“During the long Cold War from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s, one of the most bitterly fought campaigns was between the intelligence agencies on both sides,” wrote Jon Woronoff in the editor’s forward to the Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence (Scarecrow Press).
“The Americans and the British, with their allies and friends, did everything they could to infiltrate and undermine the Soviet empire, and the Soviets not only responded in kind but went considerably further through their own agencies and those of satellite countries,” Woronoff explained. “Thus counterintelligence was more important than ever before and spies, double agents, moles, and defectors proliferated, while infiltration and disinformation became arts.”
This interesting book offers a chronology of major events and provides concise entries on counterintelligence agencies, their directors, and many of the agents, moles and defectors. There are also entries explaining terminology and techniques, a bibliography and hundreds of cross-referenced entries on the organizations, operations, events, and personalities that influenced counterintelligence during the Cold War.
“This book sheds a much-needed light on the struggle that helped tip the balance between East and West and shaped the world we live in today,” Woronoff wrote.
The book is number six in the series of historical dictionaries of intelligence and counterintelligence, following British Intelligence, United States Intelligence, Israeli Intelligence and Russian and Soviet Intelligence.
The book’s author is Nigel West, whose written more than 20 books on intelligence and espionage. West is the European Editor of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence and teaches the history of postwar intelligence at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Alexandria, VA. He has written two earlier books in the series: Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence and Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence.
West wrote in the introduction to this book that four separate but related events made it possible to compile this reference book. The first event was the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the second event is the greater freedom of the participants in the Cold War, on both sides, to discuss their covert roles.
The third event was the declassification of the VENONA messages in 1995, which West calls the “holy grail of Western counterintelligence.”
“The intercepts, dating back to 1940, were studied for 37 years by analysts preoccupied with the interconnected complexities of Soviet espionage, its personalities, operations, tradecraft and techniques,” West explained.
West went on to state that while the messages were undergoing declassification at the National Security Agency in 1995, the identity of a Soviet spy was uncovered, proving the potency of the material and the need for greater study.
The fourth and final event was the astonishing material made available by Vasili Mitrokhin, the KGB archivist who defected to the England in 1992. He brought with him notes he had copied from the KGB archives for more than 20 years.
This book should be in the library of every student of espionage.
Paul Davis also writes an American crime blog for GreatHistory.com. His website is http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/site/. He can be reached at daviswrite@aol.com.
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