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🔎 Intelligence

China

Chinese writers often wrote on intelligence matters in contrast with Western writers[^1]

  • Historical writings on intelligence continue to be used by military institutions of PRC
  • Fragments of earlier works “protobooks” survive in later works.

Sunzi wrote that warfare must be undertaken only after a comprehensive analysis of relative strengths and weaknesses of combatants, the world’s first net assessment procedure. He also advocated deception on the battlefield. Later writers responded to

Sunzi, updating and interpreting his precepts: Guan Zhong Li Quan, Li Jing.

Sunzi condemned generals who failed to gather necessary intelligence and disparaged divination and consulting ancestors in favor of hard intelligence. Later writers like Shi Zimei also upbraided rulers who ignored these rules. Works advocating covert action - Toubi Fuban - Warring States period works on statecraft, e.g. Han Feizi

Sunzi’s Five Types of Spy

  1. Local Spy: Knowledgeable spies living outside their native habitat, including emigrants, travelers and exiles (e.g. defectors)
  2. Internal spy: Officials
  3. Turned spy: Double agent
  4. Living spy: Talented people dispatched abroad to observe and then report back
  5. Dead spy: Spies deliberately sent on suicide missions without their knowledge.  Enemy agents could also be deceived and provided with false information, causing them to be executed when they report false information to their masters.

Subversion

By end of Spring and Autumn Period, subversion was an accepted goal of espionage. Assassination used most often in periods of fragmentation. Six Secret Teachings compiled two chapters on systematic programs of subversion.  These two chapters, with Sunzi’s “Employing Spies” in Art of War formed the basis of espionage as late as the Ming Dynasty. Later military writers also devoted at least a few paragraphs to subversion: Le Quan’s Techniques for Secret Plots, Huqian Jing, Bingfa Baiyan. These took historical and semihistorical episodes as examples (Wu Yue Chunqua). Covert action and subversion used by Qin in the western hinterland.

“Debauching” kings

Sunzi: “You must first know the names of the defensive commander, his assistants, staff, door guards, and attendants for any armies that you want to strike, cities you want to attack, and men you want to assassinate.”

Egypt

Egyptian intelligence had its origins in the urban policing organizations established during the British Khedive and occupation.

Mamur Zapts were the de facto chiefs of secret police in Cairo and Alexandria, operating networks of mukbireen informants, by the time of British occupation in 1882.

The Central Special Office (CSO) was established in 1911 after the Coptic Prime Minister was assassinated by a young nationalist. When discontent exploded in 1919, and CSO couldn’t respond effectively, the Interior Ministry formed the Special Section (SS) to centralize intelligence collection. CSO was closed and files transferred to SS in 1925.

Egyptian Military Intelligence was being indigenized in the late 1930s. MI officers were complicit in the army coup of 23 July 1952. Once the Free Officers were in power, they set about creating a new intelligence community. The Military Intelligence Directorate (MID) as it was then called, became active in covert action and subversion across the Middle East and Africa.

Fear of communist subversion fueled the creation of the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), subordinate to the Interior Minister, which was led at first by Zakaria Muhi al-Din and stood up within months of the coup.
GID inherited and took the place of the old political police organs. GID was renamed the State Security Investigations Service (SSIS) in 1971.

As part of Gamal Abd al-Nasser’s emphasis on covert action, the Egyptian General Intelligence Service (EGIS) was established by March 1954, also headed by Zakaria Muhi al-Din. EGIS was the capstone of the new Egyptian government’s emphasis on projecting influence through covert action, and it was modeled after the CIA. During the heyday of Egyptian subversion abroad, Salah Nasr was EGIS Director.

Egyptian covert action grew out of the effort to end the British occupation, remove British influence from government organs, and eject the British from the Canal Zone. In 1952, MID created a Special Resistance Office to form a guerrilla army against British military units based along the Suez Canal. The campaign became the template for Egyptian subversion abroad for the next decade and half. MID also sent officers to Sudan to recruit sources and build influence for possible unity with Sudan. While Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip, Palestinian infiltrators were a source of irritation for MID. However, MID sponsored infiltrations using Bedouins, Palestinians, and even its own scouts for intelligence-gathering. These infiltrations eventually were made from southern Lebanon as well. The death of an Israeli settler during one such raid sparked a cycle of reprisals that led to war. The four years after the British withdrawal from the Suez in 1956 marked Egypt at the height of its regional power. Nasser was the hero of the Arab world, and Cairo was the wellspring of a vigorous new Pan-Arab nationalism. However, Egyptian subversion against conservative Arab states and British protectorates was checked in many places by the United States. After Egypt and Syria joined the United Arab Republic (UAR), Nasser began covert action campaigns in Jordan and Lebanon, combining subversion with radio propaganda. In Lebanon, UAR meddling triggered a larger crisis that drew the attention of the US and ended Egyptian arming of Lebanese insurgents. A 1958 coup in Iraq initially drew feelersfrom the Egyptians, who hoped to draw Iraq into their circle of influence. However, old animosities arose again, and by 1959 Egypt was broadcasting radio propaganda, and senior UAR spymasters backed a short-lived army revolt in Mosul. Alienated by Nasser, Saudi Arabia fended off feeble Egypt’s attempts to use its military presence and attache corps there for subversion. Nasser created African Affairs Branch, led by Mohamed Fa’iq, to pursue Egyptian interests clandestinely across Africa. Key targets were Ethiopia and Congo. Egypt promoted Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) after Suez Crisis and assisted Eritrean declaration of independence by 1960. Close relations with Somalia, which also had territorial disputes with Ethiopia. Egypt provided money, arms to friendly regime in Congo, flew Ghanaian and Egyptian troops to prop up regime. Also provided arms to resistance movements in Angola, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Portuguese Guiana, and training to Congo Brazzaville and Tanzania. MID broke down under pressure of war. Israelis had strong SIGINT and intercepted an insecure phone call between Nasser and King Hussein. Israel also captured a valuable cache of Egyptian intelligence documents in Gaza on MID’s Palestinian infiltrators.

Voice of the Arabs (VOA) served as a propaganda arm buttressing Egypt’s foreign subversion policies. Daily radio programming was handled by Egyptian State Broadcasting (ESB) and used transmitters supplied by CIA. ESB turned to former Nazi propagandists, who must have felt at home with anti-Jewish programming. ESB grew out of EGIS promotion of VOA. EGIS had a representative on ESB’s board of directors. EGIS was also responsible for running clandestine radio stations, reliant usually reliant on mobile transmitters. Voice of the Arab Nation targeted Iraq during the 1956 war when the British and French knocked out overt ESB transmitters. Egypt also operated a clandestine radio station called Voice of Free Iran in the early 1960s and gave support to anti-shah clerics.

Egyptian intelligence had been preparing Yemen for subversion since 1950s. VOA broadcasted propaganda, and the signal to begin the coup in September 1962 was delivered by VOA. Egyptian army was overwhelmed by Yemeni rural insurgency, because Cairo didn’t plan for a long war. No good cultural intelligence on Yemeni tribes. Intervention antagonized Great Britain and Saudi Arabia. MID provided training to National Liberation Front (NLF) which was set up by Egypt as an anti-British umbrella organization. NLF systematically kidnapped, tortured, and executed Aden SB officers and informants. Egypt still relied on broken Enigma-based encryption. GCHQ and NSA had access to military COMINT. Despite successful Egyptian-backed coup and energetic covert action campaign against British Protectorate in South Yemen, Egypt could not maintain political leverage over Yemen. South Yemen turned to GDR for intelligence training.

