, and certain unusual men worked in the state security service. As he moved through the years at KGB, Kalugin would slowly come to realize exactly what his father told him about the security service’s horrors. Four decades later, Kalugin, more mature, more experienced, more insightful, explained to readers much as his father tried to explain to him what he unexpectedly experienced in the intelligence service. What Kalugin expresses sometimes plainly, but most often subtly, throughout in First Directorate, is that from his first days of training to the day of his retirement, some KGB personnel, not all, did not appear to be well-vetted psychologically to perform their function given the behaviors they displayed. Surely, among the KGB’s internal security elements, there were acts of undue severity and abominable cruelty committed, bordering, if not fully manifesting, sadism. Such monstrous individuals appeared absolutely unhinged from the reality that they were serving the Soviet government, not themselves, and that their authority came from the government, not themselves. Much of that was already well-known.

In the more elite KGB formations, officers were engaged in more complex and challenging tasks, were further vetted and had received extensive training However, Kalugin also gets across that problems similar to those that impacted the internal security section also existed among some employees of the more elite intelligence sections. (Examine the text very closely; such statements are really there!) Surely, this was a very important matter for Kalugin as he repeatedly makes a point of describing the many different personalities that he encountered in the KGB. His depiction of them left no doubt that they had no business being in the organization. As readers will discover late in the book, such individuals got the ball rolling in the right direction to lower the curtain on Kalugin’s career. The indications and implications of the insights Kalugin shares concerning the KGB’s organizational well-being were that a nexus existed between the decaying performance of the KGB and the eventual collapse of the Soviet system. True, KGB recruits were strenuously vetted through training, yet some who did not openly manifest any deficiencies while under the watchful eyes of instructors apparently got through. More than a few violent, overzealous, under motivated, dishonorable, and vengeful individuals, suffering from a wide range of other pathologies, would move up through its ranks. As the success of each directorate, department, and service of the KGB was dependent on the quality and consistency of the performance of individuals in their respective positions, these bad hires given their troubling actions and the ugly environment they would create, managed to have a damaging impact upon the organization over time. (The uneven thinking and anomalous behavior Kalugin reports was exhibited by some clearly misplaced KGB officers, is actually a phenomenon common to many large intelligence services. It is very possible that deep-seated emotional difficulties or disorders are stimulated and amplified in the individual working in an intelligence services due to the unique responsibilities of the job, rather broad authority one possesses, unusual and morally questionable activities required, and potent stressors that strain. The thinking and behavior noted here was recently evinced in the record of activities undertaken by members of the US Intelligence Community who vigorously sought to destroy reputations and the lives of several innocent individuals inside and outside of the Trump administration. It was an apparent venomous, mentally unbalanced quest to force the collapse of Trump’s presidency. The exact reasons for their behavior will likely be difficult to identify until facts about them and their actions are fully known. Unfortunately, honorable men and women in the intelligence services run up against such damaged individuals in their organizations more often than they should.)

After graduating from high school in Leningrad, Kalugin passed four entrance exams with high marks and qualified for service in the MGB. In 1952, Kalugin began his studies at the Institute of Foreign Languages of the MGB in Leningrad. There was only one other school similar to it for MGB officer training in the Soviet Union, the Higher School in Moscow. As mentioned earlier, in the immediate postwar period, Ministerstvo Vnuirennikh Del (Ministry for Internal Affairs) and Ministerstvh Gosudarstvennoe Bezopasnosti (Ministry for State Security) were combined to form the MVD-MGB. Kalugin graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages with honors. Kalugin notes that at time of his graduation, his father was suffering as a result of a sharp decrease in KGB wages ordered by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in an effort to reign in the heavy-handed security service and he was subsisting with partition employment offered by friends. Yet, despite his own situation and his expressed misgivings about his son’s career choice, Kalugin’s father told him that he was proud of his achievement. By then the MVD-MGB had become the KGB. The next step for Kalugin was more specialized training at the KGB Higher Intelligence School No. 101 or Advanced Spy School in Moscow. At the Advanced Spy School–later renamed the Andropov Red Banner Institute by the KGB and now called the Academy of Foreign Intelligence–Kalugin was trained as an Arabist, and in the course of his education, he studied the Middle East in detail. Kalugin was trained in tradecraft and prepared for technical work in the field. He learned how to set up radio transmitters, to use and detect bugging devices, to make microfilm and how to conceal microfilm and microdots in household items, how to cultivate intelligence assets, coding/decoding and cryptology, location orienting when dropped into unfamiliar locations, how to use a gun, how to tail people invisibly, how to detect when being tailed, how to evade all kinds of surveillance, and how to pass a package without being noticed even when being tailed. As his training came to a close, the leadership identified him for distribution to the most complex and prestigious First Foreign Intelligence Department, which, as aforementioned, dealt with the US and Canada. He was also informed that he would be joining a group of young people to take a graduate course in the US. As he relates the early days of his career, Kalugin appears to be transported to a place of happiness. The 20th century US philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, John Dewey said: “To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.”

Kalugin (center right) with Soviet cohorts at Columbia University. Kalugin initially came to the US in September 1958 to attend the Columbia University School of Journalism as one of 17 ostensible students from the Soviet Union to arrive under the Fulbright exchange program. In reality, half of them, including the 24-year-old Kalugin, were officers from Soviet intelligence services. Before going to the US, Alexander Feliksov, Head of the KGB’s North American Department instructed Kalugin: “Just lay the foundation for future work. But don’t overstep the line. Now that you’ve been picked to go to America, make it your business to learn more about the country. Buy yourself good maps. Improve your English. Find out about their way of life. Communicate with people and make as many friends as possible.”

Kalugin’s First Visit to the US

Kalugin initially came to the US in September 1958 to attend the Columbia University School of Journalism as one of 17 ostensible students from the Soviet Union to arrive under the Fulbright exchange program that year, and the first Soviet citizens to study in the US since the end of World War II. In reality, half of them, including the 24 year old Kalugin, were actually representing Soviet intelligence services. He was already a lieutenant in the KGB. Before he left, Alexander Feliisov, the Head of the KGB’s North American Department instructed Kalugin: “Just lay the foundation for future work. But don’t overstep the line. Now that you’ve been picked to go to America, make it your business to learn more about the country. Buy yourself good maps. Improve your English. Find out about their way of life. Communicate with people and make as many friends as possible.” In New York, Kalugin came in contact with a culture alien to him. He tried to better understand it by experiencing as much of it as possible. Kalugin was impressed by Manhattan; the power, the beauty, the bustle. Other worldly creations, skyscrapers, the Empire State Building. He travelled throughout the city, no restrictions were placed on his movement. He would ride the subway for hours. He saw 100 films and visited clubs in Greenwich Village. Soon enough, the haunts and pleasures of the elite class became his stomping ground, too! He attended Broadway musicals, the Metropolitan Opera, and visited Manhattan’s many museums. Extremely impressive to Kalugin were giant department stores well stocked with a diversity of items and supermarkets with their abundance of fresh food, unheard of in the Soviet Union, known for shortages of everything and long breadlines. It is here, early on in the book that the reader has the opportunity to enjoy the vividness of Kalugin’s descriptions. One can imagine him taking in the sights, the sounds, the smells, the touch, the impact of the city on the young Soviet citizen. His level of thrill and enjoyment, though expressed on paper, is all made so palpable

Kalugin recognized that FBI operatives sought to make clandestine contacts with him at Columbia University, but did not experience such problems outside the school. At Columbia, he wrote for the school newspaper. He was elected to the Student Council. Kalugin curried enough curiosity by his presence in New York that the New York Times interviewed the young Fulbright Scholar for a human interest article which was given plenty of page space and garnered a lot of attention. Kalugin would venture outside of New York to Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, and Washington. He also travelled through Iowa and Wisconsin. People were mostly very friendly to him. He admitted his happiness with all that was good gave him joy, but it also created a spark of doubt about his own world back home. His prescience, however, served him well as he kept his eyes wide open. He never took any experience to its furthest extreme to consider how he would fit into such a world. He would take note that the US had visible flaws. He noticed problems of poverty in Bronx Bowery, and Harlem. Kalugin also discovered endemic racial prejudice and ethnic and social discrimination. He learned about clashes over civil rights as well as voting rights and labor laws. He kept in his head that Soviet Union had a longer way to go, given what he saw in the US, but its vitality would overcome the US which would very likely stumble over its own deficiencies.

As his experience at Columbia University evinced, counterintelligence officers of the FBI and CIA likely had eyes on Kalugin as soon as he arrived in New York. What was akin to present-day FBI SSG surveillance teams and their typically maladroit surveillance contractors, would have been assigned to watch his every move. The insistence of his superiors that he remain untangled with anything before him was presumably based on their judgments on that strong likelihood. The alert sounded over FBI counterintelligence efforts was intriguing as it indicated that somber and astute KGB officers would heavily factor in FBI surveillance and attempts at clandestine contacts in all activities in the US to include mundane tasks of daily life such commuting, shopping, exercising, visiting museums, attending the opera, going to the movies and engaging in other recreational activities. Aa Kalugin goes on to explain, the rather heavy hand of FBI counterintelligence would prove most apparent at social events, receptions, dinners, cocktail parties, and gatherings in private homes.

While Kalugin’s contact with Soviet émigré named Anatoly that he gave the pseudonym Cook, who was a scientist at Thiokol has regularly been chalked up to luck, there is the possibility that it was not so unusual. Kalugin was not the only one involved in the recruitment; Cook had a say in the matter. There was an awareness in the US, especially among educated US citizens, as Cook–who it turned out was a Stalinist–that the Soviet Union was an authoritarian, Communust regime. As such, its citizens did not move freely overseas. Those travelling abroad with the approval of the regime would very likely be tethered to it via the KGB. Contact with a Soviet citizen visiting New York and attending an event on technology at the once famous New York Coliseum, would almost guarantee creating a potential link to the KGB. Kalugin’s level of success with Cook albeit was frightfully high. To borrow from cricketing parlance, Cook was a lolly, an easy catch. However, Kalugin did not struggle afterward to duplicate that first success. Rather than focus on trying to capture lightning in a bottle twice, he focused on simply doing his job as best he could. Esse quam videri bonus malebat; ita quo minus petebat gloriam, eo magis illum sequebatur. (He chose to be good rather than to seem good; and so, the less he strove for fame, the closer it followed after him.)

