Allen, Thomas B. "Year of the Questions -- Spies, Software Moles, and Subversive Agents." Sea Power 29 (Jun. 1986): 32-33 ff. [Petersen]
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.
Barron,
John. Operation SOLO: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1996.
Surveillant 4.3 notes that this is the story of "Morris Childs, who, along with his wife Eva, and his brother, Jack, provided the U.S. with secrets for 27 years" from his position as editor of the Daily Worker. Childs traveled to Russia, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba and met many of the communist leaders of his day. Although intelligence scholars will question the operation's level of importance, Barron's book, reviews of the book, and future accounts will "help clarify" SOLO's "role in U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War years." For Fontaine, WIR 15.3, Operation SOLO is "a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in intelligence."
On the other side of the evaluation scale, Fischer, IJI&C 10.4, raises the question, "How much should be believed of this carelessly written, factually incorrect, and undocumented book?... The problem with Barron's account is that much of it is 'inherently implausible' (Theodore Draper), some absolutely impossible, and none of it totally confirmable.... Operation SOLO is replete with non sequiturs and many major and minor errors that damage its credibility."
Other reviewers offer a range of opinion on the book: See, for example, Arnold Beichman, "The Incredible Saga of Our Super Spy in Moscow," Washington Times, 9 Mar. 1996, C1; Theodore Draper, "Our Man in Moscow," New York Review of Books, 9 May 1996, 4; Harvey Klehr, "Comrade Heroes; Operation SOLO: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin," American Spectator, Mar. 1996, 70-72; Richard Gid Powers, "Double Agent," New York Times Book Review, 21 Apr. 1996, 20; and Jeff Stein, "Spy in the Ointment," Washington Post, 23 Apr. 1996, D2.
Boughton, James M.
1. "The Case against Harry Dexter White: Still Not Proven." History of Political Economy 33, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 221-241.
2. and Roger J. Sandilands. "Politics and the Attack on FDR's Economists: From the Grand Alliance to the Cold War." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 73-99.
This is a spirited defense of Lauchlin Currie and Harry Dexter White against charges that they were Soviet agents.
Bowman, M. E. "The 'Worst' Spy: Perceptions of Espionage." American Intelligence Journal
18, no. 1/2 (1998): 57-62.
The author finds a "counter-productive pattern" to perceptions surrounding each new espionage case from the Walkers in 1985 to Nicholson and Pitts in 1996. We "have had a tendency either to characterize every instance of espionage in superlatives or to pay scant attention at all." Neither approach produces positive results.
Carpozi,
George, Jr. Red Spies in the U.S. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House,
1973.
Constantinides finds this book on Soviet espionage in the United States to be a mixed bag. The author uncovers "significant or interesting facts, but he carelessly includes incorrect or unsubstantiated remarks."
Charney, David L.[M.D]. "True Psychology of the Insider Spy." Intelligencer 18, no. 1 (Fall-Winter 2010): 47-54.
The author, a clinical psychiatrist who has consulted within the Intelligence Community and who was part of the defense teams for Earl Pitts, Robert Hanseen, and Brian Regan, proposes that "[a] novel way to approach the problem of insider spying would be to build mechanisms that create safe exits for troubled insiders before they start to spy and safe exits for those already engaged in spying."
Craig, Bruce. "A Matter of Espionage: Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and Igor Gouzenko -- The Canadian Connection Reassessed." Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 211-224.
Abstract: "Craig argues that ... the [Russian] defector [Igor Gouzenko] did not possess a shread of evidence ... that implicated Harry Dexter White in the Soviet [espionage] conspiracy.... Gouzenko's revelations have no relevance or bearing on the espionage case relating to White."
Craig, R. Bruce. Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Case. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
According to DKR, AFIO WIN 19-04 (7 Jun. 2004), the author "seeks to show that Harry Dexter White, who spied for the Soviets, was at the same time an honorable man.... Craig's book is likely to strike at least some readers as intellectually dishonest.... Craig ignores ... mischief wrought by White.... Some may agree that the publication of Craig's whitewash by what has been thought of as a reputable university press raises troubling questions about the intellectual integrity of at least parts of American academia."
Van Hook, Studies 49.1 (2005), says that this work "offers an important contribution to the often-polemical literature on the problem of Soviet espionage in the United States.... Despite the less than robust treatment of the VENONA material, a missed opportunity to paint a broader social picture, and the rather melodramatic representation that the FBI and HUAC unfairly persecuted White in the final years of his life, the author's otherwise even-handed treatment ... is well founded and welcome."
Crawford,
David J. Volunteers: The Betrayal of National Defense Secrets by Air Force Traitors. Washington, DC: GPO, 1988.
De
Toledano, Ralph. Spies, Dupes, and Diplomats. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1967.
Wilcox: "Special emphasis on the 'Amerasia' case and John Stewart Service, suspected Red spy."
DeYoung, Karen. "Obama Moves to Normalize Relations with Cuba as American Is Released by Havana." Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2014. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
On 17 December 2014, "[t]he United States and Cuba ended more than a half-century of enmity, with the announcement by President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced "they would reestablish diplomatic relations and begin dismantling the last pillar of the Cold War. "In addition to [U.S. AID contractor Alan] Gross, who the Obama administration said was freed on humanitarian grounds after five years," the United States exchanged three Cubans imprisoned in the United States since 1998 for "an unnamed U.S. intelligence asset said to have been held in Cuba for two decades."
See also, Adam Taylor, "Meet the 'Cuban Five' at the Center of the Blockbuster U.S. Announcement on Cuba," Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2014.
Evans, M. Stanton, and Herbert Romerstein. Stalin's Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt's Government. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.
Peake, Studies 57.3 (Sep 2013), and Intelligencer 20.2 (Fall-Winter 2013), suggests that the authors have made the contention that "agents of influence" were "simply aiding an ally ... much more difficult to support."
Return to Spy Cases Table of Contents