The British were Egypt’s first instructors in counterintelligence, and also some of its first victims. MI and Cairo SB busted a German spy ring in cooperation with British intelligence (The Key to Rebecca). Operation Susannah was an Israeli terror plot meant to undermine international faith in Cairo’s ability to secure the Suez Canal. In 1954, an Israeli case officer activated sabotage cells among the remaining Egyptian Jewry. Egyptians doubled the Israeli case officer and rolled up the ring. Huge success for nascent Egyptian CI and was an impetus in formation of EGIS. GID rolled up a spy network led by the British expat James Swinburn in 1956. Unfortunately, this had the knock-on effect of forcing the British to rely on their formidable SIGINT collection. GCHQ had broken Egypt’s diplomatic cipher and routinely intercepted Egyptian military communications. Egyptian CI penetrated several Israeli spy rings after the Suez War. The Goudswaard Ring of European and Egyptian nationals was recruited by Mossad. Eventually the GID turned them and were using them to pass disinformation. The Thomas Ring gathered military documents and passed them to Israel in microfilm hidden in furniture which was then exported. In 1961, GID rolled up this network. In the run-up to the Yom Kippur War, Egyptian denial and deception extended to their erstwhile allies the Soviet Union. Soviet photoreconnaissance satellites monitored the war. After the Yom Kippur War, CIA resumed its relationship with Egypt, and along with providing training and equipment, CIA began to aggressively recruit from throughout Egyptian society. Egypt joined the Safari Club (a coalition of intelligence agencies from France, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Morocco), which provided aid to Zaire, Somalia, Djibouti and anti-Qadhafi groups in Libya and Egypt as well as the Afghan resistance. After Camp David, Egyptian intelligence had to contend with Libyan subversion and radio propaganda, mimicking Egyptian tactics of yore. Covert action escalated to a short border war in 1977. Libyan subversion continued, and in 1978 SSIS uncovered a clandestine organization for the “liberation” of Egypt through sabotage and assassination. Egypt also stopped an Iranian who planned to undermine the peace process by conducting and bomb attacks in Egypt. In 1979, Egyptian CI began a covert war with Soviet and East European services. SSIS claimed to have uncovered a Bulgarian intelligence network that year. In 1981, Soviet and Hungarian diplomats were expelled after Egyptian security discovered a spy ring allegedly inciting sectarian unrest.

Israel attempted to subvert Egypt early on by using the Jewish population in Cairo and Alexandria as a base. IDF created sabotage cells which were activated in 1954 when Egypt and UK were negotiating a British withdrawal from the Canal Zone. Operation Susannah was rolled up, and the operatives brutally tortured in a MID prison. The case had political ripple effects within Israel that reached into the 1960s.

Several Israeli spy rings were rolled up in the late 1950s and 1960s. The Goudswaard Ring, run by Mossad in a false-flag operation that posed it as a NATO service, was doubled and began passing disinformation. The Thomas Ring, which gathered military documents and passed them to Israel in microfilm hidden in exported furniture, was rolled up by GID in 1961.

EGIS claimed to have run a “super-spy” named Jack Bitton before and during the Six-Day War (1967). Bitton opened a travel agency in Tel Aviv in in 1954 or 1955. Some claim he was doubled by the Israelis, but Egypt claims he provided warning of Israel’s attack through his contacts with senior Israelis. For Egyptians, Bitton is Egypt’s master spy and the subject of a highly popular television serial in the 1980s.

Israeli spy Wolfgang Lotz mapped out Egypt’s SAM facilities and other important military infrastructure. Israel also operated an agent “Sulayman” who reported the movements of individual Egyptian units during the war. Sulayman may have provided encryption material, because Israeli MI (Aman) broke Egypt’s military cipher before the war.

Israeli deception measures went undetected by the Egyptians. IDF created an entire fake military unit in Eilat, complete with encrypted and unencrypted radio traffic, which succeeded in tricking the Egyptians.

In the run-up to the Yom Kippur War, Egypt suffered from COMSEC shortfalls which were aggravated by excellent Israeli SIGINT. After the 1967 war, Israeli SIGINT stations on the banks of the Suez could reach deeper into Egypt. Israel even planted listening devices on communications lines used by an Egyptian headquarters complex. Egyptian CI also discovered bugs in hollowed-out telephone poles which Israel was using to tap military communications between Red Sea bases and Cairo. Israel’s “Top Source”, Ashraf Marwan, was turned by the Egyptians before the onset of war and gave false warnings of Egyptian attack that cost Israel money and lulled it into a state of complacency.

Anwar Sadat and MID formulated a plan of strategic deception to accomplish diplomatic victory in a limited war (British deception before Battle of el-Alamein). EGIS planted deceptive media stories on military unpreparedness. Military coordinated movements to avoid US imagery satellites. Brinksmanship produced calm-alarm-calm cycle that bred complacency in Israelis. Egyptians improved intelligence collection by recruiting Bedouins and obtaining valuable intelligence on Israeli plans and codenames. Also leveraged OSINT. Ashraf Marwan, Sadat’s new presidential gatekeeper, was recruited by Israel but doubled by Egyptians, gave false warnings of imminent attacks. After early success in the war, Israelis exploited weaknesses and were ready to pounce when ceasefire was declared. Egypt and Israel made peace and began sharing intelligence on Palestinians.

Sources:

  • Sirrs, Owen L. The Egyptian Intelligence Service: A History of the Mukhabarat, 1910-2009 (Studies in Intelligence).

Finland

Finnish economy’s reliance on technology is growing and so is economic espionage.  National innovation system is considered protected.

Finland’s intelligence community - Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Suojehpolisi, Supo) has been performing counterespionage, counterterrorism, and security since 1949.   - Finnish Military Intelligence Command (FINMIC) is under Defense Command’s Intelligence Division.   - Finnish Intelligence Research Establishment (Viestikoelaitos) is Finnish Defense Force’s (FDF) SIGINT unit, under Finnish Air Force (FAF).

Predecessors to Supo - Detective Central Police (Etsiva keskuspoliisi) 1919-1937 - State Police (Vattriollinen poliisi, Valpo) 1937-1949 - Red Valpo, when dominated by Communists, 1945-1949 - Finnish Security Police est. 1949, name changed to Supo 2010.

Organizational structure

Supo is subordinate to the Ministry of Interior, while other Nordic services are subordinate to the Ministry of Justice.  Supo handles no foreign HUMINT sources. Four organizational reforms over past 20 years - In 1992, Supo had three directorates: Counterespionage, Security, and Development and Support - In 1998, operational and development matters were divided more clearly - In 2004, Supo was reorganized to develop research and analysis functions.  Line organization was introduced. - In 2009, Supo was divided into Operational and Strategic Branches. - Operational Branch: Counterespionage Unit, Counterintelligence Unit, Security and Regional Unit, Field Surveillance Unit - Strategic Branch: Situational Awareness Unit, International Relations Unit, Internal Surveillance Unit - Communications Office directly subordinate to C/Supo

Personnel

Supo employs 220 people and has a 17 million euro budget. - 55% are police personnel (30% command, 40% senior, 30% officers) - 1/3 of employees have a degree - Average age of 44 years

Iran

In 1978-1979 (1357 H.S.) some former SAVAK officers revealed what they knew in a televised news conference.

