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 Lev Navrozov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 He settled in New York City where he quickly learned that there was no market for his eloquent and powerful English language attacks on the Soviet Union. To this day, he writes without fear or favor or the conventions of polite society. He chaired the "Alternative to the New York Times Committee" in 1980, challenged the editors of the New York Times to a debate (which they declined) and became a columnist for the New York City Tribune. His columns are today read in both English and Russian.
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In his 278-page book ÒThe Craft of IntelligenceÓ Allen Dulles (who, before he started to ply the craft, had made a living as a lawyer) describes how he came to Washington in 1950 and then (owing to his brother John Foster?) Òremained with CIA for eleven years, almost nine years as its director.Ó
The problem of the CIA had been Òhuman intelligence.Ó Have you heard the same complaint in 2004? With the only difference of target countries. In 1950 the target country was Soviet Russia, and today it has been Iraq, not Putin's Russia or, God forbid, China, A PRIORI the most peaceful country possible whose ambitions do not go beyond Taiwan.
In his testimonies in Congress, the former lawyer Allen Dulles explained his introduction or creation of Òhuman intelligenceÓ in the CIA's intelligence/espionage vis-ˆ-vis Soviet Russia under Stalin (who died in 1953) and thereafter.
A young American learns Russian Òas to the language born.Ó He is parachuted into Russia, rents an apartment, is taken by Russians as one of their own, makes a Soviet career, and sends human espionage data to the CIA as colonel of the General Staff of the Soviet Army or, still better, of the Soviet intelligence.
Members of the congressional committee were overawed. In the last years of Stalin's life there were ÒtrialsÓ of top Communists in Eastern Europe, who were too independent of Stalin, and the ÒdefendantsÓ were routinely charged with being spies (as they were charged in the Moscow ÒtrialsÓ of Lenin's Òold guardÓ in 1936 to 1938). A Soviet propagandist quipped with due servility that if paradise were the target of Allen Dulles, it would have been ridden with his spies.
The congressional committee reminded all that respectfully to Dulles. He ought to have explained that the ÒtrialsÓ in Eastern Europe were phony, and the ÒdefendantsÓ had been crudely framed up and represented as spies without any evidence, but on the strength of their ÒconfessionsÓ extorted from them under torture.
Instead, Dulles created the impression that he could not say ÒyesÓ or ÒnoÓ (secrecy!), from which the congressional committee could conclude that, yes, Dulles had riddled the target countries with his spies up to the Communist top. This is what the craft of intelligence is!
Now, from those radiant (or insane) CIA-congressional dreams of the early 1950s let's go to the prosaic reality.
To begin with, I have never met an American who would have known Russian Òas to the language born.Ó The reviewers of my book ÒThe Education of Lev Navrozov,Ó which I had smuggled out of Soviet Russia and published at Harper & Row, used to say that I know English Òas to the language born.Ó
Even if this was true, I was the only case in Russia. The Soviet intelligence/espionage never sent to the United States as a spy a Russian speaking English Òas to the language born.Ó What for? Phillip Hansen, a top FBI official, a patriot-conservative, a family man, and a church-goer, decided to add some $100,000 a year to his FBI salary. The spy recruitment is easy. A U.S. official can go for his vacation to an exotic Third-World country where there is no FBI to detect his contact with a member of the Soviet Russian embassy or consulate. On the other hand, imagine an American, speaking Russian Òas to the language bornÓ and parachuted by Dulles into Soviet Russia. He could not rent an apartment or reside anywhere because to do so required a Òresidence permit,Ó issued by the police on the basis of his internal passport, which contains the data on all his earlier Òplaces of residenceÓ and his places of work.
As soon as it was discovered that the Russian-speaking American had no internal passport either in his possession or as a copy in the police, he would be arrested and shot as a spy.
I learned English Òas to the language bornÓ because this was my passion. It is doubtful that Dulles could convince many Americans to learn Russian Òas to the language bornÓ in order to be parachuted into Soviet Russia and be shot.
Dulles lost his craft by accident. The CIA decided to overthrow Castro. The fiasco proved that the CIA understood nothing in Cuba. So what? Ignorance had been the normal state of the CIA. But this time the U.S. public SAW this ignorance, and Dulles, the self-styled Òcraftsman of intelligence,Ó was dismissed. Otherwise, the former lawyer would have remained the Director of Central Intelligence up to his death or physical incapacity.
