Recruiting People to Spy for You. ULTIMATE SPY-By H. Keith Melton
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Recruiting people to spy for you. ULTIMATE SPY-By H. Keith Melton First published in the United States in 1996 This edition published in 2009 by DK Publishing 375 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014 09 10 11 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 D166 – September 2009 Copyright © 1996, 2002, 2009 Dorling Kindersley Limited Text copyright © 1996, 2002, 2009 H. Keith Melton Recruiting people to spy for you.-Excerpt: The specific act of gathering information from an enemy is rarely carried out by an intelligence officer in person. To accomplish this task, intelligence officers recruit agents who, perhaps by virtue of their position, have access to the information required. Officers who recruit and handle agents are known as case officers. Most work from an embassy under some form of official cover (see p. 206) and are protected legally by diplomatic immunity. Others may operate without diplomatic immunity, perhaps living under an assumed identity. When recruiting agents, case officers are guided by the factors most likely to motivate people to become spies. these can be summed up by the acronym M.I.C.E.—Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego. M = Money-financial problems, such as deep debt, are fertile ground for those who recruit agents. this has proved to be true in both capitalist and communist countries. Many soviet intelligence officers were lured into spying for the West by the offer of a solution to money problems. The CIA sometimes succeeded in targeting officers of the KGB’s first chief Directorate who were unable to pay back operational funds that they had used personally. the major KGB successes that have come to light in recent years were also achieved by exploiting greed. The most significant American agents in the history of the KGB and sVR Aldrich Ames, John Walker, Jr. Harold James Nicholson, Earl Edwin Pitts, and Robert Phillip Hanssen , all offered their services in return for financial reward. I = Ideology-a person may alternatively be led into becoming an agent because of a belief in the ultimate superiority of the social and political institutions of a foreign country. During the 1930s in particular, the soviet Union was able to recruit agents by exploiting the attraction that communism held for many in the West at that time. These included five idealistic students who were to become the Soviet Union’s chief spies in Britain—Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and John Cairncross. Despite the decline of communism, ideology remains a factor in the recruitment of agents. Jonathan Pollard, an American citizen who worked at the US Naval Intelligence Support Center, initially agreed to spy for Israel out of an ideological commitment to the cause of Zionism. Like many others, however, his motivation was mixed—he was later to accept money for spying. C = Compromise A first step in recruitment by compromise is to identify an element in a potential agent’s lifestyle that he or she would not wish others to know about. Homosexuals, for instance, at least in the immediate postwar decades, often risked ruin if their private lives were revealed. This made it possible for the KGB to recruit John Vassall when he was an embassy clerk in Moscow (see p. 204). In 1955 the Soviets carried out an intricate operation in which they set him up in an embarrassing situation, took photographs, and used these to blackmail and entrap him. Seven years later in London, Vassall was convicted of passing secrets to the Soviets between 1956 and 1962. The KGB kept special hotel rooms in Moscow that were used for photographing visiting Westerners in compromising circumstances—with prostitutes, for instance. With pictures in hand, the KGB could usually blackmail its target individuals into becoming agents. Today, homosexuality and, of course, many heterosexual relationships, are no longer such effective means of coercion. On the other hand, financial and marital difficulties are still exploited with success. E = Ego-Case officers are often trained to appeal to the egos of candidates vulnerable to intellectual flattery in order to entrap them. Typically, a case officer might commission a candidate to write articles for publication. Initially they may be on safe, unclassified subjects. If asked, later, to write on subjects of a more sensitive nature, the writer may already be ensnared by the praise, money, and possibly the sense of adventure gained through previous efforts. Hugh Hambleton was lured to the KGB by flattery and a sense of adventure. Despite an awareness of the risks involved, some subjects continue in the belief that they can outwit intelligence professionals. .