Fischer, Benjamin. "A.k.a. 'Dr. Rantzau': The Enigma of Major Nikolaus Ritter." Center for the Study of Intelligence Bulletin 11 (Summer 2000): 8-11. Fischer, Benjamin. "A.k.a. 'Dr. Rantzau': The Enigma of Major Nikolaus Ritter." Center for the Study of Intelligence Bulletin 11 (Summer 2000): 8-11.
"[N]o one represented the Abwehr's ambiguous record of occasional success and repeated failure better than Maj. Nikolaus Ritter, whose operational alias was "Dr. Rantzau." Ritter, in fact, was intimately involved in one of the service's greatest successes and its two greatest disasters -- the compromise of all Abwehr agents in the United States and Britain."
See also Peter Day and Andrew Alderson, "Top German's Spy Blunders Helped Britain to Win War," Electronic Telegraph, 23 Apr. 2000: Documents at the Public Records Office in London show that "Major Nikolaus Ritter realised as early as 1941,... that his spy network in Britain had been compromised but he never passed on his suspicions to his superiors.... Ritter's failure to report his suspicions paved the way for the success of Operation Double Cross."
[WWII/Eur/Ger/Canaris]
Fischer, Benjamin B. "Dirty Tricks and Deadly Devices: OSS, SOE, NDRC and the Development of Special Weapons and Equipment." Journal of Intelligence History 2, no. 1 (Summer 2002). [http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/previous.html]
From abstract: "One of London's main objectives in lobbying for creation of an American counterpart intelligence and special operations service was to gain access to facilities, science and engineering, and financial resources that either were strained or were at risk in war-torn Britain.... The recent declassification of a key OSS record, the 'History of Division 19,' a unit of US National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) dedicated to developing 'miscellaneous weapons,' reveals [why] Anglo-American collaboration ... worked despite different national experiences and bureaucratic cultures.... [T]he OSS-SOE-NDRC triad brought British experience and research together with American private-sector resources to produce a symbiosis that endured despite strains on the Anglo-American relationship."
[UK/WWII/SOE; WWII/OSS/Topics]
Fischer, Benjamin
B. "Entangled in History: The Vilification and Vindication of Colonel
Kuklinski." Studies in Intelligence 9 (Summer 2000): 19-33.
Intelligencer 11, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 39-50.
This is an excellent review of the Kuklinski case.
[CIA/80s/Kuklinski]
Fischer, Benjamin B. "Farewell to Sonia, the Spy Who Haunted Britain." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 15, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 61-76.
Fischer notes that, strictly speaking, Ruth Werner "was not ... a spy. As a GRU ... agent and illegal who served as liaison between the Moscow Center and the real spies, she was rather a spy-handler." As SONIA of the Venona transcripts, she handled both Klaus Fuchs and Melita Norwood, work that "put[s] her in the superstar category" in espionage history.
[Russia/SovSpies/Name; Women/Misc/Russia]
Fischer, Ben
B. "The Guillaume Affair Revisited: Success or Failure?" Center
for the Study of Intelligence Bulletin 8 (Spring 1998): 7-9.
Guillaume's arrest as an East German spy in 1974 had repercussions on both sides of the Iron Curtain, including a very unhappy Brezhnev. "To the end of his life, [East German party boss Erich] Honecker claimed he did not even know about Guillaume.... Even if Honecker did not 'know'..., years later he gave Guillaume a national hero's welcome ... when he ... [was] released from a West German prison."
[Germany/East]
Fischer,
Benjamin. "Hitler, Stalin, and 'Operation Myth.'" Center for
the Study of Intelligence Bulletin 11 (Summer 2000): 4-8.
The author discusses Operatsiya Mif (Operation Myth) by which Stalin sought to convince either the West or himself that Hitler was still alive.
[Russia/Dis&Dec]
Fischer, Ben.
"The Japanese Ambassador Who Knew Too Much." Center for the
Study of Intelligence Bulletin. 9 (Spring 1999): 6-9.
This article provides a brief review of U.S. Army intelligence's interception and decryption of Oshima's cables from Berlin to Tokyo. In addition, Fischer notes that the Soviets were also reading these cables prior to the beginning of World War II due to the efforts of a well-placed spy under the direction of Walter Kriitsky.
[WWII/Eur/Ger/Oshima]
Fischer, Ben.
"'Mr. Guver': Anonymous Soviet Letter to the FBI." Center for
the Study of Intelligence Newsletter 7 (Winter-Spring 1997): 10-11.
