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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > Espionage & secret services
This fascinating account of how two young Americans turned traitor
during the Cold War is an "absolutely smashing real-life spy story"
(The New York Times Book Review). At the height of the Cold War,
some of the nation's most precious secrets passed through a CIA
contractor in Southern California. Only a handful of employees were
cleared to handle the intelligence that came through the Black
Vault. One of them was Christopher John Boyce, a hard-partying
genius with a sky-high IQ, a passion for falconry, and little love
for his country. Security at the Vault was so lax, Boyce couldn't
help but be tempted. And when he gave in, the fate of the free
world would hang in the balance. With the help of his best friend,
Andrew Daulton Lee, a drug dealer with connections south of the
border, Boyce began stealing classified documents and selling them
to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. It was an audacious act of
treason, committed by two spoiled young men who were nearly always
drunk, stoned, or both--and were about to find themselves caught in
the middle of a fight between the CIA and the KGB. This Edgar
Award-winning book was the inspiration for the critically acclaimed
film starring Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn--a true story as
thrilling as any dreamed up by Ian Fleming or John le Carre. Before
Edward Snowden, there were Boyce and Lee, two of the most unlikely
spies in the history of the Cold War.
The end of the Cold War presented a paradoxical dilemma for the
Intelligence Community (IC). The demise of the Soviet Union brought
about a significant downsizing of the nation's intelligence
apparatus while concurrently necessitating a major reallocation of
intelligence resources to cover a more complex array of
trans-national threats such as counter-proliferation, terrorism,
organized crime, drug trafficking, and ethnopolitical conflict. The
combination of shrinking budgets and expanding analytical
requirements placed enormous demands on the Community. Among the
most pressing challenges was the need for an on-demand, surged
intelligence capability for coverage over a diverse range of
operational requirements. A key recommendation of a 1996 House
Permanent Select Committee investigation of the nation's
intelligence capabilities called for the creation of a dynamic
surge capacity for crisis response. The Committee concluded that
such resources "need not be self-contained within the IC," but must
be quickly marshaled "without undue concerns about who owns the
assets." Several other independent reform studies at the time
proposed initiatives to satisfy surged collection demands by
leveraging nongovernmental resources. Despite these
recommendations, during the 1990s there was little effort to create
such a surge capacity. Bureaucratic inertia and lack of clear
consensus on an intelligence reform agenda made major initiatives
impossible. With the enormous intelligence demands of the Global
War on Terrorism (GWOT) the issue of surge capacity has reemerged
as a critical issue for community leaders. Collection management,
remote sensing, linguistic support, document exploitation,
interrogation, and technical analysis are just some intelligence
support functions currently being performed by private contractors.
This ad hoc response to meet the intelligence requirements of GWOT
operations has produced mixed results. One report strongly
recommended the permanent integration of commercial imagery
products into the conventional collection management cycle for
operational commanders. Conversely, a key fi nding of the Army
Inspector General's report on OIF detainee operations in Iraq
clearly identifi ed poor training and misuse of contract
interrogators as a contributing factor in detainee abuse. These
examples speak to both the promise and the liability of utilizing
commercial augmentation for intelligence surge capacity. Given the
current mismatch between operational requirements and intelligence
force structure, there will be continuing reliance on commercial
augmentation. As critical intelligence requirements are
increasingly resourced through commercial augmentation, IC leaders
must determine the appropriate roles for private sector firms and
provide effective plans for legal oversight, operational
integration, and management of contracted support. To date, few
studies have adequately considered the policy implications of
integrating non-governmental providers into the operational
intelligence cycle. GWOT operations have required significant
reliance on private sector resources for intelligence collection
and analysis but have done so without sufficient measures for
effective acquisition, management and accountability over
commercial providers. This study assesses the value of current
commercial activities used within DoD elements of the Intelligence
Community, particularly dealing with operational functions such as
analysis, collection management, document exploitation,
interrogation, production, and linguistic support. These functions
were selected due to the extensive use of commercial augmentation
in these areas during recent GWOT operations.
Ron Evans was probably the most notorious Soviet spy of British
nationality working out of Scandinavia in the post-War era. Here,
for the first time, the full story of the Ron Evans spy case is
told in all its drama and excitement as it occurred in the
mid-1960s. Whilst on the one hand Ron Evans was a leading radio
engineer with a brilliant intellect, working on sensitive defence
contracts; on the other, he was a determined and deft conspirator,
manipulating a wide circle of oddly assorted people to achieve his
illicit ends. KGB and MI6 agents play a prominent part in this
account of seething conflict, an assassination attempt, and death;
and only now, in deference to the spirit of the Thirty Year rule
and its equivalent application on the international scale, is it
possible to reveal the true facts behind this Cold War drama. Many
nationalities and colourful individuals, including diplomats and an
eccentric Finnish aristocrat, were involved in the complex intrigue
surrounding Ron Evans' underhand activities. The author, who
unwittingly found himself in conflict with the Soviet agent, was by
a curious set of circumstances led into the role of spy-hunter,
which eventually led to the arrest and conviction of Ron Evans. But
that was not the end of the story. Worse was to follow. Due to an
unfortunate set of events, an MI6 agent who was implicated in a
counter-plot, found that his cover was blown, and following his
capture and arrest by the authorities of a neutral power, Britain's
entire Scandinavian intelligence network came crashing down.
Despite the seriousness of the subject matter the author's
observations are often filled with ironic comedy and ridicule.
The book aims to educate officials as well as students about the
vicissitudes that accompany the development and execution of the
government intelligence function. The authors demonstrate that
national, strategic intelligence in any country of the Hemisphere
can experience episodes of devolution as well as positive
evolution, at the same time that the culturally modulated practices
of government professionals can oscillate between periods of
repression and democratic observance.
This volume helps identify how to produce good or better
intelligence - intelligence that is of use to policymakers. The
authors have - across a range of areas of interest -identified some
of the practices that work best "to bring about" good intelligence.
The focus is on analysis rather than operations and includes pieces
from currently serving professionals in the armed forces, CIA, and
NSA. Editor Dr. Russell G. Swenson directed the Center for
Strategic Intelligence Research at the Joint Military Intelligence
College when this book was published by the Joint Military
Intelligence College.
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