Allen, Thomas B., and Norman Polmar. Merchants of Treason: America's Secrets for Sale. New York: Delacorte, 1988. New York: Dell, 1988. [pb]Ronald W. Pelton was an "NSA analyst for 14 years who quit in 1979 after falling deeply in debt; sold NSA secrets to the Soviet Union in meetings with KGB agents in Vienna, Austria, from 1980 to 1986; arrested in 1986 after an NSA colleague recognized his voice on a tapped Soviet Embassy phone; now serving three life terms." Scott Shane, "Some at NSA Betrayed Country," from Scott Shane and Tom Bowman, "No Such Agency," Baltimore Sun, reprint of six-part series, 3-15 December 1995, 6. See also Allen and Polmar, Merchants of Treason.
Allen, Thomas B., and Norman Polmar. Merchants of Treason: America's Secrets for Sale. New York: Delacorte, 1988. New York: Dell, 1988. [pb]
Petersen says Merchants of Treason is "an important survey of spy cases since 1968 that is critical of U.S. counterintelligence as ineffective." Chambers comments that the book "seems to be aimed at the general reader"; it is "well crafted." For Lowenthal, the work is "[m]arred by a somewhat breathless and hyperbolic journalistic prose." According to Kuntzman, IJI&C 6.2, Allen and Polmar present an "excellent compilation of the spy stories that ... made headlines" during the 1980s. The Walker case takes up about half of the book. "There is little different, however, between John D. Barron's Breaking the Ring and ... Merchants of Treason." Bell, Pollard, Harper, Wu-Tai Chin, and Pelton are also covered.
Gertz,
Bill. "Intelligence Operation Red Star of Pelton Trial." Washington
Times, 2 Jun. 1986, A2.
Schmidt,
Susan. "Pelton Convicted of Selling Secrets." Washington Post,
6 Jun. 1986, A1.
Tyler,
Patrick. "Supersecret Work Revealed." Washington Post,
28 May 1986, A1.
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