Bookshelf, March 2015

Intelligence Officers Bookshelf

Compiled and reviewed by Hayden Peake
CURRENT TOPICS
The Future of Intelligence: Challenges in the 21st Century, by Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Ben de Jong and
Joop van Reijn (eds.).
Interrogation in War and Conflict: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Analysis, Christopher Andrew
and Simona Tobia (eds.).
What We Won: Americas Secret War in Afghanistan, 19791989, by Bruce Riedel.

GENERAL
Analyzing Intelligence: National Security Practitioners Perspectives, Second Edition, by Roger Z.
George and James B. Bruce (ed.).
The Art of Intelligence: Simulation, Exercises, and Games, by William J. Lahneman and Rubn Arcos
(eds.).
Intelligence: The Secret World of Spies: An Anthology, Fourth Edition, by Loch Johnson and James
Wirtz (eds).
Routledge Companion To Intelligence Studies, by Robert Dover, Michael S. Goodman and Claudia Hillebrand (eds.).
Understanding the Intelligence Cycle, by Mark Phythian (ed.).

HISTORICAL
Act of War: Lyndon Johnson, North Korea, and the Capture of the Spy Ship Pueblo, by Jack Cheevers.
Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent, by Pearl Witherington Cornioley.

She Landed by Moonlight: The Story of Secret Agent Pearl Witherington: The Real Charlotte
Gray, by Carole Seymour-Jones.
Fighting To Lose: How The German Secret Intelligence Service Helped the Allies Win the Second
World War, by John Bryden.

Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard
Prescott, by Christian M. McBurney.
The Spy Who Changed the World: Klaus Fuchs and the Secrets of the Nuclear Bomb, by Mike
Rossiter.
Spying for the Fhrer: Hitlers Espionage Machine, by Christer Jrgensen.
Spymaster: The Secret Life of Kendrick, by Helen Fry.
Strategic Intelligence in the Cold War and Beyond, by Jefferson Adams.
Uphill Battle: Reflections on Viet Nam Counterinsurgency, by Frank Scotton.
INTELLIGENCE ABROAD
Chinas Security State: Philosophy, Evolution, and Politics, by Xuezhi Guo.
Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, EscapeeA Look Inside North Korea, by Jang Jin-Sung.
Secret Service: Political Policing in Canada from the Fenians to Fortress America, by Reg Whitaker, Gregory S. Kealey, and Andrew Parnaby.
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this article are those of the author. Nothing in the article should be
construed as asserting or implying US government endorsement of its factual statements and interpretations.

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Current Topics

The Future of Intelligence: Challenges in the 21st Century, Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Ben de Jong and Joop van Reijn
(eds.) (Routledge, 2014), 165 pp., end-of-chapter notes, index.
The Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association
was formed in 1991 to provide informed debate on
intelligence and security issues in the widest possible
sense: to support historical research in this field; and
to promote and contribute to academic education.a
In 2011, it hosted an international conference on the
future of intelligence. Eleven thought-provoking papers from that conference comprise this book.
The contributors are a rather high-powered mix of
academics and intelligence practitioners. Most familiar
to US professionals will be the four American contributorsMark Lowenthal (former assistant director of
central intelligence for analysis and production), Greg
Treverton (current chairman of the National Intelligence
Council, who was with RAND at the time of the conference), Jennifer Sims (then a highly respected professor at
Georgetown University), and Art Hulnick (former senior
CIA officer teaching at Boston University). The British
contributor is Sir David Omand (former head of GCHQ
and a former senior coordinator for intelligence organizations of the British government). All of the remaining
contributorsfour Dutch and two Swedishlikewise
have exceptional records of publication and research.
In his introduction, Utrecht University professor Bob
de Graaff notes the tendency of the other contributors to
devote attention to current trends and their extrapolation
rather than to threats that cannot yet be discerned. (3) This
a. Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association, About NISA,
[Link]

is a fundamental problem when considering the future; still,

there is plenty to consider in the extrapolations. Readers
will find authors addressing the potential for the information revolution to transform the work of intelligence agencies in ways that will heighten already high concerns about
the intrusion of intelligence operations in the private sector.
Another author addresses issues in the operational sphere
brought on by biometrics, geolocation, social networks,
and cellular telephones. Another focuses on the increased
risk of moles, leaks, and insider spies created by todays
(and tomorrows) ubiquitous digital connectivity. (76) Still
another considers the influence of future global cooperationprivate and governmentalon intelligence agencies
as they face the prospect of serving nontraditional, international decision centers or nodal governance of security.
(82) The future of organizational structures also received
attention. Will more horizontal configurations or flat
hierarchies (8) be required as social media blur distinctions that have been used to organize intelligence? (37)
In his summary article, Lund University professor
Wilhelm Agrell talks about the importance of thinking
about the future with awareness of the past. If twentieth-century [intelligence] had some great moments
and failures, so will most likely twenty-first [century]
intelligence have all those as well. (135) Agrell also
discusses six fundamental processes of change that
should be considered when thinking about the future.
The Future of Intelligence raises important issues that
deserve serious attention as intelligence becomes an
ever greater part of every citizens daily experience.

Interrogation in War and Conflict: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Analysis, Christopher Andrew and Simona
Tobia (eds.) (Routledge, 2014), 304 pp., end-of-chapter notes, index.
Christopher Andrew writes in his introduction to
this book that despite the frequent mention of interrogation in the contemporary media, the subject

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has long been understudied in history. (2) The

14 case studies in Interrogation in War and Conflict are an attempt to remedy that deficiency.

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All the contributors are academics: 15 are from UK

universities, and one is from the United States. Their
essays begin with a discussion of interrogation techniques developed in WW I. There follows a study of the
interrogations of suspects in the 1935 Kremlin Case,
which preceded the great terror in the Soviet Union. (36)
The study contains some surprising revelations. The
methods employed by Stalins henchmen in dealing
with former political prisoners who opposed the Soviets
in postwar Czechoslovakia are examined, without any
surprises. Three chapters are devoted to WW II, with
attention given to the myths and realities of Gestapo
methods, approaches in the UK, and ways German war
criminals were interrogated. The final five case studies assess interrogations during colonial insurrections
in Malaya, Cyprus, Algeria, Rhodesia, and Ireland.
The legal aspects of coercive interrogation authorized
or performed on defendants before international tribunals are weighed in a separate chapter that reviews the

difficulties of prosecution. While the focus of the book

is on the twentieth-century, there is a short discussion
of the topic as applied in the post 9/11 era. (284ff)
Interrogation in War and Conflict expresses a wide range
of views on the use of torture during interrogation. Former MI5 Director General Baroness Manningham-Buller
bookmarks one end: Nothing, not even saving lives, justified torture. (16) At the other extreme, the use of torture
in the most difficult cases in the Algerian insurrection
was explicitly allowed, though by the end it had been prohibited. Examples in between include the harsh methods,
termed the five techniques used in Northern Ireland
on interned prisoners, which were deemed a success.
Interrogation in War and Conflict makes a strong historical case for minimum coercion during interrogation
because it is more effective. Whether the 21st-century,
filled with circumstances seemingly never encountered
before, will support that conclusion remains to be seen.

