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Files reveal previously unknown UK-Soviet diplomatic scuffle

January 5, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Aubone Pyke

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A previously unknown fracas between two British diplomatic officials, their wives, and a team of Soviet intelligence agents, has been revealed in declassified British government reports. The documents, which were released last weekend, show that two employees of the British embassy in Moscow were detained, along with their wives, allegedly for photographing a Soviet military installation. The British diplomats were Lieutenant-Commanders Ian Clapham and Aubone Pyke, who was the embassy’s assistant military attaché. Escorted by their wives, the two officials were allegedly taking a tour of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), in February of 1979, when a group of “about 25” Soviet intelligence agents rapidly approached them. The agents proceeded to confiscate a cameral belonging to Pyke, after rapidly pulling down his trousers, an old trick aimed to prevent a suspect from running away. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Aubone Pyke, British embassy in the USSR, Cold War, counterintelligence, diplomacy, espionage, Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service (UK), history, Ian Clapham, James Callaghan, KGB, Leningrad (USSR), News, photographic intelligence, Saint Petersburg (Russia), UK, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, USSR

News you may have missed #0232

December 25, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Ahmadinejad says US fabricated nuclear documents. The Iranian President dismisses this document on Iran’s alleged nuclear intentions as “fabricated and distributed by the US”.
US to recognize Honduran elections despite low turnout. The Honduras Supreme Electoral Tribunal says that less than 50% of voters participated in the country’s November 29 election, which was boycotted by ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya. But the United States has said it will recognize the new government regardless of the low turnout.
Interviewing Kim Philby and drinking with the KGB. Tribune magazine’s web editor recalls how he tried to get an interview with British defector to the USSR Kim Philby, and how he nearly became a source for the KGB, in the process.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Cold War, coup plots, defectors, forgery, H.A.R. "Kim" Philby, history, Honduras, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, KGB, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Manuel Zelaya, News, news you may have missed, United States, USSR

A veteran British envoy on diplomacy, sex and espionage

December 17, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Christopher Meyer

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
British newspaper The Daily Mail has published a well-written and entertaining essay by a longtime UK government envoy, explaining the close links between diplomacy, sex and espionage. Sir Christopher Meyer, a career diplomat with the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, served in several countries during his career, including the Soviet Union and Spain, as well as in Germany and the United States, where he was ambassador from 1997 to 2003. He argues in his article that “sex and diplomacy have long been bedfellows”, and recounts some of his personal experiences in the former USSR, where he began his 35-year diplomatic career in 1968, as “an innocent, unmarried 24-year- old”. He arrived in Moscow along with Sir Duncan Wilson, Britain’s ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1971. Sir Christopher is bold enough to recount that Sir Duncan’s predecessor, Sir Geoffrey Harrison (ambassador from 1965 to 1968), “had to leave [Moscow] in a hurry, having fallen for the charms of his Russian maid –trained and targeted, of course, by the KGB”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, British embassy in the US, British embassy in the USSR, Cold War, diplomacy, eavesdropping, Germany, Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service (UK), history, honey traps, KGB, NATO, Sir Christopher Meyer, Sir Duncan Wilson, Sir Geoffrey Harrison, Spain, UK, United States, USSR

News you may have missed #0221

December 15, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Part 5 of CIA defector’s writings now available. Former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer has published the fifth installment of the writings of Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer who defected to the USSR in 1985 (see here for previous intelNews coverage). In this part, Howard explains why Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), was a “good town for covert operations” and the KGB’s “favorite pad for launching agents into Western Europe”.
African Union investigates officials of spying. Two officials from the African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM) and the United Nations Support Office for AMISOM (UNSOA) are reportedly under investigation for passing on sensitive information on AMISOM and Somalia to the US Defense Intelligence Agency and the South African Secret Service.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Africa, African Union, African Union Mission for Somalia, AMISOM, Bratislava (Slovakia), Cold War, Czechoslovakia, defectors, DIA, Edward Lee Howard, espionage, history, KGB, News, news you may have missed, Robert Eringer, Slovakia, Somalia, South African Secret Service, United Nations, United Nations Support Office for AMISOM, United States, UNSOA, USSR

