Michael
Apr 12th 2010, 07:23 PM
Students are only as well informed as their sources of learning.
My neice just did some course that involved a study of espionage in the 20th century. Knowing that I'm rather familiar with the topic, she gave me her college text book on the topic to read. Lets just say that I freaked out several times in the first couple of pages. This isn't a textbook - it is officially approved propaganda. There is NOTHING in this book that isn't 100% vetted by the British and American governments. I can tell because of the lies and highly selective omissions that are incredibly obvious to one who is familiar with the topic.
First and foremost, the book begins by stating (on page 5), referring to the late 19th century, that,
military attaches reported on military developments in their host countries, but they did so in a gentlemanly and honorable fashion. They were not expected to engage in "secret service" and were discouraged from even the slightest involvement in such activities.
This is laughable and 100% pure propaganda. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the history of international espionage and intelligence-gathering techniques knows that the ENTIRE HISTORY of this field is one that is entirely dominated by ambassadors, military attaches and embassies as the primary and original operators. But this textbook on the topic seeks to deny it on page 5 of the introduction. :lol:
Btw, how does one do espionage in a "gentlemanly and honorable fashion"? There is nothing honorable about spying and stealing information.
This bald-faced lie is contradicted (over and over again) on just about every page that follows as the book records how each of the western nations in turn set up official intelligence gathering organizations - every one of them spawned out of embassy-based 'military attaches'. :lol:
One of the most hilarious 'anecdotes' supplied concerns the development/creation of formal 'spy agencies' in the first decades of the 20th century. In one chapter, we learn that the British established their spy agency in 1907 in direct response to evidence that Germany had 'hundreds' of spies working in Britain at that time. Britain needed to establish their agency to counter this threat. Next chapter, we learn that France and Germany created their intelligence agencies some few years later - in direct response to the threat posed by the existence of the British spy agency! The authors even assert that in 1911, Germany had ZERO foreign agents at that time.
There is not one word in the book about how the British spy agency was created to counter a phantom threat that didn't actually exist - or how this caused the creation of other spy services in other nations. Given that such deceptions are at the root of the creation of these agencies in the first place, is it any wonder that they've been rather well known for pedelling bullshit stories ever since? Apparently the first goal of every spy agency is to protect the spy agency and create 'demand' for its product.
There are many other such examples of this throughout the book. Apparently, throughout the 20th century, we are regaled with endless examples of British and American intelligence agency success stories. Not a word on any British or American intelligence agency failures. Apparently, the only spies in the world that ever break the law, do anything illegal/immoral or have catastrophic intelligence failures are Germany, USSR/Russia, Austria, Italy and Japan - never USA or Britain.
There are a couple of pages that gloss over the 'Philby, Burgess & McLean' episode, but not enough material there for anyone to make the correct assessment that the KGB had massive success in penetrating British Intelligence agencies for about forty years running and that the KGB's top mole (Philby) was about to be appointed head of Britain's intelligence agency at the time. This is probably the single most famous example of international espionage in all of the history of spies - yet one wouldn't know it from reading this college textbook on "Century of Spies - Intelligence in the 20th century".
Likewise Soviet-defector Igor Gouzenko, who barely rates a single paragraph - and buried in the footnotes are only cryptic references to the 'difficulty' that Gouzenko posed for western intelligence agencies. No mention is made of the efforts of the Canadian/British governments to whisk Gouzenko back to the USSR (no questions asked) nor the subsequent efforts to silence Gouzenko (who has been asserted to be the most valuable defector from the USSR ever). Arguably, they were fairly successful - Gouzenko's revelations have never been made public. Indeed, the only mention of Gouzenko is in reference to the fact that his material didn't affect Philby - but the Gouzenko episode suggests that KGB moles were already in very high (commanding) positions in both Canada and British intelligence services - possibly the CIA as well.
Basically Gouzenko provided evidence (and codenames) for every KGB spy working in USA in 1945. This apparently was embarrassing to the USA and thus, the whole episode was swept under the carpet - and none of this is apparently worthy of coverage in a college-level textbook devoted to the topic!
When it comes to the topic of code-breaking, the book borders on "cheerleading" in its reports on the topic, including the most famous code-breaking success of all time - 'enigma'. The book doesn't mention that success here came from the lucky capture by the Royal Navy of a German submarine - with the enigma machine and its code-books! Reading this book, one is left with the impression that the 'enigma' code was broken by hard-working and brilliant human code-breakers in Britain.
I could go on and on citing examples of how this book glosses over the failures, the scandals, illegal actions and the studied duplicity of British and American intelligence gathering services. No questions are ever raised about these issues - they are only mentioned in passing. And just to keep the proper perspective here, this book does go into exhastive detail about Soviet intelligence failures in Poland and Germany (1914-1950) with muliple chapters detailing obscure operations. German intelligence failings in WW1 are also given chapter-length treatment in exhaustive detail.
Bottom line is that any college student who relies upon this textbook for their knowledge of spies and intelligence gathering in the 20th century is quite likely to end up looking rather ignorant and uniformed about the actual history of spies and intelligence gathering in the 20th century. What they will most likely have is a very positive view of the 'noble' role of Western intelligence gathering agencies (and how evil Germany, Japan and Russia are). One might think this textbook was published by a grant from the US Information Agency and the budget falls under "outreach" programs! :lol:
A Century of Spies - Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, by Jeffrey T. Richelson;
Oxford University Press, Oxford: 1995.
The 'about the author' blurp describes the author as a member of the US National Security Archive. No doubt the author's access there is dependent upon favorable books published that flatter the US Security establishment.
And this is the crap we teach our students. We call it 'education' but I call it propaganda. It ain't the student's fault they are ignorant of actual history if this is the kind of crap they are being taught.
