Counterintelligence in a Time of Crisis
Mark Kelton is a former senior Central Intelligence Agency executive who retired in 2015 with 34 years of experience in intelligence operations. Before retiring, he served as CIA’s Deputy Director for Counterintelligence.
“All my little duckies, swimming on the pond…heads deep in the water, tails to the sky.” That final 23 May 1990 shortwave radio broadcast from the East German Hauptverwaltung Aufklaerung (‘Main Reconnaissance Directorate’, or HVA), warning its agents abroad to go to ground, was a signal moment in Cold War history. Although ideology never completely went away as a motive for betrayal of country – most notably in the instances of US citizens who have made common cause with Jihadi terrorists – the end of the Cold War also seemed to bring an end to an era wherein ideology alternately served as a principal cause of, and justification for, betrayal.
The subsequent arrests of such ideologically driven Cold War leftovers as former East German spies Kurt Stand, Theresa Squillacote and James Clark, whose stories were laid out in former Director of CIA’s National Clandestine Service Michael Sulick’s book, American Spies, as well as Cuban agents Kendall and Gwen Myers, and Defense intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst Ana Belen Montes seemed to underscore that point. In fact, ideology as a motive for Americans to spy – most prominent during the so-called “Golden Age” of Soviet espionage stretching from the 1930’s through the early Cold War years in such cases as those of Alger Hiss, OSS officer Duncan Lee, and Manhattan Project scientist Ted Hall, among many others – faded as the East-West struggle went on, with money playing an ever-greater role in spurring American spies. Events of late should, however, lead American counterintelligence (CI) professionals to re-visit the premise that ideological spying is largely a relic of the Cold War.
“The Chinese”, then-Senator John F. Kennedy said during a 1959 speech, “use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stoke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger—but recognize the opportunity.” I am not a Chinese linguist and, therefore, cannot attest to the accuracy of the late President’s assertion. But his point is surely correct. The situation in which the US now finds itself – beset by the twin calamities of a Chinese-origin pandemic and chaos on our streets provoked by radicals seeking to exploit lawful protest to undermine the rule of law – is, by any definition, a crisis. And, in my experience, a crisis is manna from heaven for intelligence officers.
Mark Kelton, Former Dep. Dir. for Counterintelligence, CIA's National Clandestine Service
It is prudent to assume that America’s intelligence adversaries see it the same way. This is so because societal or organizational upheaval can undermine the morale of those impacted by it, shaking their faith in the country and institutions they serve.
Such circumstances can: prompt disaffected persons with access to leak information of value or to offer themselves up to adversary intelligence services as volunteers; improve chances for the successful adversary targeting of prospective new agents; enhance an adversary’s technical collection; and present fertile fields for sowing disinformation intended to deepen the crisis.
The latter two threats are readily apparent. The millions of Americans working from home, distant from enterprise IT systems that afford their work product and communications enhanced protection from monitoring or cyber-attack, are alluring targets for those seeking to steal state, industrial and trade secrets. It would be shocking if our adversaries, particularly China, were not capitalizing on this opening. “Disinformation”, the late KGB archivist and defector Vasili Mitrokhin wrote, “almost always works most effectively when it includes a basis of fact.” The list of Moscow-inspired disinformation campaigns dating back to the Cold War, to include efforts to play on racial tensions and income disparity, is lengthy. We can expect more of the same from Russia and others in the future because the cultural, societal and political rifts currently plaguing us will provide much grist for similar campaigns in the coming years.
Like most Americans, I never envisioned events that might evoke consideration of whether we are undergoing an insurrection or insurgency in this country. This is not the first time we have faced such upheaval. But the extremism we are now experiencing has potentially dangerous consequences seen and unseen for our country. To be clear, that danger does not emanate from those engaged in peaceful, constitutionally sanctioned acts of protest. And, fortunately, most of those who damn the great for being imperfect are not prepared to act on those beliefs in the face of potential legal sanction or the opprobrium of their fellow countrymen and women. But those on the left and right of the political spectrum possessed of Marxist, anarchic, fascistic and nihilistic worldviews anathema to the American experience, and who are prepared to openly undertake such acts, should be of great concern. The ongoing Justice Department investigation into the threat such extremists pose to constitutional order is necessarily focused on those who have openly engaged in violence against people and property. But those who secretly support, and are willing to clandestinely engage in, actions that undermine our legal order and institutions should also be of concern as they can do great harm to the country. In no arena is this a greater worry than amongst those who have access to, or may gain access to, classified information.
Like the U-Boat commanders operating off the shores of a distracted and unprepared America at the outset of the Second World War, our intelligence adversaries surely view this chaotic period as a good time to hunt, a “Happy Time”. Those adversaries are undoubtedly looking for those demonstrating evidence of sympathy for extremist causes, particularly if they are currently working in our government or aspire to do so. In so doing, they are surely focusing on any reflections of extremist views they might uncover, especially in social media. Those estranged from country or organization that are looking for a means to advance an ideology make ideal intelligence targets.
