RICHARD TEMPEST
SPIES!
INTELLIGENCE, COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE, AND COVERT OPERATIONS IN THE
MODERN WORLD
Undercover operations have been a part of war and politics since time began, but it
is only in the last one hundred years that the shadow world of spies has become an
important and even central topic of cultural conversation. These days the figure of
the secret agent is a staple in film and literature and functions as a modern
archetype, as in, “My name is Bond. James Bond.” This course will look at
spymasters, covert operatives, agents of influence, assets, defectors, saboteurs and
even femmes fatales during key periods of history, but especially in the twenty-first
century. Major intelligence services such as the CIA, MI-5 and MI-6, the KGB, and the
Mossad will be examined. The discussion will be set in a broader political, military,
and cultural context to show how intelligence collection is an indispensable function
of the modern state, whether democratic, dictatorial, or in-between (cf. “hybrid
regimes”). Other topics include the struggle against global jihadism, the role of
China’s security agencies in that country’s rise to global eminence, and Putin’s
Russia, which is the first country in history whose governing elite consists of former
or actual spies.
WEEK ONE. Two spymasters from history: Sir Francis Walsingham (c. 1532-1590)
and Joseph Fouché (1759-1820). Yuri Andropov (1914-1984), Chairman of the KGB
and future Soviet leader, and his predecessors Felix Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926),
Genrikh Yagoda (1891-1938), Nikolai Yezhov (1895-1939), and Lavrenty Beria
(1899-1953). What is a national security state? The intelligence mindset. Vladimir
Putin as a (unusual) case in point. The fall of the Berlin Wall: watershed event or par
for the course from the perspective of the West’s intelligence agencies? Spooks and
spy chiefs in twenty-first century culture. The popular fascination with a shadow
world which contains high narrative value. The epic story of Richard Sorge (18951944), the charismatic Soviet agent who operated in Japan before and during World
War II. The spy scandal as a political phenomenon: the Guillaume affair and the fall
of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt (1974) as a textbook example. Ideology,
money, sex, revenge, and thrillseeking as a motivating force. What about love of
country? HUMINT (human intelligence) vs. SIGINT (signals intelligence): the neverending dilemma. The secret world of spies and its relation to conspiracy theories.
Has any spy or spy operation ever changed the course of history?
WEEK TWO. E.M. Forster and the modern dilemma of the autonomy of the
individual vs. the traditional values of patriotism or political loyalty, as refracted in
the intelligence gathering world. Graham Greene’s comparison of the Cold War to
the seventeenth century wars of religion. In 1955, Greene’s friend Kim Philby
confronts the press. Cardinal Richelieu and The Three Musketeers. The uses and
abuses of raw intelligence: from Joseph Stalin to Dick Cheney. The Westphalian
state, which grew out of the wars of religion. The politics and geopolitics of raison
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d’état, and the role of spies in sustaining or subverting the body politic and the res
publica. The coup of 18th Brumaire (1799): Napoleon takes power. The Malet
conspiracy (1812): a failed coup. The coup of December 2, 1851: Napoleon III takes
power. Self-coups as a category of extra-legal changes of government. Spies in the
US Civil War. Allan Pinkerton and his National Detective Agency. Spies become part
of popular culture. The Dreyfus affair (1894-1906) as the first modern spy scandal.
The Great Game between Britain and Russia. The Great Game between the British
and the Russian empires (1830-1895). Alfred Redl (1863-1913), the chief of AustroHungarian counter-intelligence who was a Russian spy. Intelligence operations in
World War I. Operation Boot or Ajax: the Iranian coup of August 1951. The Saur
revolution of April 1978 and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Soviet special
forces carry out Operation Storm-33 (December 1979) and install a new
government in Kabul. Afghanistan President Najibullah’s life and death.