SAVAK had 9 or 10 chief directorates:

  1. First Chief Directorate: administration
  2. Second Chief Directorate: foreign intelligence
  3. Third Chief Directorate: internal security
  4. Fourth Chief Directorate: counterintelligence
  5. Fifth Chief Directorate: technical espionage, including telephone intercept and clandestine audio recordings, censorship, photography, and flaps and seals
  6. Sixth Chief Directorate: budgeting
  7. Seventh Chief Directorate: analysis, including compilation of daily "bulletins"
  8. Eighth Chief Directorate: counterespionage
  9. Ninth Chief Directorate: individual biographies and passport affairs

  11. Iraj Faridi, former chief of operations of the first section of the Third Chief Directorate, mentioned the Trident intelligence agreement but seemed to think the relationship with Turkey, not Israel, was sensitive. He claimed to have 17 years of service in SAVAK during the press conference.

  12. Mohsen Toluei

Trident

A three-way intelligence sharing agreement between Iran, Israel, and Turkey. This was prominently covered by the press when former Mossad officer Yossi Alpher published his book Periphery: Israel's Search for Allies in the Middle East.

Russia

Kouzminov, Alexander. Biological espionage: Special Operations . Directorate S, Department 12 Responsible for obtaining intelligence to aid the Soviet BW program, as well as new strains of pathogens. Requirements included Western governments, state commissions, civil defense and laboratories. Vladimir Kuzichkin worked as Illegals support officer in S/12 for 10 years Laboratory X founded in 1920s, transferred to NKVD in 1937. Soviet biological espionage - Morris and Leontina Cohen, controlled by Gordon Lonsdale, obtained information on British BW program. - Marcus Klinberg was director of Israeli BW program, spied for USSR.

Communications Intelligence and Tsarist Russia by Thomas R. Hammant

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Since Peter the Great, COMINT involving foreign governments and their representatives was the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID).  Methods used included opening diplomatic letters (perlustration) and decrypting the contents, if encrypted, by cryptanalysis or purchasing codebooks.

MID was aided by the “Black Cabinets” of the Imperial Russian Postal Service.  Post offices in major cities of the Russian Empire had Black Cabinets, which photographed contents of suspect correspondence and disseminating the information to the appropriate ministry.  When the contents of a letter were encrypted, it was worked on not by a Black Cabinet but by a “similar establishment attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Little is known about MID’s cryptographic organization, but it may have been brought under the control of the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself in the 1900s.

Codebooks could be easily acquired on the open market.

Russian COMINT in World War I

Army and Navy operated independent COMINT elements.

At each Army HQ, radio intelligence operations were controlled by Chief of Army Communications through his assistant for technical matters. Each army’s radio battalion had a radio intelligence squad or section which operated two stations: one monitored enemy communications, and the other station then recorded them once detected. Intercepts of encrypted German Army radiograms were sent to a “special bureau” of Chief Directorate of the General Staff in St. Petersburg for cryptanalysis. Generally, COMINT was poorly organized under the Russian Army.

Black Sea and Baltic Sea Fleets established independent COMINT services in autumn 1914 after German naval codebooks were recovered from a sunken German cruiser.  Copies of the codebook were shared with the British and French, and there was continued COMINT collaboration between the Allies throughout the war.

The Baltic Sea Fleet’s first radio intercept station was established close to Tallin.  Intelligence was sent by underground cable to the Communications Service of the Southern Region.  Each region (North, East, and South) had a Central Radio Station (CRS) that produced all-source intelligence and supported fleet communications. By 1916, Northern Region had 5 DF and 5 intercept stations, and Southern Region had 5 DF and 4 intercept stations.  Southern Region also established a Radio Intelligence Center, probably to administer COMINT from these stations, which was subordinate to the CRS, and other Regions may have had similar units.

The Baltic Sea Fleet’s greatest debt to COMINT was accrued on 31 July 1915, when the Russians learned the German Navy planned to seize the city of Riga.  Cryptanalysis of the messages, aerial reconnaissance, and shore-based observation posts allowed Russian ships to be ready for the attack when it came, and the Russians prevailed. The Black Sea Fleet’s first radio intercept station was at Sevastopol, and although its Communications Service had two regions to administer, there are fewer details available about Black Sea Fleet COMINT. Black Sea Fleet was greatly helped by Turkey’s use of German codes during the war.  In December 1916, Black Sea Fleet decrypted information that indicated a German submarine was to return to Constantinople and included the location of the mine-swept channel by which it was to pass. Russian minelayers went to work, and within 48 hours the Russians learned the submarine had been sunk.

From the Okhrana to the KGB, by Christopher Andrew

Okhrana est. 1881 Soviet intelligence MO and methods rooted in Tsarist secret service

  • Okhrana active measures campaign to persuade French investors to invest in Russia.  By 1914, a quarter of France’s FDI was in Russia, three times as much as in its own empire, 80% of it in government loans.
  • Peter Rachkowsky, head of Okhrana’s Paris-based Foreign Agency from 1884 to 1982 may have been responsible for producing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

HUMINT

  • Colonel Alfred Redl, senior Austrian MI officer.  In winter 1901-2, Colonel Batyushin, head of Russian MI in Warsaw, discovered Redl was a homosexual.  Redl sold Austria’s mobilization plans against Russia and Serbia until his suicide in 1913.
  • Roman Malinovsky, worker who became one of the most trusted Bolsheviks. One of 6 Bolshevik deputies to Duma (1912), then chair of Bolshevik faction when Mensheviks broke off. When Lenin smelled a rat and set up a committee to investigate the possibility of penetration, Malinovsky was a member of the committee. Okhrana sent him out of the country with a 6000 ruble payoff, and when Okhrana files were opened in 1917 Lenin couldn’t believe Malinovsky had been a traitor.

SIGINT

  • Okhrana began stealing cipher material to assist SIGINT at the beginning of the 20th century, decades before anyone but the French.  Okhrana bribed embassy to services to make impressions of keys and smuggle them out, as well as papers to be photographed.  SIGINT was used in diplomatic negotiations with Germany over the Bosphorus Canal.
  • Bolshevik Revolution damaged SIGINT, dispersed codebreakers and cryptologists to other countries, where they sometimes joined those SIGINT services.  For a decade after the Revolution, Soviet diplomatic traffic was easily decrypted.  Soviets adopted the one-time pad in 1927.
  • GB adopted the tactic of stealing cryptographic material.  KGB and GRU operated a joint unit headed by Gleb Boki.
  • SIGINT was responsible for a panic regarding a possible Japanese surprise attack 1931-1932.  Intercepted attache cables were published in the Moscow press.  Soviets provided edited excerpts of diplomatic intercepts to Germany to influence Germans into signing Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
  • Maskirovka on Eastern Front achieved comparable results to British and Western denial and deception (XX system)
  • Capture of hundreds of German signals personnel among tens of thousands of German POWs resulted in a windfall for Soviet SIGINT, 1943.
  • Multiple penetrations of NSA, 1959-1963.

