American Spies: Espionage against the United States from the Cold War to the Present
Michael J. Sulick. Washington, DC, Georgetown University Press, 2013. 304 pp. Biblio. Notes. $26.95.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral Thomas A. Brooks, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Michael Sulick’s first book, Spying in America: Espionage from the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War (Georgetown University Press, 2012) covered the period from George Washington to the early post-World War II era. American Spies is the follow-on work and covers espionage against the United States from the era of Whittaker Chambers−Alger Hiss to the era of cyber space.
The author served as both the head of the National Clandestine Service (2007−10) and the head of CIA counterintelligence (2002−04) and can claim an expert understanding of how the United States recruits spies and how we uncover spies among us. This book is about the spies among us—not the spies we recruit. Perhaps a more accurate title might have been American Traitors, for that was indeed what they were.
A casual glance at the subject matter might tempt the observation that there are many books already written on these modern-day spies. Indeed, John Walker, Jonathan Pollard, Aldrich Ames, and the like have been well-covered both by books and numerous press accounts. But the author covers more than three dozen spies, some of whom most people have never heard of or have long forgotten. How many remember Karl Koecher, Ana Belen Montes, or Katrina Leung? Indeed, how many even remember Clyde Conrad, who provided key NATO war plans to the Soviets (via the Hungarian intelligence service) and was second only to John Walker in the damage he did to the security of the United States?
However, the importance of this book is not the interesting stories it tells, but the analysis the author provides. In each of the cases, the author examines the motivation of the spies, how they were recruited, and how they went about providing information to the foreign intelligence services—their “tradecraft.” He analyzes how they got caught and why in many cases they continued their spying well beyond when they should have been caught—either because friends and co-workers ignored tell-tale signs of unexplained wealth, etc., or because there was an attitude of “he is one of us: he wouldn’t betray us.”
In the 1930s through the beginning of the Cold War years, many spies were motivated by sympathy for the Communist cause. This quickly dissipated, and the primary motivation for the American spy became money. It can safely be assumed that money continues to be an important motivator today. But new ones have arisen, including sympathy for foreign nations or causes—the most obvious being the sympathies of Chinese-Americans for China and those of radical Muslims in the United States for Islamic extremist causes. Added to this, of course, is the bizarre motivation of the Bradley Mannings and Edward Snowdens, who, convinced they are acting in accordance with some self-perceived higher cause, betray huge volumes of secrets not to one hostile intelligence agency but to the intelligence agencies of the entire world.
The author concludes with an examination of the problems presented by cyber espionage. He notes that the United States has become the main target of over 140 foreign intelligence services whose primary goal is to steal American technology and trade secrets. Primary among these collectors are the Chinese and the Russians, but the list includes a host of “friendly nations,” among which are France, Israel, and Japan. Computer hacking is the favorite technique and has assumed epidemic proportions. But the classic spy has not fallen into disuse. There are more Russian intelligence service personnel in the United States today than at the end of the Cold War. There have been few spies arrested in recent times, but the Russian intelligence agents are busy doing something.
Modern computer technology allows for altogether different tradecraft for today’s spy. Gone are the days of Jonathan Pollard hauling suitcases of documents for the Israelis to copy, or John Walker leaving trash bags full of documents at a dead drop. Today, all the documents Pollard or Walker stole could be placed on a single memory card and smuggled out in a coat pocket. Using an encrypted personal computer, the documents could be sent to an untraceable electronic address. In turn, money could be transferred anonymously to off-shore bank accounts. There is no longer a need for dead drops or any form of meeting between the spy and the agent handler. The “sloppy tradecraft” that allowed for catching spies in the past is not likely to allow for catching the electronically savvy spy of the future.
In addition to being an interesting, well-researched, and well-written book, American Spies is a thought-provoking—and, in places, rather disturbing—analysis of the security and counterintelligence problems the United States faces today and in the future. It should be read by anyone who has a professional or personal interest in these areas.
Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific
Robert D. Kaplan. New York: Random House, 2014. 220 pp. Notes. Index. $26.
Reviewed by Captain Fred W. Kacher, U.S. Navy
“Europe is a landscape; East Asia is a seascape.” With this straightforward observation, Robert D. Kaplan begins his latest and quite fascinating book.
Kaplan, the bestselling author of Monsoon and The Revenge of Geography and one of today’s most well-known foreign-policy analysts, turns his focus on the South China Sea, arguably the most dynamic—and contested—body of water in the world today. His observation that “East Asia” is defined by the sea is not only true when one looks at a map but also profound given the way this body of water supplies, feeds, and gives hope to the hundreds of millions who live along its coasts.
While many in the West may have perceived the South China Sea as a remote, exotic body of water that played a role in distant conflicts of the 20th century, those days are over. Kaplan, with the skill of a great travel writer and the sweep of a historian, transports the reader around the South China Sea to examine what forces are putting this “cauldron” at risk of bubbling over. Providing context to the Western reader, Kaplan shares that the South China Sea, “is as central to Asia as the Mediterranean is to Europe.”