What We Won: Americas Secret War in Afghanistan, 19791989, by Bruce Riedel (Brookings Institution Press,
2014), 189 pp., endnotes, index.

Bruce Riedels 30-year career at the CIA included assignments as special assistant for Near East affairs to
both Presidents Bush and to President Clinton; deputy
assistant secretary of defense for Near East and South
Asian affairs; national intelligence officer on the National Intelligence Council; and special adviser to
NATO. In 2009, President Obama appointed him to
chair a strategic review of US policy on Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Now a senior fellow for Middle East
policy at the Brookings Institution, he writes on the
major events in South Asian affairs in which he participated. What We Won: Americas Secret War in Afghanistan, 19791989 is his most recent contribution.
Riedels story begins after the Soviet Unions invasion
of Afghanistan in 1979, when, he writes, President Carter
instructed the CIA to turn Afghanistan into a Russian
Vietnam. President Reagan upped the antewhen the
goal became defeating the Soviet Army and driving it out
of Afghanistan for good, an event President Vladimir
Putin later called the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of

the century. (x) What We Won examines the secret intelligence alliance that got the job done and its consequences.
It wasnt Charlie Wilsons War, or even the CIAs
war. It was Zias war, says Riedel who makes Pakistani
General Zia ul-Haq out to be the most important figure
in the epic battle with the Soviet Army. (xii) But there
are other important playersnations and individuals. In
the first part of this two part book, Riedel focuses both on
their history and their contributions to the Soviet defeat.
The history follows key Afghan participants and
their struggle for power while battling outside influences before and during the Cold War. The communist
coup dtat in Kabul in the late 1970s, although supported by Moscow, did not result in a Soviet client
state. The communist regime had its own agenda. The
sexes were declared equal, and a minimum age was set
for marriageand dowries were restricted to encourage girls to have more choices. (27) But this resulted

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only in more internal turmoil and violent changes at

the top until the Soviet strategic surprise in 1979.
The anticommunist Afghan forces reacted as they
had in the 19th centuryguerrilla warfare. And what
became known as the Mujahedin, an army of illiterate peasantsdefeated the Soviets. (40). But they
clearly couldnt have done it alone, and Riedel describes at some length the role of each major contributorSaudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United States.
In part two, Riedel lays out the sequence of events in
the Carter and Reagan administrations that led to the
decision to provide Stinger missiles to the Mujahedin

to use against the Red Army. It wasnt the CIAs idea

alone. After General Zia sent raiding units into the
Soviet Union and tried other unsuccessful measures
to defeat the Soviets, he made the critical decision to
allow their use. Riedel reviews the obstacles the CIA
had to overcomesetting up training and supply lines,
arranging funding, gaining congressional cooperation,
establishing rules of engagement, and managing alliancesto achieve its greatest covert-action success.
What We Won concludes with a discussion of lessons that
in many cases were never envisioned at the outset and
should be considered when future covert actions of this
kind are considered. (141ff) This is an important book.

GENERAL

Analyzing Intelligence: National Security Practitioners Perspectives, Second Edition, edited by Roger Z. George
and James B. Bruce (Georgetown University Press, 2014), 381 pp., end-of-chapter notes, index.
In the first edition of Analyzing Intelligence: Origins,
Obstacles, and Innovations (2007), former senior CIA
analysts Roger George and James Bruce presented 19
contributions from experts that reviewed the history
of intelligence analysis, discussed its current status as
a profession, and assessed promising analytic techniques. The second edition has 20 articles, arranged in
six parts. Eight of the articles are new, and those retained have been updated. All reflect progress in training, analytic rigor, and professional certification compelled by developments since the previous edition.
The six parts are entitled: The Analytic Tradition,
The Policymaker-Analyst Relationship, Diagnosis
and Prescription, Enduring Challenges, Analysis
for Twenty-First-Century Issues, and Leading Analytic Change. The specific subjects cover a range of
issues: essential knowledge, reliability, dealing with
uncertainty, developing relationships among analysts
and collectors in different organizations (civilian and
military), and new analytic techniques. The occupational
hazards inherent in intelligence analysismethodological, psychological and bureaucraticare spelled out

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by CIA analyst emeritus Jack Davis, a protg of Sherman Kent, in his article, Why Bad Things Happen To
Good Analysts. In contrast, Building a Community
of Analysts and Analytic Outreach consider the
impact of IC-wide changes, their effect on collaboration, and the importance of getting it right. (288)
The idea of analysis as a profession is a common theme
throughout the book. Just what does it mean to be a professional intelligence analyst? Does the term impart the
same cachet and prestige as lawyer or doctor? Most
authors say, not yet, and go on to suggest what needs to
be done to achieve that goal. One article, Is Intelligence
Analysis a Discipline? suggests that achieving a status
comparable to law, medicine and library science (57)
requires that analysis have the specific standards and
certifications associated with a professional discipline. It
also involves acknowledgement of the risk mitigation
factora recognition that analytic results often put human lives at risk. Requirements for professional standing
would include mastery of standardized critical analytical
methods, development of analytic tradecraft, interaction

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with academia, andunique to intelligence analysis

protection of sources, which is treated in the final chapter.

Analyzing Intelligence is an important, thoroughly

documented book that clarifies the vital importance
of analysis to the intelligence profession. It should be
carefully read by students and practitioners alike.

The Art of Intelligence: Simulation, Exercises, and Games, William J. Lahneman and Rubn Arcos (eds.) (Rowman
& Littlefield, 2014), 282 pp., end-of-chapter notes and references, index.
The Art of Intelligence presents a study of analysis
and the various methods the contributors use when
teaching students about how to think and perform
analysis and training them in the profession. (xi)
And while the lecture is the most common technique
for imparting this knowledge, when it comes to acquiring analytic tradecraft, the editors contend that
students learn best through experimental simulations
and games. To that end, the 15 chapters in The Art
of Intelligence explain three types of simulations the
authors have used to improve student analytic skills.
The first type is simulation involving one or two class
sessions. There are five examples for this type, and the
authors devote a chapter to each. Each stresses a different form of analysis. The components are the same,
however: background data, objectives, number of players, raw data supplied, time allowed for various events,
and debriefing guidance to assess whether objectives
were met. The subjects include Iraqi WMD, competing
hypotheses, analysis ethics, and cognitive strategies.

