Cold War espionage
Cold War espionage describes the intelligence gathering activities during the Cold War (c. 1947–1991) between the Western allies (primarily the US and Western Europe) and the Eastern Bloc (primarily the Soviet Union and allied countries of the Warsaw Pact).
While several organizations such as the CIA and KGB became synonymous with Cold War espionage, many others played key roles in the collection and protection of the section concerning detection of spying, and analysis of a wide host of intelligence disciplines.
Cold War espionage has been fictionally depicted in works such as the James Bond and Matt Helm books and movies.
Prior even to the United States' use of nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union had been developing the technology to make similar devices.
Cold War espionage was focused on gaining an advantage in information about the enemies' capabilities, especially related to atomic weaponry.
Instead of trusting technology, states relied on spies: people who infiltrated enemy territory and tried to discover information while staying undetected.
Its members included Harry Houghton, Ethel Gee, Gordon Lonsdale, and most famously Morris and Lona Cohen (cryptonym Peter and Helen Kroger).
[3] Ware Group: Sleeper spy ring in US headed by J. Peters, first organized under Harold Ware, inherited by Whittaker Chambers (under orders from Peters), and also included: John Abt, Marion Bachrach (Abt's sister), Lee Pressman, Alger Hiss, Donald Hiss, Charles Kramer, Nathan Witt, Henry Collins, George Silverman, John Herrmann, Nathaniel Weyl, and Victor Perlo.
The system consisted of three primary components: visual reconnaissance, communications, and electronic intelligence gathering.
All of the Corona missions, with the exception of the KH-11 Kennan program, would make use of photographic film, which would have to survive re-entry through the atmosphere and be recovered.
Keyhole/Argon (KH-5) - Argon was the designation the surveillance satellites, manufactured by Lockheed, used by the United States from February 1961 to August 1964.
Keyhole/Lanyard (KH-6) - Lanyard was the designation for the first, albeit unsuccessful, attempt to establish a high resolution, optical satellite system.
[30] Keyhole/Gambit (KH-7) - Gambit was the next of a series of satellites operated by the United States, by the National Reconnaissance Office, from July 1963 to June 1967.
These satellites are unique in that they have been placed in Sun-synchronous orbits, which allow them to use shadows to help discern ground features.
The satellites were designed to monitor for nuclear explosions in space and in the atmosphere by measuring for neutrons and gamma rays.
It was theorized at the time that it was a nuclear test conducted by South Africa and Israel, but new evidence does not support this theory.
[32] SR-71 – The SR-71 Blackbird is a long-range reconnaissance aircraft developed by Lockheed Skunk Works, and designed by Kelly Johnson.
Scholars are reviewing how its origins, its course, and its outcome were shaped by the intelligence activities of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other key countries.
[33][34] Special attention is paid to how complex images of one's adversaries were shaped by secret intelligence that is now publicly known.
He was a senior KGB officer who was a double agent on behalf of Britain's MI6, providing a stream of high-grade intelligence that had an important influence on the thinking of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
He was spotted by Aldrich Ames a Soviet agent who worked for the CIA, but he was successfully exfiltrated from Moscow in 1985.
Biographer Ben McIntyre argues he was the West's most valuable human asset, especially for his deep psychological insights into the inner circles of the Kremlin.
He convinced Washington and London that the fierceness and bellicosity of the Kremlin was a product of fear, and military weakness, rather than an urge for world conquest.
Thatcher and Reagan concluded they could moderate their own anti-Soviet rhetoric, as successfully happened when Mikhail Gorbachev took power, thus ending the Cold War.