Sword and the Shield, the by Christopher Andrew

Chapter 2: From Lenin’s Cheka to Stalin’s OGPU

The paranoid instincts and shadowy methods of the Cheka and its successors were motivated by persecution of Bolshevik revolutionaries during the Tsarist period and provoked by agents provocateurs planted by the Tsarist Okhrana and foreign powers. - Cheka founded on 19171220 only weeks after Bolshevik Revolution: Feliks Dzerzhinsky - Foreign Intelligence Department (INO) established 19201220: Made use chiefly of Illegals because Soviet state had no legal residencies abroad - Foiled plots encouraged paranoia of young Cheka - Envoys’ plot by naive young diplomats, caught in the net laid by the Cheka - Agents provocateurs Eduard Berzin and Yan Buikis: Berzin received Order of the Red Star, became Cheka officer, but then fell victim to Stalin’s Terror and was shot in 1937; Buikis survived by changing his identity - Okhrana agents provocateurs - Bolshevik experience as an underground movement: Use of pseudonyms (’Lenin’, ‘Stalin’)

Chapter 3: The Great Illegals

The Great Illegals of the interwar period leveraged their personal flair and charisma to achieve remarkable successes against target countries with very weak security posture. Some of their earliest successes were in obtaining diplomatic cipher material, which was passed to a large SIGINT agency where diplomatic traffic was deciphered. Stalin didn’t trust anyone to analyze the intelligence for him and acted as his own intelligence analyst. This reinforced his warped worldview as the secret services produced reports that catered to his paranoid suspicions. - Great Illegals were unique and remarkable spies: multilingual Central Europeans with great faith in Communist future; freer from bureaucracy, in comparison to  post-war period - Target countries had very lax security - First successes were in obtaining diplomatic ciphers - Dmitri Aleksandrovich Bystroletov (HANS, ANDREI): very handsome, extroverted: portrait hangs in secret memory room of SVR Center in Yasenovo - Seduced female staff in foreign embassies: Prague, 1927: seduced 29 y.o. secretary in French embassy (LAROCHE) who provided British and Italian diplomatic ciphers and classified communiques for 2 years - Agents introduced ANDREI to other sources of information - Oldham, who provided British ciphers, provided introduction to Raymond Oake (SHELLEY) - De Ry provided Italian ciphers, provided introduction to Rodolphe Lemoine - Rodolphe Lemoine (JOSEPH) - Passion for espionage: began work for French Deuxième Bureau (DB) in 1918 - Recruited German cipher clerk in 1931 who was DB’s most important source for a decade - Some intel fed into Enigma code breaking machines - Eventually passed to Ignace Reiss (RAYMOND), who defected in 1937 - Henri Christian Piecke (COOPER) - Flamboyant Dutch artist - John H. King (MAG) - Irish, hated English - Classified Foreign Office communications coroborated by DUNCAN (below) - Moisei Markovich Akselrod (OST, OSTO) - Jewish family, born 1898 - hired by INO in 1922 - Multilingual: Arabic, French, German, English, Italian - Francesco Constantini (DUNCAN) - Classified documents, ciphers from British Embassy in Rome - Also sold documents to Italian intelligence - Continued to provide intelligence after dismissal through brother Secondo Constantini (DUDLEY), also employed at embassy - Executed during Great Terror - Joint OGPU/Fourth Department SIGINT agency decrypted diplomatic traffic - largest SIGINT agency in the world at the time - No analysis of intelligence - Stalin considered analysis to be “guesswork” - Conspiracy theories of Stalin’s continue to survive to this day

Chapter 4: The Magnificent Five

Arnold Deutsch established the recruiting strategy for the Magnificent Five, young talents in Oxford and Cambridge Universities with Communist sympathies who became the most successful Soviet penetrations of Western governments during WW2. Arnold Deutsch (STEFAN, OTTO): True believer in Communism, chemistry PhD from Vienna University, five years after entering as undergraduate; began work for INO in 1932. Recruited 20 agents, including C5, over 4 years as controller

  1. Kim Philby (SOHNCHEN, SYNOK): heterosexual athlete; was not productive before 1937, when he was sent to Spain as war correspondent, wounded, and ultimately awarded medal by Franco, whom he was supposed to assassinate
  2. Donald MacLean (WAISE, SIROTA): bisexual, approached by Philby in 1934; Foreign Office
  3. Guy Burgess (MADCHEN): flamboyant homosexual and social butterfly
    Joined SIS in 1938, in newly founded Section D (covert action and influence)
  4. Anthony Blunt: homosexual, introduction by Burgess
    Talent spotter
  5. John Cairncross (MOLIÈRE, LISZT): polygamist, spotted by Blunt, approached by Burgess, recruited by Klugmann; Foreign Office
  6. Norman Klugmann (MER): prominent Communist activist who acted as talent spotter for NKVD, recr. 1936. Given away by Ignace Poretsky in 1937 Teodor Maly (MANN)
  7. Hungarian POW during WW1, joined Bolsheviks during Revolution
  8. Head of London residency in 1936, where he completed recruitment of C5 with Deutsch
  9. Recalled to Moscow during Great Terror, shot in 1937 (Ch. 5)
  10. Internal turmoil in Soviet Union affected espionage
  11. Hunt for Trotskyites became priority by end of 1937
  12. Great Terror: all 3 of Deutsch’s residents during residency in London were executed