The author argues that the South China Sea is one of the handful of areas outside of the Western World that the United States should never let another power dominate. The “other” power in this era, China, is fueled by two decades of strong economic growth and double-digit annual increase in its military budget that underpin what this historic power terms a “peaceful rise.” China’s recent actions around the South China Sea as it asserts what it believes are its historic territorial claims, however, do not always fit this narrative.
But Kaplan explains that China considers the South China Sea to be uniquely crucial to its future since it serves as a natural shield to the southern part of the country, its most developed and prosperous region. He makes the historical comparison that China’s view of the South China Sea is similar to the United States’ view of the Greater Caribbean during its rise as a global power in the late 19th century. Although he is no apologist for some of the sharper edges of China’s recent approach in the region, he does assess that compared to the histories of other rising powers, there is nothing unusually aggressive about what China is doing.
Kaplan then turns to other players in the region, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Having visited these countries and operated with their navies in the past year, I can attest to the author’s knack for tapping into the psyche and history of each nation and how these forces shape their actions today. Along the way, Kaplan highlights some of the men who have shaped their respective countries, including Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yewad, Malaysia’s Mahathir bin Mohamad, and Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-shek who benefits from a more nuanced assessment here than most historians make regarding the man Mao Zedong defeated in mainland China.
Of all these superb national portraits, the one that stands out most is Kaplan’s assessment of Vietnam. With hundreds of miles of its east coast running along the South China Sea, Vietnam’s future is inextricably linked to this body of water. Having been invaded well over a dozen times by China in its long history, Vietnam is concerned by the actions of its larger neighbor to the north. In fact, many worry that the nation could be “Finlandized” by China, so much so that some in Vietnam are calling for more U.S. involvement in the region. Given the limited size and circumstances of the other nations in the region, Kaplan shares that one U.S. official concluded that “If China can break off Vietnam, they’ve won the South China Sea.”
The world is a complicated place and the book’s final chapters, which look to future, sound a well-crafted but uncertain note. Kaplan discusses the the law of the sea, the potential of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to reconcile some of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and the need for a “balance of power” between the United States, China, and others. None of these ruminations ever reaches the level of a simple policy prescription—but perhaps that is the point. The forces acting upon the South China Sea region are complex, and there are no easy answers here. Indeed, Kaplan’s final words in this fine book are quite fitting as he concludes that, “A more anxious, complicated world awaits us.”
Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War: 1954–1965
Pierre Asselin. University of California Press, 2013. 212 pp. Maps. Illus. $55.
Reviewed by Captain Carl O. Schuster, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The last three years have seen an eruption of new scholarship on the Vietnam War arising from access to Hanoi’s officials records. Pierre Asselin’s outstanding new book, Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War is the latest, and for those interested in Hanoi’s pre-war deliberations and intentions, perhaps the most illuminating. Asselin’s research incorporates a vast array of sources, ranging from the reports out of the 1954 Geneva Convention’s International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam; reports from the British, Canadian, and French embassies in Hanoi; and North Vietnam’s official party outlets, articles, and the limited party records available for examination.
The results reveal a leadership far more sophisticated and influenced by global events than either the regime’s Western critics or proponents believed at the time. Hanoi’s policy toward Saigon reflected a balancing act between the need to build the North’s economy, the hardline southern militants’ desires, and the competing policy pressures emanating from Beijing and Moscow. The picture that emerges is one of recurring political debate as Communist Party leader Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap sought to avoid triggering an American intervention before Hanoi had built an economy and addressed food and other shortages affecting the population. Their opponents within the party, led by Le Duan, felt the party’s refusal to press the revolutionary cause in the south constituted an abandonment of the loyal party cadres there and the global communist movement.
World developments and the Sino-Soviet split intruded into party discussions. Ho led the “moderate” pro-Moscow faction that saw the North’s economic development as its first priority. Moscow favored that policy and made its aid contingent on it. Le Duan led the pro-Beijing faction that shared Mao Zedong’s advocacy of constant revolution. The Soviet Union’s foreign-policy failures advanced Le Duan’s position. Many Vietnamese communists viewed Moscow’s withdrawal of missiles from Cuba as an abandonment of a socialist ally and interpreted the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban treaty as a “counter-revolutionary” retreat. Moscow’s greater aid levels precluded their alienating Soviet leaders, but China provided far more military equipment. Hanoi’s internal political struggle intensified after Diem’s 1963 overthrow. Le Duan saw the post-coup divisions within Saigon’s military leadership as an opportunity to conquer the South before America could intervene.
By January 1964, Le Duan had marginalized both Ho and Giap. He could not purge them, but he was able to reduce Ho to a figurehead with limited influence over policy and supplant Giap temporarily with General Nguyen Chi Thanh, so that he could pursue a more aggressive policy in the South. The Politburo’s Resolution 9 of January 1964 authorized the waging of war against the South. Arms and supplies were ordered south and local cadres authorized to take the offensive. Naval units were placed on a wartime footing on 9 July with army and air units following shortly thereafter. The army’s first combat units were on the march by September 1964.
