espionage

The Ford Administration Used a CIA Agent's Killing to Silence Sen. Frank Church

The assassination of Richard Welch in Athens in 1975 came as the Church Committee was beginning its final report; the White House and the CIA claimed, without proof, that the committee's investigation of CIA actions exposed Welch's identity. Welch's deputy in Athens now speaks out. 

Review: Fluorescent Foxes and Other Outrageous Projects of WWII Espionage

Stanley Lovell, believed to the the inspiration for "Q" in the James Bond stories, was the mastermind of the most outrageous efforts at psychological warfare and deception for the precursor agency to the CIA – including painting foxes with radium to resemble kitsune, shinto harbingers of doom. 

What's Behind the Spy Balloon Hysteria?

by Heather Cox Richardson

The February 2023 Chinese Spy Balloon Incident will be remembered by historians—not for its international significance but for the over-the-top response of a Republican opposition detached from reality. 

Legal Analysts: DOJ Filing Shows Garland Should Move Quickly to Indict Trump

by Dennis Aftergut and Philip Allen Lacovara

A narrow indictment focused on charges related to the improper keeping of documents, delivered immediately after the November midterms is the only chance to prosecute Trump between elections and strike a blow for accountability. 

Historians on Trump's Post-Presidential Legal Issues

Trump's legal difficulties increased significantly with the announcement of a federal indictment on charges related to the improper possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. 

After Mar-a-Lago: Historians Among Experts on the Meaning of the Search and the Danger Ahead

Historian of fascism Federico Finchelstein says that the Trump World response to the search warrant exposes their core belief that Trump's leadership supersedes the rule of law and justifies any response to maintain it. 

At 75, the CIA is Back to Battling the Kremlin

The common objectives and concerns that engaged the Central Intelligence Agency at its 1947 founding are familiar to the intelligence community today, showing the continuity of American involvement in other nations' affairs. 

East Berlin Stories: Gay Espionage in Cold War Berlin

by Samuel Huneke

The East German Stasi recruited gay Beriners as informants both because they believed they posed a security threat and because the secret police had difficulty penetrating the secrecy of gay social networks in the city. 

Can Intelligence (or History) Predict How Far Putin Might Go?

by Calder Walton

Despite the image of individual operatives, assembling reliable intelligence about Putin's invasion plans is a product of multiple coordinated capabilities, just like it was at the height of the cold war. 

Did British Intelligence Try to Undermine Castro's Cuba with Homophobia?

Declassified documents show that one unknown facet of the British effort to undermine communist Cuba was to encourage the spread of homophobic rumors about Raúl Castro.  

The Hidden Story of the West's Most Important Double Agent

by Tim Tate

How and why did the CIA turn on Michal Gleniewski, a Polish defector who was one of the most valuable intelligence assets of the Cold War? 

The Man Who Conned the Confederacy

Samuel Upham's trade in counterfeit Confederate bills started to cash in on the craze for war souvenirs. It's possible that the U.S. Government helped him improve his operation to destabilize the Confederate currency. 

Review: How Espionage Has Helped Win Wars

A roundup of new books in the history of espionage covers Asian Americans in the WWII OSS, the early Cold War, and an examination of the roots of Putin's aggressiveness against dissidents.

"A Drop of Treason": Philip Agee, CIA Whisteblower Gets a New Bio

Jonathan Stevenson's new book on Philip Agee, who left the CIA and exposed its operations in Latin America, struggles to portray the complex mix of principle and egotism that drove its subject. 

The Ritchie Boys

Stories from members of the Ritchie Boys, a secret U.S. WWII intelligence unit bolstered by German-born Jews.

The Spy Who Came in from the Carrel

Two new books by Kathy Peiss and Richard Ovenden deal with the question of acquiring or destroying knowledege as an act of war, including the work of archivists in the OSS's "Chairborne Division" and the forced labor of Jewish scholars to identify major works of Judaica for Nazi Germany to purge. 

Review: Does "The Princess Spy" Pierce the Veil of its Subject's Fictions?

by Robert Huddleston

A new biography of Aline Griffiths, Countess of Romanones, takes on the self-fashioned myths of the American-born woman who married a Spanish aristocrat after serving the OSS in Madrid during World War II. Does it succeed in finding the facts of her career as a spy?

The Audacious Escape of George Blake

by Steve Vogel

George Blake was the most notorious double agent in Cold War Britain, which makes the story of his amateurish (but successful) escape from prison all the more remarkable. 

Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case

The National Security Archive is republishing its trove of declassified documents related to Jonathan Pollard, a US Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel in the 1980s. Pollard's parole recently ended. 

Dwight Eisenhower Built up American Intelligence at a Crucial Moment

by Steve Vogel

Dwight Eisenhower oversaw an aggressive building of American intelligence capability toward the USSR, moving espionage to a more prominent role in Cold War foreign policy. This included ordering the CIA to tunnel into East Berlin to tap Soviet phone lines.