Chapter 5: Terror

The fantasy of a Trotskyite conspiracy increasingly obsessed Stalin during the 1930s, who directed the NKVD and OGPU to penetrate Trotsky’s organization. Trotskyites became targets of a cell of assassins called the Administration for Special Tasks, based out of the Paris residency. The Great Terror resulted in the liquidation of so many NKVD officers that tradecraft suffered. The Cambridge Five themselves, despite the quality of intelligence they provided, were suspected of being plants.   • Mark Zborowski (MAKS, MAK, TULIP, KANT): Russian-born Polish Communist who deeply penetrated Trotsky’s entourage ◦ Confidant of Lev Sedov, elder son of Trotsky ▪ Entrusted with key to Sedov’s letterbox and Trotsky’s most confidential files and archives ▪ Convinced Sedov to go to a Russian clinic for appendicitis while assassination was being planned ◦ After Sedov’s death, encouraged internecine warfare between Trotskyites ◦ Orlov knew his first name and attempted to warn Trotsky after defection in 1938 • NKVD Administration for Special Tasks specialized in assassination and abduction, especially in France, headed by Yasha Serebryansky, resident in Paris ◦ Largest section of Soviet foreign intelligence by 1938, claiming to have 212 illegals in 16 countries ◦ Trained members of International Brigades in sabotage ◦ Main task was surveillance and destabilization of French Trotskyites ▪ theft of Trotsky’s papers from a Paris flat coordinated by Zborowski, who escaped suspicion ◦ Abduction of General Yevgeni Karlovich Miller ▪ Entourage penetrated: Miller’s deputy was NKVD agent ▪ Another illegal was used to surveil Miller ▪ Miller disappeared in broad daylight on a Paris street, drugged, packed in a heavy trunk, and sent to Moscow by Soviet freighter where he was interrogated and shot ◦ Assassination of Lev Sedov ▪ Op was aborted after furor re. NKVD involvement in Miller’s disappearance ▪ Sedov developed appendicitis, died mysteriously a few days after a successful operation in Russian clinic (at Zborowski’s insistence) ▪ NKVD had a sophisticated medical section called the Kamera, experimented with lethal drugs ◦ Assassination of Rudolf Klement: secretary of Trotsky’s Fourth International ◦ Assassination of Ignace Poretsky (Reiss, RAYMOND) using machine gun and chocolates laced with strychnine ◦ Assassination of Leon Trotsky: operation UTKA “duck” became chief Soviet foreign policy objective, to be effected by three groups ▪ Penetration by illegal Ramón Mercader (RAYMOND, alias Frank Jacson sic), who seduced a Trotskyite secretary ▪ Succeeded in killing Trotsky with icepick, caught and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment ▪ Hero’s welcome in Moscow 1960 ▪ Assault on villa led by David Alfaro Siqueiros (KONE), Communist painter ▪ Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich (MAKS, FELIPE), member of Serebryanksy’s cell, real leader of assault ▪ Escaped to Argentina where he planted hundreds of mines in cargo ships bound for Germany • Spanish Civil War was training ground for saboteurs and battlefield against Franco’s fascists as well as Trotskyites ◦ Orlov coordinated two-front war in Spain, ultimate goal was to build a secret police force under Soviet control ▪ NKVD assassins murdered Andreu Nin, head of a Trotskyist workers’ organization, as well as dozens of other Trotskyites in Spain ▪ Orlov eventually defected to the US ◦ Stanislav Alekseyevich Vaupshasov: top assassin - Led raids on Polish and Lithuanian border villages dressed in Polish and Lithuanian army uniforms in the 1920s - Murdered a colleague in 1929 - Constructed and guarded secret crematorium which disposed of NKVD victims (SVR still considers this topic sensitive, gave hush money to female relative of the NKVD agent in charge of guarding this crematorium) - Great Terror sprung from Stalin’s obsession with counterrevolutionaries - Leadership of NKVD liquidated and re-liquidated - Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, head of NKVD 1936-1938: author of  Great Terror, replaced Yagoda who soon made absurd confessions - Replaced by Lavrenti Beria in December 1938 before accused of conspiracy - Abram Slutsky, chief of INO, poisoned by cyanide in 1938 - Slutsky’s successors also shot before the end of the same year - NKVD officers were liquidated - Had to be careful even of body language or sighing - Officers most quick to denounce peers of imaginary crimes were most likely to survive Most of the Great Illegals were liquidated by 1938, except for: - Deutsch who was betrayed in 1937 by Ignace Poretsky (Reiss, RAYMOND) - Bystroletov brutally tortured before confession, imprisonment; wife sent to gulag where she cut her own throat with a kitchen knife; mother poisoned herself - Serebryansky himself recalled to Moscow and condemned in 1938 - Show trials depicted a vast, absurd conspiracy authored by Stalin, who proofread transcripts before publication - Great Terror and British operations - C5 transferred to legal residency, where controllers were much less experienced - MacLean seduced his new Soviet controller (NORMA, ADA) - Condemnation of C5’s controllers and recruiters as enemies of the people placed their intelligence and reliability under question - Beria eventually disbanded the residency in 1940, Centre ordered all contact with Philby and Burgess to be broken off - Ideological commitment of C5 remained strong even after the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact - British agents were motivated out of revilement for fascism - Some agents ended their espionage - Histories of Stalin era still whitewash the emphasis on assassination of political opposition in Western Europe

South Africa

Intelligence's role in supporting counter-revolutionary operations of the apartheid state, as well as in the AND and SACP's efforts to overthrow the state. Five key uses of intelligence in counter-revolutionary struggle:[^4]

  1. Targeting enemies of the state, internal  (including South West Africa) and external (including in Europe)
  2. ZA relationships with other states (Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) as anti colonial movement spread, isolating ZA
  3. Anti-Communist paradigm of Cold War, alliance with US, UK, West Germany, and Israel
  4. Overcoming anti-apartheid sanctions from the 1970s and 80s
  5. Developing a nuclear weapon

Relationship with British services strained because of Afrikaner resentment, British concern of infiltration by Afrikaner nationalists. In the nineteenth century, the Boer republics (Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State) maintained limited intelligence organizations led by Cornelius Smidt and Willem Leyds (Transvaaler Secret Service).[^5]

  • South African Police Detective Branch (SAP/DB) conducted counter-subversion and counterintelligence after 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War and the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. SAP/DB concentrated mostly on Nazi sympathizers in South West Africa until 1948, when the National Party (NP) was elected.[^6]
  • MI5 conducted foreign intelligence but also watched radical Afrikaner groups such as Ossewa-Brandwag (OB), a paramilitary organization in competition with NP and with many sympathizers in SAP. Union Defense Forces, considered an anglophile institution, cooperated with MI5 on internal threats (Afrikaner nationalists and Republicans) and British Special Operations Executive (SOE), operating out of Durban. MI5 Director General Sir Percy Sillitoe served in South Africa and Rhodesia and was a key influence in shaping the South African intelligence structure.
  • SAP Special Branch (SB) founded as Special Staff to hunt Nazis in 1939 before being redirected to investigating political crimes. Increasingly into the 1950s, became known as Security Branch.
  • Union Defense Forces Department of Military Intelligence (DMI) created Feb 1940 but neglected after 1948. After independence from Britain in 1961, UDF became South African Defense Forces (SADF) and established a new Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) July 1962.
  • Rivalry between SB and DMI survived administrative efforts to coordinate intelligence functions: State Security Committee (est. 1963) and State Security Advisory Board (est. 1966). SB’s criminal emphasis hampered intelligence work, and a central intelligence agency was needed, sought first in Republican Intelligence (RI) spun off from SB 1963, then found in BOSS.
  • Bureau for State Security (BOSS) founded 19690513 as a central intelligence apparatus to mitigate the rivalry between DMI and SAP. Reorganized as National Intelligence Service (NIS) in 1980. Grew from 500 personnel in 1969 to more than 1,000 by 1978. Six departments: Subversion, Counter-espionage, Political and Economic Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Administration, and National Evaluation, Research and Special Studies. Forged a relationship with Portuguese and Rhodesian intelligence services. Brought down by government’s increased reliance on COIN strategies (vice counterintelligence and counter-espionage) and by the Information Scandal.
  • African National Congress (ANC), Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), and South African Communist Party (SACP) established intelligence structures separate but parallel to that of the government during their armed struggle against the apartheid state. ANC established Department of Intelligence and Security (DIS).

DMI gained control of “Total National Strategy” and achieved dominance over BOSS.  DMI strategists implemented various counter-insurgency (COIN) strategies they learned from abroad in ZA and SWA. Botha appointed Minister of Defence in 1966 and began a campaign to reinvigorate the SADF.  By the beginning of Project SAVANNAH (South African intervention in Angola[^7] in 1975, Botha had begun a process of streamlining the SADF that would culminate years later in the incorporation of COIN principles in the South African Army.

  • Area Defence Policy, later known as National Security Management System, was fully incorporated into the counter-insurgency forces of SADF.  COIN forces were made up of part-time SADF personnel from the Citizen Force and Commandos and were divided into ten regional commands covering the countryside.
  • SADF doubled in size between 1975 and 1990, reaching almost 100,000 with another 325,000 in the Citizen Force and Reserves ZA security confronted radical new challenges from 1975 to 1978.
  • Key governments on ZA's periphery had turned hostile. Marxist MPLA took over Angola and hosted SWAPO bases on the border of South West Africa. Mozambique's new government was Marxist.
  • Mozambique became a shelter for Rhodesian guerrillas, threatening ZA's last counter-revolutionary ally.
  • Radicalization of blacks after 1976 uprising in Soweto overwhelmed internal security, which responded by introducing COIN concepts and reacting more harshly to protests.

