Mary Dejevsky: A Spy Mission Left Behind by History, or a New Tactic by post-Soviet Russia?
[Mary Dejevsky is a columnist at The Independent.]
Having worked as a reporter in Moscow, Washington and indeed London, I have learnt only two lessons from the periodic eruption of espionage dramas. The first is that, however seductive and meticulous the detail, things are seldom completely as they seem. The second is that, despite the end of the Cold War, pretty much everyone is still at it: note the terse "no comment" given by Britain's former ambassador in Moscow Tony Brenton when asked on the BBC Today programme yesterday whether Britain was still in the Russia spying game.
By any standards, though, the outlines of this story, as disclosed by the US authorities, are bizarre. A dozen individuals, some paired up, were "embedded" in the Land of the Free with the apparent aim of infiltrating the upper echelons of US decision-making. They assumed American names and American identities and, judging by their neighbours' accounts, they managed that part pretty well, even though they appear to have got no further in their networking than would be expected of a moderately competent journalist, and – a crucial oversight, this – they were tracked almost all the way by the CIA.
There are odd little details that pose ethical questions beyond the moral issue raised by spying. Some of the accused had children brought up in the United States, who are culturally American and apparently had no inkling of their parents' other lives. How's that for assimilation – and what do these individuals do now?
But the immediate questions relate to the origins and nature of their mission. They were infiltrated into the US, it appears, in the 1990s, that is, when the Cold War was officially over and the Kremlin was orientated in a more westerly direction than it has been since. If the US timeline is correct, then the mission predates Vladimir Putin's tenure as President, so the enterprise cannot be blamed – as lingering cold warriors are wont to do – on the idea of the KGB capturing the state, as in "once a KGB agent, always a KGB agent".
How far was this operation state-sponsored? How far was it an intelligence-agency fishing expedition? Was it a relic of the Cold War, a mission left behind by history, or is it evidence of a new way of working on the part of post-Soviet intelligence?..
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
Having worked as a reporter in Moscow, Washington and indeed London, I have learnt only two lessons from the periodic eruption of espionage dramas. The first is that, however seductive and meticulous the detail, things are seldom completely as they seem. The second is that, despite the end of the Cold War, pretty much everyone is still at it: note the terse "no comment" given by Britain's former ambassador in Moscow Tony Brenton when asked on the BBC Today programme yesterday whether Britain was still in the Russia spying game.
By any standards, though, the outlines of this story, as disclosed by the US authorities, are bizarre. A dozen individuals, some paired up, were "embedded" in the Land of the Free with the apparent aim of infiltrating the upper echelons of US decision-making. They assumed American names and American identities and, judging by their neighbours' accounts, they managed that part pretty well, even though they appear to have got no further in their networking than would be expected of a moderately competent journalist, and – a crucial oversight, this – they were tracked almost all the way by the CIA.
There are odd little details that pose ethical questions beyond the moral issue raised by spying. Some of the accused had children brought up in the United States, who are culturally American and apparently had no inkling of their parents' other lives. How's that for assimilation – and what do these individuals do now?
But the immediate questions relate to the origins and nature of their mission. They were infiltrated into the US, it appears, in the 1990s, that is, when the Cold War was officially over and the Kremlin was orientated in a more westerly direction than it has been since. If the US timeline is correct, then the mission predates Vladimir Putin's tenure as President, so the enterprise cannot be blamed – as lingering cold warriors are wont to do – on the idea of the KGB capturing the state, as in "once a KGB agent, always a KGB agent".
How far was this operation state-sponsored? How far was it an intelligence-agency fishing expedition? Was it a relic of the Cold War, a mission left behind by history, or is it evidence of a new way of working on the part of post-Soviet intelligence?..