WEEK THREE. The ongoing purge in FSB is linked to the US presidential election
hacking scandal. Kaspersky is a Russian company! The victors and vanquished of
World War I prepare for the next conflict, in secret. Allied and Axis intelligence
services in World War II. Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo as
consumers and users of military and political intelligence. The Abwehr and the
Gestapo vs. the SOE. World War II British Commandos and US Rangers as the
progenitors of the special forces of the postwar era. Orde Wingate and his Chindits.
The Red Orchestra espionage rings in Nazi Germany and Switzerland. Leopold
Tepper, the GRU (Soviet military intelligence) agent whose life reads like a novel.
The Battle of Kursk (1943) and how its outcome was influenced by Soviet espionage
efforts. Clandestine Axis operations against the Allies and the reasons for their
failure. An Abwehr operation in Moscow in the autumn of 1941. The impact of
intelligence operations on the course of the war; and the course of history. Reinhard
Gehlen, chief of Foreign Armies East, and his intelligence career under the Nazis and
in the Federal Republic of Germany. The case of Alan Turing and what it tells us
about the role of SIGINT, good intelligence analysis, and the scope and limitations of
the intelligence mindset. Two Soviet defectors or traitors: NKVD general Genrikh
Lyushkov and Red Army General Andrei Vlasov.
WEEK FOUR. An almost-putsch in Montenegro (November 2016) and the ongoing
tensions between Russia and Belarus: coups in the making or unmaking.
Assassination and kidnapping as a tool of the secret wars between states and
ideologies. The figure of the charismatic spy cum killer in modern culture. From The
Manchurian Candidate and The Day of the Jackal to the James Bond franchise and
Steven Spielberg’s Munich. KGB “wet work,” AKA “special tasks,” and the story of the
decidedly uncharismatic Pavel Sudoplatov (1907-1996). Poison-tipped umbrellas
and plutonium tea: assassination as a sinister kind of PR. Soviet, Russian and
Chinese “illegals” in the United States. John Barsky: the story of a KGB “illegal.” Anna
Chapman vs. Valerie Plame, or the cultural objectification of the female intelligence
operative. The Cold War as a secret war. Checkpoint Charlie as its mythic locus.
Klaus Fuchs (1911-1988) and the atomic spies. Igor Kurchatov steps out of the room
and comes back with the data. The Verona Project and other notable Cold War spy
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operations. Kim Philby (1912-1988) and the Cambridge Five. The obsession of
James Angleton (1917-1987), CIA counter-intelligence chief. Rudolf Abel and
Gordon Londsdale. Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, General Oleg Kalugin, and the tail end
of the Cold War. West Germany’s Generale für den Frieden (Generals for Peace) as an
example of a KGB/Stasi front organization. Espionage, or the collection of secret
facts, in a post-factual world.
WEEK FIVE. China’s tradition of intelligence gathering. Dai Li (1897-1946), the
Kuomintang’s spy chief, and Kang Sheng (1898-1975), his counterpart in the
Chinese Communist Party. The Ministry of State Security (established 1983) and its
institutional predecessors: an overview. The case of Zhou Yongkang, former
Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (2007-12), i.e., the
overseer of the country’s security establishment, who became the most senior
Chinese leader ever to be purged for alleged corruption (2014-15). Zhou’s
clairvoyant, who didn’t see very clearly. China’s clandestine industrial, military, and
political efforts against the West; against Russia; in the rest of the world. Larry WuTai Chin and the impact of his spying on the United States. Wen Ho Lee practices spy
ju-jitsu and escapes with his life, freedom, and $1,000,000. The role of the PRC
intelligence agencies in President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” policy. China’s
intelligence-gathering priorities and methods. A technological transfer on the
grandest of scales, or making the capitalists pay for the rope with which their will
hang themselves. Honkong and Macao as playgrounds for spies. The Honkong
kidnappings.