The second typeone-to-two-week exercisesbrings

in issues of cybersecurity, need to share, competitor and Big Data analysis. The third categorymultiweek simulationsis intended for graduate courses
and is the most ambitious. The first of the four chapters
on this final category has analysts seeking to locate
a biological weapons research facility. (185) Techniques intended for use in that exercise include Bayesian analysis and probabilities deployed in the context of
competing hypotheses. The second and third chapters
describe analytical simulation conducted at Brunel and
Lund Universities. A final example deals with multimedia intelligence products and simulates all of the
steps an analyst might face in writing assessments.
The Art of Intelligence does not cite studies to support its argument that these types of simulations will
produce better intelligence analysts. Nor does it discuss the other important courses of studylanguages,
computers, international relations, etc. Still, it does
document the sophisticated level of courses currently
offered in European and American institutions.

Intelligence: The Secret World of Spies An Anthology, Fourth Edition, Loch Johnson and James Wirtz (eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2015), 606 pp., end-of-chapter notes, bibliography, index.
This latest edition of the Johnson and Wirtz anthology has 40 articles, six of which are new. The volume
is intended for reading in courses on US intelligence
and as an introduction for the general public. The contributors are a mix of academics and serving and former
intelligence officers, mostly American. There are also
selections from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concerning the Aldrich Ames espionage case.

The anthology is organized into 10 parts. The first

is an introduction to the subject of intelligence, followed by sections on collection, analysis, intelligence
and the policymaker, the dangers of politicization,
covert action, counterintelligence, the dangers of politicization, and accountability and civil liberties. The
ninth part, which is on intelligence in the aftermath

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of 9/11, presents some thought-provoking analysis

on failures said to be associated with that event.
The final part looks at intelligence systems in the Soviet
Union, Britain, Egypt, and France and how they compare with the United States. The authors are natives of
the countries being compared, with the exception of the
American specialist analyzing Egyptian intelligence.
The anthology has two disappointing shortcomings worth noting. The first is that only three foreign services are compared to their US counter-

parts; more would be helpful. The second is the

absence of any indication in the bibliography of
which intelligence texts best served the authors.
The epilogue is a useful look at the future of intelligence and the challenges of the information revolution. Intelligence: The Secret World of Spies is a good
introduction to the topic and a valuable contribution.a
a. Readers interested in reading about non-Western intelligence
may wish to read Charles Heards review of Intelligence Elsewhere:
Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere on page 69 of this
issue.

Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies, Robert Dover, Michael S. Goodman and Claudia Hillebrand (eds.)
(Routledge, 2014), 363 pp., end-of-chapter notes, references, index.
In the early 1980s, Georgetown University professor
Roy Godson edited a series of books on the principal
fields of intelligencecollection, analysis, covert action,
and counterintelligencewith contributions by retired intelligence officers with firsthand experience.b Around that
same time, historians Wilhelm Agrell and Bo Huldt edited
a volume published devoted to the history of intelligence,
with contributions from historians in Sweden, the United
States, Germany, and Denmark. Since then, similar works
have appeared with increasing frequency. The Routledge
Companion to Intelligence Studies is a recent example.
Editors Robert Dover, Michael S. Goodman, and Claudia Hillebrand have assembled articles by 35 authors
from universities and government and private organizations from eight different countries. The lead article, by
Loch Johnson, summarizes the development of intelligence studies from his point of view as the editor of
one of the several journals devoted to the subject. He
considers, for example, how treatment of the subject
has evolved in scholarly articles, books, and the media.
He suggests critical questions that deserve attention but
can only be answered by decisionmakers and perhaps
by academics after long study, for example, how do we

know whether or not intelligence plays a significant

role in the making of government decisions? (19)
There are also articles on what can be learned from
historical studies, the importance of theory and culture, and new ways of viewing old concepts like the
intelligence cycle. Of particular interest is the discussion of intelligence systems in 12 countriesthe
United States, UK, Canada, Australia, France, India,
China, Japan, Israel, Germany, Russia, and Spain.
The final and perhaps most stimulating section of the
book has nine articles on challenges for the future.
They cover a range of topics including counterterrorism, cybersecurity, WMD, energy and food security, privacy, accountability, and organized crime.
The Routledge Companion gives a good idea
of the progress of intelligence studies over the
past 30 years, the important questions that have
yet to be answered, and the areas that will dominate the field for the foreseeable future.

b. See, for example, Roy Godson (ed.), Intelligence Requirements

for the 1980s: Elements of Intelligence (Transaction Books, 1983).

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Understanding the Intelligence Cycle, edited by Mark Phythian (Routledge, 2013), 167 pp., end-of-chapter notes,
bibliography, index.

The intelligence cycle is a basic theoretical model

often used to show how the principal parts of the intelligence processrequirements, collection, analysis,
and disseminationare related. There are many variants with more and different functions included, as a
simple Google search will show. For example, planning and management, implicitly part of the cycle,
are only sometimes included explicitly. But the idea
that these steps are always involved in accomplishing an intelligence mission is generally accepted.
What is not accepted by anyone who works in the
business is that the parts of the process alwaysor
even everoccur in the commonly described sequence. The model is often challenged because it does
not depict the interrelationships and interactions that
routinely occur during each phase. Changes due to
modified requirements, updated information, conflicts
among analysts, changed assumptions, and manage-

ment decisions are the norm, and they are nonlinear,

many occurring at the same time. Understanding the
Intelligence Cycle deals with each of these issues and
suggests alternative models that better reflect reality.
Each of the contributions to this book suggests variations of the basic model. None presents a system that
will work in all circumstances. While most look at
the production of national security intelligence, one
chapter considers policing intelligence, and another
looks at the corporate world. Several include covert
action and counterintelligence explicitly while others look at the influence of cyber-specific espionage (86) and other technological variables.
Whether a single model of the intelligenceproducing system is even possible remains in
doubt. But Understanding the Intelligence Cycle
provides a better understanding of the problem
and should help professionals at all levels.

HISTORICAL

Act of War: Lyndon Johnson, North Korea, and the Capture of the Spy Ship Pueblo, by Jack Cheevers (NAL Caliber, 2014), 431 pp., endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.
On 23 January 1968, the USS Pueblo was conducting
a SIGINT mission in international waters off the coast
of North Korea when it was attacked by North Korean
naval gunboats. After one member of his crew had been
killed, the ships captain, US Navy Commander Lloyd
Bucher, surrendered the out gunned Pueblo without firing
a shot. Bucher and his crew spent the next 11 months
imprisoned under awful conditions. They were released
on 23 December 1968. Although welcomed home sympathetically by the US public, a naval court of inquiry
recommended that Bucher be court-martialed for surrendering his ship without a fight. The secretary of the navy
overruled the court and returned Bucher to active duty.

