Spy vs. Spy in the era of the Cold War

Secrets of the Cold War, in my opinion, is something of a misnomer. While debate exists about exactly when the Cold War started, most historians, however, believe it began when two opposing nations possessed the nuclear capability to incinerate each other, thereby creating the most high-stakes "Mexican stand-off" in our species' combative history.

About one-fifth of Long's 252 pages, however, are devoted to the gestation of Soviet spy networks during the 1930s, as well as the insertion of agents and Western collaborators into the Manhattan Project and its feeder systems, and finally, their activities at Los Alamos and those of their couriers. (I should not say "finally." He also discusses their various fates. Some, like Fuchs, received relatively light sentences; others got away clean; and some were never discovered until years later, after their deaths.)

In terms of consequences, this Soviet achievement was the most significant espionage coup of the 20th Century. But it preceded the actual Cold War (which might have been kicked off years later if those covert Communist resources had not been in place).

The Soviets certainly possessed capable scientific personnel and the motivation to independently finalize an initial atomic (soon hydrogen) device. Although such was true, the author shows how crucial the jigsaw of information their spies had garnered was to their task. The now-informed Russian physicists could refine their tools and side-step the blind alleys the Americans had blundered down.

(This summer's blockbuster movie "Oppenheimer" gives a good sense of those research frustrations but skips the espionage issue.) Counter-Espionage: The author identifies an additional, very significant operation that began during WWII but continued into the real Cold War. Long explains: "In February 1943, they [US Army Security Agency, later the predecessor to the NSA] began a very secret programme to try to decode Soviet diplomatic signals traffic between Moscow and its US diplomatic outposts, which was codenamed VENONA." Ultimately, the FBI was alerted to its existence in 1947, the British, in 1948, and, finally, the CIA in 1952.

He adds that the deciphered messages were "pure" or free of disinformation. They revealed that "every section of Roosevelt's administration had been penetrated by Soviet spies, including the Manhattan Project and the OSS, and that the CPUSA [Communist Party of the US]...operated closely with the KGB." VENONA identified 349 individuals as covert agents, but only half were positively named. In any case, the operation began unraveling the atomic spy network, starting with British physicist Klaus Fuchs.

Of course, the author does not intend to write a massive compendium of Cold War secrets, many of which are still unrevealed or incompletely understood. Mr. Long is British, so he presents several home-grown spies that American readers are probably unfamiliar with. (For instance, he does not spend much time on the most notorious, such as members of the Cambridge Five like Ken Philby, who compromised VENONA and who escaped to Russia, or Guy Burgess, who did likewise.)

George Blake, Enter Stage Right: For example, he devotes a chapter to a Communist ideologue, George Blake. A particularly destructive operative, this British agent undermined what the writer describes as "one of the largest covert operations Western Intelligence ever mounted."

Blake happened to be employed by Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, known as SIS (really M16). He began work at Y Section in 1953, which was developing its specialty in signals intelligence -- i.e., mostly intercepts. It held responsibility for "wiretaps in foreign embassies at home and abroad, and for targeting Soviet telecommunications infrastructure."

Therefore, he was perfectly positioned to expose an enormously expensive project (OPERATION GOLD) to the Soviets. Western intelligence designed this giant engineering effort to tunnel under the Wall and to tap into East German trunk lines that ran along it. These carried a heavy load of military-related teletypes and conversations. The author explains that Blake soon alerted the Soviets to the West's costly endeavor and regularly posted the KGB on its progress.

Once the tap was activated, however, enemy authorities decided not to shut it down immediately. They believed it could be used to misinform their opposites; moreover, they would be able to better comprehend the West's methods and priorities by observing its functioning. However, a surprisingly long period lapsed during which the taps were allowed to function more or less as intended. By September 1958, when the tunnel was finally nullified and exposed to the East Bloc press, six million hours of mostly encoded material had been gathered.

OPERATION GOLD managed to garner such treasures as the following: (1) the revelation that there was greater coordination among Warsaw Pact militaries than had been expected; (2) the realization that both the Red Army's communications discipline and operational security were shoddy; and (3) the fact that the Soviets were running numerous operatives in West Berlin and West Germany.