WEEK SIX. Israel is a national security state in a very different way from the United
States. Unlike any other major intelligence agency, Mossad’s fundamental priority is
guaranteeing the nation’s physical survival. Mossad operations in the Arab world,
the Soviet Union/Russia, and elsewhere. The Adolf Eichman kidnapping and trial: an
undercover operation as an act of vengeance and a world-historical teaching
moment. Shin Bet: a comparison with the FBI and MI 5. The Soviet national security
state and its final devolution into imperial collapse: blame not Gorbachev but
Andropov. The latter’s biographical legend: truth vs. fiction. Andropov as ruler of the
Soviet Union and his desire for Mikhail Gorbachev to succeed him. Vladimir
Kryuchkov (1924-2007): the last head of the KGB. The failed communist putsch of
August 1991 and its special forces and security services component. The role of
Western intelligence in the collapse of communism: the Soviet Union, Poland, East
Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria. Aldrich Ames, CIA officer
and Soviet/Russian spy, who was convicted in 1994.
WEEK SEVEN. 9/11 as an intelligence failure. Its geopolitical consequences. The
secret struggle against Al Qaida, ISIS, and other radical Islamic groups. The feature
film Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and the documentary Manhunt (2013) as
representations of the hunt for Osama bin Laden; as narratives of an extended,
multistage analytical endeavor and hazardous field work; a record of intellectual
and professional success, but also grim failure. Michael Scheuer’s take on bin Laden,
Al Qaeda, and NATO: wrong on every point, or in tune with the Zeitgeist? The two
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sometime dangers: conceptual extrapolation from the non-intelligence field to the
world of espionage; and applying methods of intelligence analysis to public and
cultural events. Iran’s security establishment and its clandestine and open efforts
against the United States. Cooperation and competition between Western, Russian,
and Chinese secret efforts against Islamic terrorism. Is Islamic terrorism a true
existential threat to the West? Michael Flynn says yes, George Soros says no. Is the
truth somewhere in between, or somewhere in Hollywood? Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
Iran, and Syria, and the clandestine dimension of the Sunni-Shia civil war, the
world’s most important trans-national and trans-continental conflict.
WEEK EIGHT. France, Germany, and the European Union: the intelligence-gathering
dimension. If we don’t hear much about it, is it because it is largely irrelevant or
supremely successful? France as one of the world’s oldest practitioner of the
clandestine arts. The story of Voltaire and the attempted assassination of King
Frederick the Great. French intelligence operations during the War of Independence.
“A well-placed spy is worth twenty thousand soldiers” (Napoleon). Charles-Louis
Schulmeister and his spy network. The French secret services in Africa; and in the
struggle against radical Islam. And finally, back to Putin’s Russia. Is it a KGB state?
just another hybrid regime? or neither? A who’s who of Russia’s political and
economic elite may hold the answer. The SVR (foreign intelligence service), formed
in 1991, and the FSB (domestic intelligence service), formed in 1995, as successor
organizations to the KGB. Their institutional culture and input into domestic and
foreign policy. The GRU (Russian military intelligence). The property developer vs.
the spy, or Putin vs. Trump, and what the future holds. Perhaps.
SUGGESTED READINGS AND VIEWINGS
Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin
Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign
Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev
Genrikh Borovik and Philip Knightly, The Philby Files. The Secret Life of the Master
Spy — KGB Archives Revealed
Stephen Budiansky, Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence
War Against the Soviet Union
Gordon Corera, The Art of Betrayal: The Secret History of MI 6. Life and Death in the
British Secret Service
Yuri Modin and Jean-Charles Deniau, My Five Cambridge Friends: Burgess, Maclean,
Philby, Blunt and Caincross by Their KGB Controller
Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma: The Battle for the Code
Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Robert Whymant, Stalin’s Spy: Richard Sorge and the Tokyo Espionage Ring
Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal, Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli
Secret Service
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Manhunt (documentary about the hunt for Osama bin Laden)
Zero Days (documentary about the US-Israeli cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear
program)