In Act of War, former Los Angeles Times journalist Jack Cheevers tells the Pueblos story from several
angles. The first concerns the crewits selection, its
personal relationships, its overall admirable behavior
in captivity, and the impact of the stress its members
endured. The second deals with senior naval officers
responsible for the mission and addresses the many
shortcomings in planning and training (especially in
emergency destruction procedures for the top-secret
communications equipment) and the inadequate refurbishing of the Pueblo, which left it incapable of effective combat. The third examines the US government at
policymaking levels, which were dealing with a particularly stressful period on the Korean Peninsulathe

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North Koreans had just made an unsuccessful attempt

to assassinate the South Korean president on 21 January
1968, and in Vietnam, the Tet Offensive was about to
erupt. Cheevers describes how North Koreas demands
for an apology and President Johnsons refusal were
finally satisfied by a diplomatic legerdemain. (229)
Finally, Cheevers reviews the damage caused by the loss
of the top-secret NSA communications equipment. Drawing on a recently released NSA history of the incident,
he shows that attempts to destroy the gear before capture
were not totally effective. The North Koreans were able
to recover and make serviceable some of the crypto gear
thrown overboard and to reassemble much of what had

been smashed. They shared the results with the Soviet

Union. The NSA assumed that possession of the equipment itself did not endanger security since the encryption keys were not compromised. Thus the NSA did not
replace its other communications equipment that was in
use throughout the military. Only when the espionage of
John Walker was discovered in 1985he supplied the
keyswas it realized how vulnerable the Navy had been.
Act of War follows commander Buchers postPueblo naval career and his retirement years. Despite the lasting admiration of his crew, Bucher
would never overcome the stigma in navy circles
of having surrendered his ship without a fight.

Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent, by Pearl Witherington Cornioley (Chicago Review Press,
2013). 208 pp., endnotes, bibliography, appendix, photos, index.

She Landed by Moonlight: The Story of Secret Agent Pearl Witherington; the real Charlotte Gray, by Carole
Seymour-Jones (Hodder & Stoughton, 2013), 421 pp., endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was the British
paramilitary organization formed to support resistance
movements in Nazi- and Japanese-occupied countries
during WW II. F section was responsible for France,
to which some 400 officers had been dispatched. Of the
39 women sent, 13 didnt come back. Pearl Witherington was one who did. Recommended for the Military
Cross, she was declared ineligible, as it was for men
only. When awarded a civilian Member of the Order of
the British Empire, she returned it with the comment
that she had done nothing civil.a Code Name Pauline is her story as originally told to French historian
Herv Larroque in 1984, when she was 70 years old.
Witherington was born in Paris, the daughter of British
parents. Her father was a neer-do-well traveling salesman who neglected his family. As a young adult, Witherington found a job with the air attach in the British
embassy to help support her mother and three sisters.
When WW II started, the family escaped to England via

Portugal. In London, she found work as a secretary with

the Air Ministry. Not content to serve out the war typing memos, she sought some way to return to France
and help the resistance. The SOE was the answer.
She describes her training and her parachute drop into
occupied France, where she was to serve as a courier
for the STATIONER circuit. When the circuit commander was arrested by the Gestapo, STATIONER
was disbanded, and Witherington was given command
of the new WRESTLER circuit, which would eventually grow to some 2,900 strong. After D-Day, her circuit went into action destroying communications lines
and otherwise impeding the German advance. She
was working with Jedburgh team JULIAN, when it
brought a German panzer division to a near standstill.
After the war, Witherington returned to London, married her pre-war sweetheart and resistance comrade, Henri Cornioley, and eventually
settled in France She lived to 93 years of age.

a. M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France (Frank Cass, 2004), 48.

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She Landed by Moonlight covers the same general

story, but in much greater detail. The books subtitle
refers to a novel by Sebastian Faulks that was based
in part on Witheringtons resistance experiences.a
Author Carole Seymour-Jones includes much more
about Witheringtons personal life and bureaucratic
battles within the SOE and with de Gaulles resistance
elements. She also expands on the logistical and organizational problems Witherington encountered in
the field, and the reluctanceFrench and Englishto
accept women in command roles. In this connection,
a. Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray (Random House, 1999).

Seymour-Jones clarifies the issues surrounding Witheringtons initial refusal to accept a civilian award in
lieu of the Military Cross and the successful battle
she waged to have the regulations changed. (35256)
Seymour-Jones also adds a great deal about Witheringtons operational life in the resistance, including several
close calls with the Gestapo and problems dealing with
the French communists. Finally, there is more context
on the conduct of the war as it affected the resistance.
She Landed by Moonlight provides the documentation lacking in Code Name Pauline and
leaves no doubt as to the quality and uniqueness of Pearl Witheringtons wartime service.

Fighting to Lose: How the German Secret Intelligence Service Helped the Allies Win the Second World War, by
John Bryden (Dundurn, 014), 415 pp., endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.
In Fighting to Lose, John Bryden, a journalist and
former member of the Canadian Parliament, attempts to rewrite the history of WW II intelligence.
He speculates that the Germans intentionally worked
to secure Allied victory by sending poorly qualified agents to operate in Britain, that British intelligence was inept, and that much of the intelligence
history written about the events covered is wrong.
Among his conclusions is that the British Double-Cross
System was a flop, (308) despite all the evidence
which he ignoresof its value in deceiving the Germans
on D-Day. Then there is his assertion that SNOW, the
first double-cross agent, was a really a German agent
and British traitorwho revealed to his German masters the existence of radar and how it worked. Bryden
never acknowledges that the report SNOW furnished
was an MI5 fabrication that succeeded in misinforming the Germans and caused them to redesign their own
radar equipment so it would not function properly.
Equally dodgy thinking surfaces when Bryden claims
that the MI5 registry files destroyed by fire at Wormwood Scrubs during an air raid were actually lost due
to sabotage and that Guy Liddell, a senior MI5 officer,

was somehow involved. (297) Bryden is more direct but

equally inaccurate when he charges Liddell with allowing
enemy agents to penetrate MI5. He writes, Indeed the
evidence against Liddell is huge. In addition to opening
the doors for Burgess, Blunt and Philby to enter MI5 and
MI6, and the access he gave Blunt to his office documents, it is not an innocent coincidence the MI5 totally
failed to detect Soviet recruitment of young intellectuals
at Oxford and Cambridge. (287) But as is well established in Christopher Andrews authorized history of MI5,
among other sources, Liddell did not know these Soviet
agents before they joined British intelligence, and he can
hardly be blamed for not detecting their recruitment.
And then there is Brydens novel claim that while
supervising the interception of diplomatic bagsOperation TRIPLEXAnthony Blunt could freely put
into them whatever he wanted, enabling the eversuspicious Stalin to see for himself what Blunt stole.
A difficult task since Blunt never touched a diplomatic bag; he merely managed the operation.b

b. Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, TRIPLEX Secrets from the Cambridge Spies (Yale University Press, 2009).

