American Spies: Espionage against the United States from the Cold War to the Present

by Michael J. Sulick

What’s your secret?

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.

The book is the sequel to Sulick’s popular Spying in America: Espionage from the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War. Together they serve as a basic introduction to understanding America’s vulnerability to espionage, which has oscillated between peacetime complacency and wartime vigilance, and continues to be shaped by the inherent conflict between our nation’s security needs and our commitment to the preservation of civil liberties.

Genres: History, Espionage, Nonfiction, Politics

389 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

American Spies will soon be reprinted in a paperback
edition by Georgetown University Press. The book is a companion volume to Michael Sulick's first study, Spying in America: Espionage from the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War.
Author Michael Sulick, after a twenty-eight year CIA career, retired as the agency's Director of the National Clandestine Service, where he was responsible for coordinating the espionage activities of the US Intelligence Community and managing global covert operations on terrorism, weapons proliferation, and regional and country-specific issues. He also served as Chief of CIA counterintelligence where he strengthened collaboration with the FBI on major espionage cases. A specialist in Russian and East Europe, he was chief of the Central Eurasia Division responsible for intelligence collection operation and managing foreign liaison relationships in the region.
Overseas Mr. Sulick served as the senior CIA representative in Russia, East Europe and was also an officer in locations in Asia and Latin America. In 1991, he was the first CIA officer to enter the Soviet Union to forge new relationships with the intelligence services of a newly independent former Soviet republic.
A native of New York City, Mr. Sulick earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the City University of New York and an M.A. and B.A. in Russian Studies from Fordham University. He also served in Vietnam with the U.S. Marine Corps.

Reviews

[Caden Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

American Spies by Michael J. Sulick is a non-fiction book about spying in the United States of America, from the start of the Cold War to the “modern” day (modern being like the 2010’s). It’s an intriguing look at different spies who, for one reason or another, have decided to turn against or infiltrate American agencies and illegally share information with another country’s government. This book is no James Bond spy thriller, but it shows that even in real life there can be mystery and intrigue surrounding espionage. Personally, although I found the book mildly intriguing. In practice, it’s a more interesting history book, but as someone who loves to read about interesting non-fiction stories, I was satisfied. I think the author Sulick did a great job of balancing the actual facts of a story with a slight narrative, and he showed truth is always stranger than fiction. For example, did you know that “Sixty-two Americans were arrested for espionage in the 1980’s”? (Page 89) Popular culture leads us to believe that spies are one-man teams, lone wolves, but that’s far from the truth, with many spies operati

Personally, I don’t think I was the intended audience- as all of the reviews on the back of the book are from people like Michael Hayden, who was a former general, a former director of the CIA, and a former director of the NSA, as well as Burton Gerber, who is a retired CIA officer, or even the director of the now defunct International Spy Museum. Nevertheless, even without any training or experience in the intelligence community, I can still enjoy the tales of yet another officer in the army selling priceless military secrets for money to the Soviets. I’d definitely recommend this book to another person- if you’re interested in spies and or nonfiction, you’d definitely get a kick out of this book. Even if you aren’t, I’d still recommend it just for how interesting the stories of each individual spy are, though I’d say maybe just read the first half of the book as the second half is rather weak in sharing details of more recent cases of espionage.

Overall, I’d give this book 3 stars, because although I did enjoy it, I don’t think it differentiated itself too much from any other non-fiction book besides, well, the subject matter. It was of course good because it wasn’t just a textbook, however, it was a very analytical look at the stories, which, depending on your tastes, could either be very good or very bad. I would’ve preferred to read something on the same topic by someone with more personality. I’d definitely say that the reason the book is so neutral and almost scrubbed is because Sulick himself was an agent of the CIA, and therefore I doubt they’d let him publish every single detail relating to a case, only the general ones. In this regard, I would’ve preferred another author, but in a purely informative sense, I didn’t find Sulick’s book to be odious, just okay. If you can find this book at a local library, or on sale at a second-hand bookstore, I would recommend getting it, but otherwise, I’d say save yourself the time and go watch a youtube video on spies. To conclude, I think whether you’d like the book or not is up to personal preference- but I’d be willing to bet unless you’re an academic or interested specifically in a facts-based approach to storytelling, you would not enjoy this book, and that’s why I give American Spies 3 stars.

