Deception by Edward Lucas

misjudgement. Assuming that Antonio did indeed defect to America, Simm’s career in the Defence Ministry still remains mystifying. Why did he rise so quickly? Why did nobody note his KGB past? The truth is, I fear, that Simm had developed an unofficial relationship with Kapo, which was concerned about the growing Russian interest in Estonian defence, the scope for provocations and penetrations, and the weakness of the ministry in dealing with the threat. Soon after Simm’s arrival, Kapo picked up his sloppy behaviour. But instead of having him fired, it made him the agency’s unofficial eyes and ears, providing a stream of gossip, innuendo and other information. Kapo felt it had the weaknesses of the ministry under excellent scrutiny. And so they did – except the one that mattered. This theory is denied by all concerned, but I believe it to be true. As I shall argue in the conclusion, our complacency towards the mediocre is Russia’s deadliest weapon.

Conclusion
    Simm’s treachery exemplifies the central point of this book: the need to defend an open society at its weakest points, against people who appear to be no threat to it. Annoying though it may be to NATO’s security officials charged with protecting the thousands of documents that Simm passed on to his handlers, the transfer of these papers did little lasting damage to the alliance. Nor did he manage to crack the innermost secrets of Estonian intelligence cooperation with countries such as Britain and America. Though he did give Russia a damagingly accurate inside view of the Estonian elite, even that country’s greatest fans could not call that a geopolitical earthquake. The real cause for alarm about Simm and Antonio is the same reason as for Donald Heathfield and Anna Chapman. Rather than the secrets they may have stolen, it is the vulnerabilities they exposed that matter. Catching spies is hard enough. But when they use weaknesses that are intrinsic to our society, the real question is how many more are playing the same tricks now, and may do so in future. Nothing has changed to stop other Russian agents such as Ms Chapman – perhaps much better trained and more determined – following the same path into the heart of Western business, social and financial life. Nor have we any idea how many more Herman Simms may lurk in the fifty-plus generation that holds top jobs in the new member states of the EU and NATO, but conceals dark secrets from earlier careers in communist-run countries.
    Russia would never countenance such tactics in reverse. At a think-tank meeting in London, one of Britain’s most seasoned Russia-watchers bumped into Ms Zatuliveter and asked who she was: she readily explained that she was a Russian, working for Mike Hancock MP. My friend was thunderstruck. He knew Mr Hancock was on the defence committee; a post in his office would be the perfect vantage point for a talent-spotter, recruiter or agent-runner. (He would have been even more concerned had he known that Ms Zatuliveter was also planning to move on to one of Britain’s leading defence companies, or that she was dating a NATO official dealing with Russia.) He asked drily if it would be possible for a British citizen to have a similar job working for a member of the Russian parliament, the Duma. ‘Of course not,’ tittered Ms Zatuliveter. She is not the only one laughing. For the Siloviki in Moscow, Western society is a spies’ paradise. Despite the tedious metal-detectors and identity checks that burden daily life, we are astonishingly, almost suicidally, trusting when it comes to real security – protecting our secrets and our decision-making. To worry about Russian spies still counts as almost comically paranoid. The popular assumption is that we have no secrets worth stealing; and that even if we did, Russia has no interest in or means of obtaining them.
    As I have tried to show in this book, that is untrue. We do have