What with the news full of CIA reform ("Toe that administration line, boys!") and the imminent purge of non-neocon-sympathizers at the Department of State by Bush's "other wife", we turn in this week's quiz to a bit of inconsequence from the cloaks and daggers of yore.
The British Special Intelligence Service's counter-intelligence wing, during World War II, contained a rising star in Kim Philby, who was later revealed as the most notorious Soviet spy of his era. One man who served under Philby in the British counter-intelligence group later wrote about his recollection of the SIS rivalry with the counter-intelligence operations of the American OSS (the CIA's predecessor), who occupied the next floor up of the same house in London. He recalled specifically that "Security was a game we played less against the enemy than against the allies on the floor above."
What was this man's name?
First correct answer posted to comments wins a replica of George H.W. Bush's "Do the Black Ops Thing On This One" rubber stamp from his days at Langley. No Googling or bothering Michael "Imperial Hubris" Scheur, who's presumably busy polishing his C.V. One guess per comment, but you may comment as often as you like.
Posted by BT at November 19, 2004 10:28 AMJohn le Carre?
(born David Cornwall, I think)
nope!
Posted by: BT on November 19, 2004 10:55 AMWell, it must be Dick Francis, then, known as The Spy on Horseback.
Posted by: Gavin on November 19, 2004 11:03 AM"By the way, where's the Wombat League Table we were promised?" he said, seeing if his post was too robotic for the likes of Wombat.
Posted by: Gavin on November 19, 2004 11:04 AMNope, and coming, really, it's coming.
Apologies to anyone who is getting faulty comment rejections from Movable Type. I may have put something in the Blacklist which is inadverdently blocking a commonly used phrase. Forward protests/examples to me at btipperatbookdotcom and I'll see if I can undo any overly zealous blacklist entries.
Posted by: BT on November 19, 2004 11:14 AMWatson of DNA fame?
Posted by: Gavin on November 19, 2004 11:42 AM(or alternatively, Crick)
Posted by: Gavin on November 19, 2004 11:43 AMKen Follet/t?
My comments are alwyas faulty... oh how I wish I had a technical excuse!
(Though today I'll go with lardy digits.)
Posted by: The Lady B. Yogurt on November 19, 2004 11:49 AMAll ingenious guesses, worthy of reward. All delightfully wide of the mark. The suspense continues.
Posted by: BT on November 19, 2004 11:53 AMGraham Greene?
Posted by: The Lady B. Yogurt on November 19, 2004 12:01 PMAh, the not-so-quiet American takes it! Well done, my acidophilus-loving friend. Graham Greene it was, according to Richard Aldrich's door-stopper history of Cold War spying, "The Hidden Hand."
So, who's got a follow-up?
Posted by: BT on November 19, 2004 12:28 PMGraham Greene - he was great in Dances with Wolves.
Posted by: teenidol on November 19, 2004 12:48 PMDirector of Central Intelligence when Philby defected in 1962, James Jesus Angleton formed a close relationship with defected Soviet spy Anatoly Golitsyn. Golitsyn fed the paranoid Angleton’s fear that The Agency was riddled with more Soviet double agents. Thus began a witch hunt for moles within the CIA and the betrayal of legitimate Soviet defectors over a period of ten years. All real defectors, Golitsyn and Angleton argued, were in effect part of a grand Sino-Soviet conspiracy to fool and misdirect the west. The formal search for these supposed operatives within the CIA eventually employed an analyst who concluded that the most damaging way for an enemy to proceed would be to create the witch hunt itself.
By what name was this operation known?
First correct post gets an umbrella and empty cyanide pellet.
Posted by: Jonathan on November 19, 2004 01:11 PMOperation "You ran run, but you can't hide."
Posted by: teenidol on November 19, 2004 01:14 PMJonathan -- by "the operation" you mean the search/witch hunt itself?
Um...Rabbit Hole?
Posted by: BT on November 19, 2004 01:43 PMSpecifically, the witch hunt was directed by a committee. Specifically, it's the name of the committee we want, but the committee name and its mission were interchangeable.
According to one source:
"The hunt for Soviet spies within the CIA started after Kim Philby was forced to resign as British Security Service Director in 1951. James Jesus Angleton and Kim Philby worked very closely together and shared an office in London during WWII. In 1963 Kim Philby defected to the USSR. In 1964 the ______ Committee was formed to look into the mole question. It was in existence from November 1964 to April 1965, and consisted of ANGLETON, Newton S. Miler and Bruce Solie from the CIA's Office of Security, FBI domestic intelligence chief William C. Sullivan, FBI CIA liaison Sam Papich and two others. About six members of CI/SIG [Central Intelligence, Soviet Intelligence Group] worked on ______, including Edward Petty.
And no, not Rabbit Hole, though Lewis Carol would be proud (or ashamed, or something).
Posted by: Jonathan on November 19, 2004 02:06 PMRatF**k?
Posted by: Scott on November 19, 2004 02:12 PMAh, a little mission CREEP? (I just kill myself.)
The committee/operation was known by an acronym formed from one name already mentioned and the name of another famous intelligence gatherer.
Posted by: Jonathan on November 19, 2004 02:15 PM****-*****
(classified)
Moles, rats, get a few beers in ya, turn out the light, and what's the difference? That's what I always say.
[hic]
Hey baby!
Posted by: Scott on November 19, 2004 02:18 PMteenidol: The acronym did *not* have a hyphen.
I'll be in a meeting for while, so if I don't post back right away it's not because I don't care. Consider it radio silence for security purposes.
Posted by: Jonathan on November 19, 2004 02:20 PMOperation Cheshire Cat?
Posted by: Gavin on November 19, 2004 03:19 PMJabberwockey?
Posted by: Scott on November 19, 2004 03:41 PMBONGLETON? (Bond + Angleton)
SHANGLEROCK? (Sherlock + Angleton)
BENEDICTANGLE? (Benedict Arnold + Angleton + a little of the folk-rock group Pentangle)
JESUS HOOVER
Posted by: teenidol on November 19, 2004 04:26 PMPHILBYSPECTER (Kim & Arlen)
Posted by: teenidol on November 19, 2004 04:39 PMAll right, I'm back, in double-secret overtime, now that all of you have gone home except the Australians. Sorry to have been "out of pocket."
Since this was a followup and I left you hanging, I'm just gonna fold under questioning:
HONETOL (an acronym created by fusing HO[OVER] and ANATOL[Y GOLITSYN, a Soviet defector) was the code name for the witchhunt conducted for double agents by CIA Counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, which gutted the Agency during this period. Sullivan provided Angleton with the foot soldiers – bugging and tapping specialists, foot and mobile surveillance – to pursue suspected traitors, all of whom would turn out to be innocent… (Dr. Jerrold Post, a CIA psychologist, assessed Angleton as “not clinically paranoid; rather… Angleton had a strong paranoid orientation and propensity.”).
I suppose that’s something like “just sane enough to be dangerous.” But what does all this have to do with Kent State, homosexuality, and a man who died because his last name started with K? I suppose we should read COLD WARRIOR, James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter. Either that or settle for the ranting screeds of history cranks on the web, whichever is easier.
OK, let me get this straight: they could have called it really anything they wanted. Anything. And they chose to invent the acronym "HONETOL."
And we WON the Cold War?
Posted by: BT on November 19, 2004 11:46 PMWell, it was a secret. One might deduce we won the Cold War in spite of, rather than because of, such skullduggery.
Belatedly, kudos to teenidol for figuring that Hoover had something to do with this. Although, to hear some tell it, he was resisting CIA pressure to engage in illegal intelligence gathering against US citizens.