[Benjamin Espen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book for free as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

Books about spies are inherently interesting to me. Books about the Cold War are also inherently interesting to me. Thus, American Spies is in a sweet spot. I probably would have read the author's earlier volume about espionage against America prior to the Cold War, but this is the volume I was lucky enough to receive.

American Spies covered pretty much the ground I expected it to cover, and a little bit more besides. I'm not really a spy buff, but espionage is an important part of my overarching interests in history and politics. While not intended to be a comprehensive listing of all spies who were active during the Cold War, which would be a much longer book, this volume covers all the major spies of the last seventy years. We read about Robert Hanssen spying for Russia, Larry Wu-tai Chin spying for China, and Jonathan Pollard spying for Israel.

Sulick is an insider. He retired as a director at the CIA, and spent some time in counter-intelligence during his tenure. I think this book reflects that experience. Sulick gives us an idea of the way the United States responded, or failed to respond effectively, to spies within. Much like generals are always fighting the last war, the CIA and the FBI often seemed to be tracking the last spy in Sulick's telling. Many of the spies featured in this volume managed to continue spying despite clear warning signs, such as sudden unexplained wealth or friendships with known foreign intelligence agents. Sulick believes there is something in the American character that makes it difficult for us to believe that an American would betray their country. While this is a clear failure of counter-intelligence, it is less clear whether this constitutes a national character flaw. The infamous CIA director of counter-intelligence, John Jesus Angelton, comes in for a drubbing, because he really did believe that anyone could be a spy. Rightly so, since paranoia is not identical to effective counter-intelligence, but it seems that some middle ground is necessary.

This book doesn't really get into what might be truly effective counter-intelligence. I wonder whether that oversight is intentional. Angleton was entirely correct that counter-intelligence is a wilderness of mirrors, and all books written by former CIA officers are subject to prior review and approval. It simply wouldn't do to discuss trade secrets in public, although I am really interested in what they might be. It seems like a really tricky problem in game theory or operations research. For example, is it helping or harming counter-intelligence that so much government and military information in the United States is classified that nearly every soldier and defense contractor requires a security clearance to do their basic work? I don't know, but I bet somebody has looked into it. Sulick does spend time talking about how the CIA and the FBI learned to work with each other, since at least one known spy slipped out of the country while the agencies were fighting turf battles.

The early sections of the book have really fascinating accounts of how the major spies were caught. However, I felt like the details got thinner as we closed in on the present. I'm not certain whether this was due to a need for operational secrecy, or simply because Sulick assumed that topics addressed earlier in the book did not need to be repeated. While many spies stole secrets for years undetected, it is a common theme that failures of tradecraft ultimately brought them down. The spies with the longest careers were the ones who were best at the technical skills of acquiring and passing on information without leaving a trace. Perhaps it is fortunate that many spies are misfits and losers, because otherwise they would be harder to catch. Or else we only catch the losers and misfits. Perhaps Angleton knows.

While I liked this book, I didn't love it. It may just be the engineer in me, but my favorite book so far about Cold War espionage has been Project Azorian. That book had tons of technical detail, a compelling story, and historical context. This book serves as a repository of information, and covers a much broader scope. I learned a lot, but it wasn't near as fun.

Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129

[Steve Heil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it. The book is wide, not deep. Reviews the major American spies and espionage cases from the 1920's to present day. A nice primer / overview, but don't expect to get into any deep details.

[Gus Breymann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I had read extensively over the years about Philby, Ames, and many others, this did not draw as much attention as if I had never read about them. True, portions of the book were vetted by one of our own top former spies, Burton Gerber, which adds credibility. I was particularly interested, though, in Sulick's treatment of the American spy Edward Lee Howard, about whom I had a specific interest. Sulick left out an important biographical detail about Howard's pre-CIA career. And then there's his mysterious death (broken neck) outside Moscow. Sulick opines Putin just got tired of Howard's drunken ways in Russia. I wonder whether American retribution might explain the spy's death.