His First Deployment: New York

During his first full operational deployment, Kalugin went back into the US, returning to New York. From June 1960 to March 1964, operated out of the Rezidentura at the Soviet UN Mission, using the cover of Radio Moscow UN correspondent. Kalugin’s true purpose was political intelligence work. Kalugin would send communications with information necessary for the leadership in Moscow under the pseudonym Felix. He spent time cultivating US citizens and diplomats and citizens of other countries at the UN and in New York, who he foresaw could supply the KGB with classified or unclassified information about US foreign and domestic policy. Those in contact with Kalugin were imaginably unaware that he was a KGB officer, collecting useful information from them. Kalugin would also utilize his contacts for active measures. Indeed, active measures activities were not something apart from, but integral to the KGB officer’s day-to-day efforts in the field. Paralleling efforts to determine the political leanings and the degree of compatibility and favorability toward the Soviet viewpoint was spotting, developing, assessing, recruiting and even handling agents. While engaged in active measures, KGB officers would reflexively spout “the party line” on issues of the day with those they encountered while making their social rounds. The intention of injecting the Soviet line and disinformation into conversations in this way was to infect the opinion making process in the US. New York was fertile ground for that activity as it was the center of publishing, newsmedia, writers and “agents of influence,” that would set the US political agenda. He, indeed, had conversations with luminaries in US society from all fields. Not every KGB agent performed this work well. Kalugin did. Indeed, in First Directorate, Kalugin provides an ample idea of how that work transpired in real terms operationally, bringing him triumph and bringing grief to adversarial US counterintelligence officers. Active measures, however, included much more than exchanges of knowledge and sharing news stories. More intense activities, as Kalugin recounted, would include paying for, and helping write, ads in the New York Times signed by prominent and unsuspecting political activists protesting the US involvement in Vietnam. The KGB sent racist letters, supposedly from US citizens, to African diplomats at the UN and has operatives paint swastikas on synagogues and desecrate Jewish cemeteries. Kalugin would visit the site of the vandalism and write reports for Radio Moscow on how anti-Semitism was sweeping the US.

What is particularly interesting about active measures is the double-edged impact the work may have had ultimately. Essentially, all of the information relentlessly propagated by the KGB in the US and the rest of the world, though ostensibly the Soviet line, was false information or disinformation. It was designed not to authentically inform but to shape thinking in a pro-Soviet direction or forment dissatisfaction and social and political unrest in the target country. To that extent, most likely consciously but perhaps subconsciously in the minds of the KGB officer engaged in such work was that the Soviet line, the same one Soviet citizens were hearing at home, was full of lies. Certainly KGB officers were worldly wise enough to know that no strategy should have been necessary to present the truth, for it stands for itself. Activities such as active measures were really being used to defend against or counter the power of the truth. Perchance it was never calculated or officially considered what type of destabilizing impact requiring KGB officers to engage in active measures might have on morale, esprit de corps, honor, loyalty. The impact of KGB officers’ sensibilities may have also played a role in decisions by some to defect. While the ultimate ends of active measure may have justified the means in Moscow Center, the collateral effects of the activity on its personnel may not have. (This causes one to consider what impact former senior and mid-level US intelligence and law enforcement officials who, every ten seconds wrongfully and repeatedly argued in the news media and elsewhere in public that Trump and members of his administration, in truth all guiltless, had colluded with the Russian Federation Government, but meanwhile testified under oath in US Congressional Committees that there was no evidence that they had actually seen that indicated such. In this instance, one could genuinely ruminate on whether one of the main elements of spying, promoting fraud, influenced their perjurious behavior. Ultimately, the conscience of each may by their undoing. In Act V, scene iii of William Shakespeare’s play The Life and Death of Richard the Third, King Richard, on Bosworth Field, confesses: “My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, / And every tongue brings in a several tale, / And every tale condemns me for a villain. / Perjury, perjury, in the high’st degree / Murder, stem murder, in the direst degree; / All several sins, all used in each degree, / Throng to the bar, crying all. Guilty! guilty!”)

In the ordinary sense Kalugin was not engaged in laborious toil as an foreign intelligence officer. Yet, surely, the work was strenuous, high-pressure, and anxiety-filled. The risks were never trivial. For his daily work, within the limitations of his cover assignment, Kalugin was on the street, working agents and performing technical intelligence tasks. From what can be ascertained from Kalugin’s description of his work in the US played out, generally, he, just as other officers, would handle four or five agents or targets under development. He was not expected to spread his range of intelligence activities further, although he was still encouraged to develop a large circle of casual contacts among whom he could conduct active measures and from whom a relatively small number of serious targets might be selected at some point. As Kalugin describes his work, he undoubtedly demonstrated his flexibility and adaptability, ensuring the collection of valuable information from sources reached his managers. There was a particular case in which Kalugin made the unconventional choice. He came into contact with a 25 year old Columbia University graduate student who held extreme left-wing political views. Thinking he could be motivated to work for Soviet Union to promote Socialist state. However, he could not deliver anything really of value. His parents, both of whom were Communist told him to stop working with Kalugin because it was too dangerous. Kalugin was insistent but to no avail. Despite that breakdown, the young student’s father contacted Kalugin and asked him to leave his son alone and offered to help him instead. Kalugin, convinced he was genuine, told his manager at the UN Mission. When his manager contacted the Center, in a reply Kalugin was admonished not to deviate from procedure again but to continue with the recruitment. Further, the cable ended with the instruction: “Allowing for the initiative and courage shown by Comrade Felix–as aforementioned Kalugin’s codename, I suggest he be promoted to the rank of senior case officer.” The father turned out to be a good KGB asset, and was used on numerous occasions to run messages and deliver materials to agents outside the 25 mile city radius to which Soviet Mission staff were restricted. By Kalugin’s own admission, the Center displayed a considerable degree of patience over that move. It did not want Kalugin to be inventive. It wanted officers to strictly adhere to procedures. Yet, the Center also very much wanted good results. Ostensibly, while deviations from procedures were greatly frowned upon, apparently if no damage was done to a case and the efforts of the officer and his station were not detected or harmed in any other way, and success was achieved, nothing punitive beyond a bit of admonishment resulted. Indeed, KGB case officers were held strictly to account for the results of their actions. Yet, they were not expected to report on day-to-day developments to the Center. KGB officers were expected to be on the beat and usually did not spend much time at the desk writing reports, reading guidance from headquarters or maintaining his files. When he had a problem he took it up with his boss, but was supposed to know the difference between what he really needs consultation about and what he ought to be able to handle on his own. There was virtually no lateral distribution of communications and an extreme emphasis on compartmentation. His boss in turn has the responsibility of not only guiding the case officers that work for him, but of ensuring that vital information pertinent to the work of one case officer but acquired through another is made available. The custom that each officer prepares his own reports and kept them brief, made it possible for their reports to actually be read all the way up the chain.

Kalugin (center) on the beat in New York. During his first full operational deployment, from June 1960 to March 1964, Kalugin operated out of the Soviet UN Mission, using the cover of a Radio Moscow UN correspondent. Kalugin would send communications with information necessary for the leadership in Moscow under the pseudonym Felix. He spent time cultivating US citizens and diplomats and citizens of other countries at the UN and in New York, who he foresaw could supply the KGB with classified or unclassified information about US foreign and domestic policy. Within the limitations of his cover assignment, Kalugin was on the street, working agents and performing other intelligence tasks. Appreciation of Kalugin’s work by headquarters resulted in further promotions. From 1965 to 1970, he would be assigned to Washington as deputy rezident with the cover of deputy press officer, and then acting chief of the Rezidentura at the Soviet Embassy.

Recruiting KGB Spies

When tested by unexpected challenges in the field, Kalugin would assess the situation, then begin to act based on his training. A big lesson gleaned from Kalugin’s anecdotes is to “Trust your training.” Still, the most devastating weapon stored in Kalugin’s figurative armoire as a KGB intelligence officer was his mind. Kalugin possessed an intellect that stood out a mile (and still does now). There were never too many moving parts in a situation. What Kalugin could not see or confirm with his own eyes, he was clearly able to conceptualize better than most. Even more, Kalugin’s intellect was continuously animated concerning his work. To be successful at running agents in the field, an intelligence officer must know a lot about humanity. One must know a lot about human relationships. There are said to be certain secrets and knowledge of human existence, human circumstance. Whether Kalugin managed to acquire that hidden bit of information is unknown to greatcharlie. However, little doubt is left that Kalugin very much wanted to better understand, to put it sort of whimsically, “what made people tick.” Clearly, he successfully acquired that knowledge and experience as evidenced by all of his interactions recounted in First Directorate. Concerning prospective recruits, Kalugin would parse out all that is made available to him about the subject at hand. The minute Kalugin observes something, he knows what can happen. Kalugin would know the answer; he knows the usual result. Kalugin could feel a good recruitment on the tips of his fingers. As aforementioned, the Center left no doubt in its instructions and communiques to Kalugin that it was not looking for immediate success, dicey efforts. It repeated that guidance often. It may appear that the Center was figuratively hanging on Kalugin’s gun arm, but it certainly was not. The Center was adverse to chasing miracles. The Soviet intelligence service possessed a great deal of patience and determination to wait for years before the source, led along the way, would join the Department of State, the CIA, or some other entity, and attain a position useful to it. According to Kalugin some US recruits were approached even before reaching college. It was the understanding of KGB that US intelligence services were unable to wait that long. There were some US citizens apparently recruited for a long-term plan. For instance, in the event of war between the US and the Soviet Union, they would be directed to sabotage Washington’s power lines or poison drinking water sources.