SADF COIN expertise was gained in collaboration with Rhodesian ISS and SOF during the 1960s and 1970s. ZA intelligence establishment absorbed members of Rhodesian Security Forces in the transition to majority rule in 1980 (Operation Winter).[^8] COIN Strategy Adopted Wholesale, New Units Established Opposition to apartheid state grew more radical while the state’s response to opponents hardened. A sustained domestic protest movement called United Democratic Front ultimately gave ANC-MK their long sought-after internal subversion capability within ZA. Pretoria adopted COIN strategies in response to failing effort against MPLA in AO and SWAPO in SWA and deteriorating domestic security as MK stepped up attacks.

K-Unit “Koevoet” founded by SAP/SB in January 1979, building on their decades of cooperation with Rhodesians in COIN operations. Formed after the Selous Scouts and Portuguese Flechas for the purpose of turning captured ANC, SWAPO, and PAC guerrillas called askaris. Turned SWAPO fighters who collaborated with Koevoet were known as makakunyanas "blood-suckers", and Koevoet collaborators were targeted for assassination by SWAPO.  They were paid for each guerrilla killed. SAP/C1 “Vlakplaas” named after the police farm outside Pretoria.  Originally established 1979 when BG Johan Coetzee, C/SB, decided to use COIN activities for counter-revolutionary purposes within ZA.  Revealed by Coetzee in the press in 1989 and disbanded in 1993.

  • Koevoet elements including de Kock were withdrawn from SWA to form C1 in May 1983.
  • Identification, tracking, and "rehabilitation" (turning) of ANC and PAC guerrillas. C1 also assassinated up to 65 people from 1980 to 1991.
  • C1’s operations in Swaziland were to disrupt the ANC/MK structures there.  22 ANC members were assassinated in Swaziland in the 1980s.
  • C2 established concurrently to track activists leaving ZA and to interrogate arrested guerrillas

SAP/G section, responsible for the penetration of ANC abroad, was resurrected after the reorganization of BOSS in 1980. G section attempted to assassinate ANC/MK strategist Joe Slovo, killing his wife instead.  G section also blew up ANC’s London office Directorate Covert Collection (Direktoraat von Koverte Insameling) established at an unclear date, but possible predecessor was Directorate of Covert Information, active in SWA by 1982. Established multiple front companies with the goal of duplicating successful COIN operations of AO and SWA within South Africa.

Spread of liberation movements across Southern Africa removed governments traditionally friendly to Pretoria, which saw all black liberation movements as Communist-backed threats to regime. South African government resorted to policy of destabilizing neighbors and conducting covert action to remove safe havens for ANC/MK. Eventually South Africa’s hand in regional politics became transparent. DMI integrated intelligence collection with covert action by taking control of South African Special Forces (SASF) in 1979. Rhodesian special forces integrated into SADF in 1980, further buttressing COIN capabilities. Directorate of Special Tasks (DST) formed in mid-1970s from a corps of DMI operators named Spesmagte, similar to Recces. DST was responsible for overseeing contra-mobilization and counter-revolutionary activities of DMI throughout southern Africa as part of a strategy to deny ANC-SACP safe havens in Frontline States. DST began operations in an office in Rundu, Namibia in 1976 in the wake of South African withdrawal from AO. First chief was COL Cornelius van Niekerk. DST terminated operations in the early 1990s. Two sections: - DST-1 (external operations) covered UNITA, RENAMO, and Zimbabwe - DST-2 (internal operations) covered Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA), and Operations MARION and KATZEN

DST maintained logistical infrastructure throughout Southern Africa and conducted several operations, providing support to anti-Marxist proxies in neighboring countries: - DISA/SILWER: support to UNITA in Angola - DRAMA: support to Zimbabwean dissidents - PIKI/PUNDU MILIA/ALTAR: support to RENAMO and operations against FRELIMO in Mozambique. 5 Recce was principally responsible because many 5 Recce personnel had trained with the Selous Scouts. When RENAMO’s headquarters moved from Phalaborwa, Transvaal (!) to Gorongosa, Mozambique, South African officers followed offering intelligence training. - PLATHOND: support to surrogate force in Zambia - CAPSIZE/LATSA: support to Lesotho proxy grou 5 Recce based out of Phalaborwa, Transvaal. Supported Op PIKI/PUNDU MILIA. Also used pseudo-operations against SWAPO in Namibia, sometimes cooperating with Koevoet. DCC mobilized contras in Namibia. Various operations: - ETANGO: DCC and other DMI units attempted to establish a conservative contra based in Ovambo tribalism to counter SWAPO. - EZUVA: Similar project to establish a contra among the Kavango.

Many experienced contra-mobilizers from DCC moved into domestic contra-mobilization 1985-1986, setting up groups to foment black-on-black violence and undermine support of ANC and UDF: 23 such projects by 1986. Operations included: - Operation MARION provided security training and weapons to more than 200 Inkatha cadres 1986-1990. These units later conducted targeted killings. Inkatha had been supported by BOSS as an alternative to ANC from 1975, including funds and stage-managing internal political rivals to Chief Buthulezi. - Operation KATZEN was an attempt to organize a contra group among the Xhosa known as the Xhosa Resistance Movement (XWB, known as Iliso Lomzi). Cooperated with Army Intelligence Hammer units, which conducted special operations. Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), also known as Burgerlike Samewerkingsburo (BSB), was formed in 1986 out of Operation BARNACLE. Formed by SASF to fulfill the requirement of domestic intelligence collection, which was used primarily for external operations. CCB was imagined to be fully functional only in the mid-nineties, possibly to conduct counter-revolutionary warfare after the transfer to black rule had been completed. CCB was organized as a corporation into Regions that coordinated covert activities in concert with other state bodies. CCB numbered up to 250-300 individuals. By the late 1980s, CCB had established numerous front-companies and businesses and was involved in lucrative criminal activities. Operations: - CCB conducted internal assassinations in line with the state’s emphasis on counter-revolutionary warfare. As such, CCB was DMI’s equivalent to SAP’s C1. - CCB supported SASF in operations in the Frontline States by undertaking reconnaissance of ANC targets. 3 Recce (active 1980-1981) absorbed the remnants of Rhodesian special forces which fled Zimbabwe in 1980 as well as DMI’s D-40 assassination unit (active 1979-1980) led by the Rhodesian Garth Barrett. 3 Recce operated against Zimbabwe, exploding very destructive bombs and assassinating ANC’s representative in Harare.[^9] Operation BARNACLE, conducted by a group 30-40 mostly black ex-Rhodesians, was a project to use CBW to assassinate guerrillas, SWAPO prisoners of war, and members of South African security forces suspected of disloyalty with poison. BARNACLE was to be a completely independent resource at the disposal of the country’s leaders, to serve as a hedge against the prospect of the government granting too much power to blacks. BARNACLE actors were not accountable to official security organs or to SADF commanders: they reported directly to General Office Commanding Special Forces (GOC-SF). Later reorganized into the Civil Cooperation Bureau.

Notable People

  • BG J.P. Tolletjie Botha ran Directorate Covert Collection.
  • COL Jan Breytenbach founded the Reconnaissance Commandos, 32 Battalion, and the Directorate Special Tasks.
  • Chief Buthulezi was leader of Inkatha and a BOSS stooge.
  • COL Eugene de Kock was one of the most ruthless and effective of Koevoet's commanders.  Eleven tours of duty between 1968 and 1973 in Rhodesia with Rhodesian SAS and Rhodesian African Rifles.  Commanded Koevoet for four years before he requested a transfer to SAP/C1, where he assumed command in 1985. De Kock emphasized the assassination program and introduced paramilitary training for police members. During this time, De Kock became known as Prime Evil for his mercilessness.
  • MAJ Craig Williamson was a counterintelligence operative in SAP/G Section from... to... Williamson infiltrated ANC by using the International University Exchange Fund (IUEF), but was exposed in 1980. Williamson served in SAP/G until December 1985.  Williamson also established Longreach Pty Ltd in April 1986, which served as a front company for SAP/SB operations and also coordinated DMI and SASF operations.