[Jaden Adler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, however, I didn’t really like that the author’s personal opinions were clearly understood just by the tone of his writing. It does not go very in depth into many of these cases so if you are looking for quick overviews of major espionage against America cases then this one is for you. Also, you need to have a basic/intermediate knowledge of spycraft and the intelligence world to be able to easily keep up. 4 stars!

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting reading, but like the Bible, doesn’t include much drama – just known facts and an estimate of the damage. The book identifies commonalities in why people spy, but there are also considerable difference. In some cases it is for ideology. More often it is for money. But motivations are diverse and sometimes mixed. A recruited spy often comes from a troubled background, and money is often a motivating factor, as is revenge.

Despite, the lack of drama, it was interesting reading, and surprising how many spies have infiltrated high places in the US, and the amount of damage they caused.

Now, in the post USSR era, there are a lot more countries and organizations spying on the US. China is not only a big country, they have a lot of people in the US gathering bits of information. China’s methods are different than those of Russia, and therefore the traditional techniques for catching spies did not work. (Much of it wouldn't be prosecutable anyway - which is a minor theme in the book.)

Interagency rivalry has been an impediment, as has prosecution without divulging sensitive information. Spying by allies, industrial espionage, terrorists, and technology changes provide different challenges.

“… likewise the tension between civil liberties and national security … will always be an issue in a democratic society” (end of chapter 27)

This book has an extensive bibliography. Compare chapter 6 with the article "Molehunt" in the October 2013 Smithsonian magazine Pages 58-65

This is recommended reading because of changing national security issues in a post cold war era.

I read a prepublication copy.

[Jenny GB · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I was expecting more a of a story out of this book than a simple litany of spy after spy that hurt America in various ways. It wasn't bad for giving brief sketches of the lives of spies, but I didn't know any of these people and it all started to blur into one after a while. Sulick is primarily interested in looking at the motivations of these spies and their consequences. For the half I read the motives were primarily money (either greed or real financial need), pride, personal insult, or personal entanglement with a member of the KGB. It was incredibly repetitive and kept pounding home the points of what motivated people, how much harm they caused, and how they were brought down. I think this is a better book for studying espionage rather than casual reading.

[Gary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a slow and painful start with Sulick trying to make grand and sweeping statements summarizing the book -- almost from a philosophical basis. He clearly does subscribe to theory of engaging his reader in the first few pages. Once the book starts to cover the spies that targeted the U.S., the books moves along very nicely. Reading the book gives the reader an excellent overview of each of the major men and women who spied on the United States since the Cold War. He wins no awards for his gripping story telling ability or style but if you enjoy non-fiction espionage books, you will like this book (that is if you can plow through first 10% of the book). If the first part of this book was deleted, my rating would rise from 2 out of 5 starts to 3 stars.

[Zack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt this book had a slightly better narrative flow than "Spying in America." It left me feeling a bit troubled, though. It seems that many of the people caught in this book were caught due to very egregious errors in tradecraft. It makes me think that anyone with a bit of common sense and knowledge of history could easily spy without being caught. This is no bueno. Overall, though, a very informative read that went quite quickly!

[Brig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was excellent. It was informative without being academic. It was well delivered without understating its main message. Certain points of argument were repeated more than necessary at intervals throughout. However, I cannot fault the author for this. Taking an inherently esoteric topic and making it accessible to the layman is a daunting task.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sulick's book "Espionage Against the U.S. from the Cold War to the Present" was a surprisingly great read. The book provided insight into a part of America's history so little know about. I really enjoyed taking a trip through America's past with this amazing book!

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive and not terribly enlightening. Reads more like a textbook on the history of some of the more damaging spies who eventually got caught.

[Dave Shichman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat repetitive but interesting and clearly written nonetheless.