Our adversaries will pursue such people because they currently handle sensitive information or because they have the potential to get their hands on it. Espionage history is replete with cases of the former. The infamous ‘Cambridge Five’ are the best examples of the latter. Recruited by Soviet intelligence during their university years in the 1930’s based upon their socialist views and personal susceptibilities, “the Magnificent Five” (as they were called within Soviet intelligence) went on as spies to do great damage to the security of Great Britain and its Allies. All of them – along with their lesser-known fellow Cambridge student and spy, US citizen Michael Straight - came from privileged backgrounds. Soviet intelligence played on its ability to offer spies of that generation a chance to serve a supposedly higher cause. The success of that approach demonstrates that even the well-heeled with the most advantaged upbringings and the best educations - sometimes especially those of such backgrounds - are susceptible to such an approach. “Cheats, liars and criminals”, John Le Carre wrote of the use of ideology to inspire disloyalty, “may resist every blandishment, while respectable gentlemen have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage in a departmental canteen.” The possibility that our enemies may find similarly suitable and malleable recruitment candidates among the well-off young people we have seen on our streets, based upon the ahistorical, anti-American views some of them have espoused, must be considered.
“I tried,” former HVA Chief Markus Wolf wrote, “to instill a different motivation, to give them the security and the conviction that they were doing something good, something necessary, something useful - if you want to use a grandiose expression, that they were doing something for peace.” Even traitors of the most basic and grasping character need excuses to offer for their betrayal. "I cannot classify myself as a visionary or idealist,” Soviet spy John Walker said, “just as a simple citizen who became angry by the government lies. I did conclude that the US system of government was broken, so I felt justified in breaking some rules in order to help save it”.
Mark Kelton, Former Dep. Dir. for Counterintelligence, CIA's National Clandestine Service
It is the job of the spy handler to seek out potential spies possessed of such personal or political vulnerabilities and to exploit those weaknesses, reinforcing or inculcating in them commitment to a higher cause as reason or justification for their espionage activities.
“Espionage,” convicted spy Aldrich Ames said, “for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust.” Ames knows a good deal about betrayal; and it is safe to assume our adversaries are eager to find a new generation of Ameses similarly willing to betray that trust.
It is only in hindsight that some of those uniquely susceptible to such an approach, driven to act by passionate belief in a cause, realize the folly of the course they have chosen. Christopher Boyce, the ‘Falcon’ of “The Falcon and the Snowman” fame, spoke to this in explaining his regret over his decision to volunteer to the Soviet KGB during the Cold War. "There was only”,Boyce wrote, “depression and a hopeless enslavement to an inhuman, uncaring foreign bureaucracy. I hadn't made myself count for something. I had made my freedom count for nothing. For whatever reason a person begins his involvement, a week after the folly begins, the original intent and purpose becomes lost in the ignominy of the ongoing nightmare." Even the most hardened of spies can ultimately come to such a realization. "What I did not realize at the time”, Cambridge Five member Anthony Blunt wrote, “is that I was so naive politically that I was not justified in committing myself to any political action of this kind. The atmosphere in Cambridge was so intense, the enthusiasm for any anti-fascist activity was so great, that I made the biggest mistake of my life."
The challenge for CI professionals today is to do all they can to deter similarly politically naïve serving and would-be government employees from making such a consequential error; or, failing that, to do all they must to find those who do decide to betray our country before they can do us harm.
“Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?” the Roman Poet Ovid asked, before answering his own question. “Why if it prosper,” he wrote, “none dare call it treason.”
Mark Kelton, Former Dep. Dir. for Counterintelligence, CIA's National Clandestine Service
Hunting spies and leakers is always hard. Hunting spies and leakers in a democracy, with the attendant and appropriate restrictions on the aggressiveness with which one can do so, is harder still.
“In a free society”, as Allen Dulles observed, “counterespionage is based on the practice most useful for hunting rabbits. Rather than look for the rabbit one posts oneself in a spot where the rabbit is likely to pass.”
Absent information from an agent operating within an adversary service, most CI investigations are triggered by a compromise of classified information or unauthorized efforts to access it. There have been many instances where those close to a suspected spy erroneously or intentionally excuse potentially incriminating acts. “Oh”, St. John Philby said of his son Kim’s communist sympathies at Cambridge, “that was just some youthful political rot.”
In the current environment, however, it is easy to envision scenarios where the identification and pursuit of suspected spies or leakers could be made all the more difficult by the invocation of service to a higher cause – to the right ideology - to excuse or obfuscate accountability for illegal, treasonous acts. This has already happened.
In the Edward Snowden case, for example, both the subject and his apologists have sought - with a regrettable degree of success - to cast him as a ‘whistle-blower’ who exposed purported US government wrongdoing rather than as what he is: a US government employee who betrayed his country and broke the law.
We are likely to see more of this in the era of the ‘cancel culture’, with attempts to discredit those charged with bringing spies and leakers to justice being called latter-day ‘McCarthyites’ or worse. When that happens, it will be worth remembering that while Senator Joe McCarthy was rightly condemned as a demagogue, there were, in fact, numerous Americans spying for the Soviet Union for ideological reasons.
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