If a spy is defined as an American or Westerner who has learned the local native language Òas to the language bornÓ and then finds himself in the relevant dictatorship, then there has been not a single Western spy since 1917 when the first 20th-century dictatorship came into being.
Soon after Lenin came to power the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) sent into Russia Sidney Reilly, a former Russian Jew, who has been described as the greatest spy in the history of British or Western espionage. These book-length descriptions read as Òadventures of a clinical idiot.Ó When he was arrested, he promised to tell all he knew about the SIS in exchange for his life. He kept his promise, but was shot nevertheless.
So, what is the moral?
Yes, human intelligence or espionage is a craft. But as a craft, it requires talent or genius. Not only the desire to receive a salary. After Lenin took power in Russia in 1917, in the West it was believed that the British SIS is a ÒcorrectÓ bureaucracy. In 1950 it was believed that the CIA bureaucracy had not been Òcorrect,Ó and here the one-time lawyer Allen Dulles was to make it Òcorrect.Ó About 54 years later it has been discovered again that the CIA bureaucracy is not Òcorrect.Ó
What has been actually going on?
In the 1970s the CIA testified in Congress. I discovered that the testimonies consisted of Soviet and Chinese propaganda. Of course! A young university graduate who majored in Russian or Chinese joined the CIA in the 1960s. The salaries and social benefits were good, the cafeteria was excellent, the pension early and generous. The only trouble was that the new (and old) employees could and would not be spies in Russia or China because they would have been shot, and this is extremely unpleasant. Besides, their families would not have liked it either, sued the CIA, and the Director of Central Intelligence would have been dismissed, be he even Allen Dulles, the craftsman of intelligence.
But the new employees knew Russian or Chinese enough to read the Soviet and Chinese propaganda. So here they were copying, in their excellent spacious offices, Soviet or Chinese propaganda, which Congress was to take for top secret espionage data, obtained by Americans knowing Russian or Chinese Òas to the language bornÓ and parachuted into Russia and China respectively.
The Soviet and Chinese propaganda presented Russia and China as the most peaceful countries possible. That corresponded to what the U.S. presidents had been doingÑÒestablishing good relationsÓ with the Soviet and Chinese Òstatesmen.Ó
My ÒCommentaryÓ (September 1978) article about the CIA's testimonies in Congress was reprinted or outlined by over 500 periodicals all over the West, and the presidential candidate Ronald Reagan read it Òin the proofs,Ó and he told me as we met that a new CIA was necessary. But in 2004 I have been hearing what I wrote in 1978: the CIA has no human intelligence. The CIA was as ignorant about Iraq in the 2000s as about Russia and China in the 1970s. Well, today the CIA has been not simply ignorant about ChinaÑit has been pretending that China does not exist as a military power.
To send into Iraq in 2000 an American, speaking a local dialect of Iraq Òas to the dialect bornÓ? He would have been shot. Instead, the CIA put before the U.S. National Security Council an aerial photograph taken over Iraq. See those factories? They produce weapons of mass destruction!
But why not sugar or buttons?
To prove that they produced WMD, and not sugar or buttons, required human intelligence, of which the CIA had none. So the CIA had to believe that the Iraqi factories, visible on aerial photographs were producing WMD, and not sugar or buttons.
The CIA's bold flight of imagination was quite pleasant to the U.S. National Security Council on which the job of the Director of Central Intelligence depended. The first thing of importance is to get a cushy job, and the second thing of importance is to keep it.
Stalin would have shot his chiefs of intelligence/espionage had they been as deceitful as have been all U.S. directors of Central Intelligence. But in the democratic Washington, D.C., they have known well how to get the job of Director of Central Intelligence and how to keep it. Not a single one of them has been put on trial.
Yes, it has been assumed that the trouble with U.S. intelligence/espionage is the wrong bureaucratization Ñ U.S. intelligence/espionage should be re-bureaucratized, as was done by Dulles in the 1950s. Another Allen Dulles, a lawyer, imagining himself a great craftsman of intelligence, is necessary to create a new bureaucracy playing at espionage until something happens showing that there is no espionage, and the trouble is that this event may prove to be the nano-annihilation of the West by the Òsupreme leadersÓ of China, which the Western intelligence/espionage has stopped noticing as a military power.
Lev Navrozov's (navlev@cloud9.net] new book is available on-line at www.levnavrozov.com. To request an outline of the book, send an e-mail to webmaster@levnavrozov.com.