A Brief History of the Spy by Simpson Paul

Author:Simpson, Paul [Simpson, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780338910
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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THE EMPIRES STRIKE BACK

The first half of the eighties was a time of mounting tension. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had led to the US and others boycotting the Moscow Olympics in 1980, and when the former Governor of California Ronald Reagan was voted into the White House later that year, the anti-Soviet rhetoric was dialled up.

In a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, in March 1983, Reagan made reference to an ‘evil empire . . . [who] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth. They are the focus of evil in the modern world.’ The Soviet news agency TASS responded that Reagan ‘can think only in terms of confrontation and bellicose, lunatic anti-communism’. The militaries in both West and East were built up. At the same time as the ‘evil empire’ speech, Reagan authorized the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) (commonly known as ‘Star Wars’ after the George Lucas film), which the new Soviet leader Yuri Andropov said ‘put the entire world in jeopardy’.

Politically, the Soviet Union went through major changes. Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982 and was succeeded by KGB Chief Andropov – but he too would die in office, a mere two years later. Konstantin Chernenko, a crony of Brezhnev’s, followed for a short time, then on his death, Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed in March 1985. Although it wasn’t clear to anyone at the time, Gorbachev’s policies would lead to the end of the Cold War.

The stakes were raised for the intelligence agencies on either side of the Iron Curtain, with the CIA changing course once more and increasing the amount of HUMINT (human intelligence) on which they were relying (partly caused by the blows to SIGINT abilities following Ronald Pelton’s defection in 1980). However 1985 would prove to be a watershed in the espionage game, with a series of recruitments and betrayals by both sides.

Ronald Reagan appointed a new DCI when he took office: William J. Casey, who had served as chief of secret intelligence in Europe for the OSS in World War II. He was the president’s campaign manager, and was the first DCI to be given a seat as a fully participating Cabinet member. He and Reagan shared a similar view of the Soviet threat, and as DCI, Casey wanted to strengthen analysis, revive covert actions in the service of foreign policy, strengthen counter-intelligence and security, and improve clandestine espionage operations. The appropriations for the CIA rose by 50 per cent in the first three budgets of the Reagan administration, and Casey presided over a resurgence in HUMINT. He also took the Agency into areas that had been deemed dangerous during the seventies, with support for anti-Communist insurgent organizations in developing countries – leading to the Iran-Contra scandal that would dominate Reagan’s second term of office.

One of the great successes of Casey’s period in charge of the CIA came from Operation CKTAW. This was a

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