Earlier here, greatcharlie mentions how Kalugin takes the reader to school concerning KGB spying, particularly running agents in the field. This was particularly true of his in-depth discussion of the recruiting process. One also learns from Kalugin in First Directorate that each recruitment effort is a little different. There are always different triggering motives leading to cooperation with an intelligence service, especially, one from another country. The psychological contact of the intelligence officer with the prospective recruit is key. In recruiting agents, speech is everything. Word choices must build confidence, create trust, console, assure, inspire, and comfort. To create compliant agents, the right word choice must be made every time. To that extent, Kalugin could not conceal his ebullience, recalling occasions when all he collected about a prospective recruit would coalesce and he formulated, once again taking from cricketing parlance, a jaffa, a particularly good pitch. Whether a recruiting target signs something at the time of being recruited (using the KGB terminology) about cooperation or not, really depends on the preceding circumstances. A written agreement was required when a recruitment was based on some compromising materials. If there was a later refusal by an operative to cooperate, the agreement could be used for blackmail. Yet, despite how well Kalugin laid out his discussion of recruitment, the process was far from a simple matter or easy to do. When the Soviet Union looked like the wave of the future, its best spies came to its intelligence services out of ideological convictions. In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, their recruitment service among such individuals was counted upon. Kalugin posited that after 1956 when Khrushchev exposed the cruelty of the Stalin regime and showed that “ ‘Soviet achievements’ had been built on the bones of our own people,” true believers in the Communist Movement began to dry up and disappear. Kalugin explained further that after Czechoslovakia was invaded in 1968, “only the most fervor ideologue could hold any illusions that the Soviet Union was striving to build a Socialist utopia.”

Both directly and delicately, Kalugin indicated that what drove recruits to spy boiled down to four primary motivations: money; ideology; conspiracy; and excitement. Concerning those recruits interested in money, spying was little more than service offered through a business transaction. There were many such cases. Perhaps the most infamous was that of the notorious US Navy traitor, John Walker, who was able to spy for the Soviet Union for 19 years. His recruitment and handling was Kalugin’s greatest achievement at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Walker was a walk-in, came to the Soviet Embassy with a treasure-trove of secrets. He was in it for the money. The entrepreneur spy included his son, brother, and best friend in his spy ring. He tried to bring in his daughter, but she refused. Walker needed no physical contact with his Soviet handlers, pep talks, and no hand holding. He in fact operated 10 years without meeting one. Nearly everything done after the initial set of meetings was done with dead drops. His wife finally reported his activities to authorities. There were others such as a CIA officer in Washington who claimed to have been recently fired. He made it clear from the start that he was looking for money. He would eventually pass a considerable amount of material. However, the most valuable document was a long paper entitled “Detection and Approaches to Psychologically Vulnerable Subjects of the Enemy,” which cited US efforts to recruit Soviets worldwide and painted a portrait of Soviet citizens most likely to become spies.

Regarding ideology, Kalugin indicated that when a recruits motivations were ideological, they were typically pro-Soviet, adherents of Socialism and the Communist Movement, fellow travellers. At other times, they were simply left-leaning in that era of protest. The Soviets could recruit such agents in the US and provide them no remuneration. Some even refused it. An example was that of left-wing publisher, M.S. Armoni, editor of a journal Minority of One, who would do the bidding of the KGB by publishing articles allegedly written by Kalugin. They were actually written by the KGB propaganda department in Moscow. The KGB supplied money for Armoni to run several ads in the New York Times criticizing the US involvement in Vietnam and signed by leading liberals at the time. When Armoni had financial difficulties, Kalugin provided him with nearly $10,000 in funds for being “So faithful in presenting the Soviet view of world affairs.” The money broken down into smaller sums was falsely attributed by Armoni to anonymous US donors. Kalugin also gives the example of a diplomat at a Western European embassy who furnished the KGB with diplomatic cables, top secret reports, recording with the US State Department. The same diplomat was approached without immediate result when posted to Bonn, West Germany. Kalugin met with him in Washington under orders from the Center. He convinced the diplomat to provide classified materials for very little money. His motivation was ideological because he held leftist political leanings.

Relating to conspiracy, such recruits were most often vengeful toward the government, scientific, or technological organization that employed them. An extraordinary case was that of an FBI special agent with considerable access. He first approached the KGB station chief one day and said he wanted to help the Soviets. He immediately supplied the station chief with some information about FBI activity against several Soviet citizens in New York City. The KGB was suspicious, but the FBI man proved reliable. Through personal meetings and by mail, the FBI recruit sent other portions of information about the FBI’s counterintelligence work against the KGB. the mysterious FBI recruit, as Kalugin refers to him, never asked for money.

As to excitement, there were the sensation-seekers, driven by the excitement of spying, self-gratification, or amusement. Kalugin recalls a female diplomat from what Kalugin characterized as “a major European country,” who, after being posted in Moscow for two years and becoming involved with a KGB officer, made contact with Kalugin in Washington. She would supply information to him, as Kalugin suggested, to support the work of her romantic interest still in Moscow. Kalugin would meet with her frequently in restaurants and receptions. When asked to provide cables from her Foreign Ministry, she refused but recited what was in those she read when they met. Kalugin would also gift her with jewelry, scarves, and other presents. Kalugin deduced that the woman likely knew he was a KGB officer, but enjoyed the sensation of meeting in cozy restaurants and being treated well by him. What the woman provided was valuable political intelligence. There was also the curious case of I.F. Stone, a well-known left-leaning Washington journalist. The Center had informed Kalugin that Stone had been a useful contact who broke off after the invasion of Hungary in 1956. It wanted Kalugin to reestablish the connection. Stone would meet with Kalugin a half-dozen times a year for lunch. During those meetings, he would share insightful views on the US political scene. Kalugin referred to Stone merely as a former “fellow-traveller. However, having meetings with someone he likely suspected was a KGB officer was undoubtedly intriguing to Stone. Stone abruptly ended their acquaintance, however, after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Big Promotions

Appreciation of Kalugin’s work by the Center resulted in further promotions. From 1965 to 1970, he would be assigned as deputy rezident at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, with the cover of deputy press officer, and then acting chief of the Rezidentura at the embassy. He was invited to serve in Washington initially by an eventual mentor of a sort, Boris Solomatin, who was taking over as rezident there. As defined in The Dictionary of Espionage, the KGB section of a Soviet Embassy was the Rezidentura. The ranking officer of the embassy was the rezident, who operated under diplomatic cover, and this had diplomatic immunity. The rezident’s equivalent in the US Embassy was the CIA chief of station. As the rezident would hold senior status in the KGB, his identity in the foreign intelligence service was known to Western intelligence services and law enforcement. To that extent, the rezident engaged in almost no espionage activities while deployed abroad. What is curiously noted in The Dictionary of Espionage is that some residents did roam the cocktail circuit where posted “for hard drinking seemed to be a prevalent trait.”

Interestingly, KGB officers were promoted through the service on bicameral tracks. Being essentially a military organization, an officer was promoted from junior lieutenant up to lieutenant, senior lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, and then, if fortunate enough, through the general ranks, major general, lieutenant general, colonel general, and general of the army. The KGB officer’s formal rank was largely based on his time in service up to lieutenant colonel. Concurrently, the officer receives the classification as a junior case officer, case officer, or senior case officer, and then progresses further as a deputy rezident or rezident. Those operational designations were based on the officer’s experience and performance as an operator in an assigned field. The chain of command was determined by operational positions rather than rank. Indeed, a major could be reassigned from one part of the KGB to the First Chief Directorate and be designated as a junior case officer for lack of experience and be subordinate to a senior lieutenant who was a case officer or senior case officer. Pay was determined by where the officer was ranked in both hierarchies. Kalugin’s title at the Soviet Embassy was acting rezident, and not fully the official rezident. Kalugin explains that the cause for this was sensational editorial columns aimed at exposing Kalugin as a KGB officer. It was an act completely estranged from tradition among journalists in Washington. First, there was a Washington Post article referring to a Soviet intelligence officer’s work with a Greek agent. The name of the officer published was Victor Kraknikovich, the alias Kalugin used for the Greek case. The Center was informed. Kalugin suspected the story was fed to the Washington Post by the FBI and the beginning of a campaign. Then, Jack Anderson published an article naming Kalugin as a Soviet agent. The article’s opening paragraph stated: “His name is Oleg Kalugin, second secretary at the Soviet embassy. For some time, he has been trying to place a female acquaintance of his as his agent in the State Department. He also instructed an aide to cultivate a girl who works at the FBI. Neither attempt succeeded. Both girls have been leading him under the direction of the FBI.” Anderson followed up on the Kalugin story in his “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column, headlined “Soviet Spy Allowed To Remain in U.S.”, “His [Kalugin] undercover activities in this country are known to the FBI.” Anderson included: “But only the State Department knows the reason he is still here. Other spies caught in the act have been declared persona non grata and have been given 48 hours to leave the country.” On first impression, the Center took it all very calmly, telling Kalugin “Curb your activities just a bit but do not worry.” Nevertheless, the Center was concerned that Kalugin would be deported, a headache the KGB did not need. Kalugin was not deported. An intriguing reality was that KGB operations in the US were not solely dependent on the work of the rezident at the Embassy in Washington. As noted in the aforementioned The Dictionary of Espionage, along with the official rezident, an illegal rezident was deployed who lived abroad without any official cover, usually with an assumed identity, responsible for controlling subordinate illegal agents who worked in his area. The illegal rezident would have no contact with the Soviet Embassy or any of its personnel, and he maintained his communications with the Center. In terms of authority, the illegal rezident had the rank of the official KGB rezident. If the illegal rezident was arrested, the officer could not plead diplomatic immunity and would go to prison.

