Read A Brief History of the Spy Online
Authors: Paul Simpson
As always, the staff at the Hassocks branch of the West Sussex public library, who provide a ready reminder why the library service needs to be maintained.
My partner Barbara and my daughter Sophie for their love and support; and our terriers, Rani and Rodo, who have finally realized that when I’m sitting at my desk, it doesn’t mean that I’m doing nothing and therefore it’s time to start playing with them!
Aid, Matthew M.:
Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror
(Bloomsbury Press, 2012)
Aid, Matthew M.:
The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency
(Paperback edition Bloomsbury Press, 2011)
Andrew, Christopher and Oleg Gordievsky:
KGB: The Inside Story
(HarperCollins, 1990)
Andrew, Christopher and Vasili Mitrokhin:
The Sword and the Shield
(Paperback edition: Perseus Books, 2001)
Andrew, Christopher:
The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5
(Updated edition, Penguin, 2011)
Bearden, Milt and Risen, James:
The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB
(Random House, 2003)
Bergen, Peter:
Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Osama bin Laden
(The Bodley Head, 2012)
Bischof, Günter; Stefan Karner and Peter Ruggenthaler:
The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968
(Lexington, 2011)
Boer, Peter:
Canadian Security Intelligence Service
(Folklore Publishing, 2010)
Butler, Rupert:
Stalin’s Instruments of Terror
(Spellmount, 2006)
Cherkashin, Victor with Gregory Fiefer:
Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer
(Perseus Books, 2005)
Drogin, Bob:
Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War
(Ebury Press, 2008)
Gehlen, Reinhard:
The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen
(Popular Library, 1973)
Gordievsky, Oleg:
Next Stop Execution
(Macmillan, 1995)
Hathaway, Robert M. and Smith, Russell Jack:
Richard Helms as Director of Central Intelligence
(CIA internal, declassified version available via the CIA website, 1993)
Howe, Sir Geoffrey:
Conflict of Loyalty
(Pan Books, 2005)
Ingram, Martin & Greg Harkin:
Stakeknife: Britain’s Secret Agents in Ireland
(The O’Brien Press, 2004)
Jeffrey, Keith:
MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service
(Paperback edition: Bloomsbury Press, 2011)
Kalugin, Oleg with Fen Montaign:
SpyMaster: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West
(St Martin’s Press, 1994)
MacRakis, Kirstie:
Seduced by Secrets: Inside the Stasi’s Spy-Tech World
(Cambridge, 2008)
North, Oliver with William Novak:
Under Fire: An American Story
(HarperCollins, 1991)
Philby, Kim:
My Silent War
(Modern Library edition: 2002)
Rimington, Stella:
Open Secret
(Arrow Books, 2002)
Soufan, Ali H. with Daniel Freedman:
The Black Banners: Inside the Hunt for Al-Qaeda
(W.W. Norton & Co., 2011)
Tenet, George with Harlow, Bill:
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
(HarperPress, 2007)
Thomas, Gordon:
Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad
5th Edition (St Martin’s Press, 2009)
Trahair, Richard C.S. and Robert L. Miller:
Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies and Secret Operations
(third edition), Enigma Books, 2012)
Wallace, Robert and H. Keith Melton with Henry Robert Schlesinger:
Spycraft
(Dutton, 2008)
Wise, David:
Nightmover
(HarperCollins, 1996)
Wise, David:
Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI’s Robert Hanssen Betrayed America
(Paperback edition, Random House, 2003)
Wright, Peter with Greengrass, Paul:
Spycatcher
(Heinemann, 1987)
The CIA website at
www.cia.gov
is an invaluable source of declassified documents and articles, giving the American perspective on events after the Second World War. Similarly, the FBI’s site at
www.fbi.gov
provides much inside information on the counterespionage activities of the Bureau.
The British Security Service can be found at
www.mi5.gov.uk
with MI6 represented online at
www.sis.gov.uk
These are considerably less open than their American counterparts but do reveal some choice nuggets.
The
New York Times
and
Time
magazine online archives are the primary sources for contemporary reports of trials and investigations.
Although we have attempted to trace and contact copyright holders before publication, this may not have been possible in all cases. If notified, the publisher will be pleased to correct any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.
Agency, The:
see CIA.
ASIO:
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Counterespionage.
ASIS:
Australian Secret Intelligence Service.
AVH:
The State Protection Authority. The Hungarian secret police under the Communists.
BfV:
Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. (West) German counterintelligence.
BND:
Bundesnachrichtendienst. The German secret service; prior to unification, it served that function for West Germany.
Bureau, The:
common nickname for the FBI.
Cheka:
see KGB history.
CIA:
Central Intelligence Agency. America’s intelligence agency, based in Langley, Virginia.
cover:
the identity assumed by a spy.
cryptology:
the study (and breaking) of codes.
CSIS:
Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The Canadian intelligence and counter-intelligence agency. Prior to its creation, such work was carried out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
CSS:
see DS.
CTC:
the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.
DCI:
Director of Central Intelligence. The head of the CIA, and, until 2005, the head of the American intelligence community. Replaced by the D/CIA.
