The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage.

The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage. By Frederick P. Hitz. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. 189 pages. $22.00. Reviewed by Colonel Stuart A. Herrington, USA Ret., author of Stalking the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix, Peace with Honor: An American Reports on Vietnam: 1973-1975, and Traitors Among Us: Inside the Spy Catcher's World.

Curious readers have a propensity for seeking out professional human intelligence officers who publish books about their experiences. Tell me, these readers inquire, is the reality of the spy versus counterspy game anything like the exciting espionage genre of Ian Fleming, Tom Clancy, or John le Carre? This, and many other timely and far more important issues, are either the principal focus of Frederick P. Hitz's The Great Game, or are suggested by his perceptive analysis of what has been called "the world's second oldest profession." Hitz, an attorney and a veteran of more than 18 years of CIA duty, including service on the operational side of the house, was inspired to write this book by a freshman seminar he teaches at Princeton University. He is well qualified to weave a tapestry of reflections on the craft of espionage by studying the characters of fictional and real spies, from le Carre's George Smiley to the CIA's infamous and all-too-real Aldrich Ames.

Hitz promises the reader that he will not "break cover" until the work's epilogue on the question of how the adventures of fictional spies stand up to the reality of the game, then embarks on a series of psychological vignettes of various espionage protagonists from both worlds. Functionally organized chapters on all aspects of the game of espionage follow, artfully embellished with real-world examples from the pantheon of heroes and anti-heroes of Cold War espionage cases. What makes the book particularly interesting is that Hitz, who clearly remains in touch and well-connected, is able to salt the text with informed and perceptive observations of the likes of Oleg Penkovsky, Pyotr Popov, Jonathon Pollard, Aldrich Ames, Clayton Lonetree, Felix Bloch, and Robert Hanssen. His ventures into these case files make it clear to the reader, as all professional human intelligence officers know, that truth was almost invariably stranger than fiction on the streets of Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, and Washington during the Cold War.

One chapter, "Recruitment," is of particular interest. As a human intelligence/counterintelligence officer, this reviewer had the opportunity to evaluate human intelligence operations in Panama in the wake of Operation Just Cause, in the Gulf at the conclusion of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and, most recently, in Iraq. In all three contingencies, one of the most prominent "lesson learned" from an intelligence perspective was the lack of human intelligence on the eve of the conflict that might have made operations more successful. American spymasters had failed to build a stable of spies who might have access to critical information--"actionable" is today's buzzword--whether that might be Manuel Noriega's favorite hideouts, Saddam Hussein's intentions with respect to Kuwait, or the real status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. Hitz provides a number of clues to the reasons for this perennial weakness.

Neither Director Robert Gates nor veteran CIA career operator Dewey Clarridge knew of any significant recruitments by American case officers of Soviet spies, Hitz informs the reader. Virtually all successful operations against Moscow, Clarridge recalls, resulted in Soviets who "walked in of their own volition and offeted their services, usually for money." Hitz also notes that in non-Soviet cases, such as operations in the mid-1980s against one "Middle East country" (read Iran), the CIA apparently lost almost its entire stable of human sources because almost 20 sources were reporting via secret writing to one accommodation address in Europe that had not been changed for a long time.

The disturbing dimension of such weaknesses is that today, as the nation wages the war on terror, there is near unanimity that human intelligence (HUMINT), not eavesdropping spy satellites or "eye in the sky" cameras, is essential to success. Yet it is apparent from this reviewer's experience, recent history, and Hitz's observations that we are far from having the kind of capability in this arena that the situation demands, causing this reviewer to label the HUMINT woes of Panama, the Gulf War, and the Iraq War as "lessons not-yet-learned."

Hitz's reflections and history reveal the critical role that good human intelligence can and has played in the making of history. Highly sensitive information provided by Soviet spy Oleg Penkovsky about Soviet strategic missile program vulnerabilities enabled President Kennedy to better cope with the Soviet threat to Berlin in 1961, and with Khrushchev in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Hitz also highlights Soviet spy Richard Sorge's penetration of the Japanese government that provided Moscow with assurances Japan would not attack the Soviet Far East, enabling Stalin to rush troops from Siberia to European Russia to blunt the Nazi advance in World War II.

Today, our nation is in a life-and-death struggle with a well-financed, fanatical adversary whose hatred of us is an article of religious faith. These are adversaries who make no secret of their ambition to obtain and use nuclear weapons, who have been appropriately labeled "undeterrable," and who have digested the lessons of asymmetric warfare against our vulnerable homeland. In such a strategic environment, national defense demands that the American intelligence community review its fundamental assumptions about the human intelligence mission, develop rules of engagement suitable to the penetration of "hard targets," cultivate a competent and bold army of case officers who can take on these targets, and develop a stable of well-placed human intelligence sources that will provide early warning of our worst fears. One would hope that, as Congress debates the revamping of the nation's intelligence community, its members and staffers take the few short hours required to give Mr. Hitz's book a quick read.

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Author:	Herrington, Stuart A.
Publication:	Parameters
Date:	Jun 22, 2005
Words:	977
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