News you may have missed #0048

July 30, 2009 by Leave a comment

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Kim Philby’s granddaughter describes memories of her grandfather

July 30, 2009 by 3 Comments

Charlotte Philby

Charlotte Philby

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Charlotte Philby, daughter of John Philby, H.A.R. “Kim” Philby’s oldest son, has penned an extensive account of her memories of her grandfather. In her article, published yesterday in British daily The Independent, she describes Kim Philby as “a proud man, and one who chose to publicly stand by his actions”. Kim Philby was probably the most successful double spy in history. While working as a senior member of British intelligence, he spied on behalf of the Soviet KGB and NKVD from the early 1930s until 1963, when he defected to Moscow. Two years later he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The Soviet authorities buried him with honors when he died in 1988. Read more of this post

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Could Order 65 signify the end of communications privacy in Russia?

July 23, 2009 by 1 Comment

FSB agent

FSB agent

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
As of July 21, Russian postal services and Internet providers are required by law to provide Russian intelligence agents with on demand access to the dispatch information and content of private correspondence. This is stipulated in Order 65, which the Russian government and the Russian Ministry of Communications made public on July 6.  Apart from granting automatic communications inspection rights to officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and seven other intelligence and security organizations of the Russian state, the new law requires all Russian post office sorting facilities to set up “special rooms where security officers will be able to open and inspect private mail”. Additionally, all Internet service providers are now required to grant the FSB and other intelligence and security agencies complete access to their electronic databases. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0027

July 14, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Former KGB captain still fighting deportation from Canada. IntelNews has been keeping an eye on the case of Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, whose deportation from Canada has been ordered by a court. Lennikov, a former KGB captain, claims that if deported back to Russia he will be treated as a defector by the FSB. IntelNews has also learned that Lennikov now maintains a public blog, which he updates daily.
  • New book claims Errol Flynn worked as a Nazi spy. The Australian-born star, who became a Hollywood legend in the 1930s, was known for his anti-Semitic views. But now a new book claims that declassified CIA files prove Flynn collaborated with German Nazi intelligence in gathering information on German socialists who fought in the Spanish Civil War.
  • Iranian spying allegations nonsensical, says France. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that Tehran’s claims that 23-year-old French student Clotilde Reiss was a spy in Iran are “stupid”. “Do you think my country would be so naive and shorthanded as to send a 23-year-old woman to spy in Iran? That’s stupid, it’s not possible”, said Mr. Kuchner during a visit to Lebanon.
  • Interesting account of Israel’s only spy history memorial. Matti Friedman, of The Associated Press, has written an interesting account of the little known Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center in Tel Aviv.

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News you may have missed #0025

July 12, 2009 by 2 Comments

  • BREAKING NEWS: Several news outlets are reporting this morning that it was former US vice-President Dick Cheney who ordered the CIA to conceal from Congress key information about a covert action intelligence program of an undisclosed nature. See here for more.
  • New book claims Ernest Hemingway was KGB agent. The new book Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press), co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, alleges that the Nobel prize-winning novelist was on the KGB’s list of agents in America from 1941, when he was given the codename “Argo” by the Soviets.
  • Thousands of former Stasi spies still working in German civil service. A report in the German edition of The Financial Times claims that over 17,000 former members of East Germany’s Stasi remain employed as civil servants in reunified Germany. Stasi is the name commonly used for the Ministry for State Security, communist East Germany’s secret police.
  • NSA director’s secret visit to New Zealand revealed. A reporter accidentally spotted Lieutenant-General Keith Alexander, director of the US National Security Agency, entering a Wellington building accompanied by security personnel. The revelation prompted a spokesperson at the US embassy in Wellington to admit that Alexander was indeed in New Zealand “for consultations with government officials”. The close signals intelligence relationship between the US and New Zealand have been known since 1996.
  • Chinese national caught trying to purchase crypto hardware. Chi Tong Kuok was arrested by the FBI at the Atlanta International Airport en route from Paris to Panama, where he allegedly planned to purchase US military radios. The US government claims Kuok has admitted he was “acting at the direction of officials for the People’s Republic of China”.
  • Taliban say cell phone SIM cards guide US drone strikes. A Taliban circular says SIM cards planted by informants in cell phones used by militants are used to signal American drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As IntelNews recently explained, there are suspicions that this and similar discoveries are gradually prompting the Taliban and al-Qaeda to stop using cell phones altogether.