On the Threat of Defections

Once operating in foreign territory, a considerable concern regarding intelligence officers and their agents was the threat of betrayal. Concerns were almost always raised among Soviet citizens when anyone with whom they may have just met or were in contact for other reasons, suddenly showed an eccentric interest in them. One had to be resolute regarding personal and collective loyalty. There had to be a defined sense of what you owed to your country, what you owed to your own sense of ethics and morality. For some KGB officers, deployed overseas, even while facing-off with their Western counterparts, it often became the same old trudge day in, day out. Some of Kalugin’s fellow KGB foreign intelligence officers would struggle mightily to develop informants, find bona fide targets with access to considerable information to recruit, and get anything started from which they could develop concrete proposals for a foreseeable recruitment at their postings. Others figuratively shuffled along, hoping to go unnoticed and evade the behests of the Center along much as the theatrical comic relief of an aged butler seeking to avoid the master and mistress of the house hoping to keep his exertions to a minimum. Causality for such difficulties often resided in those KGB officers, themselves. Personal and professional inadequacies, having gone undetected during the vetting process and training, often found their way to the surface, and would provide an open door to inappropriate indulgences and improprieties. Embezzlement was a problem. There were those who would keep hundreds of dollars of payments intended for KGB operatives for themselves. A number would outrightly make personal use of KGB funds. Some had already displayed the most deplorable carnal behavior while still in the Soviet Union. Then deployed to Western countries, they would indulge in all that had to be offered. They would set aside their defensive training. In the end, a number of them would be caught flat footed in rather fatuous, fairly obvious honey traps set by US counterintelligence. They most likely were obliged to play the double-game against their bosses at Moscow Center. Kalugin explains that there was a particularly nasty problem in Canada in which a half dozen KGB personnel were left open to blackmail by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and all were recalled and disciplined. (An individual is tracked by an intelligence or counterintelligence organization with the goal uncovering evidence for a case or investigation. To endlessly surveil an individual, or subject as one would be dubbed, using mountains of taxpayer dollars, with no real goal, is not just inept, it is malfeasance. The subject, who may not be guilty of anything, is essentially being harassed, and very likely some dishonorable individuals in the intelligence or counterintelligence organization violating their oath to the country and highly likely, in nasty surreptitious ways, attempting to build an extra pension for themselves. It happens in Intelligence services more than one might imagine.)

FBI counterintelligence, Kalugin’s main opponent in the US, engaged in near endless attempts to intercept him and perhaps neutralize and recruit him, came in the form of clandestine contacts. Those attempts confirmed that he had actually been under surveillance as the FBI would only have undertaken such an effort if counterintelligence managers believed that special agents had collected enough about him and his activities that they were convinced he was a Soviet intelligence officer, that they understood how Kalugin thought, and that he would respond favorably to an effort to make clandestine contact with him. The method used by FBI counterintelligence to reach Kalugin was its bog-standard employment of women as honey traps. As defined in The Dictionary of Espionage, a honey trap is a method of sexual entrapment for intelligence purposes, usually to put a target [such as Kalugin] into a compromising position so that he or she can be blackmailed. Perhaps it would be enough to say Kalugin displayed restraint and elegance in the face of advances by the female FBI counterintelligence operatives. Indeed, as he describes his response, he displayed a sensibility akin to what the French call “bof” (whatever) to it all. One might simply chalk that up to Kalugin’s self-discipline, his Apollonian nature. In the field, Kalugin was always dedicated to his country, the Communist Movement, and his mission. He was laser focused on his responsibilities as a KGB officer to spot potential recruits, collect information, even passively, and report observations, engage in active measures, and not fall prey to the women used against him. Beyond consideration of Kalugin’s professional response to what to him were far less than enticing honey traps, consideration should be given to his response simply as an individual. There exists a line of thinking which notes unless one has already thought, deliberated, pondered, or meditated on certain behavior, one will be hardened to it. One would not be going out on a slender thread to presume Kalugin was neither ignorant of nor surprised by attempts at such manipulations, carnal behavior among adults. Perchance, he simply never considered getting involved with such nonsense or pondered having anything to do with such women while on the beat.

Perhaps proof and precedence of previous successes with less capable, less adroit, or simply inept KGB officers, along with some likely unsupported, doctrinaire, Cold War era preconceptions concerning the Russian male libido, convinced FBI counterintelligence of the correctness and efficaciousness of that method of clandestine contact with Kalugin. The focus was on the physical, the carnal, not the intellectual. The underdeveloped mind can rarely get beyond physical facts. Even at the most basic level of decisionmaking on the matter, some recognition that a mental attraction, some cerebral connection between Kalugin and a female operative foisted upon him might be required. That was apparently ignored or disregarded by the FBI, presumably counting upon some id-explosion that would overwhelm him. It was a considerable oversight. Based on how he described the women involved, such a connection under any circumstance, would have been near impossible. In the intelligence game, nothing about making contact with an opponent in the field can be considered too trivial to disregard. under the leadership of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Special Agents in counterintelligence were genuinely tough. Kalugin admits to that in the book. Yet, they could hardly be judged as being socially conscious by current standards. Their record of responses on a variety of other issues, the Civil Rights Movement and Anti-War Movement for instance, indicates they were in fact quite the opposite. The use of honey traps and similar artifices by FBI Special agents, surveillance specialists or contractors, continues today.

Although as he recounts them, Kalugin indicates that he was cautiously amused by the FBI honey traps, but he also seemed to take a professional interest in why in US society in which there were far more better things to do, would a woman even entertain the idea of serving as a seductress for the FBI. Recognizing that the use of the method was a gauge, a manifestation of the thinking among serious US government intelligence and law enforcement officers, Kalugin very likely began at that time to contemplate how Soviet foreign intelligence in the US could effectively turn the ploy against them and other targets in the US. That is exactly what he did. Kalugin used his personal attributes and charm and those of other handsome males and females to further the KGB’s mission by loosening those attractive qualities as weapons against unsuspecting Western officials and especially secretaries working in key offices in the US foreign and national security policy apparatus, when he believed something considerable could be gained by doing so. The Ancient Greek comic and playwright, Aristophanes in The Birds (414 B.C.) wrote: “Men of sense often learn from their enemies. Prudence is the best safeguard. This principle cannot be learned from a friend, but an enemy exorts it immediately. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. And this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.”

Kalugin (right) standing with Kim Philby (left). In reaction to increasing defections by KGB officers, Yuri Andropov, the Chairman of the KGB, ordered KGB foreign counterintelligence to develop a new program that would make defection to the Soviet Union attractive. He ordered that life for existing defectors made to be envied and to make certain to let the world know about it. Kalugin was directed to handle the matter. A defector that Kalugin devoted time to was Kim Philby, the United Kingdom MI6 traitor. Philby’s life in the Soviet Union was awful and Kalugin found him in a terrible state. He had faced considerable mistreatment, particularly psychological torture. Kalugin set forth on a genuine course to rehabilitate Philby. Yet, reversing the damage to those mistreated by intelligence and counterintelligence services is extraordinarily difficult. If anything, Kalugin salvaged the best of what was left of the Soviet spy. In the photo above, relative to Kalugin, Philby appears as if he had the Hell posted out of him.

At KGB Foreign Counterintelligence

In 1971, having returned from the US, Kalugin became deputy chief of the Second Service of First Chief Directorate, which meant a two-step increase in the hierarchy of the central intelligence apparatus. However, the counterintelligence service proved to be broken, unprepared, and understaffed. The counterintelligence function was pivotal to KGB operations and its mission, but it was not given the status and attention it truly required. Even housing made available for its officers was undesirable. Kalugin had a negative immediate impression of the director of the Second Service of First Chief Directorate, Vitaly Boyarov. However, his concerns were resolved over time. Concerning the other deputies Kalugin had nothing greater good to say. One was a chain smoking, profane man who constantly berated his subordinates. Kalugin described another deputy as a fussy, indecisive man who had “no business being in the KGB let alone in relatively high position.” Kalugin depicted the third as an “utter nonentity.” All three were at least a decade older than Kalugin. The decline for KGB foreign counterintelligence operationally was also apparent. In the 1950s and 1960s, foreign counterintelligence, according to Kalugin, had managed to penetrate deeply into the French, United Kingdom, and Italian intelligence services. Concerning the US, the KGB had Walker, their superspy. However, by the 1970s, it was clear to many that the Soviet Union really was not the model society of the future, both politically and socially, and the Soviet system could do nothing to reverse that impression. As disillusionment with the Soviet Union set in, the number of KGB defectors also began to skyrocket, further damaging its operations.

When Kalugin first started working in foreign counterintelligence in 1970, the KGB was only experiencing a trickle of defections from the ranks. However, the rate steadily increased. However, the defection of Oleg Lyalin of Department V, tasked with preparing contingency plans for sabotage and assassination in time of war, defected after working for the United Kingdom’s intelligence services for six months. The story of his activities as presented by Kalugin would surely be astonishing to any readers. His revelations resulted in the expulsion of 105 Soviets from the country, personal non grata. Visas for known KGB officers were denied. In reaction to Lyalin’s defection and the many others, Yuri Andropov, the Chairman of the KGB, ordered Kalugin’s director at counterintelligence, Boyarov, to develop a new program that would make defection to the Soviet Union attractive. He suggested using large amounts of money, fancy apartments and country homes, and complete freedom of movement in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. He also ordered that life for existing defectors made to be envied and to make certain to let the world know about it. Boyarov put Kalugin on the case. That led to perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of that period of Kalugin’s career, his contact with the infamous double agent Kim Philby, formerly of the United Kingdom’s MI6, Secret Intelligence Service. While Kalugin met with a number of the defectors, to include the infamous George Blake, also from the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service, and Donald Maclean, but Philby was the most interesting case. Suffice it to say, greatcharlie sense that it is going out on a slender thread in discussing the matter of Philby, but it is critical to the process of understanding and characterising Kalugin. Philby is a delicate and painful subject in some Western intelligence services even today. Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby, was a member of “The Magnificent Five.” Others included two diplomats, Guy Burgess and the aforementioned Donald Maclean, and the former officer of MI5, the domestic focused Security Service, and leading art historian, Anthony Blunt. The identity of the fifth member was never confirmed. The intelligence officer, John Cairncross, was suspected. All but the fifth member defected to the Soviet Union. Kalugin had heard rumors of Philby’s life in Moscow–”drinking, womanizing, hours of depression, and squalid existence.” Most of it proved to be true.