Sweden

There was no specific institution in Sweden for intelligence before the 1930s. Navy intercepted communications and diplomats gather intelligence.[^10]

Military Intelligence Before WW2

  • General Staff gathered intelligence against Norway during the war of secession
  • Swedish Defense Staff established in 1937. Intelligence branch formed with 20 officers. Mostly OSINT collection and attache reporting from 15 attaches and SIGINT.

Intelligence Organizations Formed in WW2

  • C-Bureau (central byråa) under Defense Staff, but separate from Intelligence Division, established large intelligence network that was not fully documented.
  • Cryptographic Department (CD) of Defense Staff took over SIGINT from Navy using civilians to succesfully break Soviet crypto and comms. Results were shared with Finnish.
  • Decrypted machine crypto used over landlines. 150,000 cables over two years, until Germans changed codes. Swedish were unable to fully exploit this windfall of intelligence.  CD reformed as Fåssvarets Radioanstalt (FRA), directly under Ministry of Defense.
  • General Security Service (Allmänna Säkerhetajänsten, GSS) formed out of a secret, extralegal government decision, established massive program of unlimited authority to monitor telephone, telegraph, and mail communications. Dissolved after scandal in 1946.

Postwar Developments

2 of the 3 wartime intelligence agencies would be resurrected after dissolution 1947-1948.

India

Kautilya’s Arthashastra[^11] - Constitutes a doctrine of statecraft using espionage as a basic means of governance. - Comprehensive textbook on statecraft, foreign diplomacy, and war emphasizing the collection of domestic and foreign intelligence. - Rediscovered and translated by Orientalist Rudrapatnam Shamasasty in 1909-1915.  Written by Kautilya, trusted advisor to Chadragupta Maurya, founder of Mauryan Empire 321-185 BCE.

Eight Institutes of Espionage

  • Four were forms of religious cover (fraudulent disciple, recluse, ascetic, and mendicant woman), which were to take advantage of the intensely religious population of India.  Religious class had access to other castes.  Wandering female spies were to take religious cover, poor widows of Brahman caste were to target upper castes while Sudra-caste women willing to shave their head were to target lower caste communities.
  • Classmate spies referred to recruitment pool, and the preferred choice for courier.
  • Firebrands were to be used for covert action as assassins, agent provocateurs, and saboteurs.
  • Result was a pervasive surveillance network covering the whole country. Treasury was also to have intelligence function
  • Householder spies were to ascertain validity of assets
  • Merchant spies were to monitor price changes and foreign goods
  • Networks of spies under cover of bands of thieves would monitor the criminal underworld Provocation and entrapment are standard tactics in Arthashastra.

Islamic Caliphate

Pre-Islamic Arab tradition of intelligence predated a more developed intelligence culture in the Islamic age.[^12] Various words referring to spy or scout: - jasus: foreign spy - tajassasah: discouraged in the Qur’an - ‘ain: “eye” - suhhar: night sentinels who kept watch for strangers at approaches to market town or crossroads - rabi’ah: lookout - other words

Espionage in Early Arab States

Lakhmid and Ghassanid buffer states between Sasanian Persia and Byzantium: - Story in 10th c. Kitab al-Aghani relates Lakhmid spies catching a would-be assassin and killing him in the 6th century - Scouts in Arabian peninsula

Brigandage among Bedouin

Skirmishes and raids (suluk) involved use of scouts - al-Basus War was remembered as the days of rabi’ah - Abu Faraj al-Asbahani’s anthology of Arabic verse - Muhammad b. al-Tabari on agents using disguises

Muhammad and Intelligence

Qur’anic regulations on espionage reflect importance of clandestine activites in early Islam.  The Prophet Muhammad’s involvement in intelligence and espionage: - Muhammad gathered information on early converts, seeking candidates with honesty, trustworthiness, and the ability to keep a secret - Muhammad possessed detailed knowledge of clan loyalties and politics, and used this knowledge in negotiations with Bedouin - Abdullah b. Abu Bakr mingled with Quraishis of Mecca and report back to him at night in his cave.  Abu Bakr’s sister Asma also spied for the Prophet: first spies for Islam. - Abu al-Fadhl al-Abbas ran spy network in Mecca - Many ‘ains from various corners of Arabia, from every town and tribe - Muhammad deliberately retreated during the Battle of Uhud to allow his lookouts to determine the size of the army, whether it had mounted camels (to retreat) or horses (to attack) - Muhammad debriefed two boys who were caught drawing water from a well before the Battle of Badr. They divulged key intelligence on the closing Quraishi army.

Deception

  • After the indecisive Battle of Uhud, Muhammad sent one of his ‘ains to deceive the Quraishis into thinking a large host was approaching, causing them to retreat.

Assassination of poets

Poets had a complex role in Arab society and were highly influential - Asma of Marwan was stabbed in her sleep, but w’o Prophet’s prior approval - Abu Afak killed by fellow tribesmen - False prophet al-Aswad al-Ansi became influential and killed the governor of Yemen. Muhammad ordered Wabrak b. Yahmus to organize a plot. Wabrak recruited a circle of Persian Muslim converts and the governor’s wife, who facilitated the operatives’ infiltration into the castle where al-Ansi was murdered

Intelligence by Islam’s enemies

  • Abu Sufyan determined Muslim spies were present by finding date seeds in camel dung, indicating the animals had Medinan fodder
  • Multiple assassination attempts on Muhammad’s life
  • Umar b. al-Khattab in charge of counterintelligence and security
  • Byzantines sent a monk who claimed to be a convert to Islam and established a mosque in Medina.  Muslim agents surveilled the mosque after suspicious comings and goings and ultimately demolished the mosque.

US

Corporate espionage

Vice reported that McDonald's had established an intelligence unit to monitor workers who supported increasing the minimum wage.

The unit had targeted the Fight for $15 movement for increasing the wage to $15 an hour in particular. One intelligence report titled "Ongoing FF$15 Activity Against McDonald's During the COVID-19 Crisis" contained an analysis of the activities of labor activists.

McDonald's had been using two different data collection software suites to collect open-source intelligence on the social networks of workers involved in the labor movement.

COMINT

War Department set up first organized cryptanalytic office in June 1917, numbering 3 people.  By war’s end, it would grow to 150.

In 1917 and 1918, Navy set up medium frequency DF stations along Atlantic coast to track U-boats. HFDF stations were researched and deployed by 1938.  Strategic HFDF stations were established at Manila, Guam, Midway, Oahu, Dutch Harbor, Samoa, Canal Zone in Panama, San Juan Puerto Rico, and Greenland.  US began tracking Japanese warships and merchant vessels in 1939, five years after the Japanese had begun tracking US vessels. Navy had established the Code and Signal Section of Naval Communications for producing codes and ciphers for use by Navy. Registered Publication Section, responsible for distribution of secret and confidential documents, was spun off in 1923.  Navy funded development of Electric Cipher Machine from 1922. Communications Intelligence Organization (CIO) was established 1924.  Intercept stations were established in the Pacific Area (Shanghai, Oahu, Peking, Guam, Manila, Bar Harbor, Astoria), and Washington DC.  Cryptanalytic Units established in Manila and Pearl Harbor.  Training was done with technical manuals, using the codes to send messages. Minor intercept activities were performed in strategic HFDF stations. In 1938, CIO became the Communications Security Group (CSG) and took over all Navy DF stations.  By 1941, CSG had 730 total personnel.