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The most egregious speculationin fact and in tone

is that at their August 1941 meeting at sea, Churchill
showed Roosevelt the Popovs Pearl Harbor questionnaireit would have been on onion skinone can
picture it hanging limptissue likein Roosevelts
hands. Churchill would have watched as he read, the
presidents expression fading from polite interest to grim

realization as he absorbed what it was that the Germans

wanted. (205) Bryden provides no evidence that this
event occurred, and he is the only one to suggest it did.
Regrettably, the few examples given above
are illustrative of the entire book. Fighting to Lose is appalling history.

Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott, by Christian M. McBurney (Westholme Publishing, 2014), 334 pp., endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.
In Kidnapping the Enemy, Washington, DC lawyerhistorian Christian McBurney tells the story of two
major generals in the Revolutionary War. One, Charles
Lee, joined the British army at age 14. He saw combat
in America during the French and Indian War and later
served in several European armies. While demonstrating
admirable military abilities, he also earned a reputation
as an outspoken critic of his superiors, referring to one
as our booby-in-chief. (4) After several courts martials
that diminished his chances for high rank in the British
Army, Lee left for New York in 1773 to seek his fortune.
By April 1775, he was major general in the Revolutionary Army and would soon become Washingtons second
in command. True to his reputation, it wasnt long before
Lee was scheming to replace Washington, whom he characterized in a letter as most damnably deficient. (32)
On the night of 12 December 12, 1776, Lees career took
an unanticipated turn: he was captured by a British patrol.
Prisoner Lee expected to be exchanged, as was the custom
in America. However, the British considered him a deserter and wanted him hanged, as was the custom in Britain.
When Washington offered to exchange a British lieutenant
colonel for Lee, British General Howe demanded an officer of rank equal to Lees, a condition he knew the Ameri-

cans couldnt meet. While the stalemate continued, Lee

became more and more sympathetic to the British cause.
In July 1777, the second major general entered the
picture when American LtCol. William Barton learned
where the much detested British MajGen. Richard
Prescotthe chained and beat prisonerswas spending his nights. Using intelligence from British deserters and a slave, Quako Honeyman, Barton and
his volunteers executed a daring night time raid and
captured Prescottan episode McBurney details.
After lengthy negotiations an exchange occurred on
5April 1778, and Lee was returned to duty. But when he
performed badly in a battle at Monmouth Court House
in New Jersey, Washington had him court martialed for
making an unnecessary retreat. (178) He was later
dismissed from the army. Unrepentant, Lee continued his
diatribes against Washingtonsome of which, McBurney
writes, historians later supported (179)but Lee was
largely ignored and died in Philadelphia in 1782, aged 51.
Kidnapping the Enemy is a little known story of
the War for Independence, beautifully told, wonderfully documented, and a pleasure to read.

The Spy Who Changed the World: Klaus Fuchs and the Secrets of the Nuclear Bomb, by Mike Rossiter (Headline
Publishing Group, 2014), 344 pp., bibliography, photos, index.
In mid-September 1949, FBI special agent Robert
Lamphere found a startling bit of information in a newly

54

deciphered 1944 KGB messagethat seemed to have

come from inside the Manhattan Project. The investiga-

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tion he conducted pointed directly at British atomic physicist Klaus Fuchs as the KGB source. MI5 was informed,
and it began an inquiry. Over a period of several weeks
in December 1949, Lamphere wrote, MI5 interrogator Jim Skardon met with Fuchs and started to gain his
confidence.a On 24 January 1950, Fuchs confessed. What
Skardon said in those meetings remained secret within
MI5 for the next 60 years. In The Spy Who Changed
the World, military historian Mike Rossiter draws on
recently released MI5 files, which revealed details of
Skardons approach and much more about the Fuchs case.
Fuchs was a committed communist when he arrived
in England as a refugee from Nazi Germany in September 1933. Having studied physics at the University of
Leipzig, he was accepted at the University of Bristol,
where he earned his PhD. He then moved to the University of Edinburgh, where he worked until WW II started.
Briefly interned in Canada, he returned to Britain in 1941,
with the help of colleagues, and began work on the Tube
Alloys project (Britains atomic research program). It
was then that he started spying for the Soviet Union.
Among the many issues that have puzzled historians
about Fuchss career is why he was made a British citizen
and cleared by MI5 to work on the atomic bomb. According to Rossiter, Fuchss communist views and connections in England were well known among his friends
and colleagues before the war. And some MI5 officers
knew but were ignored. It is now clear from the released
MI5 records that had a proper background investigation
been conducted, Fuchs would never have been allowed
to participate in Tube Alloys. The folly was compounded
when Fuchs was assigned to work on the Manhattan

a. Robert J. Lamphere, The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agents Story

(Mercer University Press, 1986), 13336.

Project and the British assured US Army counterintelligence that they had vetted him when they really had not.
While the books title, The Spy Who Changed the World,
is probably an exaggeration of Fuchss contribution to the
Soviet atom bomb program, Rossiters account of his role
leaves little doubt that it was substantial. This view was
echoed by the Russian atomic scientists that Rossiter interviewed, though few specifics are provided. The narrative also adds details of Fuchss walk-in recruitment, other
communists he referred to the KGB, and how he met and
worked with his handlers. Rossiter deals at some length
with Fuchss relationship with his final KGB handler,
Alexander Feklisov, the former Rosenberg case officer.
Rossiter mistakenly writes that Feklisov once worked
under the name of Yuri Modin (182); Modin was the
KGB officer handling the Cambridge agents at the time.
Rossiters account of how Fuchs reluctantly identified
Harry Gold as Raymond, his KGB contact in the United
States, adds some new background details, but nothing
that changes Golds story. Rossiter concludes his book
with some new material about Fuchss life in Britain
and East Germany after he was released from prison.
The one question that remains unanswered, Rossiter
notes, is why Fuchs confessed. There was no evidence
against him that could be used in court. And he could
have retracted his confession at any time until sentencing; he didnt do that, either. Rossiter puzzles over
the situation and is forced to acknowledge it will remain a mystery at least until more files are released.
The Spy Who Changed the World is the most
comprehensive account of the Fuchs case to date,
but it suffers a major shortcoming. None of the
many quotations and facts mentioned are specifically sourced. Thus it is not the last word.

