![]() ![]() The CIA lost several assets in the Soviet Union as a result of the 1963 exposure of double agent Colonel Oleg Penkovski, an officer of the Soviet military intelligence agency, the GRU. The loss of an operative this way is not a figment of my imagination. He is the victim of information provided by a mole who has penetrated the CIA Soviet Operations Division. ![]() In this fiction piece a longtime CIA agent is brutally killed by the KGB during an operation in Moscow. In my opinion he comes the closest to "telling it like it is" among the authors who have made the genre popular.Įxperience with secrecy problems led me to include an example in my recent novel, Sasha Plotkin's Deceit. Please note that this criticism does not apply to the books and movies based on the work of British author John le Carré. The family, public and not-so-public lives of CIA operations officers serving abroad are nothing like those portrayed in these and similar films. Frequently, a new acquaintance will say, "I'd like to ask you to tell me what you really did for the CIA, but I know that you would then have to kill me." This is supposed to be funny, but it troubles me because it shows such a fundamental misunderstanding of what it's like to spend many years abroad in the service of the CIA. ![]() When introduced as a former CIA officer, I find myself looked at as larger-than-life. I have seen firsthand how much these espionage thrillers have influenced public opinion about espionage as it's conducted by our government. I was a career operations officer with the CIA, now long retired. ![]()
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