News you may have missed #0218

December 13, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

US Pentagon joins CIA drone war in Pakistan (yes, we know). Wired magazine’s Noah Shachtman (Danger Room blog) reports that the US military is gradually joining the CIA’s unmanned drone war in Pakistan –but this is old news, Noah.
Part 4 of CIA defector’s writings now available. Former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer has published the fourth installment of the writings of Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer who defected to the USSR in 1985 (see here for previous intelNews coverage). In this part, he advises the reader to “never wear a disguise past police or immigration unless it is a dire emergency”.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, Cold War, defectors, Edward Lee Howard, history, KGB, News, news you may have missed, Pakistan, Predator drones, United States, US DoD, USSR

News you may have missed #0214

December 10, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Cuban Five member’s prison term cut to 30 years. A Miami court has reduced the earlier prison sentence of yet another member of the Cuban Five. Ramon Labanino has had his original sentence of life imprisonment cut to 30 years. The Cuban Five were sentenced in 2001 for spying on US soil for Cuba.
Part 3 of CIA defector’s writings now available. Former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer has published the third installment of the writings of Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer who defected to the USSR in 1985 (see here for previous intelNews coverage). Did you know that “KGB officers always preferred Malév (Hungary’s national airline) whenever they crossed to [Western] Europe”?

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, Cold War, Cuba, Cuban Five, defectors, Edward Lee Howard, espionage, history, Hungary, KGB, lawsuits, Malév Hungarian Airlines, Miami (Florida), News, news you may have missed, Robert Eringer, United States, USSR

EU foreign minister’s husband shunned KGB approaches in 1980s

December 8, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Peter Kellner

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The husband of the recently appointed European Union minister for foreign affairs has acknowledged that the KGB tried to cultivate a relationship with him in the 1980s. Peter Kellner, who now presides over influential British polling company YouGov, is married to Baroness Ashton of Upholland (born Catherine Margaret Ashton), who assumed the prominent EU post on November 19. Intelligence documents show that British domestic intelligence agency MI5 had tagged Kellner and his wife as “communist sympathizers”, because of their anti-apartheid activism and long-term involvement with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, considered a “subversive” movement within the intelligence services. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 1984 Labour Party National Conference (UK), Alexander Lebedev, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, Blackpool (UK), Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Catherine Margaret Ashton, Cold War, defectors, diplomatic expulsions, domestic intelligence, double agents, EU, history, KGB, Labour Party (UK), MI5, MI6, National Reserve Bank (Russia), News, Oleg Gordievsky, Peter Kellner, political activism, Russia, The New Statesman and Society, UK, USSR, YouGov, Yuri Kudinov

Writings by CIA defector Edward Lee Howard published

December 7, 2009 by intelNews 3 Comments

E.L. Howard

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
An extensive article on spy tradecraft, written by CIA case officer Edward Lee Howard, after he defected to the Soviet Union in 1985, has been published for the first time. Howard, the only intelligence agent known to have been trained by both the CIA and the Soviet KGB, joined the CIA in 1980, but began collaborating with the KGB in 1983, after the CIA fired him for repeatedly failing to pass a polygraph test. After he was exposed by Vitaly Yurchenko, a KGB officer who allegedly defected to the US in Rome, Italy, Howard employed his CIA training to evade FBI counterintelligence agents and escape to Russia, where he lived until his death in 2002. In the early 1990s, the FBI tried to lure Howard to capture, using, among others, Bureau counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer. Eringer befriended Howard and, as part of the luring operation, commissioned the former CIA agent to write a book entitled Spy’s Guide to Central Europe. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, Cold War, counterintelligence, defectors, Edward Lee Howard, FBI, history, KGB, Moscow (Russia), News, polygraph examinations, Robert Eringer, Rome (Italy), Spy's Guide to Central Europe, spycraft, United States, US embassy in Italy, USSR, Vitaly Yurchenko

