Quotes About Espionage

For an intelligence service, there is no process more painful and debilitating than an internal hunt for an unidentified traitor. The damage Philby did to MI6's self-confidence was far greater and more enduring than anything he inflicted by spying for the KGB. A mole does not just foment mistrust. Like a heretic, he undermines the coherence of faith itself.

Colonel Vivian had convinced himself that Ivor Montagu's enthusiasm for Ping-Pong was a cover for something more sinister.

All spies need to feel they are loved.

William Gerbers" was a German-Swiss businessman living in Liverpool who had been conjured into being by Garbo before he even arrived in Britain.

Vivian was not alone in thinking that a man who spent so much time discussing table tennis was probably a spy.

When informed that a clerk at the Portuguese embassy was spying for both the Germans and the Italians, he wrote: "Why don't you shoot him?

And he began recruiting sluggish British carrier pigeons to be sent on this secret mission to infiltrate the German pigeon service and destroy it from within. Soon there was a force of 350 double-agent pigeons at his disposal, disguised as German pigeons, ready to do their bit.

The KGB had long excelled in the dark art of manufacturing "fake news.

The greatest writers of spy fiction have, in almost every case, worked in intelligence before turning to writing. W. Somerset Maugham, John Buchan, Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, John le Carré: all had experienced the world of espionage firsthand. For the task of the spy is not so very different from that of the novelist: to create an imaginary, credible world and then lure others into it by words and artifice.

The KGB, however, was convinced that the entire Soviet embassy was the target of a gigantic and sustained eavesdropping campaign, and the fact that this snooping was invisible confirmed that the British must be very good at it.

Richard Brooman-White, Elliott's chum who had eased Philby into Section V, came to stay in 1946 and was very nearly immolated when a waitress in Elliott's favorite restaurant attempted to flambé an omelet at the table by pouring brandy onto a heated pan, causing a violent explosion that set fire to the hair of a Swedish diner. Elliott extinguished her with three glasses of white wine. Philby made a point of stopping off in Switzerland during his

Some 480 suspected enemy spies were detained in Britain in the course of the war. Just 77 of these were German. The rest were, in descending order of magnitude, Belgian, French, Norwegian, and Dutch, and then just about every conceivable race and nationality, including several who were stateless. After 1940, very few were British. Of the total intercepted, around a quarter were subsequently used as double agents, of whom perhaps 40 made a significant contribution.

Major Müntzinger's boast that Germany had "many agents in England" was entirely correct. But so far from being "excellent," most of them were hopeless, many were actively disloyal, and a number were already working against Germany as double agents.

Far from being an anticlimax, Garbo's carefully timed non-warning had achieved its purpose. He had passed over what must be seen, in German eyes, as the most important intelligence tip-off of the war, and they had missed it. Like the Madrid radio operator, the Germans had been caught napping.

John Cecil Masterman:

Many of Philby's colleagues in MI6 would cling to that presumption of innocence as an article of faith. To accept otherwise would be to admit that they had all been fooled; it would make the intelligence and diplomatic services look entirely idiotic.

If the Germans invaded and there was a danger the double agents might fall into enemy hands, "they will be liquidated forcibly." Robertson was becoming fond of his brood of double agents. But he would not hesitate to kill them if he had to.

While Bevan and Clarke began weaving together the strands of Operation Barclay, Montagu and Cholmondeley went hunting for a dead body. In his initial plan, Cholmondeley had assumed one could simply pop into a military hospital and pick a bargain cadaver off the shelf for ten pounds. The reality was rather different.

agents abroad. Within MI6, Section V played

To retain German confidence, Agent Skoot would need to feed his handlers some true but harmless information—known in spy jargon as chicken feed, filling and substantial but lacking in real nourishment.

Spies tend to make extravagant claims for their craft, but the reality of espionage is that it frequently makes little lasting difference.

Anthony Blunt: His Lives (London, 2001), p. 273. 24 That's what Tiggers: Ibid. 25 He was a very nice: Andrew, Defence of

America and Britain were working on the bomb together, at astonishing scientific speed and in deepest secrecy. Neither was helping, or informing, its other main ally, the Soviet Union. But Moscow was secretly obtaining that help anyway, through its spies. Not only did Stalin know all about the bomb, but he knew that Britain and America did not know he knew (which is the gold dust of intelligence). And he demanded that his spies find out more.

The essence of espionage is betrayal of trust," Ames declared. He was wrong: the essence of successful agent running is the maintenance of trust, the supplanting of one allegiance by another, higher, loyalty.