Any concerns about the population’s support were swept away by the public’s reaction to America’s 5 August retaliatory air strikes. The North evacuated key areas of Haiphong, and Hanoi and started construction of defenses around principal facilities and cities. Vietnam’s allies also responded. Both China and the Soviet Union dispatched weapons and advisers to assist in the building of air and other defenses. When warned about America’s capacity to escalate the conflict, Le Duan and his inner circle made the calculation, based on Marxist-Leninist theory not inside knowledge about the U.S. political system, that U.S. escalation would be incremental, not determinative. He and Le Duc Tho believed the American people would tire of the war before the North Vietnamese.
They also directed a war effort that integrated diplomacy and military and political action to ensure they would win over time. The public face of liberation organizations included nationalists and others who opposed Saigon’s military dictatorship and American domination, but people appointed and controlled by Hanoi led all groups. Negotiations were offered to delay or limit American actions, but the goal of conquering the South by military action or regime capitulation remained foremost.
Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War is a valuable companion to Lien-Hang T. Nguyen’s Hanoi’s War and George J. Veith’s Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam. None excuse American policymakers for their part in instigating the war, but this trio of new scholarship also reveals that the United States was not solely responsible. The failings and motives of both sides are now emerging some 40 years after the war’s end. Asselin has written a comprehensive and easily readable account of who drove Hanoi’s policies that led to the war and how they achieved their desire to start it. In doing so, he dispels many myths about the North’s decision-making processes, providing insights on the internal and external factors that shaped them and the personalities involved. This is as accurate a view of the “other side of the hill” as one can get.
Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II
Mitchell Zuckoff. New York: Harper Collins, 2013. 344 pp. Intro. Illus. Notes. Biblio. Index. $28.99.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Eric Johnson, U.S. Coast Guard
In his new book, Mitchell Zuckoff describes the ordeal faced by the crew of a B-17 (referred to throughout the book by its tail number PN9E) after they crashed in early November 1942 during a search-and-rescue mission. The PN9E was engaged in a search for a C-53 cargo plane that had gone down on the ice just days earlier. Both aircraft were presumably victims of the harsh environmental conditions that characterize Greenland. Zuckoff intertwines into this storyline his first-hand experiences as a member of a modern-day expedition to locate the site of yet a third victim claimed by Greenland’s inhospitable climate.
This third aircraft was a Coast Guard Grumman J2F-4 Duck, embarked on board the USCGC Northland (WPG-49). After the loss of the PN9E, the Northland and the Duck were the primary assets employed in efforts to locate the downed B-17 and recover its crew. After successfully locating the wreck and safely transporting two survivors back to the Northland, the Duck was lost during the return from its second sortie to the site while ferrying another survivor.
Zuckoff successfully describes in great and vivid detail the tribulations of the PN9E survivors after they crash on the ice and fight for survival until rescue. He also painstakingly describes the efforts of those involved in attempting to locate and rescue the PN9E survivors. As one begins to appreciate the courage and tenacity of the survivors, one also starts to understand the complications and constraints facing those who are engaged in the efforts to rescue them. Zuckoff complements these storylines by detailing the stalwart efforts to locate the Duck and finally return the remains of its passenger and crew home. By using a recipe consisting of arguably equal parts persistence and luck, the expedition finally locates the Duck on its last day.
The reader is introduced to the 21st-century expedition during a meeting in Washington that does not go well. Zuckoff then takes the reader onto the ice with the expedition. Personalities and weather clash to make the prospects appear quite grim for successfully locating the plane. As if scripted in a movie, however, the intrepid members of the expedition find the wreck at the last possible moment, just as bad weather is closing in and evacuation of the area has commenced.
Zuckoff manages to keep the different storylines progressing smoothly while maintaining clarity for the reader. He accomplishes this in large part through an introductory explanation of how he has structured the book. It behooves the reader to take the time to read this introduction, rather than simply jumping in to the first chapter. Zuckoff manages to maintain the interest of the reader quite easily, as the book is well written. Even with the back-and-forth between the events of World War II and the modern Duck expedition, there is no discord or discontinuity—everything flows. This reviewer noted only minor technical issues with the editing, and the book is well worth anyone’s time as it effectively captures one of the most interesting episodes of World War II in the Arctic. It also illustrates an interesting example of early joint operations between the military services.
The survivors of the PN9E, as well as the members of the 2012 expedition to locate the Duck give testament to the bravery and selflessness of those lost in the crash of the Duck, thus giving meaning to their sacrifices. Obviously, everyone involved in all phases of the rescue operation, including the survivors themselves, acted heroically. In sum, locating the Duck was certainly difficult, exorbitantly expensive, and potentially life threatening. Yet it was the right thing to do.