Book Review | Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence and the Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence

CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence
Studies in Intelligence, 2007

Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence and the Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence

Nigel West, Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2006), 330 pp., bibliography, chronology, index.

Nigel West, Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2007), 438 pp., bibliography, appendices, chronology, index.

Reviewed by Hayden B. Peake, curator of the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection

These volumes are the fifth and sixth in Scarecrow Press's historical dictionary intelligence series. The first, on international intelligence, has the broader scope but fewer entries than the second. In both cases some topics appear in both volumes, though the level of detail differs. Elizabeth Bentley, for example, gets half a page in the first volume and two pages in the second, while Romanian defector Ion Pacepa has a short paragraph in the first and more than a page in the second. The reverse is also true: the Philby entry in the international intelligence dictionary is a page and a half while it gets only half a page in the counterintelligence dictionary. These differences do not appear to be related to any intrinsic definition of the categories used in the dictionaries--Philby is both an international and a counterintelligence case. Similarly, the absence of an expected case or topic does not mean it belongs elsewhere, it is more likely absent because of a space limitations or oversight. Thus, readers should consult other volumes and sources in the bibliographies.

The CI volume has an impressive selection of cases, some little known, and a valuable bibliographic essay covering the evolution of books during the Cold War. Scholars will appreciate the appendices, which list espionage prosecutions in the United States, US defectors to the Soviet Union, plus Soviet and Soviet Bloc defectors to the West. Curiously, similar data for the UK are absent.10

Both volumes have factual errors worth noting. The international volume states Philip Agee won a court challenge to recover his US passport; he did not. Nor did James Angleton identify Canadian counterintelligence officer James Bennett as a KGB mole; the Canadians did that on their own. And the comment that the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) was originally designated the Third Department is inaccurate; it was the Fourth Department.11 The counterintelligence volume has similar difficulties. Elizabeth Bentley told her story of espionage to the FBI in November of 1945, not September; Hede Massing did not try to recruit Alger Hiss; Alexander Orlov "emerged from hiding" in 1953, not 1954, and Joseph McCarthy claimed in his West Virginia speech, to have a list of 205 communists in the State Department, not 57.12 Concerning the KGB, Yuri Nosenko did not seek to defect in 1962; that happened in 1964. And Line X is the designation for a science and technology specialist, not an illegal support officer; that designation in Line N.13

While these volumes are useful additions, especially with their indices, to the intelligence dictionary (really encyclopedia) series, the editorial practice of leaving the fact-checking and source determination to the reader diminishes their utility. Corrected paperback editions would greatly increase their value.