News you may have missed #0199

November 30, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Author insists Sir Hollis was Soviet agent. Last month, Professor Christopher Andrew, author of the recently published In Defense of the Realm, an authorized history of MI5, dismissed allegations that Sir Roger Hollis, former head of MI5, had been a KGB agent. But intelligence author Chapman Pincher insists that “Hollis ha[d] been so deeply suspected of being a Soviet spy […] that he had been recalled from retirement for interrogation” in London.
ACLU supports lawsuit against FBI by alleged informant. The American Civil Liberties Union has joined Craig Monteilh, who says he was an undercover FBI informant, in a lawsuit demanding sealed court records identifying him as a spy be made public.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with ACLU, book news and reviews, Chapman Pincher, Christopher Andrew, Cold War, Craig Monteilh, espionage, FBI, history, informants, KGB, lawsuits, MI5, News, news you may have missed, Sir Roger Hollis, UK, United States, USSR

News you may have missed #0192

November 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Ex-agent reveals botched CIA operation in Siberia. Former CIA operative Mike Ramsdell has described a botched post-Cold War CIA operation in Siberia, which almost cost him his life. Another, apparently unrelated, botched CIA operation in Siberia was revealed last August.
How secret Operation WEDGE ended Czechoslovak communism. “There are dozens of conspiracy theories about the Eastern European revolutions of 1989: that it was all the work of the CIA, the KGB, or a cabal of Western banks with mafia connections. Most are hokum. But in Czechoslovakia there really was a conspiracy behind the theory”.
Secret US-Japanese nuclear deal comes to light. IntelNews has previously discussed this secret arrangement, which reportedly allows US military vessels and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons to enter Japanese territorial waters, as long as Japan is protected by the US nuclear umbrella.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, Cold War, Czechoslovakia, espionage, history, Japan, KGB, Mike Ramsdell, News, news you may have missed, nuclear proliferation, Operation WEDGE, Russia, Siberia, United States

News you may have missed #0184

November 15, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Rumors of joint US-Israel-Egypt-Jordan spy meeting. Israeli site DEBKAfile is one of several Middle Eastern news outlets alleging that a secret meeting was held earlier this month between senior intelligence officials of the US, Israel, Egypt and Jordan.
Germany won’t prosecute suspect in Litvinenko murder. Germany has dropped attempts to prosecute Dmitri Kovtun, a former Soviet military intelligence officer implicated in the 2006 killing in London of Russian former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. Meanwhile the primary suspect in the case, former KGB bodyguard Andrey Lugovoy, who lives in Russia, said he may be ready to face questioning in the UK “under certain conditions”.
FBI charged terrorism suspect after trying to recruit him. Tarek Mehanna, a Massachusetts man accused of plotting to kill Americans, was charged by the FBI only after he refused to work as an informant against Muslims, according to his lawyer. This is not the first time such allegations have surfaced.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alexander Litvinenko, American Muslims, Andrey Lugovoy, assassinations, Dmitri Kovtun, Egypt, FBI, Germany, GRU, informants, Israel, Jordan, KGB, lawsuits, News, news you may have missed, Russia, secret meetings, Tarek Mehanna, UK, United States

Israel reveals long-awaited Levinson spy case details

November 13, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As part of a move by Israeli intelligence agencies to adhere to elementary provisions of Israel’s declassification laws, Shin Bet has for the first time published details about the Shimon Levinson spy case. Levinson was a senior agent in Shin Bet (domestic intelligence) and the Mossad (external intelligence), who in 1991 was jailed for 12 years for spying on Israel on behalf of the Soviet KGB. Levinson’s career culminated with his appointment as head of the Mossad station in Ethiopia. This happened shortly before he voluntarily retired in1978, in frustration over an awaited promotion that failed to materialize. According to Shin Bet, it was Levinson’s business failures and financial instability, not ideology, that led him to contact the KGB and “offer his services to the Soviet Union” shortly after his retirement. Eventually the Soviets flew Levinson to the USSR, where he was trained in Soviet espionage techniques before being sent back to Israel. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Cold War, declassification, double agents, espionage, Ethiopia, Israel, KGB, Mossad, News, Shimon Levinson, Shin Bet, Thailand, USSR

