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    Secrets of the Cold War: Espionage and Intelligence Operations - From Both Sides of the Iron Curtain
    Secrets of the Cold War: Espionage and Intelligence Operations - From Both Sides of the Iron Curtain
    Secrets of the Cold War: Espionage and Intelligence Operations - From Both Sides of the Iron Curtain
    Ebook479 pages5 hours

    Secrets of the Cold War: Espionage and Intelligence Operations - From Both Sides of the Iron Curtain

    By Andrew Long and Robert Corbett

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    About this ebook

    The dramatic story of how the superpowers collected secrets and used intelligence to build an advantage during the Cold War, the longest and most dangerous confrontation of the twentieth century.

    The Cold War, which lasted from the end of the Second World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, was fought mostly in the shadows, with the superpowers maneuvering for strategic advantage in an anticipated global armed confrontation that thankfully never happened. How did the intelligence organizations of the major world powers go about their work? What advantages were they looking for? Did they succeed? By examining some of the famous, infamous, or lesser-known intelligence operations from both sides of the Iron Curtain, this book explains how the superpowers went about gathering intelligence on each other, examines the type of information they were looking for, what they did with it, and how it enabled them to stay one step ahead of the opposition. Possession of these secrets threatened a Third World War, but also helped keep the peace for more than four decades. With access to previously unreleased material, the author explores how the intelligence organizations, both civilian and military, took advantage of rapid developments in technology, and how they adapted to the changing threat. The book describes the epic scale of some of these operations, the surprising connections between them, and how they contributed to a complex multi-layered intelligence jigsaw which drove decision making at the highest level. On top of all the tradecraft, gadgets and ‘cloak and dagger’, the book also looks at the human side of espionage: their ideologies and motivations, the winners and losers, and the immense courage and frequent betrayal of those whose lives were touched by the Secrets of the Cold War.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 2, 2022
    ISBN9781526790262
    Secrets of the Cold War: Espionage and Intelligence Operations - From Both Sides of the Iron Curtain
    Author

    Andrew Long

    Andrew Long, from Great Britain, is a military history researcher and author. His fascination with the Cold War began with a trip to West Berlin in 1986, travelling through Checkpoint Charlie to visit the East. Andrew’s writing comes from a desire to make sense of an extremely complex period in modern history, weaving together inter-relating stories involving politics, ideologies, personalities, technological advances, and geography. There is still much to be told on this fascinating subject. After a successful career in marketing, Andrew relocated to Cornwall and took up writing full time.

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      Book preview

      Secrets of the Cold War - Andrew Long

      Secrets of the Cold War

      To Albert, Rob, Robert, Rod and Peter, with thanks.

      Secrets of the Cold War

      Espionage and Intelligence Operations – From Both Sides of the Iron Curtain

      Andrew Long

      First published in Great Britain in 2022 by

      Pen & Sword History

      An imprint of

      Pen & Sword Books Ltd

      Yorkshire – Philadelphia

      Copyright © Andrew Long 2022

      ISBN 978 1 52679 025 5

      EPUB ISBN 978 1 52679 026 2

      MOBI ISBN 978 1 52679 026 2

      The right of Andrew Long to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

      Pen & Sword Books Limited incorporates the imprints of Atlas, Archaeology, Aviation, Discovery, Family History, Fiction, History, Maritime, Military, Military Classics, Politics, Select, Transport, True Crime, Air World, Frontline Publishing, Leo Cooper, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing, The Praetorian Press, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe Transport, Wharncliffe True Crime and White Owl.