For Philby, defection to the Soviet Union did not pan out as he had hoped. It was nothing near the paradise he likely envisioned. He had a relatively decent apartment, but had few possessions in it worth having. The big problem he faced though was not so much being deprived of material things, but rather his treatment. Philby was subjected to repeated house arrests over regular suspicions of KGB as to his “activities.” His every movement, even in his home, was considered suspect. For instance, when he was heard writing over hidden microphones, it was determined that he was composing reports to pass to Western agents. The overall surveillance was ham-handed, guaranteed to harass and cause discomfort. The only element that was missing from his treatment was the rough stuff, physical torture, though there was plenty of psychological torture. The deep grief felt by Philby over the death of his image of a Soviet wonderland, coupled with his mishandling was likely made somewhat less painful by his daily practice of soaking himself in alcohol. For those in the KGB who were acting against him, that likely provided a sense of accomplishment. They were clearly the types. Philby’s behavior was rumored to have been questionable–”drinking, womanizing, hours of depression, and squalid existence,” but little was placed in official reports about his treatment. For this reason, Kalugin did expect to find what he did when he contacted him. As things were, there was no chance of showcasing Philby’s situation as reflective of that of defectors. If the truth of Philby’s actual treatment had gotten out to the rest of the world, it would have choked the Soviet voice on defections. A singer with fine pitch would notice something wrong with a note that an ordinary or amateur might not. However, everything Kalugin observed was plain as day, actually absolutely over the top. The inhumanity, illogica, and incompetence of Philby’s handling screamed out. As Kalugin described what those KGB officers involved in what had been done to Philby were further examples of how deep seated psychological issues of some officers would drive them to engage in odious acts. Kalugin set forth on a course of attempting to rehabilitate Philby. There was nothing superficial about his efforts. He essentially debriefed him again under calm, informal conditions. He began to visit him somewhat regularly. He then brought other friendly KGB officers to talk to him, ask his opinion on professional matters, tradecraft, trying to give him a sense of being useful, capable, and needed. Kalugin used the authority granted to him by Boyarov to involve Philby in KGB training. He brought him to the KGB Higher School to lecture young officers who were set to be deployed to Western countries. Philby would help with active measures by inserting sins poster passages in US State Department and CIA documents. Kalugin would genuinely ask Philby for input into programs being formulated for defectors and prospective recruits. For all in which Philby was becoming involved, Philby was amenable and did not want payment. Kalugin did what he could to remunerate him by boosting his ongoing payments. He had repairs made to his apartment and replaced the furniture. Kalugin would also arrange for Philby to travel outside of the Soviet Union to Socialist Countries in the Eastern Bloc and beyond to Cuba and Mongolia. In doing all of this, Kalugin followed his orders, but his noble and humane effort did credit to both his head and his heart.

The damage intelligence and counterintelligence services can do to an individual’s psyche is well understood to be grave and considerable. To paraphrase a recent remark by US Senator Charles Schumer of New York on the tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods of the US Intelligence Community, they can come at you six ways from Sunday. The soul and the spirit of the target of such efforts is typically seared. Surely, some having suffered similar harsh treatment from their own side as in Philby’s case, have been able to have renewal of mind. Yet, rehabilitating those mistreated by intelligence and counterintelligence services, reversing the damage, is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. That is a reality that is rarely understood or dismissed. Perhaps there is such a strong desire to believe otherwise by those who might engage in such efforts, that the mere notion, itself, that it can be done, becomes true. As for the individual, supposedly being rehabilitated, it is likely that when placed regularly under inhumane treatment, physical or psychological, a valiant effort is made to hold on to all of the many aspects of themselves. However, self-discernment would more likely cause them to face the reality that much has been lost after enduring such terrible experiences. Kalugin, at the time, appears unable to fully fathom that although he was interacting with someone who looked, sounded, and moved as original Philby, the zealous member of the Komintern, the Soviet spy, the proud defector, but that man was gone, no longer intact. The psychological capsule that Philby likely created to hold on to the remainder of himself, to protect himself, to survive, would never have been so easy to break open in an effort to find him. Philby was also very likely suffering from a form of severe, debilitating depression. The original Philby may have had far more to offer. If anything, what Kalugin did was salvage the best of what was left. The trust that Kalugin sought to create was not really possible either. Doubtlessly, Philby noticed Kalugin, for whatever reason, was authentically trying to be congenial and helpful. Understanding that, he may likely have displayed an outward modification of attitude and behavior perhaps even to satisfy Kalugin. To that extent, he understood that Kalugin was the source of better things than before, and with the hope this does not sound indelicate, he responded to Kalugin, though not obsequiously, but much as stolid hound that recognizes its owner as the source of its nourishment and shelter. Perchance, there was much more in all of this. In an uncanny way, Philby’s situation foretold a similar future for Kalugin. Indeed, perhaps Kalugin had an extra sense, a presentiment that he might find himself in a similar boat in another country. Both men experienced somewhat similar types of betrayal by the same monstrous Soviet system and the same organization, the KGB, in which that they placed so much faith and for which were ready to surrender their lives. Luckily for Kalugin, when his day of reckoning came, he ran into individuals in the US possessing sensibilities much as his own, and not the sort that Philby dealt with upon arrival in the Soviet Union.

In March 1973 Kalugin became head of the Directorate KT, KGB Foreign Counterintelligence. In the process he became the youngest leader at that level in the KGB. In 1974, the 40-year-old Kalugin received the rank of major general, making him the youngest general in the KGB. A KGB officer was promoted from junior lieutenant up to lieutenant, senior lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, and then, if for nature enough, through the general ranks, major general, lieutenant general, colonel general, and general of the army. The KGB officer’s formal rank was largely based on his time in service up to lieutenant colonel. Concurrently, the officer receives the operational designation as a junior case officer, case officer, or senior case officer, and then progresses further as a deputy rezident or rezident. Those designations were based on the officer’s experience and performance as an operator in an assigned field. The chain of command was determined by operational classification rather than rank.

In March 1973 he became head of the Directorate KT, foreign counterintelligence. In the process he became the youngest leader at that level in the KGB. In 1974, the 40-year-old Kalugin received the rank of major general, making him the youngest general in the KGB. Such career leaps, Kalugin believes, were primarily due to the personal patronage of Andropov. Kalugin refers to Andropov his “guardian angel,” and writes that “the relations of father and son” developed between them. Made aware of Kalugin’s success, as all of the most senior managers of KGB doubtlessly had, Andropov surely recognized that the KGB had a gem in their midst, a “bright red” carbuncle. Andropov was a rather intriguing player in the history of Soviet Intelligence. As it was detailed in Robert Pringle’s Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence, 2nd ed. (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), from the Historical Dictionaries of Intelligence and Counterintelligence series, much as Kalugin’s career at KGB, Andropov’s career moved up rapidly in Soviet political sphere. His advancement began after being appointed Soviet ambassador to Hungary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1954. While at that post, the November 1956 Hungarian Uprising ignited. A segment of the society demanded independence from the socialist state. The upright morphed into an armed conflict. Andropov called the uprising “counter-revolutionary, an anti-social riot” and informed the Kremlin that he supported the idea of sending Soviet troops to aid the Hungarian socialist government to quell the protesters. Andropov directly coordinated the activities of pro-Soviet forces in Hungary, which managed, with the support of Soviet forces, to keep all of Hungary socialist. More than 2,500 people died during the conflict.The Hungarian Uprising shaped Andropov’s thinking, after leaving his post in 1957, he reportedly kept on speaking about it. Soviet diplomat Oleg Troyanovsky remembered: “Andropov of 1956 in Hungary. He often said: ‘You can’t imagine what it is – hundreds of thousands of people flooding the streets, completely out of control’.” Troyanovsky believed that Andropov feared to see such a scene in the USSR – and did all he could to prevent it. Still, his advisors recall that when he led the department on relations with the socialist parties within the Communist Party’s Central Committee from 1957-1967, he was a “liberal leader.” According to renowned political scientist, Georgy Arbatov, Andropov would supposedly say: “In this room, we all can speak our minds, absolutely openly. But the second you leave it–play by the rules.” During Leonid Brezhnev’s tenure as Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982, Andropov, efficient and professional, became one of the most important figures for the regime. Named Chairman of the KGB in 1967, Andropov took on several urgent and important issues, with a predictable hardline approach, to include: international crises in the Middle East; Czechoslovakia; Afghanistan; regional conflicts in the Soviet Union; and, suppressing Soviet dissident movements, putting dozens in asylums and deporting hundreds of others. On November 12, 1982, Andropov would become General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and on June 16, 1982, he became Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. However, he died on February 9, 1984, serving just under fifteen months in power.

