Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and CIA

By Edward Jay Epstein

Book Overview

Investigative reporter Edward Jay Epstein defines the seldom seen universe of intelligence and counterintelligence.Set in the era of the Cold War, it explores the ultimate art of nations: Winning without fighting, or, in a single word, deception. It concerns, as James Jesus Angleton described it to the author, " a state of mind -and the mind of the state." With a new Preface (2014)Praise For Edward Jay Epstein"Epstein delves deep into the wheels-within-wheels of superpower intelligence and counterintelligence, showing ways in which the CIA and the KGB have been "provoked, seduced, lured into false trails, blinded, and turned into unwitting agents." Readers will find new information here on a multitude of subjects: programs involving CIA-written books published under defectors' names; the story of Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer who defected in 1963 and was "at the heart of everything that happened at the CIA for a decade"; and the theories of James Angleton, the former CIA chief of counterintelligence, on the hidden motives of KGB super-mole Kim Philby. The book concludes with an ominously plausible argument that Gorbachev's glasnost is merely the sixth phase in a grand strategy of Soviet deception conceived soon after the Bolshevik Revolution. Highly recommended."---Publishers Weekly"Epstein's account of the world of intelligence is fascinating, instructive, and, in parts, sensational."-Irving Kristol American Enterprise Institute"This is an important book that reflects an epoch in United States counterintelligence operations and philosophy."-William R. Harris The RAND Corporation"A brilliant investigator examines the fascinating history of glasnost and the unseen motives and machinery of the Soviet state."-Lou Dobbs, CNN

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1499150539
• ISBN13: 9781499150537
• Release Date: April 2014
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

wilderness of mirrors

This is a great book. Too bad it's not in print. Once you understand Soviet deception you'll wonder whether the Cold War is really over.

Angleton's Amanuensis

Too bad its out of print! It is difficult to overstate the importance of this book in intelligence scholarship. It is perhaps the only book that gives, essentially from the horse's mouth, James Jesus Angleton's approach to analytical counterintelligence. This approach was driven from CIA when Angleton was fired in 1974 as part of the Church Committee witch hunt. Angleton's seemingly simple insight -- that our enemies, as thinking, breathing human beings, may actually go out of their way to feed us false intelligence, so that we will believe things that aren't true -- has been totally lost to CIA for almost 30 years. Instead, it has been replaced with a naive faith that CIA is simply to smart and professional to be fooled. You simply can't understand intelligence matters without grasping the role of deception.