David C. Martin

Counter-intelligence is the strangest, most paranoid of games. It is, in the words of James Angleton, a "wilderness of mirrors" where the line between source and target, fact and fiction, trust and betrayal shatter into a million shards. Martin's 1980 book discusses the two most important American counter-intelligence operators, William “King” Harvey and James Jesus Angleton, and their eventual self-destruction.

Angleton was the epitome of the spymaster, educated, aesthetic, austere, a show more man of infinitely secrets and layers of deception. Harvey was a hard-charging ex-FBI agent, an outsider with a drinking problem and a lot of guns. The original seed of destruction was Kim Philby, and the other moles of the Cambridge Five. Philby was the head of counter-intelligence at MI-6, and a candidate for head of MI-6 itself. He was also a KGB asset. Harvey prosecuted the case Philby, and in the wake Angleton swore a personal vow never to believe anybody.

Harvey followed his Philby break by overseeing a top-secret tunnel in Berlin that tapped into Soviet communications, as well as the covert war against Cuba, post-Bay of Pigs. The American James Bond, as he was dubbed, was a bull in a China shop, and he was forced to resign after a disastrous tour in Rome. But unlike others in the CIA, he was entirely willing to talking about the potential assassination of Castro by Mafia linked agents.

Angleton went the other way. The defection of Anatoliy Golitsyn in 1961 provided a stable point upon which Angleton built an immense web of paranoia. According to Golitsyn, the KGB still had a highly placed mole in the CIA, and worse had a deliberate longterm disinformation strategy involving fake defectors. Every subsequent defector, no matter what they brought in to prove their bonafidas, could be assumed to be disinformation. The mole could be anyone, and in paranoia, Angleton burned bridges with other intelligence agencies and destroyed careers. In final retrospect, if there was mole, he could have done no more damage than Angleton actually did. Angleton was finally forced out in the wake of the Church hearings, where in retirement he used reporters are surrogates for his life of deception.

A fascinating history and biography, Wilderness of Mirrors shows that what's behind the lie is another lie. show less

Dr Michael S Goodman has chosen to discuss Wilderness of Mirrors by David C Martin on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Pioneers of Intelligence Gathering, saying that:


"...It tells the story of James Angleton, the man in charge of counter-intelligence at the CIA, stopping people from infiltrating the organisation. There was a Russian defector in the 1960s, Anatoly Golitsyn, who went to the States and started talking and Angleton basically believed him when he said there was show more a mole inside the CIA. He tore the CIA apart looking for the mole and the question was: was he a KGB plant getting the CIA to tie themselves up in knots?.."


The full interview is available here: http://fivebooks.com/interviews/dr-michael-goodman-on-pioneers-intelligence-gath... show less