Kalugin reasoned that Andropov trusted him. Still, knowing Andropov’s history, Kalugin knew exactly who he was dealing with. Developed from that understanding appears to have been an invaluable intuition about his own organizations’ moves on issues and regarding personnel. Anecdotes included indicate that he was able to intuit the decisions of managers and executives allowing him to think ahead to how he could satisfy their next steps, and new requirements. The very positive impression with Andropov enabled Kalugin, at least until late in his career, to survive the danger that KGB managers would pose to him. An eventual cause of problems for Kalugin was another protégé of Andropov, Vladimir Kryuchkov.

KGB Chairman and later Soviet Premier, Yuri Andrpov (above). Kalugin believes his career leaps were primarily due to the personal patronage of Andropov. Kalugin refers to Andropov his “guardian angel.” Made aware of Kalugin’s success, as all of the most senior managers of KGB doubtlessly had, Andropov surely recognized that the KGB had a gem in their midst. Kalugin reasoned that Andropov trusted him. Still, knowing Andropov’s history, Kalugin knew exactly who he was dealing with. From that understanding, he appears to have developed an invaluable intuition about his own organizations’ moves on issues. The very positive impression left with Andropov enabled Kalugin, at least until late in his career, to survive the danger that other KGB managers would pose to him. An eventual cause of great problems for Kalugin was another protégé of Andropov, Vladimir Kryuchkov.

The primary mission of the Soviet Foreign Counterintelligence Service was infiltration of all the foreign special service operations: intelligence, counter-intelligence, police forces all over the world. The primary target was the US. Second came NATO and Western European countries. As chief of counterintelligence, Kalugin had control of the most significant cases due to the possibility that potential success was merely pretense by the FBI. What appeared interesting may merely have been dangled before KGB with the hope of entrapment of its officers and their networks. The counterintelligence unit, Directorate K of the First Chief Directorate, would take charge of a case from the regular chain of command of the foreign intelligence service whenever an agent appeared to be doubled, compromised, or on track to be compromised. The field case officer may remain the same, but in Moscow the Counterintelligence Service assumes full authority for directing the case. Deception and some types of complex political action operations often were run directly by the headquarters element, Department A, that prepares the operation in Moscow. In such cases, of course, local assets of a Rezidentura may well be employed in support, but the operations are frequently run by specialists. In the Soviet Union, foreigners, especially, US citizens, were closely investigated by the local internal KGB office. That kind of investigation was not conducted with a view to recruit immediately. It was important to identify the psychological profile of a person, his political orientation, his attitude towards his home country and towards the country he was visiting for some reason. After accumulating a sizable amount of material (based on a whole array of undertakings: plain observation, audio- and video-surveillance of the places of residence, agency-level scrutiny, including “honey traps”), on the basis of the analysis, a decision is made about a transforming the investigation into a recruitment with appropriate conditions (such as through compromising materials or a voluntary agreement) or about wrapping up the whole thing by “educating” a foreigner in order to convey a favorable image of a country that investigated him, in his home country.

As his record at counterintelligence indicated, Kalugin could hardly have been judged as being too kind-hearted in his job. In 1975, Kalugin was directly related to the operation to abduct and rendition Nikolai Artamonov, alias “Lark,” to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, Artamonov died along the way. Kalugin claimed that the reason was an error with the dosage of the anesthetic. Kalugin was one of only three men in a meeting in which the KGB sanctioned the assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London in 1978. Kalugin explains that the KGB’s science and technology directorate had the weapon designed and constructed in Japan. It was an umbrella that fired a small dart into Markov’s leg. Kalugin would pass the orders from his KGB bosses along to subordinates to provide the poison-tipped umbrella used in the assassination. Kalugin would also organize and execute the 1981 bombing of Radio Liberty headquarters in Munich.

Kalugin indicated that his Foreign Counterintelligence Service was not organized to carry out assassinations. According to the KGB table of organization provided earlier, that dirty work was the shared responsibility of Directorate V and the Thirteenth Department. Work as a KGB foreign intelligence and counterintelligence officer, however, required an understood pledge to commit certain violent undertakings. It would be a leap to call Kalugin an ordinary cutthroat due to his obedience to facilitate that action. There is a classic expression heard in organizations: “One is either in or one is out.” Kalugin certainly was “all in.” Nonetheless, many in the KGB began to doubt that.

Reversal of Fortune

In a sudden pivot in his story, Kalugin’s luck would change at what was for so long his beloved KGB. Kalugin’s reporting of observed lawlessness and arbitrary rule and cronyism within the KGB created friction within its leadership. Shadows gathered. In response to his vocal disagreements with how the KGB was operating, the Center threw Kalugin a dip that caught him by surprise. Telling that part of his story, Kalugin positioned himself as the protagonist, and rightly so in greatcharlie’s humble opinion. Although acting with the best intentions, Kalugin incurred the worst. Soon enough, he found himself facing great difficulties. Despite his near impeccable record, Kalugin’s work was placed under “special scrutiny.” Senior executives of KGB, to whom Kalugin was loyal and obedient, loosed counterintelligence investigators, headhunters who relished ruthlessly destroying officers’ careers, even innocent ones, upon him. They were dishonorable individuals who willingly bore false witness on Kalugin and breathed out lies. Kalugin explained that at first he was a bit bemused by it all, then disgusted as his whole world seemed to come crashing down around him. Nothing would be the same again.

The 18th century French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire, wrote in a August 8, 1736 letter to the Prince Royal of Prussia who later became Frederick the Great: “Such is the destiny of great men that their superior genius always exposes them to be the butt of the enveloped darts of calumny and envy. “ Undoubtedly, there were quidnuncs in the KGB who would happily push out scuttlebutt on what was going on everywhere in it and occasionally exacerbating situations, despite all the secrecy and efforts at classification and compartmentalization. Employees within an intelligence service would surely understand the need to keep watch against efforts by adversaries to recruit spies among their organizations ranks. With the right manipulations and pressures, such breakdowns can often be forced. There is also the need to stand guard against the possibility of betrayal and defections impelled by a variety of reasons. However, stories of management’s undue suspicions of officers and internal investigations, seen and unseen, would have conceivably created apprehension within the organization as to what was actually transpiring within the KGB. Consequently, it also became more difficult for officers to know who to trust among their colleagues. Thus, in his career, Kalugin had to become expert in figuring out how to avoid garnering the negative attention of KGB managers who, due to nothing greater than their own disposition or paranoia, would occasionally see innocent officers as potential security risks. As aforementioned, due to his superb work, his good relations with KGB senior executives, he had no normal reason to feel his position was threatened. Aforementioned as well, Kalugin believed that he was close to Andropov, not only due to his official position, but simply because he trusted him. Yet, knowing all that he did about the organization’s quirky leaders, problematic officers in the ranks, doing his job right, and how to look good, it was only a matter of time before his fate would change. As long as Vladimir Kryuchkov, another Andropov protégé, was still Head of the First Chief Directorate, Kalugin had to keep his eyes open and ears pinned back. Kryuchkov had a reputation for acting against perceived rivals for power. Turning to Robert Pringle’s Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence, 2nd ed. (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015) as a source on Kryuchkov, one learns that he initially began working not in the Soviet intelligence services, but rather in its justice system as a prosecutor’s assistant in Stalingrad. However, Kryuchkov began moving in the direction of foreign intelligence after graduating from the Diplomatic Academy of the Soviet Foreign Ministry and becoming a diplomat. Kryuchkov met Andropov in Budapest in 1955 while he was serving as the Soviet ambassador, and got to know him closely supporting his activities during the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. From then on, Andropov became Kryuchkov’s main patron. He joined Andropov at the Department of Liaison with Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries in 1959. When Andropov was selected as a Secretary of Communist Party’s Central Committee in 1962, he eventually brought Kryuchkov on from 1965 to 1967 as his aide. Then, when Andropov was selected as Chairman of the KGB on May 19, 1967, he brought Kryuchkov to Moscow with him to serve as Head of the Secretariat, KGB. He allowed Kryuchkov to gain experience with intelligence operations, including covert activities by placing him in charge of foreign intelligence operations under his tutelage starting in 1971. Then, in 1974, Andropov appointed Kryuchkov as head of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, and he remained there until 1988. (In 1988, he would become Chairman of the KGB, where he would remain until the failed coup of 1991.) During Kryuchkov’s years in the KGB’s foreign intelligence service, it was involved in funding and supporting various communist, socialist and anti-colonial movements across the world, some of which came to power in their countries and established pro-Soviet governments; in addition, under Kryuchkov’s leadership the Directorate had major triumphs in penetrating Western intelligence agencies, acquiring valuable scientific and technical intelligence and perfecting the techniques of disinformation and active measures. At the same time, however, during Kryuchkov’s tenure, the Directorate became plagued with defectors, had major responsibility for encouraging the Soviet government to invade Afghanistan and its ability to influence Western European Communist Parties diminished even further.

Vladimir Kryuchkov, Head of the First Chief Directorate and later KGB Chairman (above). Having caused a stir by pointing out troubles in the KGB First Chief Directorate, fertile ground was created for Kalugin’s rivals to take him down. Vladimir Kryuchkov, the Head of the First Chief Directorate became Kalugin’s biggest problem. He suggested Kalugin was possibly a US spy. According to Kalugin, Kryuchkov’s reasons for wanting to destroy him was his strong relationship with Andropov. Kalugin said Kryuchkov likely thought that he would be sent somewhere, leaving him to become the head of the First Chief Directorate. Kryuchkov’s anxieties would manifest in the sort of unsettling hostile and destructive behavior that Kalugin repeatedly pointed out had rotted away at the soul of the KGB. Kalugin could not avoid problems by staying well back from him. Kryuchkov, after all, was his manager. Kalugin could not escape his fate.

