American Spies: Espionage against the United States from the Cold War to the Present

Introduction

1 Introduction Coca-Cola has kept its formula a secret since the 1800s. Kentucky Fried Chicken has never let the competition get its hands on Colonel Sanders’ original recipe. So why has the US government lost its most sensitive secrets to foreign spies? J. MICHAEL WALLER, “Espionage and National Security” The first major spy against America, Benjamin Church, was one of the leading patriots in Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War. Church, a physician by profession, tended to wounded colonists at the Battle of Bunker Hill. George Washington later appointed him chief surgeon of the army, and his compatriots elected him to the Massachusetts Continental Congress, where he was chosen to represent it in relations with the other colonies. Church also kept a mistress and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle beyond his meager salary as a doctor. To maintain this standard of living, he was paid by the British to provide information from the inner councils of the revolutionaries . Although he was spotted consorting with British general Thomas Gage and his friends knew that he was living beyond his means, his revolutionary credentials were impeccable and he was beyond suspicion. His 1 Introduction 2 spying was only discovered because he foolishly entrusted his mistress with a letter to his British spymasters. Instead of delivering the letter directly, the mistress left it with someone who passed it to the Continental Army. The woman was detained, questioned by Washington himself, and finally identified Church as the author of the damning letter. Church was arrested and claimed that he was feeding false information to the enemy by inflating troop strengths in hopes of persuading the British to abandon their cause. This feeble argument failed to convince Washington , who convened a council that found Church guilty. But because the colonies had enacted no law regarding espionage, Church could not be tried for the crime. To recommend an espionage law, the Continental Congress quickly appointed a committee that included two future US presidents , John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Congress approved their recommendation , mandating the death sentence for espionage, but Church could not be tried retroactively. Instead, he was banished to the West Indies, and his ship sunk at sea en route to his new home. The Benjamin Church affair included many of the elements of espionage cases that would plague US national security throughout American history: spying for money; the failure of the spy’s colleagues to recognize indicators of his espionage; unfettered access to valuable national security information ; the spy’s rationalization of espionage when caught; exposure resulting from the spy’s shoddy security practices; and finally, the impact of an individual spy case on the development of espionage legislation. The companion volume of this book, Spying in America, traces the history of espionage against the United States from the Benjamin Church case until the onset of the Cold War.1 America remained particularly vulnerable to espionage in those 175 years because of a chronic disbelief that those like Benjamin Church who were entrusted with the nation’s secrets would betray them. By the start of the Cold War, the United States had established institutions and capabilities to combat espionage; yet this disbelief persisted .Theintentofthisstudyistoexaminethehistoryofthisdisbeliefthrough the stories of individual spies and to provide the reader with insights into the unique nature of espionage against America, its successes, failures, and consequences for national security. “To counter espionage,” as one intelligence historian put it, “you must first understand it. To do this, you must be aware of its history.”2 Introduction 3 American disbelief in espionage reached its heights in the decades preceding World War II. A century and a half after the Church case, the Soviet Union ran the most significant espionage penetration of the United States in its history. Americans disenchanted with capitalism flocked to the ranks of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and the Soviets exploited the opportunity to form an underground network of spies in almost all key agencies in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and in the Manhattan Project, the nation’s most secret military venture of World War II. The Soviet effort was aptly dubbed the “Golden Age” of espionage by two historians of the era, Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev.3 The Soviet network included spies from all walks of life, from inside and outside the government, from the highest levels to low-ranking clerks. The network included couriers like Elizabeth Bentley, a Vassar graduate...