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Spying for the Fhrer: Hitlers Espionage Machine, by Christer Jrgensen (Chartwell Books, 2014), 224 pp., endnotes, bibliography, photos, index.

For those wishing for a broad overview of the German

intelligence services from WW I to the end of WW II,
Spying for the Fhrer is a good place to start. Swedish military historian Christer Jrgensen provides an
easy-reading summary of how the services were dismantled after WW I and how they struggled to rebuild
after Hitler came to power. His principal focus is on the
Abwehr (military intelligence) commanded by Admiral
Wilhelm Canaris, who fought bureaucratic battles with
the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi party secret service that eventually took over the Abwehr. Jrgensen
tells how Canaris, initially a follower of Hitler, decided
Hitler was bad for Germany and worked to impede
Nazi progress. At one point Canaris sent an emissary
to meet with OSS in Istanbul to discover what peace
terms the Americans would be willing to offer a postHitler Germany. (106) The effort was rebuffed.

agents turned and run by the British. Jrgensen rates

them as amateurs, giving higher marks to the Abwehr
and Gestapo for shutting down the Red Orchestra, and
to Major Hermann Giskes, who successfully doubled
all the SOE agents sent to Holland. Jrgensen also gives
high praise to General Reinhard Gehlen for his apolitical approach to military intelligence and provides a
short review of German code-breaking efforts, which
were successful here and there, but overall a failure.
The one new topic in the book is Swedens role in the
war, including its secret attempts to broker peace.
Spying for the Fhrer is richly illustrated with photographs that enhance the telling. In the end, Jrgensen rates
the overall German intelligence performance as poor,
though he provides few details of operations. He concludes that by the time the war started, the Allied services
were already ahead, and the Germans never caught up.

Jrgensen also examines the quality of Abwehr espionage operations and mentions some of the double-cross

Spymaster: The Secret Life of Kendrick, by Helen Fry (Marranos Press, 2014), 528 pp., bibliography, photos, index.
Researcher Helen Fry first heard about Thomas Kendrick while interviewing German and Austrian refugees.
He had commanded an intelligence unit that interrogated
German prisoners and secretly recorded their private
conversations in Britain during WW II. The refugees
Fry interviewed had been Kendricks interpreters, but
would add no further details. Intrigued, she interviewed
his family members, located the proverbial attic trunk
containing his memorabilia, and found more material in British archives. Spymaster tells his story.
Kendrick was born in South Africa. He served in the
Boer War and with British Field Intelligence Security
in WW I. Fluent in German, he interrogated POWs for
MI1(c)/MI6 and became friends with Stewart Menzies,
who later became C (head of the SIS). Kendrick joined
MI6 in Cologne after the war. At the time, he worked

56

against communist networks. In 1925, age 44 and married, he was posted to Vienna as head of station. From
there, he handled agents throughout Europe. In August
1938, the Gestapo arrested him for espionageone
of Kendricks agents had betrayed him. Thanks to the
British Foreign Office, he was released, but he was
expelled from Germany. The Gestapo never learned
that he had also helped many Jews escape the NazisFry dubs him Viennas Oskar Schindler. (499)
Throughout WW II, Kendrick commanded the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC).
Kendrick remained with MI6 until retiring in 1948,
although his duties are not disclosed. He spent the rest
of his years in the village of Oxshott, where his neighbor was former colleague Charles Dick Ellis. At this
point in the narrative, Fry digresses a bit with a discus-

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sion of whether Ellis was, as suspected, a former German and Soviet agent. Then she speculates on the possibility that Kim Philby, who had been in Vienna while
Kendrick was there, was, in fact, a triple agent. (497)
Although Fry adds much detail to her story about Kendricks operational experiences in MI6 and about the various officers with whom he worked, she does not link the
sources in her bibliography with any specific events. Thus

it is difficult to evaluate her conclusions about the value

of Kendricks operations. For example, she writes that
CSDICs functions were really as important for winning
the war as Bletchley Park. (9) And even more challenging is her claim that Kendrick had been at the heart of
the most important intelligence work in the history of SIS/
MI6 over at least three decades. (10) Spymaster leaves to
historians the final decision on Thomas Kendricks career.

Strategic Intelligence in the Cold War and Beyond, by Jefferson Adams (Routledge, 2015), 166 pp., end-of-chapter
notes, bibliography, chronology, glossary, index.

Jefferson Adams is a professor of European history at Sarah Lawrence College. He has written many
articles on intelligence history, and his recent book,
the Historical Dictionary of German Intelligence, is
among the best reference works on the subject. When
teaching a course on the role of intelligence in the
Cold War era, he found that there was no one volume
that covered the subject. Strategic Intelligence in the
Cold War and Beyond is intended to fill that gap.
By way of introduction, Adams reviews the origins of
the major principal intelligence services in each of the
player nationsmembers of NATO and the Warsaw
Pact, plus Israel and China. Then he discusses the major
early Cold War operations and confrontations, from the
time GRU code clerk Igor Gouzenko defected in Canada,
to the development of US photo satellites. This is followed by a review of the strategic impact of intelligence
in dealing with the Cuban regime, the Berlin crises,
Vietnam, and the Prague Spring. Intermixed chronologically are discussions of periodic eruptions in the Middle
East and of the Iranian hostage crisis. Then comes an
examination of the KGB role in the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan and its aftermath. The latter includes several defector cases that influenced events before and
after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites.
After looking at intelligence organizations and operations in the Cold War, Adams takes a step back to
consider the motivations and actions of those in the

field who made things happen. He presents three case

studies toward that end. The first concerns Gnter and
Christel Guillaume, East German agents who spied on
West Germany. The second discusses Robert Hanssen and what drove him to disloyalty. The third case
reviews the contribution of Ryszard Kuklinski, the
Polish army officer who informed the CIA about the
Soviet threat to Poland and the Solidarity movement.
The end of the Cold War came suddenly, to the surprise of many, and the security services in the Warsaw
Pact countries were powerless to prevent it. Adams
looks at the reasons, including the role of the Vatican
and the KGB and its satellite services, as they attempted to forestall it and discredit the United States.
Before considering the aftermath of these events,
Adams digresses briefly to examine how Cold War
espionage entered the popular imagination through
the medium of fiction, movies, and television.
(85) He includes precedent-setting pre-WW I examples and ends, of course, with James Bond.
The final chapter on the upshot of the Cold War summarizes what happened to the many intelligence services
previously mentioned. He concludes that probably
the most enduring legacy left by the Cold War was the
realization that intelligence organizations play an indispensable role in the structure of a modern state. (141)

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Strategic Intelligence in the Cold War and Beyond is

a valuable contribution to the intelligence literature.

Uphill Battle: Reflections on Viet Nam Counterinsurgency, by Frank Scotton. (Texas Tech University Press, 2014)
464 pp, endnotes, appendices, photos, index.