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News you may have missed #0012

June 30, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • New book on KGB activities in the United States. Based on archival material, authors John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr estimate that from the early 1920s more than 500 Americans, including many Ivy League graduates and Oxford Rhodes Scholars, were recruited to assist Soviet intelligence agencies, particularly in the State Department and America’s first intelligence agency, the OSS (forerunner of the CIA). 
  • South Korean spy agency launches video game. “Spot the Spy” video game is offered online by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) “to promote public awareness about security”. But pro-unification activists complain the game demonizes them. 
  • 2006 spy satellite failure a mystery, says NRO. The secretive US National Reconnaissance Office claims it still doesn’t know what caused the 2006 failure of one of its most expensive spy satellites, despite “an exhaustive formal failure investigation and three different independent review team investigations”. 
  • Memoir of fourth Cambridge spy soon to be unsealed. In early July the British Library will permit public access to the 30,000-word unfinished autobiographical manuscript of Anthony Blunt, Surveyor of Pictures for Queen Elizabeth II, and a member of the Cambridge Five, a group of spies working for the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the early 1950s.

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New book examines KGB poison lab

June 16, 2009 by 1 Comment

Lugovoy

Lugovoy

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Former Soviet military intelligence officer Boris Volodarsky has given an extensive interview to Radio Svoboda (RFE/RL’s Russian language service) about his newest book, KGB Poison Factory: From Lenin to Litvinenko. At the heart of his book is the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB intelligence officer who had defected and was living with his family to the UK, until he came down with a fatal dose of polonium 210. Volodarsky agrees with most intelligence experts that Litvinenko’s murder carries with it all the marks of a KGB assassination operation. But the former intelligence officer, who now lives in Vienna and London, believes Litvinenko’s poisoning was not carried out by Andrey Lugovoy, as is claimed by British authorities, but by an unknown member of the KGB’s mysterious “C” directorate. Lugovoy, who is wanted in Britain for Litvinenko’s murder, served in the KGB and in Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) from 1987 to 1996, and is currently a member of the Russian Duma. Volodarsky’s interview is available in Russian here.

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News you may have missed #0002

June 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

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Most Canadians want former KGB spy to stay

June 8, 2009 by 3 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Less than a fifth of Canadians want a former KGB officer living in British Columbia deported from the country, according to a new nationwide poll published last Friday. IntelNews has reported before on the case of Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, a former KGB spy living in Canada with his wife and teenage son since 1992, awaiting the result of an asylum claim. Late last February, however, Canada’s Public Safety Ministry rejected Lennikov’s claim and notified him that he “can be ordered deported from the country in as early as a few weeks”. Canadian authorities have refused to reveal the precise reason for the former KGB agent’s pending deportation. But in 2007, commenting on the case of former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel Givi Abramishvili, who was deported from Canada, a government representative had said that “Canada […] is not a safe haven for those that may be a danger to national security”. Read more of this post

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Ex-CIA historian claims Soviet asset was double agent

March 30, 2009 by Leave a comment

Adolf Tolkachev

Adolf Tolkachev

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In official historical accounts of the CIA, Adolf Tolkachev is described as the Agency’s greatest Soviet asset in the 1980s, whose impact was “limitless” and of “immense value”. Tolkachev, codenamed GTVANQUISH in internal CIA documents, was a Soviet electronics engineer who conducted research for the Soviet armed forces. From 1979 until his capture in 1985, he secretly collaborated with the CIA and give the Agency countless documents on Soviet avionics and radar systems. But Benjamin Fischer, a former CIA clandestine operative and retired CIA historian, now claims that Tolkachev was actually a KGB double agent tasked by Soviet intelligence with providing US military strategists with false information. Read more of this post

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Ex-KGB officer’s wife, son, to remain in Canada