Arm

Army Signal Corps founded 1860 by Albert James Myer, inventor of wig-wag flag signaling method. Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) founded 1930 as a secret part of Signal Corps for cryptanalysis.  By 1939, SIS made use of 7 intercept sites from the Philippines and Hawaii in the West to the East Coast of the US.  These were the sources of SIS intercepts until after Pearl Harbor. At SIS HQ in Arlington Hall, traffic was split between four analytic sections: - J: Japanese - G: German - I: Italian - M: Mexican and Latin American Although SIS intercepted tens of thousands of IJA messages from its station in Manila, these messages could not be fully exploited because IJA ciphers were not broken.  However, SIS broke several diplomatic ciphers including Purple. After the war, SIS changed its name to the Army Security Agency (ASA) in 1945.  In 1947, ASA and the Army Intelligence Agency were merged into the newly formed Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM).

Radio Free Europe

Established 1949 by the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an anticommunist organization with Allen Dulles and Dwight D. Eisenhower as board members. Funded by CIA until 1972.  Targeted Eastern European countries (as opposed to Radio Liberty).

Radio Liberty

Established by American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Amcomlib) 1951.  By 1954 was broadcasting in several other Central Asian languages. Foreign Broadcast Information Service Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service, or FBMS, established 1941 under FCC to monitor Axis shortwave broadcasts to the US.  Name changed to FBIS 1947 when it was made part of the new CIA.

France (Andrew Orr)

France took over Syria and Turkey’s SE (Cilicia) after WW1 and perceived Turkish War of Independence as threat to its new imperial interests. Military intelligence services of Army and Navy monitored Kemalist movements and always saw the hand of German and Russian commies behind Turkey’s developments.  3 reasons

  1. German closely involved in Ottoman military affairs from 1883 and German general Otto Liman von Sanders commanded the Ottoman Army
  2. Germans had also promoted pan-Islamic movement during the War
  3. Germans possibly still controlled Russia, according to the French, reasoning that they had sent Lenin to Russia inside of a sealed train car

Colonial intelligence services lacked some of the checks on extreme predictions when reporting on events outside of Europe

Military Intelligence

French Army’s Service de renseignments guerre (SR Guerre), which was part of a unified French intelligence organization during the War, but then reverted to the Army’s II Bureau after its end.

During the Turkish War of Independence, SRG deployed a small number of officers to the Middle East, stations opened in Constantinople in 1919, Algiers 1925, Rabat and Tangiers 1929.

French Navy service (SR Marine) was similarly structured to Army, but with more familiarity with Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East

SRM opened Constantinople station in 1919

SR sources included Europeans and Americans fleeing Turkey, human informants, and newspaper articles, as well as intercepted radio messages sometimes by way of the Brits

Coincidence of treaty signings between USSR, Turkey, and Afghanistan and Persia led SR personnel to believe there was a plot brewing

Poland

From Anglo-Polish HUMINT, by PRJ Winter

Histories of WW2 intelligence exalt COMINT successes of GCCS to the detriment of MI6 Historiography of British WW2 intelligence Agents - Paul Thummel (codename A-54), senior officer of German MI (Abwehr), recruited by Czechs 1936.  SIS and Czechs ran him jointly from 1939 until he was arrested by the Gestapo and died in prison 1942. - Warlock, on staff of German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW), turned by 1941. - Knopf, reported on OKW intentions to take Malta, but records show that Germans were noncommital to the plan (Op Herkules) which would only support Italia High Command.  Knopf may have been turned by this time.  MI14’s evaluation gave Knopf a mixed, but generally positive score. Polish government-in-exile settled in London and cooperated with British intelligence (II Bureau of Polish General Staff) SIS cooperation with Poles was driven out of desperation because aside from Warlock they had no useful penetrations of Nazi Germany CX reports were SIS, JX reports were from Poles.  Some JX reports found in British National archives, including one report on Malta which was passed to Churchill himself. Poles ran sources reporting from the heart of OKW and OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres, Supreme High Command of the German Army) British interception of Polish communications confirmed Knopf’s bona fides (as agent number 594) and the Poles’ as well

[^1]: Sawyer, Ralph D. “Subversive Information: The Historical Thrust of Chinese Intelligence.” Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere. Ed. Philip H. J. Davies, Ed. Kristian C. Gustafson [^2]:
[^3]: Homström, Lauri. “Finnish Security and Intelligence Service.” Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere.Ed. Philip H. J. Davies, Ed. Kristian C. Gustafson [^4]: O’Brien, Kevin A. The South African Intelligence Services: From apartheid to democracy, 1948-2005. Routledge: New York, NY 2011. [^5]: Blackburn, Douglas and Caddel, W. Waithman. Secret Service in South Africa. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001. Swanepoel, P.C. Really Inside BOSS: A Tale of South Africa’s Late Intelligence Service (And Something about the CIA). Pretoria, 2008. [^6]: Ref. Kent Fedorowich, “German espionage and British counter-intelligence in ZA and Mozambique, 1939-1944”, The Historical Journal 48:1 [^7]: Robin Hallett, “The ZA Intervention in Angola,” African Affairs 77:312 (July 1978) [^8]: Ngwabi Bhebe, Terence Ranger, Soldiers in Zimbabwe's Liberation War, 1995. [^9]: D-40 in turn was the reconstitution of the supposedly disbanded Z-squads used by BOSS for assassinations until its reorganization in 1979. [^10]: Agrell, Wilhelm. “Sweden: Intelligence the Middle Way.” Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere. Ed. Philip H. J. Davies, Ed. Kristian C. Gustafson [^11]: Davies, Philip H. J. “The Original Surveillance State: Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Government by Espionage in Classical India. Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere. Ed. Philip H. J. Davies, Ed. Kristian C. Gustafson [^12]: Al-Asmari, Abdulaziz A. “Origins of an Arab and Islamic Intelligence Culture.” Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere. Ed. Philip H. J. Davies, Ed. Kristian C. Gustafson

United States

Linda Zall established a program to analyze classified historical statellite imagery to analyze not foreign militaries but changes in the environment, in particular the extent of ice retreat in the polar regions of the Earth. The effort was sparked by then-Senator Al Gore whose letter to the CIA led to the establishment of the MEDEA program which declassified satellite imagery and oceanographic data.

John Walker was a notorious spy who volunteered to the Soviet embassy in Washington in 1967. Especially after the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo, Walker's information on the key list of the KL-47 cryptographic machine meant the Soviets were able to read US Navy communications until the entire system was replaced. John Walker was managed by former KGB general Oleg Kalugin.

The acoustic characteristics of the Victor III submarine were made substantially less detectable as a result of Walker's revelation that the Soviet submarine fleet was easily tracked.

The stealthy Akula-class submarines, launched in 1985, also benefited from the import of a Toshiba CNC milling machine, which in combination with Norwegian CNC machines, allowed propellors to be designed that were much quieter than before.