Frank Scotton retired in 1998 as the assistant director

for East Asia at the US Information Agency of the State
Department. He began his overseas career more than 50
years ago in Vietnam. Between 1962 and 1975, he spent
part of each year in Vietnam with the US Information
Service and then took assignments with the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)/Civil Operations
and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) and
with the Joint United States Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO), merged USIA, State Department, and Defense
Department public affairs elements in Vietnam. Several
books and studies of the war mention Scotton and his
USIS colleagues. Neil Sheehans A Bright and Shining
Lie (1988) was one and Douglas Valentines The Phoenix
Program (1990) was another. Citing an interview with
Scotton, Valentine describes him as the USIS officer
most deeply involved in Phoenix. Valentine, again citing
Scotton, returned to the subject, with a twist, in a 2003
CounterPunch article in which he wrote that in 1965
Scotton was ostensibly employed by the U.S. Information
Service, though his undercover job as a CIA officer was
forming assassination squads around Saigon in what was
the prototype of the CIAs infamous Phoenix Program.a

a. Neil Sheehan, A Bright and Shinning Lie: John Paul Van and
America in Vietnam (Random House, 1988); Douglas Valentine,
The Phoenix Program (William Morrow and Company, 1990); and
Douglas Valentine, The Clash of IconsWill The Real Daniel
Ellsberg Please Stand Up! CounterPunch, March 810, 2003,
[Link] For more of the same, see Douglas Valentine, Vietnam Replay on Afghan Defectors, Consortiumnews.
com, February 1, 2010, [Link]
html. For a discussion of the pacification program using CIA
sources and which touches on Scotton, see the declassified version
of Thomas L. Ahern, CIA and Rural Pacification in South Vietnam
(CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2001), [Link]
[Link]/sites/default/files/document_conversions/48/3_CIA_AND_
RURAL_PACIFICATION.pdf.

58

Uphill Battle does not deal with Valentines

charges directly, but Scotton notes in the explanation of why he wrote the book that much of what
I read [about the Vietnam War] is mistaken and
one writer cited interviews with me when in fact we
had not met. (367-68) Uphill Battle presents a meticulously documented firsthand chronicle of Scottons experiences as a USIS officer in Vietnam.
Scottons initial assignment was to research life in the
rural areas of Vietnam and compare it to the official
line produced by the South Vietnamese government.
His approach followed classic, but not always applied,
advisor doctrine: learn the language, get to know the
people and their culture, and report reality. He mostly
travelled alone, visited places avoided by others, and
survived a helicopter crash and a one-on-one encounter with an armed Viet Cong. Sometimes he drove, but
he often walked with only a backpack and carbine.
Scotton gradually established contacts with South
Vietnamese leaders and American military advisers as he
developed techniques to report on and exploit the local
political situation in the countryside. By 1964 he had
organized local platoons to combat the VC propaganda.
That experience led to his CORDS assignment where
he worked under future Director of Central Intelligence
William Colby. His duties included monitoring developments at the National Training Center and maintaining
the files on corruption and inept performance, (255)
which were based on reports from advisers in the field.
The latter function brought Scotton into contact with
pacification operations and the Phoenix Program. (He
refers to it by its Vietnamese name, Phung Hoang.) Scotton relates a conversation with Colby in which Scotton
expressed his reservations about the program. He wrote
that he was assured that others had been assigned to

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work toward assuring a legal basis for the arrest and detention system. (257) Before Colby returned to Washington in 1971, he arranged Scottons transfer to JUSPAO,
whose public affairs operations were beginning to be cut
back. It was to be Scottons final assignment in Vietnam.
Scottons account of these and many other events
in his Vietnam experience is detailed using Vietnamese names and locationsone wishes maps had been
included. He tries his best to address the continually
changing political conditions that at one point he calls
a spongy bureaucratic mess. (258) He also describes
his personal and operational contacts with key Americans in Vietnam. These include Daniel Ellsberg, Lucien
Conein, John Paul Vann, Edward Lansdale, and Frank
Snepp. Scottons observations on their roles are worth

attention. He also explains how his tours affected his

personal life and how he managed his State Department career with short assignments in Washington, a
Chinese language course, and a tour in Kuala Lumpur.
The end of the Vietnam saga came as no surprise to
Scotton. He was in Taiwan in March 1975, on his way
to Saigon, when he received word that Ambassador
Martin had disapproved his return. He went anyway
to arrange for the extraction of the Vietnamese with
whom he had worked; in those times, few at Scottons
level paid much attention to Martin. Back in Washington by April 1975, he viewed the debacle from afar.
Uphill Battle adds a perspective on the Vietnam
War that armchair critics cannot hope to match.

INTELLIGENCE ABROAD

Chinas Security State: Philosophy, Evolution, and Politics, by Xuezhi Guo (Cambridge University Press, 2012),
486pp., footnotes, bibliography, index.

In his article on the challenges of understanding Chinese intelligence, China expert Peter Mattis concludes
that Chinas intelligence services have long been
underanalyzed as major bureaucratic organizations and
components of state power.a In Chinas Security State,
Guilford College political science professor Xuezhi
Guo seeks to correct that deficiency in what he terms
the first scholarly study of Chinese security and intelligence organizations and their role in elite politics. (4)
Professor Guos initial approach is straightforward
though the narrative is dense and could do with an
occasional dash of bumper-sticker simplicity. First
he discusses the evolution of the security and intelligence services and outlines their distinctive functions. Then he examines how they function to protect
the regime and guarantee compliance with the Chi-

a. Peter Mattis, The Analytic Challenge of Understanding Chinese

Intelligence Services, Studies In Intelligence, 56 No. 3 (September, 2012): 54. This article is available online at [Link]
gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/
csi-studies/studies/vol.-56-no.-3/pdfs/Mattis-Understanding%20
Chinese%[Link].

nese Communist Party (CCP) leadership. Next, he

analyzes the services organization and operations.
From then on, with one exception, nothing is straightforward in the Chinese system. The exception is that
the party is the boss. Chinas Security State, is the story
of multiple organizations whose names change frequently and whose missions overlap as they compete
to collect the intelligence used to control citizens and
officials and identify spies and dissidents, who often
spy on one another while protecting CCP leaders.
The first seven chapters discuss the evolution of the
Ministry of State Security, the Central Guards Regiment,
the Peoples Armed Police and the Garrison Commands
of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), which are placed
in major cities, at defense installations, and at various
military sites. The succeeding two chapters examine the
foreign intelligence elements. These are followed by a
chapter on the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA)which
has its own intelligence and security missionand its relationship with the other security services and the political
leadership. The overlap of missions between the civil-

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ian and PLA intelligence services [is] encouraged and

creates a competitive intelligence environment. (422)
Despite the authoritarian character of the security
state, Guo sees some future indications of a democracy
with Chinese characteristics, which would emphasize
community welfare over individual rights and that is

neither fully democratic nor completely repressive.

