[Intelforum] Legacy of Ashes"...the HUMINT in the USSR dimension

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From: "pjp" <pjp961 at svol.net>
To: <intelforum at lists101.his.com>
Subject: "Legacy of Ashes"...the HUMINT in the USSR dimension
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 10:36:11 -0400

I have read Weiner's book in its entirety.  I think that Doubleday 
fell down on the job in that its "fact checkers" phoned in their 
effort (allusion to Hollywood vernacular where the actors do a poor 
job in front of the camera, and that it is the equivalent of doing 
the acting over the telephone).  Perhaps they thought that the 
magical phrasing "Pulitzer Prize Winner" would be the magic wand that 
would obviate the need for any fact checking.  Sloppy.

Also, Weiner had a large number of other people do his research for 
him, and it is so described in the text.  Depending upon others to 
conduct one's research (especially when the number of persons is 
large, as it can be inferred from Weiner's own statements in the 
book) doesn't bode well.  Weiner basically wrote a book based on 
others doing the shoe leather burning for him.  Inaccuracies will 
creep in as a consequence, I would suspect.

When discussing in situ Soviet HUMINT sources, Weiner's book runs the 
gamut in that it even contradicts itself.

Tim Weiner mentions that "The supreme goal of the CIA during the Cold 
War was to steal Soviet secrets by recruiting spies, but the CIA 
never possessed a single one who had deep insight into the workings 
of the Kremlin.  The number of Soviet spies with important 
information to reveal-all of them volunteers, not recruits-could be 
counted on the fingers of two hands." (p. xv) 

But this claim is then countradicted later on, with his discussion of 
operation Red Cap (page 124) where he states the number (as of June 
1956) at 20.  He attempts to say that these 20 could be dismissed out 
of hand as they were all incompetents, and even contained unemployed 
persons in the roster.

But the HUMINT universe encompasses a great deal more than what 
Weiner was attempting to point out.  A source accessible on the 
Internet is the National Security Archive's electronic briefing book 
that gives a glimpse into all of this:

"The Pentagon's Spies: Documents Detail Histories of Once Secret Spy 
Units."  ("A National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book, 
edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson, May 23, 2001.")  Accessible via the 
Internet at 
<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB46/index2.html>http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB46/index2.html. 

And then even later on, there is a discussion of Aldrich Ames and his 
betrayal of the in situ agents inside the USSR.  And that was 
probably no small number.  The public relations circular put on the 
CIA's website in reaction to Weiner's book publication even points 
this out.  And that is telling.

But as everyone here should be aware, the CIA wasn't the only US 
entity controlling agents that worked inside the USSR, or provided 
information from inside the USSR.  Let's mention the FBI.  Let's 
mention USAF, Army, Navy, and so on.  One of the sources that Weiner 
himself references (I noticed that a lot of claims in Weiner's book 
are NOT referenced-and that troubles me greatly, for a "Pulitzer 
prize winning journalist" who has in the jacket blurb that everything 
said and mentioned is referenced in a manner) was the volume released 
by the CIA only earlier this year:  Richard Helms-As Director of 
Central Intelligence.  There is a chapter in there entitled 
"Defectors and Hostile Penetration," although unfortunately for 
public consumption is heavily redacted.  But there is enough 
remaining data to get the inkling that the US had more than what 
Weiner is claiming.

My question is this:  Can it be known how many (ball park estimate) 
HUMINT in situ sources that the US had over there?  Can anyone point 
to some sources, either newly minted or older, that can talk to this?

Because I think Weiner did everyone a disservice by not engaging in 
fact checking like he himself should have.  And Doubleday added to 
the problem by having either sloppy fact-checking, or-as I suspect-- 
no fact checking done on the text at all.  (There has been a trend in 
recent years that the major publishing houses, to save money, just 
dumped the fact checking and other normal in-house duties such as 
indigenous public relations departments.)

Peter Pesavento
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