Tag: espionage

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I enjoy stories about intelligent people solving problems, hence my love for detective and espionage dramas, elements of which also spill over into the best superhero and science fiction. For instance, my favorite fictional character is Sherlock Holmes, who is not only a detective but does favors for British intelligence in the person of his brother Mycroft, plays superhero to Professor Moriarty’s supervillain, and of course employs science, both real and fictional.

I have always loved James Bond movies, but more for the action and spectacle than for the displays of intelligence work. (more…)

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It ought to be mighty difficult to make a bad production — be it documentary, fictionalized, semi-fictionalized — out of the career of master spy Kim Philby. Yet, somehow the makers of the six-part mini-series A Spy Among Friends have succeeded in that grim task. (First broadcast a year ago in England on ITVX; in America it’s streaming on MGM+.) This is not from lack of talent or production values. Rather, the problem appears to be poor knowledge of the subject and lack of respect for the available material, most notably the wonderful Ben Macintyre book of the same title, which inspired the TV series but did not inform it to any great extent — alas! (more…)

Trotsky on his death bed.

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But there are in our country semi-Trotskyites, quarter-Trotskyites, one-eighth Trotskyites, people who help us, not knowing of the terrorist organization but sympathizing with us. — Karl Radek at the Moscow show trials, 1937 (more…)

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The recent film Oppenheimer brought a renewed interest in the history of atomic espionage. The names certainly echo throughout history: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, David Greenglass, Morton Sobell, William Perl, Harry Gold, and more. Then there are other notables, more obscure but whose activities were considerably more damaging than the above-named. One was known in the Venona decrypts — a batch of intercepted Soviet cable traffic in the 1940s — by the codenames FOGEL and PERS. It still remains a mystery who “Perseus” really was, but this might have been Oppie himself, among other possibilities. (more…)

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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

Chambers planned his escape carefully and made his move in 1938. He hid some documents, including some papers and films that Hiss had intended to give to the Soviets, in a dumbwaiter in his cousin’s house. (more…)

Whittaker Chambers

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Part 1 of 2

The first significant anti-Communist victory in the Cold War’s early years did not involve any soldiers. In a century filled with warfare, the two principal contenders in this fight were men who were just too young to have served in the military during the First World War and yet too old to have served in the tragic and disastrous Second World War. (more…)

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A minimum put to good use is enough for anything. — Jules Verne, Around the World in 80 Days

Up, up and away
In my beautiful balloon.
— The 5th Dimension, “Up, Up and Away,” 1967

The curious thing about the Chinese spy balloon (which would be a great name for a restaurant in Chinatown) is not that it was from China. (more…)

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If the fraudulent 2020 elections have taught us anything, it’s that if you want to find what a country’s elites are most threatened by, look for what they are trying to suppress.

A four-part FOX News report from December 2001 recently resurfaced on YouTube, garnering millions of views. And then, suddenly, it was purged. You can still find it on Bitchute, Rumble, and Odysee — but not so easily on YouTube anymore. (more…)

Putin during his time as a KGB agent in the 1980s.

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Part 1 of 3 (Part 2 here)

Thomas Fasbender
Wladimir W. Putin: Eine politische Biographie (Vladimir Putin: A Political Biography)
Neuruppin Landt Manuscriptum 2021, 565 pp. (more…)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets convicted spy Johnathan Pollard upon his arrival to Israel

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Charlottesville Mayor Writes Weird Poem About How Charlottesville Rapes You

Unless things turn around right quick and proper, the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, will be seen as the Waterloo of white identity politics for the foreseeable future. (more…)

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A blue lorry, a tarpaulin over the back, drew up alongside the BMW. The driver signaled to Mesrine that he wanted to cut across him to turn right. Mesrine waved him on and then noticed with apprehension that another lorry was drawn up behind him. The first lorry drove in front of him and stopped suddenly, right in the path of the BMW. (more…)

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“I believe in the certainty of chance,” sang Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy in 1998, a wonderful songwriter musing on one of philosophy’s oldest conundrums. Are events pre-ordained or as yet unwritten? Do we live in a world of free will or determinism? All of us will look back on our lives and find at least one incident that changed (more…)

Yuri Bezmenov during his interview with Edward Griffin.

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A long campaign of demoralization leads to destabilization. Then some crisis conveniently emerges, which, upon close examination, appears aimed at bringing about a Leftist overthrow. Does that seem familiar? Since the public has been through two largely manufactured crises in the first half of 2020, maybe it even sounds like it’s been ripped from the headlines! Actually, all this is much older than one might expect. (more…)