As for slippery George Blake, the psychological pressures of his double life eventually frothed up within him. After M15 interrogators (whose suspicions he had aroused) caught him in a lie, he blurted out a full confession. Tried in 1961, Blake received the longest sentence in 150 years of British justice at the time -- 42 years.

Mr. Long reports that "the Soviets were dismayed that their star agent had confessed....Blake was their only high placed asset left in British Intelligence, so it was a huge blow for them."

His story was not over, however: George Blake escaped prison in late 1966; he was then sheltered by various safe houses, and after that, he was aided by sympathizers across Europe. By spring 1967, SIS learned that he was being feted as a hero in Moscow.

“Berlin is the testicle of the West.": That was the first part of a quote by Nikita Khrushchev. The second part is: " When I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin.”

I am sure Mr. Long would concur that Berlin was a principal actor in the First Cold War's playbook. He spends a lot of time on the divided city. It should be mentioned that this is the author's fifth book. The first four formed a quartet of works, all on Cold War Berlin, published by Helion & Co. in 2022.

His area of expertise explains why the forward is written by the last head of British forces in that quartered city; why five of the eight appendices present minutiae of the 44-year-long UK endeavor; and why one-fourth of this volume mostly considers the tradecraft, adventures, and accomplishments of the British Commander-in-Chief's Mission to the Soviet Forces of Occupation in Germany (or BRIXMIS).

Essentially, a post-war treaty allowed each Allied power's uniformed personnel to travel, almost unhindered, to the Soviet Zone (which became East Germany), and vice-versa. A certain amount of spying was thus expected (although interfered with). Besides some limited aerial overflights, these agreed-upon Allied/Soviet "tours" allowed each of Berlin's military occupiers to drive a single vehicle wherever they wished in any zone, except for specific military sites.

Long has extensively researched these espionage-with-permission groups, especially Britain's (roughly 80 officers and men), and their intelligence-gathering tours. Admittedly, little was known publicly about this mission until 1996.

Nevertheless, the unit and its exploits are a rather narrow focus to merit so much attention in a generalized work. Frankly, I did not find this extensive section as interesting as Long's examinations of the individual British spies, their methods, their handlers, the consequences of their betrayals, and their fates.

For instance, his third chapter -- which is only a fraction of what the author devotes to the BRIXMIS material -- covers some relatively obscure British cases. As with the George Blake example, I am betting that few Americans will have previously heard of the Portland spy ring, or Russian turncoat Oleg Penkovsky, Greville Wynne, or Gerald Brooke.

Almost all of these individuals were involved with a network of common actors, operating during the 1950s and 1960s in the UK. As long notes this was also a period during which spycraft became a more professional pursuit and such geopolitical innovations as "spy swaps" appeared. This particular Cold War narrative needed more extensive consideration, to my mind.

Summing Up: Mr. Long is a clear writer, and his research is impressive: the selected bibliography is thorough. He assembled a daunting list of codenames -- the citation of which after every operative's name in the first chapter is annoying, however. There are just too many.

His notes are extensive and detailed. There are plenty of photo illustrations, for what that is worth, and a few essential maps, charts, and tables.

However, I am trying to understand why publishers permit authors to put material that belongs in the back of a book in its front. (I suppose that Mr. Long's initial "Dramatis Personae" section on page xi might be helpful to skim in the beginning in order to keep the many players that follow apart, but, frankly, they are too numerous to remember in a list.)

But for the life of me, I can't understand why a reader would ever tackle the nine pages of the "Glossary of Abbreviations" before he/she even got to the "Introduction."

I conclude with the claim again that the title is inaccurate. The publisher would prefer something snappier, I am sure, but my suggestion better informs a prospective book buyer of its true nature: "Atomic Spies, Obscure British Cold War Traitors, and Condoned Espionage Behind Enemy Lines."

Note: Secrets of the Cold War is also available in e-editions.

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