Deep Cover Spies Play Game With Long View - WSJ

[Dreadnaught]

Interesting read given the current Ruskiegate spy scandal in the US.

NEW YORK JULY 6, 2010
Browne, Paul Browne: A Cold-War Spy Story
By SEAN GARDINER

Ever since news broke that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had rounded up alleged Russian spies in New York City, the lingering question has been: What were they after with all their B-movie spycraft?

Paul Browne thinks he has a pretty good idea. Long before he had ascended to his position as a deputy New York City police commissioner, Mr. Browne had firsthand experience being recruited by a Russian agent—a Soviet spy betting a relationship with a small-town newspaper reporter would one day bear fruit.

The year was 1973, and Mr. Browne, then 24 years old, had taken a leave from his job as a political reporter at the Watertown Daily Times to get a master's in journalism at Columbia University. As part of a class taught at the United Nations, he met and became friendly with Alex Yakovlev, a 32-year-old who broadcast U.N. news to Eastern Europe.

Mr. Yakovlev started wooing Mr. Browne over drinks and dinner. At one point, he offered Mr. Browne $30 to write a freelance article "on anything you wish." At a subsequent dinner, Mr. Yakovlev questioned Mr. Browne about his teachers and asked if there were any foreign students in his class. He offered to pay Mr. Browne for notes he took in his class and for the names of any diplomats Mr. Browne quoted anonymously in stories he wrote for the course.

Mr. Yakovlev also asked Mr. Browne to pretend he didn't know him if they saw each other in the U.N. building. In the future, Mr. Yakovlev said of their relationship, "when you work for a position at a big newspaper or a government position—maybe even your friends would use it against you." That was enough for Mr. Browne. He called one of his teachers, who then called the dean, who recommended that the FBI get involved.

At his first meeting with Mr. Browne, federal agents produced pictures of Mr. Yakovlev and some of his associates and said they believed Mr. Yakovlev was attempting to recruit Mr. Browne to be an "agent of influence." They were investing in Mr. Browne in hopes they could use the association to blackmail him later if he achieved an influential position. The FBI told Mr. Browne that Mr. Yakovlev was probably interested in him because his parents were born in Ireland, and the Russians believed people with parents born in foreign countries were not as loyal.

The agents also said to expect the Russians to try to introduce an attractive female spy for a sexual liaison as a way of luring him to their side. "Young and single, I was prepared to serve my country. But, sadly, I was the only cute redhead in the mix," Mr. Browne joked.

At the behest of the FBI, Mr. Browne continued to meet with Mr. Yakovlev. Mr. Browne said he would, but that he wouldn't take money from either the Russian or the FBI. The FBI produced the freelance article Mr. Yakovlev had suggested; it was about the reaction of suburban New Yorkers to the Watergate scandal.

When Mr. Browne gave Mr. Yakovlev the FBI's story with his byline, the Russian was exceedingly pleased. He very obviously peeled off three $10 bills and slid the money across the table in plain view. Mr. Browne later turned the money over to FBI agents who told him he had most likely been photographed accepting the money.

Mr. Browne continued to meet with Mr. Yakovlev, drinking the most expensive beer and smoking stale Cuban cigars. Mr. Yakovlev talked about future writing assignments and asked Mr. Browne to attend Jewish Defense League meetings, which Mr. Browne refused to do. In November 1974, Mr. Yakovlev said he was headed back to the Soviet Union for a vacation. He called a few months later, saying he was back in New York City, and the two had lunch one final time.

n May 1975, Mr. Browne had graduated and headed back to Watertown. Mr. Yakovlev tried to call a few times after that, but Mr. Browne ignored his messages. He'd had enough of the spy game, but later that year he wrote about his recruitment for the Washington Post. In the piece, the young reporter couldn't fathom why Mr. Yakovlev had picked him: "And what I still find most curious is the enormous amount of time and energy Yakovlev expended on our encounters."

But 35 years later, it seems clearer. Since Columbia and Watertown, Mr. Browne has been chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan and for the Office of Enforcement of the Treasury Department, where he had top-secret clearance and sat in on daily federal law-enforcement briefings. Today, he is one of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly's top policy strategists.

"At the time it made no sense to me," Mr. Browne said about Mr. Yakovlev's attempted recruitment. "But in retrospect, the Russians were in it for the long haul. Had I been turned, it would have paid dividends for them years later."