(and no, they didn't cover any other source material - this is the official textbook for the whole course - I asked!)
My neice just did some course that involved a study of espionage in the 20th century. Knowing that I'm rather familiar with the topic, she gave me her college text book on the topic to read. Lets just say that I freaked out several times in the first couple of pages. This isn't a textbook - it is officially approved propaganda. There is NOTHING in this book that isn't 100% vetted by the British and American governments. I can tell because of the lies and highly selective omissions that are incredibly obvious to one who is familiar with the topic.
First and foremost, the book begins by stating (on page 5), referring to the late 19th century, that,
military attaches reported on military developments in their host countries, but they did so in a gentlemanly and honorable fashion. They were not expected to engage in "secret service" and were discouraged from even the slightest involvement in such activities.
This is laughable and 100% pure propaganda. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the history of international espionage and intelligence-gathering techniques knows that the ENTIRE HISTORY of this field is one that is entirely dominated by ambassadors, military attaches and embassies as the primary and original operators. But this textbook on the topic seeks to deny it on page 5 of the introduction. :lol:
Btw, how does one do espionage in a "gentlemanly and honorable fashion"? There is nothing honorable about spying and stealing information.
This bald-faced lie is contradicted (over and over again) on just about every page that follows as the book records how each of the western nations in turn set up official intelligence gathering organizations - every one of them spawned out of embassy-based 'military attaches'. :lol:
One of the most hilarious 'anecdotes' supplied concerns the development/creation of formal 'spy agencies' in the first decades of the 20th century. In one chapter, we learn that the British established their spy agency in 1907 in direct response to evidence that Germany had 'hundreds' of spies working in Britain at that time. Britain needed to establish their agency to counter this threat. Next chapter, we learn that France and Germany created their intelligence agencies some few years later - in direct response to the threat posed by the existence of the British spy agency! The authors even assert that in 1911, Germany had ZERO foreign agents at that time.
There is not one word in the book about how the British spy agency was created to counter a phantom threat that didn't actually exist - or how this caused the creation of other spy services in other nations. Given that such deceptions are at the root of the creation of these agencies in the first place, is it any wonder that they've been rather well known for pedelling bullshit stories ever since? Apparently the first goal of every spy agency is to protect the spy agency and create 'demand' for its product.
There are many other such examples of this throughout the book. Apparently, throughout the 20th century, we are regaled with endless examples of British and American intelligence agency success stories. Not a word on any British or American intelligence agency failures. Apparently, the only spies in the world that ever break the law, do anything illegal/immoral or have catastrophic intelligence failures are Germany, USSR/Russia, Austria, Italy and Japan - never USA or Britain.
There are a couple of pages that gloss over the 'Philby, Burgess & McLean' episode, but not enough material there for anyone to make the correct assessment that the KGB had massive success in penetrating British Intelligence agencies for about forty years running and that the KGB's top mole (Philby) was about to be appointed head of Britain's intelligence agency at the time. This is probably the single most famous example of international espionage in all of the history of spies - yet one wouldn't know it from reading this college textbook on "Century of Spies - Intelligence in the 20th century".
Likewise Soviet-defector Igor Gouzenko, who barely rates a single paragraph - and buried in the footnotes are only cryptic references to the 'difficulty' that Gouzenko posed for western intelligence agencies. No mention is made of the efforts of the Canadian/British governments to whisk Gouzenko back to the USSR (no questions asked) nor the subsequent efforts to silence Gouzenko (who has been asserted to be the most valuable defector from the USSR ever). Arguably, they were fairly successful - Gouzenko's revelations have never been made public. Indeed, the only mention of Gouzenko is in reference to the fact that his material didn't affect Philby - but the Gouzenko episode suggests that KGB moles were already in very high (commanding) positions in both Canada and British intelligence services - possibly the CIA as well.
Basically Gouzenko provided evidence (and codenames) for every KGB spy working in USA in 1945. This apparently was embarrassing to the USA and thus, the whole episode was swept under the carpet - and none of this is apparently worthy of coverage in a college-level textbook devoted to the topic!
When it comes to the topic of code-breaking, the book borders on "cheerleading" in its reports on the topic, including the most famous code-breaking success of all time - 'enigma'. The book doesn't mention that success here came from the lucky capture by the Royal Navy of a German submarine - with the enigma machine and its code-books! Reading this book, one is left with the impression that the 'enigma' code was broken by hard-working and brilliant human code-breakers in Britain.
I could go on and on citing examples of how this book glosses over the failures, the scandals, illegal actions and the studied duplicity of British and American intelligence gathering services. No questions are ever raised about these issues - they are only mentioned in passing. And just to keep the proper perspective here, this book does go into exhastive detail about Soviet intelligence failures in Poland and Germany (1914-1950) with muliple chapters detailing obscure operations. German intelligence failings in WW1 are also given chapter-length treatment in exhaustive detail.
Bottom line is that any college student who relies upon this textbook for their knowledge of spies and intelligence gathering in the 20th century is quite likely to end up looking rather ignorant and uniformed about the actual history of spies and intelligence gathering in the 20th century. What they will most likely have is a very positive view of the 'noble' role of Western intelligence gathering agencies (and how evil Germany, Japan and Russia are). One might think this textbook was published by a grant from the US Information Agency and the budget falls under "outreach" programs! :lol:
A Century of Spies - Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, by Jeffrey T. Richelson;
Oxford University Press, Oxford: 1995.
The 'about the author' blurp describes the author as a member of the US National Security Archive. No doubt the author's access there is dependent upon favorable books published that flatter the US Security establishment.
And this is the crap we teach our students. We call it 'education' but I call it propaganda. It ain't the student's fault they are ignorant of actual history if this is the kind of crap they are being taught.
(and no, they didn't cover any other source material - this is the official textbook for the whole course - I asked!)