Topics of Interest

American Spies presents the stunning histories of more than forty Americans who spied against their country during the past six decades. Michael Sulick, former head of the CIA's clandestine service, illustrates through these stories--some familiar, others much less well known--the common threads in the spy cases and the evolution of American attitudes toward espionage since the onset of the Cold War. After highlighting the accounts of many who have spied for traditional adversaries such as Russian and Chinese intelligence services, Sulick shows how spy hunters today confront a far broader spectrum of threats not only from hostile states but also substate groups, including those conducting cyberespionage. Sulick reveals six fundamental elements of espionage in these stories: the motivations that drove them to spy; their access and the secrets they betrayed; their tradecraft, i.e., the techniques of concealing their espionage; their exposure; their punishment; and, finally, the damage they inflicted on America's national security.

In 1987, the author, a senior U.S. Army counterintelligence (CI) agent, became the partner of a close friend, Clyde Lee Conrad, at the head of a spy ring which had sold NATO secrets for twelve years to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Russia. He helped his friend sell secrets, craft a new plan for recruitment of U.S. soldiers for Hungary, and plan kidnaping, torture, and murder. nine agents and couriers in five countries were eventually convicted of espionage and treason. No actual names are used in this book, without permission, except those connected with the spy ring. The operation and innovative trade-craft employed by the author were hailed by many as the most significant in U.S. Army counterespionage (CE) history.

The nineteenth century is no more. We find in the century that The Song Is Ended but the Melody Lingers on. We can see...that espionage not only continues but continues at a rate that is greater than what we have experienced in the past. While counterintelligence has continued to improve, we have been unable to eliminate the threat because the nations that oppose us have also increased and improved their intelligence against us. I seriously doubt that we have the patriotic motivation to help counterintelligence in stopping espionage. This saddens me, but since I am now in my eighty-sixth year, all I can leave you with is a phrase that has been part of our original national heritage: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

As director of the elite Foreign Counterintelligence Activity, author Stuart Herrington was the U.S. Army's top counterintelligence officer. In this thrilling and informative account he details one of the most damaging and delicate cases of espionage ever committed against the United States. An intriguing page-turner with more twists and turns than a spy novel, Traitors Among Us guides us through the intricate spy catcher's world of Cold War Berlin, showing us how the "game" was played when the stakes were as high as national survival.