October 8, 2004
[Have an opinion about this column? Visit the Secrecy
News discussion forum.]
A COUNTERINTELLIGENCE READER
A four-volume account of the history and evolution of U.S.
counterintelligence that was prepared for the now-defunct
National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC) is now available in
the public domain.
The encyclopedic 1500 page work begins with an account of counterintelligence
(CI) from the American
Revolution to World
War II (volume 1), proceeds with a study of CI in World War
II (volume 2), continues with a survey of the post-WWII atom bomb
spies up to the latest espionage cases (volume 3), and concludes
with a look at current counterintelligence challenges from China,
Russia and elsewhere (volume 4).
The study, prepared over several years by multiple authors, deals
in part with well-trodden ground such as the Venona intercepts.
But it also includes extended treatments of much more obscure
topics, such as counterintelligence in the Civil War, and
official accounts of numerous individual espionage cases that
never made headlines, as well as a U.S. government perspective on
"counterintelligence in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s."
For its own peculiar reasons, the Central Intelligence Agency
refused to provide a copy of the document under the Freedom of
Information Act. But NACIC's successor, the National
Counterintelligence Executive, agreed to release it.
See all four volumes of "A Counterintelligence Reader" edited by
Frank J. Rafalko here.
© 2004, Federation of American Scientists.
All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not
necessarily reflect those of Military.com.
|