News you may have missed #0175

November 10, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

South Korean spy agency now regards North as ‘international affairs’. The Seoul-based National Intelligence Service (NIS) has relocated its unit that monitors North Korea under a department dealing with international affairs. The change, described as a “paradigm shift” by one South Korean official, apparently reflects President Lee Myung-bak’s view that the North Korean issue should be dealt more “from the international geopolitical perspective”.
Robbery of S. African intel agent was planned, say officials. The robbery by five men of a woman said to be an agent of South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency “was conducted as though it was very well planned”, according to police.
Interview with ex-West German spy master. Radio France Internationale has aired an interview with Hans-Georg Wieck, chief of the West German Secret Service (BND) between 1985 and 1990. Among other things, Wieck claims that BND had “well-placed” agents in East Germany, as well as in spy services of other communist, including the KGB.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with BND, Cold War, double agents, espionage, Federal Republic of Germany, German Democratic Republic, Hans-Georg Wieck, history, intelligence reform, KGB, Lee Myung-bak, National Intelligence Agency (South Africa), National Intelligence Service (South Korea), News, news you may have missed, North Korea, South Africa, South Korea

News you may have missed #0172

November 8, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

Ex-Olympic Committee president was KGB agent: new book. Juan Antonio Samaranch worked as a secret agent for the Soviet KGB, whose agents helped him win his election to become the president of the IOC, according to The KGB Playing Chess, a new book published in Russia by Vladimir Popov, a former top official in the Soviet secret police.
Do we really need an NSA data center in Utah? Interesting local opinion piece about the 1-million-square-foot data center to be built at Utah’s Camp Williams by the US National Security Agency.
Visual ‘proof’ of Monaco’s Intelligence Service. We have written before about former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer, who until recently was spymaster to Prince Albert II of Monaco, and is now completing a book on his experiences in the tiny principality, a project he began after quitting his post. The question is, is there a Monaco Intelligence Service? Eringer says yes, and has published a purported MIS logo MIS identity card to prove it. and his

https://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/01-249/

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with book news and reviews, Camp Williams (Utah), Cold War, counterintelligence, databases, FBI, informants, International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, KGB, Monaco, Monaco Intelligence Service, News, news you may have missed, NSA, Prince Albert II of Monaco, Robert Eringer, Russia, sports, USSR, Utah, Vladimir Popov

News you may have missed #0171

November 7, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Court date for US couple accused of spying for Cuba. Walter and Gwendolyn Myers, who were arrested by the FBI last summer on charges of spying for Cuba for over 30 years, have a court appearance scheduled for Thursday. Meanwhile, the judge overseeing their case is trying to decide how to make evidence available for their trial while protect US intelligence sources and methods.
CIA responds to declassification request…20 years later. The CIA has finally released a small number of documents relating to Manucher Ghorbanifar, a shady weapons trader who mediated between Washington and Tehran during the Iran-Contra scandal. The declassification comes two decades after the Agency was asked to release the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Kalmanovic was Shin Bet informant, says Ha’aretz. It is well known that Shabtai von Kalmanovic, who was gunned down in downtown Moscow on Monday, had worked for the Soviet KGB. He confessed as much and was jailed in Israel in the 1980s for spying. But Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that Kalmanovic was also “a Shin Bet [Israel’s internal security service] informant”. In a new article, the paper says Kalmanovic “was a low-level informer for the Shin Bet” before his arrest for spying for the KGB.