BOOK REVIEW: To Catch A Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence
By James M. Olson
Reviewed by Mark Kelton, Former Deputy Director for Counterintelligence, CIA
The realm of counterintelligence (CI) is the most cloistered of the intelligence world. In his book To Catch a Spy, James Olson makes the invariably, and often intentionally, opaque field of CI more comprehensible for both the intelligence professional and the layman. That he does so in a manner that is both insightful and engaging should come as no surprise. Mr. Olson’s background as a career intelligence officer and his talent for teaching come through in his writing. He deftly weaves unclassified CI history, case studies, discerning commentary and his own experiences into a narrative that at once entertains and instructs. As someone who followed almost the same path Mr. Olson did; serving in CIA’s Soviet Division, occupying two of the CIA leadership positions in which he had previously served - most notably that of Chief of CI - and likewise becoming a teacher on intelligence matters after leaving the Agency; I particularly appreciate the book’s subtitle: “The Art of Counterintelligence”. Intelligence writ large is much more art than science. And in no aspect of the intelligence craft is this more apparent than in CI.
I do not know that all who work in intelligence would concur with Mr. Olson’s characterization of CI as “the most demanding of all the intelligence disciplines”. There would, however, be wide agreement with his view that CI “is an excruciatingly frustrating profession”. It is also the most under-appreciated of intelligence disciplines. This is certainly the case with the best known yet probably least understood aspect of CI: counterespionage. Thrillers and movies, however well conceived, cannot begin to convey the painstaking work, dedication and emotional commitment that go into hunting for spies. Mr. Olson, who devoted the better part of his career to pursuing and studying traitors, does so by giving the reader a sense of what it is like to live every day with what the late CIA Director Richard Helms termed “the nightmare…that his organization is penetrated” by a spy.
Spy hunting is akin to assembling a jigsaw puzzle with no idea what the completed puzzle should look like. Indeed, it must be assembled using a mish-mash of pieces, some of which don’t belong to that puzzle at all. That those pieces are, in any case, insufficient in number to complete the final picture only compounds the difficulty of the spy hunter’s task. Mr. Olson speaks to the “tenacity and persistence” CI demands of its practitioners in his Tenth, and what he considers “the most important” Commandment of CI: “Never Give Up”. Looking for spies is, as Mr. Olson points out, a job wherein “you lose when you win.” A spy detected represents at once victory and defeat. This is so because even when a spy is exposed and a threat consequently ended, the CI professional must, in Mr. Olson’s words, confront hard questions like: “How could you let this happen?” “This game”, as Director Helms said of a Cold War counterespionage investigation, “is not for the soft-hearted”. This was the unforgiving arena in which Mr. Olson worked and that he so knowledgeably depicts.
In addressing the key CI threats now confronting the U.S., Mr. Olson is surely correct in his over-arching judgment that “few Americans realize the extent to which foreign intelligence services are stealing our most important secrets”, that our country “is hemorrhaging its vital secrets and sensitive technology, and we are not doing enough to stop it”. He rightly assesses that “China is without question the number one counterintelligence threat facing the United States” as evidenced by the “massive espionage, cyber and covert action assault” being mounted by Beijing against us. Mr. Olson’s elucidation of the scope and nature of that threat is comprehensive. He highlights not only the immense scale of the cyber threat facing us, but also other less well known, but nonetheless very effective, espionage methods being aimed at us by Beijing ranging from traditional espionage; through exploitation by Chinese nationals of their access to U.S. industrial and trade secrets, intellectual property, research data and academic institutions; to efforts to influence the American electoral process. “There are”, Mr. Olson concludes, “spies, and then there are Chinese spies. China is in a class by itself…because of its absolute obsession with stealing America’s secrets”.
I agree with Mr. Olson’s ranking of Russia as being second to China as a CI threat to the U.S., principally due to the immediacy of the challenge the latter as an expansionist power and rising strategic competitor presents in comparison with the revanchist, disruptive role played by the former. But I differ with him as to his characterization of the threat from Moscow occupying a “distant second place” in comparison with that emanating from Beijing. The Russian intelligence services, the inheritors of the legacy of their Soviet forbearers, are our inexorable adversaries. They have at one time or another penetrated every significant organization and agency in the U.S. Government and, as evidenced by their recent efforts to undermine American democracy, are the most professionally proficient intelligence adversaries we confront.
Similarly, I would not have chosen Cuba as the third ranked of the top three CI threats the U.S. currently faces. Mr. Olson, who had extensive experience working against the Cubans, could be right that “pound for pound the Cuban (intelligence service; the DGI) may be the most effective intelligence service U.S. counterintelligence faces”. Having encountered the DGI myself, I cannot disagree with Mr. Olson’s ranking of Cuba as “number one on the obnoxious scale”. I would, nonetheless, have placed Iran ahead of Cuba in that CI rogues’ gallery due to the greater relative immediacy of the intelligence challenge to our nation and its interests emanating from Tehran.
Mr. Olson’s passion for both the CI craft and those who practice it are apparent in his Ten Commandments of CI. Those Commandments, which have been previously published in CIA’s Studies in Intelligence, are the “culmination” of Mr. Olson’s CI experience. In addressing such imperatives as “Honor Your Professionals”, “Know Your History”, “Do Not Be Parochial” and “Own the Street”, he provides guideposts for both the application of the principles of CI tradecraft and the development of successful CI programs. Mr. Olson’s also brings his rich experience and comprehensive knowledge of espionage history to bear in setting forth a primer on the theory and management of what he terms the “most complex and challenging subspecialty of (CI)”: double agent operations.
Mr. Olson’s chapter on “Workplace Counterintelligence” will be of interest not only to CI professionals working in the government and the defense industrial base, but also to those working in the private sector who are charged with protecting business and industry from insider threat. While framed in a government context, the issues Mr. Olson addresses; selection and supervision of personnel as well as the importance of individual responsibility in protecting an organization from insider betrayal; have broader applicability. Of interest to me was the emphasis Mr. Olson laid in this and other chapters on the need for CI professionals to speak forthrightly on potential CI implications inherent in politically sensitive hiring and personnel decisions as well as on the utility of the polygraph as a screening tool for ‘finding leakers and spies before they become leakers and spies’.
Mr. Olson concludes his book with a selection of CI case studies involving 12 known spies, to include the likes of Chi Mak, Michael Souther and Clyde Lee Conrad. He brings fresh perspective and insightful analysis to those cases, concluding each detailed presentation of useful CI lessons-learned. Most fascinating to me was Mr. Olson’s recounting of the story of Clayton Lonetree, a case with which Mr. Olson was personally involved. His actions in helping deliver to justice a young man who had betrayed our country and the merciful course he advocated for a repentant Lonetree who had paid for his crimes, speak to Mr. Olson’s devotion to duty and to his humanity.
Churchill’s quip that "All Wisdom is Not New Wisdom” reminds us of the value to the present of lessons from the past. In To Catch A Spy, Mr. Olson has captured many CI lessons from the past, some of them very hard-won, and brought them to life for both the general reader and for a new generation of intelligence officers. Frankly, this is a book I wish I could have written. But it is also a book I am gratified Mr. Olson did write.
This book earns a prestigious four out of four trench coats.
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