inside the target and stay there. One of the ways of going about this is for the agent to insinuate himself into the offices or the elite circles of another power by means of subterfuge. He is then in a position to elicit the desired information from persons who come to trust him and who are entirely unaware of his true role. In popular parlance, this operation is called a “plant,” and it is one of the most ancient devices of espionage. The case of Ben Franklin’s secretary, Edward Bancroft, which I related in an earlier chapter, is a classical example of the planted agent.
A penetration of this kind is predicated upon a show of outer loyalties, which are often not put to the test. Nor are they easily tested, especially when opponents share a common language and background. But today, when the lines that separate one nation and one ideology from another are so sharply drawn, the dissembling of loyalties is more difficult to maintain over a long period of time and under close scrutiny. It can be managed, though. One of the most notorious Soviet espionage operations before and during World War II was the network in the Far East, directed by Richard Sorge, a German who was working in Tokyo as a correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung . Sorge made it his business to cultivate his fellow countrymen at the German embassy in Tokyo, and eventually succeeded in having himself assigned to the embassy’s Press Section. This not only gave him excellent cover for secret work with his Japanese agents, but also provided him directly with inside information about the Nazis’ conduct of the war and their relations with Japan.
To achieve this, Sorge had to play the part of the good Nazi, which he apparently did convincingly even though he detested the Nazis. The Gestapo chief in the embassy, as well as the ambassador, and the service attachés were all his “friends.” Had the Gestapo in Berlin ever investigated Sorge’s past, as it eventually did after Sorge was apprehended by the Japanese in 1941, it would have discovered that Sorge had been a Communist agent and agitator in Germany during the early 1920s and had spent years in Moscow.
Shortly thereafter, the West was subjected to similar treatment at the hands of Soviet espionage. Names such as Bruno Pontecorvo and Klaus Fuchs come to mind as agents who were unmasked after the war. In some such cases, records of previous Communist affiliations lay in the files of Western security and intelligence services even while the agents held responsible positions in the West, but they were not found until it was too late. Because physicists like Fuchs and Pontecorvo moved from job to job among the Allied countries—one year in Great Britain, another in Canada and another in the United States—and because the scientific laboratories of the Allies were working under great pressures, personnel with credentials from one Allied country were sometimes accepted for employment in another under the impression that they had already been sufficiently checked out. And when available records were consulted, the data found in them—particularly if of Nazi origin—seem often to have been discounted at a time when Russia was our ally and Hitler our enemy, and when the war effort required the technical services of gifted scientists of many nationalities.
The consequences of these omissions and oversights during the turbulent war years are regrettable, and the lesson will not easily be forgotten. We cannot afford any more Fuchses or Pontecorvos. Today investigation of persons seeking employment in sensitive areas of the U.S. Government and related technical installations is justifiably thorough and painstaking.
Consequently, an agent who performs as a plant in our time must have more in his favor than acting ability. With our modern methods of security checking, he is in danger of failure if there is any record of his ever having been something other than what he represents himself to be. The only
A penetration of this kind is predicated upon a show of outer loyalties, which are often not put to the test. Nor are they easily tested, especially when opponents share a common language and background. But today, when the lines that separate one nation and one ideology from another are so sharply drawn, the dissembling of loyalties is more difficult to maintain over a long period of time and under close scrutiny. It can be managed, though. One of the most notorious Soviet espionage operations before and during World War II was the network in the Far East, directed by Richard Sorge, a German who was working in Tokyo as a correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung . Sorge made it his business to cultivate his fellow countrymen at the German embassy in Tokyo, and eventually succeeded in having himself assigned to the embassy’s Press Section. This not only gave him excellent cover for secret work with his Japanese agents, but also provided him directly with inside information about the Nazis’ conduct of the war and their relations with Japan.
To achieve this, Sorge had to play the part of the good Nazi, which he apparently did convincingly even though he detested the Nazis. The Gestapo chief in the embassy, as well as the ambassador, and the service attachés were all his “friends.” Had the Gestapo in Berlin ever investigated Sorge’s past, as it eventually did after Sorge was apprehended by the Japanese in 1941, it would have discovered that Sorge had been a Communist agent and agitator in Germany during the early 1920s and had spent years in Moscow.
Shortly thereafter, the West was subjected to similar treatment at the hands of Soviet espionage. Names such as Bruno Pontecorvo and Klaus Fuchs come to mind as agents who were unmasked after the war. In some such cases, records of previous Communist affiliations lay in the files of Western security and intelligence services even while the agents held responsible positions in the West, but they were not found until it was too late. Because physicists like Fuchs and Pontecorvo moved from job to job among the Allied countries—one year in Great Britain, another in Canada and another in the United States—and because the scientific laboratories of the Allies were working under great pressures, personnel with credentials from one Allied country were sometimes accepted for employment in another under the impression that they had already been sufficiently checked out. And when available records were consulted, the data found in them—particularly if of Nazi origin—seem often to have been discounted at a time when Russia was our ally and Hitler our enemy, and when the war effort required the technical services of gifted scientists of many nationalities.
The consequences of these omissions and oversights during the turbulent war years are regrettable, and the lesson will not easily be forgotten. We cannot afford any more Fuchses or Pontecorvos. Today investigation of persons seeking employment in sensitive areas of the U.S. Government and related technical installations is justifiably thorough and painstaking.
Consequently, an agent who performs as a plant in our time must have more in his favor than acting ability. With our modern methods of security checking, he is in danger of failure if there is any record of his ever having been something other than what he represents himself to be. The only
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