Having caused a stir by pointing out troubles in the KGB First Chief Directorate, fertile ground was created for Kalugin’s rivals to take him down. Vladimir Kryuchkov, the Head of the First Chief Directorate became Kalugin’s biggest problem. He suggested Kalugin was possibly a US spy. According to Kalugin, Kryuchkov’s reasons for wanting to destroy him was his strong relationship with Andropov. Kalugin said Kryuchkov likely thought that he would be sent somewhere, leaving him to become the head of the First Chief Directorate. Consequently, Kryuchkov’s anxieties would manifest in the sort of unsettling idiosyncratic behavior that Kalugin repeatedly pointed out had rotted away at the soul of the KGB. Kalugin could not avoid problems by staying well back from him. Kryuchkov, after all, was his manager. He could not escape his fate. As part of Kryuchkov allegations, he claimed Kalugin was possibly instrumental in allowing the flow of what was characterized as dicey intelligence from a questionable source to the Center. He determined that an intelligence source, who was Cook from Thiokol, Kalugin’s earliest recruitment in the US, was a supposed means by which the US was enabled to channel chicken feed through the Soviet system. No one really cared about Cook who was arrested for possessing and selling foreign currency and making hostile statements about the Soviet regime. He was simply used as the predicate for taking the drastic step of insinuating that Kalugin had been compromised, despite a mountain of exculpatory evidence to the contrary. Wrongful preconceptions can always be supported by bent intelligence.

Kalugin explains that things were made far worse because the matter was investigated by General Victor Alidin, head of the Moscow KGB. Kalugin explained that Alidin was an abominable KGB officer, with a solid reputation for brutality and widely reviled. Yet, he was extremely close to Soviet Premier Brezhnev. In Washington, Kalugin had caught Alidin’s son-in-law embezzling hundreds of dollars of payments intended for KGB operatives. Kalugin recommended tough action, but Solomatin, his rezident, limited the response to a reprimand to avoid all of the trouble with Alidin that likely would have followed any stronger action. Alidin and his men, to whom Kalugin refers as “Alidin & Company,” set out to find spies! As Kalugin described how their reports on the case were written, they seemed as mad as March hares, concocting a bizarre parody of a nonexistent relationship between Cook and Kalugin. It emphasized the Cook’s job as a mole was to string the KGB along and make Kalugin look good. There were leading questions asked of Cook. Those questions concerned Kalugin’s alleged recruitment by the CIA. Alidin & Company engaged in the worst possible behavior as investigators. Using their well-exercised nefarious stratagems, they were able to make right look wrong and good look bad. One might suppose that it was relatively easy for Kalugin’s adversaries to question that an officer, so early in his career, could stumble upon such a find as Cook. Many officers with far more years and experience never came close to such an achievement. To an extent, Kalugin’s success proved to be his undoing. After being surreptitiously interviewed formally by Alidin and his investigators under the guise that they were fact-finding and needed his help in investigating Cook of Thiokol, It did not take Kalugin long to figure out what they were driving at. Kalugin’s description of the moment when he became conscious of his KGB investigators’ plans against him was chilling. After twisting and turning facts, Kalugin’s rather sophomoric investigators were able to bear false witness against him, breathing out lies. As Kalugin depicted the matter, it all seemed surreal-to-the-point-of-silliness. Again, not a bit of evidence supposedly collected on Cook or Kalugin was conclusive. Certainly, the presumption of innocence was a principle alien in the Soviet Union. Erring on the side of liberty was not something done in its system. Kalugin’s treatment ostensibly could have been chalked up as a lesson to others that all intelligence activities were subject to scrutiny. Perhaps the real lesson was that in the KGB there was an ever-present danger of certain peccant officers, petty tyrants, who, having been provided with brief authority by the Soviet state, were willing to abuse it. Within such officers, there was typically a need through harsh and disruptive behavior to prove, mainly to themselves, that they have power over others and to soothe some uneasiness over what they may recognize as their own shortcomings. They were imaginative in their thinking but in all the wrong ways. Dead ends would only open doors to more illusions and thereby their pursuits were never exhausted.

As Kalugin related this whole tragic episode, there was a duality of emotions manifested in his words. Surely there was disdain, but there was also great pity. Kryuchkov had attained one of the most important positions in the KGB. Rather than relate to Kalugin as one his successful managers and display his competence to possibly take on the position KGB Chairman, he shrunk to reveal the idiosyncrasies of a paranoid KGB official, who could think only of his own personal interest and attempt to destroy two innocent men in the process. Ironically, Kryuchkov would become KGB Chairman in 1988. Unable to accept the ideals of perestroika and glasnost implemented by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, he participated in the 1991 coup attempt, the consequence of which was triggering the rapid dissolution of the Soviet Union. Kryuchkov was a major part of the problem that led to destruction of the KGB, and a major part of the problem that led to the Soviet Union’s collapse. If anything could be said about Kryuchkov’s nefarious plan to undo Kalugin, he was quite thorough leaving nothing to chance, even the likely response of his mentor, Andropov. He moved Kalugin out of the Center into what was then a relative nether region of the Soviet Union, Leningrad. He would become First Deputy Chief of the Leningrad KGB, second-in-command there. In what turned out to be their final meeting Andropov in a friendly manner: “You have stirred up too much dust here at headquarters. I just want you to go away until things settle down. You go to Leningrad and when things calm down, you’ll be back. I promise you. It will take a year or so. No longer than that. You’ll be back soon.” However, Andropov died in two years, and Kalugin remained in Leningrad for seven years.

Certainly, Kalugin knew that Andropov was quite shrewd, and made endless calculations in his decision which all had to be made in the context of Soviet politics. Kalugin was invaluable to Andropov when it came to being set straight on what was happening on the ground versus the West and what was happening among the rank and file on foreign intelligence inside the KGB. Yet, from where he was situated, Kalugin likely understood Soviet politics to a limited degree. The interplay between Andropov and Kryuchkov surely included efforts to discern the Communist Party political scene. Indeed, in the years following the 1956 Hungarian Uprising on which they worked together closely, Kryuchkov, the former prosecutor and diplomat, may have served as more than a loyal confidant who could provide bits of information, but an invaluable sounding board on political developments for Andropov. With his ears always pinned back, Kryuchkov surely had an appreciation of what was happening in the Communist Party and the Soviet system in general. His political awareness and sensitivity likely enabled him, much as that of an attorney to a client, to illuminate for Andropov, ways to finesse responses to Kremlin requests, particularly politically charged ones, to avoid any pitfalls, to ensure his survival and to create possibilities for his advancement within the political realm. Kryuchkov, while twenty years younger than Andropov, was ten years Kalugin’s senior, though he appeared about ten years additional, and spent more time observing senior Communist Party leaders and had more experience formulating nuanced responses to them, given their sensibilities. (Perhaps no better example existed Kryuchkov’s political savvy than the way in which he knocked the career of Kalugin, another Andropov protégé, completely off track while incurring no consequences for himself.) Andropov most likely thought that if he were moved up in the hierarchy and a choice had to be made for a new KGB Chairman, it would be good to have his protégé Kryuchkov to be in the running for the post. By interceding for a second time on Kalugin’s behalf, and thereby blatantly undermining Kryuchkov, Andropov may have sent the wrong signal concerning his confidence and impressions about him in the KGB and the Communist Party, potentially making Kryuchkov a weaker candidate for the top KGB post later. When Andropov was actually promoted to Deputy Chairman in 1978, Kryuchkov was not elevated to KGB Chairman but remained at the First Chief Directorate. (Kryuchkov eventually assumed that post on October 1, 1988, almost five years after Andropov’s death.) Again, Kalugin’s father warned him about the Soviet system, the state security service, the people within it.

Demoted from his post as head of KGB Foreign Counterintelligence, Kalugin was sent to the Leningrad KGB branch. There, Kalugin witnessed first-hand the true nature of the KGB’s activities as a domestic political police. He discovered that the KGB’s internal functions had precious little connection with state security but rather, benefitted corrupt Communist Party officials by keeping them in power. Indeed, from Leningrad, Kalugin could see more clearly the wretchedness of the Soviet system, and real socialism at its fullest. Further, he was authentically in touch with Soviet people for the first time and began to understand how they lived. Kalugin concluded the Soviet system was unworkable and needed to change.

At Leningrad KGB

In the end, Kalugin was demoted to serve as first deputy chief of internal security in Leningrad. Regardless of the circumstances, Kalugin did his job in his new post. One interesting case he was involved with in Leningrad was a counterespionage operation, the handling of a double agent. According to Kalugin, the KGB ran double agents to gather knowledge on hostile intelligence services. The KGB could learn a great deal by the kind of questions a hostile intelligence service was asking a double agent such as what kind of intelligence was required and what type of assignment it was giving to the double. To illustrate that point, he provides the theoretical circumstance of a CIA officer outlining what he was seeking from a Soviet agent. The officer might say a bit too much in explaining the matter and let slip some interesting information. Double agents could passively pick up valuable material just by being in the presence of hostile intelligence officers. Kalugin then gives a real life example of how a Soviet double agent grabbed a roll of microfilm that his CIA handler had forgotten. Dozens of intelligence documents, shedding light on the CIA Tokyo station were on that microfilm. Kalugin explains that the KGB also used double agents to plant disinformation and confuse hostile intelligence agencies. And running a double game could be extremely valuable in the propaganda battle with the West. On several occasions when the KGB was sure the CIA or other agency had been duped by its double, it would then nab the CIA agent for espionage. The KGB would then go about revealing details of the CIA’S spying operation, and expel the US case officer in a great fit of publicity.