Write to Sean Gardiner at sean.gardiner@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...349509962.html

[Loki]

If anything, this provided a great way for inept Russian spies to spend a great deal of money on American products. The interesting part is that at least several of the spies seem to be communists. I wonder if anyone told them that the Soviet Union no longer exists (including someone who was a professor for a semester).

[Ominous Gamer]

Now I have to move all my hot russian spy posts from the WTF thread to over here

[termite]

So what is the plan for the kids born in the US to apparently American families that turned out to be Russian spies?

[GGT]

Did a vampire get her neck or what?

What's fun to think about is the reverse---Americans in Russia trying to lure spies, get 'em young.

[Dreadnaught]

EUROPE NEWS JULY 7, 2010

Where Spies Go Undercovered

Russian Media's Subdued Approach Contrasts With Splash in U.S. and Europe
By GREGORY L. WHITE

MOSCOW—The case of 11 people accused of infiltrating the U.S. as deep-cover spies for Russia has made a news splash in America and Britain since they were arrested over a week ago. But in Russia's largely state-controlled media, the story is mostly relegated to the back pages—when it appears at all.


The contrast highlights a quandary the espionage scandal has created for the Kremlin, which has invested heavily in a "reset" in U.S.-Russia relations under President Barack Obama. A strong reaction could endanger the warming trend between the two countries—and raise uncomfortable questions about whether the Kremlin was right to trust Washington.

"For a long time, the state channels had portrayed America as the enemy. Then after America was shown as a friend, suddenly she turns around and plays this nasty trick," said Marianna Maximovskaya, host of a weekly news program on RENTV, a privately owned channel whose news coverage is less tightly controlled than that of big national networks. "The authorities didn't understand what to do."

On Russia's main national state-run television channels, the spy story led broadcasts only on the first day the news broke. The reports, delivered in a neutral manner, focused on official statements from Russia and the U.S. As both the Kremlin and the White House played down any impact from the scandal on relations, it faded from newscasts in Russia. The reports that did run adopted the ironic tone set by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who joked about the cloak-and-dagger nature of the accusations in a meeting with former President Bill Clinton.

"Americans Don't Understand Who the FBI Has Caught," was the July 1 headline in the official Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper on a story about reports in the U.S. that questioned whether the accused spies had obtained any sensitive information.


By the weekend, state-controlled Russian media had moved on. Reports that some of the accused spies had confessed were brief and delivered late in newscasts. None of the weekend analytical programs that review the week's major news on the state-controlled networks mentioned the spy scandal.

While tabloids in the U.S. and U.K. have been transfixed with salacious details of the glamorous life of Anna Chapman, one of the accused, only a few Russian outlets have followed those stories. Tvoi Den, one of Russia's raciest tabloids, ran semi-nude photos of Ms. Chapman but quoted a friend of the accused spy threatening to "punch in the face" Ms. Chapman's British ex-husband for releasing the pictures.


Despite the drop in coverage, interest in the spy scandal remains high in Russia, according to Yandex, the country's largest Internet search engine. Queries related to the spy scandal and Ms. Chapman remain among the most popular, ranking alongside those about the World Cup soccer matches, a Yandex spokeswoman said. Internet media, largely relying on translations of reports from the U.S. and U.K., continue to cover the spy case.

Coming just days after President Dmitry Medvedev's first state visit to the U.S., the timing of the spy arrests has raised hackles in Moscow. "These things don't happen by accident," said Alexei Pushkov, a foreign-policy specialist and television host. "It will have a certain sobering effect."

The sometimes-comic details of the alleged spies' work, combined with suggestions that information they're accused of collecting could have been found on the Internet, are hardly flattering for Russia's intelligence services, which have been lavished with Kremlin praise and funding.

Russian analysts and journalists note that the Kremlin focuses its informal control over news coverage on outlets with substantial reach inside Russia—primarily the big national networks and newspapers. Media with lesser reach domestically tend to have greater freedom.

"I can't say on TV that the [Foreign Intelligence Service] is rotten down to the roots," said Mikhail Leontiev, host of a weekly show on the main state channel, noting that he did raise that issue in his magazine, Odnako, which has a much smaller audience.

One Russian state-run network has stayed with the story: Russia Today, the Kremlin's English-language news channel mainly distributed outside Russia. "Ever since the first reports....this has been the top story on RT," Margarita Simonyan, Russia Today's editor-in-chief, said in an email. "More than 250,000 people have watched RT videos about the spy scandal on YouTube," she said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...461486698.html

How lovely!