(444) Considering the complex bureaucratic relationships that dominate every aspect of society, this seems
overly optimistic. One thing is evident, however: truly
understanding China requires a thorough knowledge of
its security and intelligence services. Chinas Security
State provides a necessary foundation toward that goal.

Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, EscapeeA Look Inside North Korea, by Jang Jin-sung (Atria Books, 2014), 339 pp., glossary, index.

North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung liked books, especially those about himself. His son and successor, Kim
Jong-il, continued that tradition, but given the severe
paper shortage in the mid-1990s, he favored poetry.
Jang Jin-sung was one of six poet laureates designated
by the Workers Party to compose epics in honor of the
Dear Leader. (5) When Kim Jong-il praised one of
Jangs poems, he was made one of the Admitted, the
tiny circle of elite whose presence Kim Jong-il had
personally requested and who have spent more than
twenty minutes with him behind closed doors. (323)
But Jang had another distinction. He also worked for
the United Front Department (UFD), the section of the
Workers Party, responsible for inter-Korean espionage,
policy making and diplomacy. (6) He was assigned to
Division 19 (Poetry), a unit that specialized in conducting psychological warfare operations against and
about the South through the cultural media such as the
press, literary arts, music and film. (6) To accomplish
his mission, Jang was given special travel privileges
and access to South Korean literature and media publications. His job was to compose material favorable
to the North, as if it had been written in the South, for
consumption by citizens of the North. Dear Leader
is the story of Jangs awakening to the North Korean
reality in the mid-1980s and his eventual defection.
Jang describes his youth in the small town of Sariwon
in the 1950s and 60s as not unpleasant. His father was a
party functionary, his mother a doctor. Their house was
relatively spacious. The town had only one piano, but
Jang still managed to become an accomplished pianist.

60

When, after ten years working for the party, he returned

home as one of the Admitted, he was shocked by the
pervasive poverty evident from the train window and
then in Sariwon itself. Until then, he had casually ignored
the repression of the masses, wanting to believe that all
would eventually be well if one followed the Dear Leader.
His disillusionment did not lead to any plans to defect,
however. That decision came when he lent his only close
friend in Pyongyang a book from South Koreaclassified
top secretthat he had taken home to read. The friend
lost the book and some handwritten notes, and someone
found it and turned it over to the secret police. When Jang
heard what had happened, he knew he was in real trouble.
The police traced the book to him from his fingerprints.
They identified his friend from the handwritten notes.
Jangs status as one of the Admitted meant he could not
be arrested until Kim Jong-il approved, but his friend
was in immediate danger. Jang avoided surveillance,
contacted his friend, and bought travel permits on the
black market. The two headed for the border with China.
Their escape was a mixture of luck, close calls with
the police, and help from sympathetic contacts made
between the border and Beijing, where Jang received
help at the South Korean embassy. He now lives
in Seoul and has become a successful writer. Dear
Leader is exciting reading that reveals firsthand, littleknown insights about the North Korean regime.

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Secret Service: Political Policing in Canada from the Fenians to Fortress America, by Reg Whitaker, Gregory S.
Kealey, and Andrew Parnaby (University of Toronto Press, 2012), 687 pp., endnotes, photos, index.
The three Canadian professors who published Secret Service in 2012 shared the 2013 Canada Prize in
the Social Sciences for this comprehensive history
of the Canadian security and intelligence services.
The central theme of the book is political policing, usually against Canadian citizens. And the authors argue
that Other countries do this as wellthe FBI spies on
Americans; MI5 and Special Branch spies on Britons; the
French haveagenciesthat spy on French citizens. (7)
In the US case, they invoke the preposterous metaphor of
the early-1950s, witch-hunts, which they imply were
in some respects illegal and unnecessarily repressive attempts to control subversion, a conclusion that may startle
those who have read the work of Harvey Klehr and John
Haynes.a Political repression in Canada, according to the
authors, has been confined to the legitimate auspices
of the state. (9) Thus, the authors candidly continue,
Canada has persistently spied on its own people, run
undercover agents, and maintained secret sources of
information [and] categorized people in terms of their
personal beliefswith serious consequences. (10) Secret
Service describes this Canadian-style political policing
from 19th-century British colonial days to the present.
Colonial Canada faced social unrest from radicals in the
Irish Fenian brotherhood and from Hindu groups advocating Indian self-rule. The authors write that Violence was
part and parcelof both movements. (57) The need to
keep order led to the creation of the secret service in the
1860s (59) and in 1873, as labor unrest continued, the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). (80) Security
demands increased substantially with the onset of WW
I. The enemy was no longer Irish or South Asian. Germans, Socialists and then the Bolsheviks assumed that
role. After some initial postwar cutbacks in the security
services, subversive activities increased as communism
a. See, for example, John Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander
Vassiliev, SPIES: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale
University Press, 2009).

replaced anti-imperialism as the source of the nations

security anxieties, and the RCMP was tasked with surveillance and intelligence gathering operations. (142)
The authors characterize WW II as a good war
for the Mounties, (175) because they expanded security operations and responsibilities. They failed,
however, to detect Soviet intelligence agents working
in Canada until GRU code clerk Igor Gouzenko defected in September 1945. The fallout from his revelations became the focus of RCMP operations until the
collapse of the Soviet Union. The authors provide a
lengthy, meticulous, and critical analysis of security
service operations during the Cold War and the major
organizational changes that occurred when questions
of performance, accountability, and oversight arose.
In 1984, the Canadian Parliament authorized the
creation of a new civilian security organization, the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). At the
same time, an independent, external review bodythe
Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC)
was created to provide parliamentary oversight of
CSIS operations. This structure is in place today.
A shift to antiterrorism operations took place rapidly after 9/11. What had been a domestic security
service suddenly assumed overseas responsibilities
just as requirements for domestic threat assessments
increased and procedures for handling suspected terrorists were being developed. Some political challenges with the United States followed, and the authors explain how the Canadian version of the US
Patriot Act was passed to deal with these issues.
The final chapter in Secret Service is a useful summary
of the book and, when read directly after the introduction, will give readers a good overview of Canadian
intelligence history. Issues raised in those essays can
then be examined in detail in the intervening chapters.

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While the authors document their

story well, they also impart a point
of view that questions whether many
of the operations described were

acts of repression or proper measures any security service would

undertake to counter subversion
and espionage. In any case, the
v

62

book is an impressive history of the

Canadian intelligence services.

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