D/CIA:
Director, Central Intelligence Agency. The head of the CIA since 2005, who reports to the DNI.
dead drop:
a procedure for passing documents between an agent and his handler. The agent will leave the items at a pre-arranged location (e.g. under a rock, beneath a bridge), and at a suitable time the handler will collect it.
DGSE:
General Directorate for External Security. The French intelligence agency since 1982.
DNI:
Director of National Intelligence. The head of the American intelligence community following reforms brought in after 9/11. Much of the work of the DNI was formerly carried out by the DCI of the CIA.
DPRK:
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. North Korea, under a Communist regime.
DS:
Duzhavna Sigurnost (State Security). The popular name for the Bulgarian Committee for State Security under the Communist regime.
ELINT:
Electronic INTelligence. Data received from electronic sources, such as listening devices or satellites.
FAPSI:
Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information. The Russian equivalent of America’s NSA, concentrating on SIGINT.
FBI:
Federal Bureau of Investigation. The American counterintelligence agency which also has responsibility as a criminal investigative body.
FSB:
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. Russia’s counter-espionage agency since the fall of Communism.
G-2:
the intelligence gathering section of the US Army. It is also the title of the Irish intelligence agency.
GCHQ:
Government Communication Headquarters. The SIGINT wing of British intelligence. Its main base is at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
GPU:
see KGB history.
GRU:
Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Soviet, now Russian, Army intelligence.
GUGB:
see KGB history.
HUMINT:
HUMan INTelligence. Information derived from human sources (i.e. spies on the ground)
HVA:
Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung. The foreign intelligence arm of the East German Stasi.
IJS:
Irish Joint Section. A group of MI5 and MI6 officers working together regarding problems in Northern Ireland between 1972 and 1984. MI5 took over responsibility towards the end, leading to its phasing out.
IRA:
The Irish Republican Army. Group opposed to the presence of the British in Northern Ireland, which waged a campaign during the twentieth century. Offshoots include The Continuity IRA and the Real IRA. Its political wing is Sinn Fein.
JIC:
Joint Intelligence Committee: A group reporting to the British Cabinet, which oversees the work of the various British intelligence agencies.
KGB:
The Committee for State Security. Although only officially existing between 1954 and 1991, the title is often used for Russian foreign intelligence throughout the twentieth century.
KGB history:
The Soviet State Security organization would go through many name changes in the period leading up to the Cold War. The Cheka (The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage) operated from December 1917 to February 1922, when it was incorporated into the NKVD (the People’s Commissariat of State Security) as the GPU (the State Political Directorate). From July 1923 to July 1934 it was known as the OGPU (the Unified State Political Directorate) before reincorporating into the NKVD, this time as the GUGB (Main Administration of Soviet Security). For five months in 1941 it was referred to as the NKGB (the People’s Commissariat of State Security) before returning to the NKVD. It became the MGB (Ministry for State Security) in 1946, before Beria merged that with the MVD (the Ministry of the Interior) in 1953 following Stalin’s death. After Beria’s fall, State Security was separated from
the Ministry, and became the KGB. The KGB was disbanded in 1991 to be replaced by the SVR.
Langley:
term often used to describe CIA Headquarters, or the senior officials of the CIA.
MGB:
See KGB history.
MI5:
The British Security Service. Officially, this was only its title between September 1916 and 1929 but the abbreviation is used even within the service.
MI6:
term commonly used for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Properly, it only refers to a period during the Second World War when it was used as a counterpart to MI5, but the phrase has entered common usage. Officially the title SIS was given in 1920, and enshrined in law in 1994. The service itself uses SIS rather than MI6 as an abbreviation.
Moscow Centre:
term used for those giving instructions to Russian/Soviet intelligence agents.
Mossad:
the Israeli foreign intelligence agency.
MSS:
Ministry for State Security. The foreign intelligence agency of the People’s Republic of China.
MVD:
see KGB history.
NCS:
National Clandestine Service. Since 2005, the operational arm of the CIA.
NIA:
National Intelligence Authority. A body overseeing American intelligence work between the end of the Second World War and the creation of the CIA in 1947.
NKGB:
see KGB history.
NKVD:
see KGB history.
NSA:
National Security Agency. The SIGINT arm of US intelligence.
NSC:
National Security Council. Chaired by the American president, this was designed to oversee American intelligence after 1947. It came to prominence during the Iran-Contra affair. Its functions were merged with the Homeland Security Council in 2009 to form the National Security Staff.
OGPU:
see KGB history.
ODNI:
Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
one-time pad:
a method of sending messages which is nearly impossible to decode unless you have a copy of the pad. Agents
are supplied with a set of tear-off sheets which are used to encode the message and then destroyed; their handlers have the only duplicate set, which they use to decode the information.
ONI:
Office of Naval Intelligence. The American Navy’s intelligence arm.
OSS:
Office of Strategic Services. The American intelligence agency during the Second World War. It was effectively a forerunner of the CIA.
PFLP:
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Terrorist organization fighting for a separate Palestinian state.
PFLP-GC:
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command. Splinter group from the PFLP.