Take The "Group Of Ten" Seriously

Those in the media, politics, or academia who portray the recently arrested bunch of Russian spies as being a sort of The Pink Panther Meets James Bond escapade of no real moment are simply demonstrating both a lack of knowledge of the ways of the deep penetration asset and the past behavior of Russian (in the Soviet guise) espionage. The fact that not one classified document has been shown to have been passed by any of the agents to the controllers at Center is a tribute to the efficiency of the FBI and not a damnation of the spies as a collection of failed wannabes.

The most important word in the lexicon of espionage is "patience." Time, a very great deal of time, is necessary to install an illegal. It takes years to establish a cover identity. It takes even more years to maneuver the spy to a point where that individual has access to important information.

Some corners may be cut, some time saved, when a hostile service can recruit an agent-in-place. The agent-in-place was very much a feature of Soviet espionage during the Thirties and Forties when the supply of homegrown Communist ideologues provided ready recruiting and easy placement in sensitive areas. Even in those salad days when Leftists were to be found in every New Deal agency and most of the new bureaucracies established in the pressure of war, the Soviets took time, were willing to see months, even years pass fallow of high level catch.

Importantly, even when ideologically motivated homegrown agents were plentiful and fruitful in their productivity, the Soviets backstopped these individuals with elaborate networks of long resident illegal penetration agents. Having your own person--a genuine Russian with all that implied and implies--assured a higher likelihood of higher quality catch as well as a greater willingness to roll with the punches rather than roll over if caught by the imperialist camp's counterintelligence services.

It must also be understood that often the desired catch is not to be found in a secret document, a confidential memo, a classified operational plan. Often the best catch is found at insider social functions, at think tank sponsored conferences, at inside-the-Beltway cocktail get togethers. A species of very useful information is that of human foibles, human failings, who-is-sleeping-with-whom (both literally and metaphorically,) who is unhappy at work, feels unappreciated by the boss, who is willing to leak and what can they leak.

Social interactions also provide for the opportunity to informally but definitely affect policy as it is being formed. This setting provides for enormous personal leverage on the thinking which will someday fossilize into policy. So the agent of espionage can also serve as an agent of influence.

Historically, the Russians have prized both forms of agent equally. The Kremlin has long understood that it is even better to influence policy than it is to ferret out the policy from some Burn Before Reading archive. So, the well placed spy is a highly effective person-to-person diplomatic program. The effectiveness comes from the secret nature of the spy's true loyalties and affiliations.

Yes, it would have been more tidy if the Feeb could have let the Gang of Ten stay out and about awhile longer. It might have been more satisfying to the Bureau and the Department of Justice. There must have been excellent reasons to run the take-down earlier than would have been optimum.

The reason is implicit in the fate of Agent Number Eleven, the spy who got away. This man, alleged to have been the network's paymaster, had already beat feet when the pop went down. Arrested in Cyprus, the man was let out on minimum bail by an obliging magistrate whereupon he sought a more hospitable climate--something not hard to accomplish on the divided island.

It is probable that the whole group was in the process of exfiltrating the US at the time of the arrests. Somehow, the FBI counterintelligence operation had been blown after years of successful running.

At that point the Bureau had only two options. One was to let the boys and girls head back to Russia with a heap of "lessons learned" to pass on to Center. The other was to drop the dime on them and hope that at least one weak link would break under the threat of the (relatively) mild penalties for failing to register as a foreign agent and money laundering so as to provide the counterintelligence shop useful information on Russian methods.

The Feebies made the right choice. Now, the challenge is simply to see if the self-defined elite of American politics, media, and academia can face up to the reality of Russian espionage. They would be well advised to do so as the Russians are not going to suddenly end their love affair with doing things covertly.