Concerning the counterespionage case he became involved with while in Leningrad, the KGB elicited the cooperation of a Leningrad scientist named Pavlov who frequently traveled the world on a Soviet research ship. Ostensibly, he had access to information about Soviet science and the Soviet military industrial complex. Instructions were given to him to express dissenter views, engage in some black market operations, and do everything possible to attract the attention of the CIA and other intelligence services. For two years Pavlov was dangled at the CIA, doing everything that he was told. The KGB was surprised, for it expected the CIA to show interest in a man who had so much access. Then out of the blue, the KGB received a cable from the KGB’S station chief in Buenos Aires, Argentina stating that Pavlov had come to the Soviet Embassy and reported that the CIA tried to recruit him. He talked to the CIA agent, passed along some information, undoubtedly chicken feed, and agreed to meet him in Leningrad upon his return home. Kalugin said that his boss in Leningrad was skeptical, but the Center told them to go ahead with the meeting. And indeed such a meeting took place. Our surveillance people observed Pavlova and a diplomat from the US consulate in Leningrad–clearly a CIA case officer–rendezvous ingredients on a remote street in the city. Pavlov took money from the CIA case officer in exchange for scientific information. A second meeting was scheduled 25 miles outside of Leningrad. Pavlova was to give the CIA agent documents in exchange for another payment. As it turned out, however, the meeting came only days after the September 1, 1983 Soviet shoot down of Korean Airlines Flight 007. The Center made the decision not to continue to pursue the counterespionage operation. It ordered the arrest of the CIA case officer when he met with Pavlov and use of the incident to counter the storm of controversy that swept over the Korean Airlines fiasco. The CIA officer was caught red handed. He was expelled, but the incident while hyped did not make a dent in the bad publicity suffered over the shoot down. However, it also turned out that Pavlov was not being honest about the money he received from the US, pocketing more than he reported. As a result of suspicions over Pavlov’s honesty, his apartment was searched and the KGB found large sums of money proving he was pocketing payments. Pavlov confessed and was sentenced to 13 years in jail. He was granted amnesty in Yeltsin’s era.

In the Leningrad KGB branch, Kalugin also witnessed first-hand the true nature of the KGB’s activities as a domestic political police. He discovered that the KGB’s internal functions had precious little connection with state security but rather, benefitted corrupt Communist Party officials by keeping them in power. Indeed, from Leningrad, Kalugin could see more clearly the wretchedness of the Soviet system and appreciate real socialism at its fullest. Further, in Leningrad, he was authentically in touch with Soviet people for the first time and began to understand how they lived. Kalugin concluded the Soviet system was unworkable and needed to change. It was a conclusion from inside the Soviet Union and was not prompted by any outside ideas or reports. The disintegration of what were once considered the indestructible foundations of the KGB, as outlined by Kalugin, placed it on the road to destruction. In this segment, Kalugin provides a stark warning about what can happen to a state security organization that has lost its way. In vinculis etiam audax. (In chains yet still bold.)

Concerning the story of how his career ended, no one could be as sound on the details of the matter as Kalugin, himself. In the section of this review dubbed “About the Author,” may have been a bit of a spoiler, telling the story of how things progressed to the present very briefly. Kalugin was forced into retirement but seemed content to break free of the suffocating chains of the KGB bureaucracy, and daylight madness of a few power wielding superiors or equals in other departments. Kalugin then took a very active part in the rallies of Democrats. His disillusionment culminated in a sensational appearance at a political gathering in Moscow in the summer of 1990. He gave a speech from the abundance of the heart at the “Democratic Platform in the CPSU” conference. The former KGB general reports that he struggled to steady his voice and said: “Some people may think that I have jumped on the democratic bandwagon with evil intentions. I understand that there may be suspicions in your m8nds, but let me tell you that you’re wrong. I am from the KGB. I worked in that organization for more than thirty years, and I want to tell all of you how the KGB works against the best interests of democratic forces in this country.” Kalugin then describes an utter silence in the hall as he talked about himself and explained why the KGB must be radically reformed and the number of agents drastically reduced. He stated: “We cannot begin a serious restructuring of society until we rid ourselves of the restraints imposed by an organization which has penetrated every sphere of our lives, which interferes with all aspects of state life, political life, the economy, science, arts, religion, even sports. Today, just as ten or twenty years ago, the hand of the KGB is everywhere. And any real talk of perestroika without reforming the KGB is nothing but a lie. All the much-ballyhooed changes in the KGB are cosmetic, a disguise upon the ugly face of the Stalin-Brezhnev era. In fact, all elements of the old dictatorship are still in place. The chief assistant and handmaiden of the Communist Party remains the KGB. In order to secure genuine changes in our country, this structure of violence and falsehood must be dismantled.” The speech was met with roars of approval, and a standing ovation. Requests for interviews and speeches followed in the weeks afterward. What also followed was a predictable KGB attack. A statement was released by the KGB press office declaring in effect: “The KGB is going to have its say about Kalugin, who he is and what he stands for.” Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev dealt the heaviest blow, issuing a decree on July 1, 1991, stripping Kalugin of his rank of major general, revoking all of his KGB awards, and cutting off his pension. Kalugin persisted against the odds. He was soon elected People’s Deputy of the USSR from the Krasnodar Territory. He remained a very vocal independent critic of the Communist system. His continuous attacks on the KGB garnered him notoriety and a political following. Political courage had to replace physical courage in the field as a KGB officer, though the real threat of violence, his assassination, existed. Nevertheless, he continued to protest KGB abuses.

The Collapse of the Soviet Union

Following an attempted 1991 coup against Gorbachev led by Kalugin’s nemesis, Kryuchkov, along with seven others, a popular movement under the Mayor of Moscow Boris Yeltsin emerged to subdue coup supporters. Watching events transpire in Russia as the Soviet Union collapsed and failing to act in some way would have been tantamount to accepting and admitting that he never had a spark of dignity or decency. Kalugin manned the barricades, serving as an inspirational leader for protesters. He jumped on top of Soviet tanks to address protesters. It was Kalugin who supposedly persuaded Yeltsin to address crowds before the Russian White House and elsewhere. In September 1991, Gorbachev restated Kalugin’s ranks along with all decorations and his pension. Yeltsin took control of the Soviet Union from Gorbachev and dissolved it, breaking it down to constituent republics. It was widely seen as a change for the better for the Soviet people and the world. Though the new and smaller Russian Federation filled the vacuum of the Soviet space and got off to a very rocky start, reformists such as Kalugin who followed Yeltsin could be satisfied that they at least put it on the right track with an energetic shove. Kalugin decided to become a part of the reconstruction. He believed that Russia could eventually meet its full potential. His sensibilities then were representative of those times. He became an unpaid advisor to reformist KGB Chairman Vladimir Bakatin. Bakatin became famous for issuing a pattern of listening devices at the US Embassy in Moscow. However, Bakatin was only able to dissolve the old system but not reform it. As time went on, he was wise enough to recognize that possibility had passed beyond his view.

It would be easy to say that it should not have been terribly difficult for an intelligent man to predict the future of an authoritarian regime that sought to crush the spirit of its people with deceptions, crimes, and evils. Long ago, as a child, he had reached one set of conclusions on those matters. However. his experiences and intelligence provided him with the capability to discern why his initial conclusions might not have been correct. As he collected more information and experienced more of the darker side of what the Soviet system had to offer, he found that he was able to refute his long held views. Thus, he could no longer press any of his ideals about Soviet Union, the Communist Movement, the Communist Party, Socialism and the geopolitical struggle with the West forward with a degree of confidence. There was nothing puzzling about it all to Kalugin as he made that transition in his thinking. The death of Kalugin’s life in Russia opened the door to a new life in the US. Arguably, to that extent, Kalugin in the long-run oddly benefitted from the wrath of his enemies, and in a way benefited from the collapse of the Soviet Union. The righteous was separated from the unrighteous.

Kalugin always remained resolute in disappointment. He never lost his way. In his mind, he organized and synthesized the conditions that beset him. He never resembled what has been whimsically called “spiritual roadkill.” He had his own ethics, buttressed by a creed of what is right and wrong, fair and unfair inculcated within his soul at home with his parents. Ethics without such a creed are only a hollow shell. Bereft of the Soviet system that was once his mighty and faithful, shining beacon of light, upon which he could place all of his hopes and dreams for his future and the future of the world, over a few short years, as mentioned earlier, Kalugin was forced to make a series of never before imagined, new choices about his future, and his family’s future. Even through that, his heart remained stout and strong. Still today, he has refused to concede defeat to his enemies back in Moscow. How poetry manages to connect is really its classic role in culture. It provides an emotional vocabulary, putting into words what one may be sensing. When thinking about Kalugin’s struggles, wanting to achieve much for his country and do the right things, Arthur Hugh Clough’s “Say not the Struggle nought Availeth” (1849) comes to mind. It connects well with Kalugin’s persistence in humility:

Say not the struggle nought availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light,

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

But westward, look, the land is bright.

It is imaginable that greatcharlie’s enthusiasm over First Directorate may lead some to simply write this review off as a hopelessly oleagic encomium. However, nothing presented here is expressed with pretension. What one finds in First Directorate is of the highest quality and remains steady from beginning to end. Readers are also enabled to see the world through the lens of a man with years of experience in the world and a thorough understanding of humanity. Information from the text that is presented here, though it may wet the palate, only represents a mere fraction of what “things, wonderful things” the reader will find in First Directorate. In the genre of fiction and nonfiction spy stories, there is an artistic milieu in which writers seek to position themselves amidst. It cannot be denied that human nature instinctively finds entertainment more compelling than edification. While there is plenty in First Directorate to be entertained, in focusing on such, the depth of Kalugin, the man, might be missed. There is much that explains KGB tactics, techniques, procedures, and methods in First Directorate. When dealing with details as well as publishers and editors, one may likely find inconsistencies with previous accounts told by Kalugin of people and events. While there are many facts in First Directorate to scrutinize, in focusing on such, the mosaic of Kalugin, the man might be missed. Of course, readers should enjoy First Directorate as they wish. It is nice to get hold of a book that allows readers many ways to enjoy it. For greatcharlie, it was an absolute pleasure to read. As would be expected, greatcharlie wholeheartedly recommends First Directorate to its readers. It is definitely worth the read.

By Mark Edmond Clark

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