SpyTalk: July 4, 2010 - July 10, 2010

Did Russian spies fool the FBI?

Two longtime veterans of the intelligence wars between Russia and the West say it’s inconceivable that the spies deported to Moscow Friday didn’t detect FBI surveillance years ago.

By By Jeff Stein  | July 10, 2010; 11:52 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (14)
Categories:  Intelligence, Justice/FBI  
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Ex-KGB general: Soviet spy stood ready to poison D.C.'s water

A Soviet "sleeper agent" had orders in the mid-1960s to poison the District's water and to sabotage its power supply if war with the United States became imminent, a former chief of KGB operations in North America said Friday night....

By Jeff Stein  | July 9, 2010; 11:44 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (1)
Categories:  Entertainment, Intelligence  
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Dead Russian defector not connected to spy ring

Russian defector Sergei Tretyakov, who ran spying operations in New York in the 1990s and who died unannounced in Florida last month, had no connections to the 10 spies deported Thursday, his biographer says. Tretyakov collaborated closely with former Washington...

By Jeff Stein  | July 9, 2010; 4:45 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (2)
Categories:  Intelligence, Media  
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Sleeper spies: Tinker, tailor, soldier ... who?

The problem with long term, deep cover agents, the late East German spymaster Markus Wolf once remarked, is that you can forget they exist. Considering the puzzle over whether the 10 Russians expelled Thursday ever found a secret here --...

By Jeff Stein  | July 8, 2010; 7:45 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (1)
Categories:  Backchannel chatter, Intelligence, Lawandcourts  
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Spy swap is 'all but unprecedented'

John L. Martin supervised 76 espionage cases during his 26 years at the Justice Department, but he’s never seen one end like this one. Martin said swapping spies who have not been sentenced to time in prison, much less served...

By Jeff Stein  | July 8, 2010; 5:15 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (45)
Categories:  Foreign policy, Intelligence, Justice/FBI, Lawandcourts  
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Past Russian spies have found post-swap life gets a bit sticky

While life in Moscow may be duller than New York, Boston, New Jersey, Seattle and Washington, D.C., it won't be too bad, either, if their predecessors' experience is any guide. Their main worry will be keeping their minds.

By Jeff Stein  | July 8, 2010; 12:10 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (14)
Categories:  Foreign policy, Intelligence, Justice/FBI, Lawandcourts, Military  | Tags:  Anatoly Shcharansky, Anna Chapman, Gordon Lonsdale, Hana Koecher, Heinz Felfe, Helen Kroger, Karl Koecher, Kim Philby, Marian Zacharski, Peter Kroger, Rudolf Abel  
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Nixon-CIA spy ploy in Vietnam backfired, new records show

President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, deliberately “leaked” word to North Vietnam that U.S. forces planned to invade Cambodia, in a failed attempt to intimidate Hanoi into retreat, declassified U.S. documents reveal. Nixon and Kissinger...

By Jeff Stein  | July 6, 2010; 7:10 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (7)
Categories:  Foreign policy, Intelligence, Military  
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Russian spy case didn't take a holiday

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev marked the Fourth of July holiday with an upbeat message to President Obama -- and without reference to last week’s espionage arrests -- while one of the accused spies at the center of the scandal sent...

By Jeff Stein  | July 6, 2010; 10:51 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (4)
Categories:  Foreign policy, Intelligence, Justice/FBI, Media  
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