      For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

      PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

      47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

      E-mail: [email protected]

      Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

      Or

      PEN AND SWORD BOOKS

      1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA

      E-mail: [email protected]

      Website: www.penandswordbooks.com

      Contents

      Foreword by Major General Sir Robert Corbett, KCVO, CB

      Preface

      Dramatis Personae

      Glossary of Abbreviations

      Chronology

      Introduction

      Chapter 1 Stalin’s Atomic Spies

      The Soviet Intelligence Services

      Stalin’s Global Outreach

      Tube Alloys and the Manhattan Project

      The Soviets Take an Interest

      The American Networks and the Rosenberg Ring

      The Other American Spies

      Enter the British

      Soviet Project Begins

      FIRST LIGHTNING

      House of Cards

      VENONA

      A Soviet Triumph

      Chapter 2 The Spy and the Tunnel

      Chapter 3 Tradecraft

      The Portland Spy Ring

      The Penkovsky Story

      The Cautionary Tale of Gerald Brooke

      Swap Shop

      Chapter 4 Behind Enemy Lines

      Robertson–Malinin Agreement

      The Missions

      Establishment

      Customers

      Touring

      Intelligence and Scoops

      Blurring the Lines

      Post-Wall

      Conclusion

      Notes

      Appendices

      Acknowledgments

      Selected Bibliography

      Foreword

      Aquestion: what was the conflict that, beyond doubt, shaped the world in which we live today? Answer: the Cold War – that turbulent and often very dangerous near half-century, following the end of the Second World War. The story of the Cold War is the story of the lives of those of my generation who are its survivors. It encompasses all of my military service from the time I joined the British Army as an 18-year-old recruit at the old Guards Depot in Caterham until I experienced, and witnessed at first hand, the amazing events in Berlin in 1989/90 at the moment of the reunification of the two Germanies and the beginning of the precipitous collapse of Communism.

      Andrew Long’s book is aptly titled, recounting as it does the intelligence ‘war’, conducted in the shadowy world of espionage. This struggle was a highly specialized but centrally integral part of the intense ideological rivalry between the two great powers that dominated the world throughout those years. Its background was, of course, the constant threat of nuclear war; perhaps it is not easily recalled now but there was, quite literally, a terrifying amount at stake. Fear of ‘mutually assured destruction’ was amply justified and the costly military deterrence that countered it was well justified. Long’s story is, in large part, one of betrayal by a combination of treacherous ‘resident spies’ and extremely cleverly trained Soviet operators, with more than a few double agents thrown in for good measure. His detailed account reflects a prodigious level of research. It brings compellingly to life the persona of the human beings involved. I learnt much about people such as George Blake, ideologically attracted to communism, ‘turned’ as a prisoner of war by his Chinese captors in Korea and responsible for the deaths of many agents and for other betrayals such as the existence of the Berlin tunnel. Andrew Long is particularly interesting about the Portland spy ring of British nationals whose penetration of the secrets of British underwater sonar and nuclear submarine technology was very damaging to our defence, and also to the trust of the CIA. This is fascinating stuff and reflective of the men and women – Britons, Americans, and Russians (Soviets then), whose lives were so deeply, and dangerously, bound up in the shadows of the Cold War.

      I am particularly struck by the quality of the author’s research. I realize that the relatively recent opening of classified Soviet, East German (and Chinese) documents, together with British and many US records, has perhaps eased the way for this but the author has made clever use of the information available to him. The result is intriguing and enjoyable. His chapter on the post-war British Mission to the Soviets in communist East Germany, BRIXMIS, reveals a subject that may be new to many. This unique and altogether excellent organization, with its fellow US and French Military Missions, was of crucial importance to me as British Commandant in the complex days – and nights! – following the opening of the Berlin Wall when dealing with the Soviets. The Missions’ links to the huge – 350,000-strong – Group of Soviet Forces, stationed in East Germany and closely surrounding the city, together with their understanding of the Russian mentality were invaluable at a time of great uncertainty.

      This is an excellent, enjoyable book, full of valuable, interesting information. Dense technical detail is leavened by effective diagrams, charts, and interesting photography.

      Secrets of the Cold War will be of particular value to anyone seeking an accurately constructed revelation of much that transpired in secret on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the almost five decades of the Cold War. This book is well named. I found it both fascinating, instructive and easy to read – a strong combination, giving a very important subject the attention it deserves.