March 18, 2009 by 2 Comments

Lennikov

Lennikov

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
On March 2, we reported that the Canadian government had notified Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, a former KGB officer living in British Columbia, that he and his family were soon to be issued with deportation orders. Last week, however, the family received what Canadian media describe as “a partial reprieve”. Specifically, they were told that Lennikov’s wife, Irina, and son, Dmitri, will not be deported back to Russia. Lennikov, who spent five years working for the KGB in the 1980s, has been living in Canada with his wife and teenage son since 1992. Late last February, however, Canada’s Public Safety Ministry rejected Lennikov’s refugee claim and notified him that he “can be ordered deported from the country in as early as a few weeks”. Canadian authorities have refused to reveal the precise reason for the former KGB agent’s pending deportation. Read more of this post

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Ex-KGB agent, wanted for murder in Britain, to run for mayor

March 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

Lugovoy

Lugovoy

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Andrey Lugovoy, who is wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, is poised to run for mayor in the Russian city of Sochi. British authorities believe that Lugovoy, who served in the KGB and in Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) from 1987 to 1996, carried out the radioactive poisoning of Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer who had defected to the UK. Litvinenko, who was a vocal critic of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, came down with radioactive poisoning soon after meeting Lugovoy in a London restaurant. The latter is believed by British authorities to have acted “with the backing of the Russian state”. A victory by Lugovoy in next month’s mayoral race could potentially pose a diplomatic challenge for London, as Sochi will be hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. If he wins, therefore, the prime murder suspect will be expected to lead local officials in “welcoming the British team to the Games”. Britain’s Daily Telegraph notes that such a possibility could ultimately “lead to the first ever British boycott of an Olympic Games”. Read more of this post

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Canada to deport ex-KGB officer living in British Columbia

March 2, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Canadian government has notified a former KGB officer living in Burnaby, British Columbia, that he and his family are soon to be issued with deportation orders. Mikhail Lennikov, who spent five years working for the KGB in the 1980s, has been living in Canada with his wife and 17-year-old son since 1992. But last week Canada’s Public Safety Ministry rejected Lennikov’s refugee claim and notified him that he “can be ordered deported from the country in as early as a few weeks”. Canadian government officials have refused to discuss Lennikov’s KGB ties, but Lennikov has previously stated that he voluntarily revealed his KGB background to Canadian authorities. He has also said that, if sent back to Russia, he could face imprisonment for having revealed his KGB connection to a foreign government. Read more of this post

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Former KGB officer to publish “new data” on nuclear espionage

January 24, 2009 by 1 Comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Alexander Vassiliev, who worked in the American Division of the KGB from 1987 to 1990, is well known to intelligence historians. His first book, Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America (1999) included information the author claims to have copied from internal KGB records. Among several critics of the book was Rutgers University professor John Lowenthal, who dismissed it as containing a “plethora of errors, and […] strategic omissions [that] leave it demonstrably untrustworthy [and] far below minimal standards of scholarly or journalistic rigor for any serious consideration”. Now Vassiliev is preparing his return with a second book, entitled Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, which he co-wrote with John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. The book, which is scheduled for publication by Yale University Press in March, is also based on internal KGB “files, copied by Mr. Vassiliev into notebooks” before he resigned from his post at the KGB. Read more of this post

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Convicted Norwegian operative refused new hearing

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

The spy baby pram used by the Norwegian security police against Treholt in 1983

The spy baby pram used by the Norwegian security police against Treholt in 1983

Norwegian former Defense Ministry official, Arne Treholt, who was convicted in 1985 for espionage on behalf of the Russian KGB and the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS), has been denied a new hearing by a Norwegian review committee. This was the fourth time Treholt had applied to be considered by the Norwegian Criminal Cases Review Commission, in an attempt “to clear his name”. In 1984, Norway’s Politiets Sikkerhetstjeneste (Police Security Agency, or PST) arrested Treholt at an Oslo’s Fornebu airport while the official was on his way to meet a Soviet KGB agent in Vienna, Austria. The PST recently revealed some details of the counterintelligence operation against Treholt, which included surveillance activity in Helsinki, Finland. Read more of this post

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