The New Spymasters Read Free Page A

that the Americans had ‘fundamentally different conceptions of the work of the intelligence services’. 8 And yet for governments whose secret services or law enforcement agencies employ spies like these, the potential benefit of having a ‘spy in the enemy camp’ is frequently too seductive, even if the ‘enemy’ is actually a close ally.
    Spies, then, are a persistent feature of modern states. But do they make much difference, in particular against the biggest threats that nations face today?
    Good specific human intelligence is still critical. It might arguably have permitted action to thwart the attacks of 11 September 2001, in which 2,753 people died, 9 or the tribal massacres in Rwanda, East Africa, in which 800,000 people died in just 100 days in 1994. But bad intelligence suggesting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction also helped lead to an invasion of that country which cost the lives of up to 500,000 people.
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    Espionage is an old and elemental human art, susceptible to endless permutations, which is why it is always hard to generalize about spying, though the motivations for betrayal – ideology, religion, money, blackmail etc. – tend to remain unchanged. As I once heard a former chief of British intelligence say, ‘There have been no new motives since the Mesopotamians.’
    This book is not a comprehensive survey. It reflects the experiences of those I have met while working primarily in the western hemisphere and dealing mainly with the security services of the United States and Britain, with some additional contacts in Germany and France and across the Middle East and South Asia. It omits huge developments in eastern Asia, South America and Africa.
    Just as the Cold War finished, I began a career as a journalist and writer. In the years that followed, working mainly abroad, and particularly reporting on national security, I have been privileged to meet spies, and the spymasters who recruit and run them, everywhere from cigar rooms in Washington, tea rooms in London, beer gardens in Germany and coffee shops in Cairo and Beirut, to military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and walled compounds in Pakistan. Some of them worked for secret services and some for other agencies in the military and law enforcement that also practise espionage.
    In this sense, I have grown up with a new generation of spies, watching as they redefined their enemies and raison d’être, and changed their character too. I was fortunate that this occurred at a time of greater openness, when someone such as myself – with only modest connections – was able to find a window into this world.
    While sharing the experiences and insights of the spies and spymasters I have met, I have also tried to maintain the critical distance that is lacking from most official publications or books written by retired spies, who, even if they do not say so, must submit their accounts for approval by the secret services.
    In addition, I have included experiences of the spied-upon: the violent militants or radical activists who come up with new strategies on a daily basis to escape attention. At a conference in Oxford, a former chief (known as ‘C’) of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service introduced me in a wary tone to the panel as ‘someone who has actually met al-Qaeda’.
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    Spying is an old habit. There are spies mentioned in the Bible and in the records of ancient China and Egypt. There were spies in ancient Mesopotamia and even documents marked ‘Top Secret’. From the twentieth century, spies have featured so often in books and films that it is easy to think we know the subject backwards. But much of what is said is confused, wrong or based around myths.
    One of the reasons spying can seem rather dated is that so many of the popular conceptions about it derive from the role played by spies in the confrontation between