      Major General Sir Robert Corbett, KCVO, CB

      Preface

      In 1986, I visited West Berlin on an orchestra tour, staying with a West Berlin family and playing several concerts. Our coach journey took us across Belgium and West Germany and then along the 120-mile road corridor across East Germany to enter West Berlin at Checkpoint Bravo. We were under strict instructions not to take any photos along the corridor as we would be monitored, and we had to keep a close eye on the younger players in case their misbehaving invoked the wrath of the Grepos, the East German border guards. On an afternoon off, we took a trip through the infamous Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. The border guard came onto our coach and made his way up the aisle, his machine gun swinging from his shoulder, and closely examined every passport, staring menacingly at each person, willing them to make some stupid remark that would give him justification to empty the whole coach to make further ‘enquiries’. And this was on the way into the East. The contrast between the bright lights of the West and the communist East could not have been starker, with everything turning monochrome: drab streets, drab-looking people and noisy, plastic cars. 1 I distinctly remember seeing the bullet scars around doors and windows of buildings from Red Army machine guns still evident from the bitter fighting of 1945, and open plots of undeveloped bomb sites. And there was an all-pervading smell, which I now know to be from the highly polluting brown coal that was used to heat East Germany. It was an intense and intimidating experience: my introduction to the Cold War. *

      Roll on thirty years, and my interest in the Cold War developed into a new career as a historian and author, researching and writing about the conflict that I had witnessed with my own eyes, all those years before. The Cold War did not follow the ‘normal’ rules as typified by the two world wars of the twentieth century. There were no formal declarations, no famous pitched battles and no victory parades.2 The Cold War was fought predominantly in the shadows, with each side going to great lengths to discover what the other was up to: what their intentions were and what military hardware and forces were poised to deliver unimaginable destruction on their sworn ideological enemies – all to ensure that they were adequately prepared if the Cold War suddenly turned hot. To achieve this, the superpowers created extensive intelligence organizations and as technology developed, took full advantage of the latest innovations to spy and gather intelligence on the opposition. This book looks closely at the operations of these intelligence agencies, the techniques they used, and some of their successes and failures. It includes stories of ingenuity, courage and betrayal, exposing some of the most dramatic secrets of the Cold War, from both sides of the Iron Curtain.

      Andrew Long

      November 2021

      Cornwall

      www.andrewlong.info

      * Plate 1 in the colour section is a photo of Checkpoint Charlie from my 1986 visit.

      Dramatis Personae

      This book features a cast of thousands, many with Russian names, which may be unfamiliar to a Western reader. The situation is further complicated by the fact that many of the individuals mentioned are disguised behind codenames (or multiple codenames), and the same individuals have a habit of appearing time and time again across the book, in different parts of the world and using different aliases. Such is the challenge of writing about the shadowy world of intelligence. To help the reader navigate around the epic stories told in this book, the following lists the main characters, their codenames or aliases, their nationality, their primary role(s) and their relative place in the narrative. For brevity, the Russian patronymic middle name is omitted, although it can be seen in the first mention of the name in the text.

      Key:

      §Involved in MAUD Committee, Tube Alloys or Manhattan project

      †Nobel Prize winner1

      City College New York

      Fort Monmouth/Bell Labs

      ♦SED Special Engineering Detachment, Manhattan Project

      Rosenberg Ring

      (Source: multiple sources, compiled by author)

      Glossary of Abbreviations

      Chronology

      The first three chapters of this book cover an intense and very dangerous period from the start of the Cold War at the end of the Second World War, to the mid-1960s, with different events tripping over each other in different parts of the world. In conjunction with the table of abbreviations and the Dramatis Personae ‘cast’ list, this chronology will hopefully assist the reader in navigating these fascinating but complex stories. Items shaded in grey do not specifically relate to the stories told in this book, but are useful for context.

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