The author looks at one of the documents in the Venona collection [Document No. 10 in Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957 (Washington, DC: National Security Agency/Central Intelligence Agency, 1996)]. The item in question is an anonymous letter, dated 7 August 1943, to "Mr. Guver" (Hoover). It identifies Soviet "intelligence officers and operations that stretched from Canada to Mexico." It also includes accusations of war crimes against the KGB rezident in Washington, Vassili M. Zarubin (a.k.a. Zubilin), and his deputy, Markov (in the United States under the alias of Lt. Col. Vassili D. Mironov). The author sees the letter, a mix of fact and fantasy, as probably the result of a personal vendetta either by Markov or another enemy of Zarubin's within the rezidentura.
[SpyCases/U.S./VENONA; Russia][c]
Fischer, Benjamin
B. "Markus Wolf and the CIA Mole." Center for the Study of
Intelligence Bulletin 10 (Winter 2000): 8-9.
Fischer tells the story of the work of the CIA's penetration agent in East German intelligence (then called the Institute for Economic Research) from 1950 to 1953. When Gotthold Krauss finally defected to the West, he brought with him "a treasure trove of counterintelligence information."
[CIA/50s/Gen; Germany/East&Wolf]
Fischer, Ben
B. "'One of the Biggest Ears in the World': East German SIGINT Operations."
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 11,
no. 2 (Summer 1998): 142-153.
"Main Department ... III of the Ministry of State Security (MfS) made a major contribution to [East Germany's] foreign intelligence with its extensive SIGINT operations and should be ranked among the cold war's major technical collection services."
[Germany/East]
Fischer, Benjamin
B. "Preparing to Blow Up the Bolshoi Ballet." Center for the
Study of Intelligence Bulletin 10 (Winter 2000): 11-12.
This is a brief piece on an NKVD special operations unit, the Special-Purpose Motorized Brigade (OMSBON), renamed in 1943 as the Independent Detachment for Special Operations.
[Russia/WWII]
Fischer, Benjamin B. "The Soviet-American War Scare of the 1980s." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 19, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 480-518.
"The last decade of the Cold War was potentially more perilous than it seemed at the time.... The main reason was a heightened sense of the danger of war. Each side focused on the likelihood of war, and both made extensive military preparations against a possible attack from the other."
[GenPostwar/CW]
Fischer, Benjamin B., ed. At Cold War's End: U.S. Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991. Washington, DC: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999.
Clark comment: The documents and accompanying narrative in this volume, released for the18-20 November 1999 conference at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service, have in the past been available (in PDF format) through the CIA Website. Also listed as U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Ed., Benjamin B. Fischer. At Cold War's End: US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991. Washington, DC: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999.
Jonkers, AFIO WIN 2-00, 14 Jan. 2000, says that Fischer has written "a masterly Foreword that is worth the price of admission. It is an outstanding summary[,] capturing a set of momentous and convoluted -- almost unexplainable -- events. This is a basic source document -- a contribution to knowledge.... Highly recommended."
For Mapother, IJI&C 14.4, this collection "presents insight as to how the intelligence community kept the White House and upper levels of the national security bureaucracy on notice that strategic changes were coming, and offered reasonable predictions about what directions they would take."
Crome, JIH 1.1, comments that Fischer's "preface is an utmost helpful guide through the documents and at the same time a well written and concise account of U.S. policy toward the the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe."
[Analysis/Sov/Nov99; GenPostwar/CW/End]
Fischer, Beth
A. "Perception, Intelligence Errors, and the Cuban Missile Crisis."
Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 3 (Autumn 1998): 150-172.
"[T]he accuracy and usefulness of intelligence can only be improved so far. Cognitive and motivational psychology helps us see that there is a performance limit to intelligence assessment. Misperceptions that result from perfectly normal cognitive processes and psychological needs are, for analysts and policy makers alike, a professional hazard."
[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]
Fischer, David
Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Bates, NIPQ 10.4: "There is not a lot of intelligence sources and methods [here], but enough to make it worth your while.... This is an elegant book, both in its story and its presentation.... Revere was not only the Boston leadership's intelligence briefer, but also their early warning system.... [Revere] was far more than a minor figure serving his social superiors as a messenger."
[RevWar]
Fish, Hamilton.
Fish, a former member of the U.S. Congress (R.-NY), died in 1991. His memoirs continued the anti-FDR theme established in at least two earlier books.
1. Hamilton Fish: Memoir of an American Patriot. Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1992.
Surveillant 2.5: Fish argued that the "U.S. defeat at Pearl Harbor was compounded by the knowledge that it was deliberately provoked by a U.S. President influenced by a Soviet spy in his own government. That spy, we are told, was Harry Dexter White. White, called here a Soviet spy taking direct orders from Moscow, assisted FDR in implementing a covert and treasonous plan to issue a war ultimatum to the Japanese in order to prompt a strike on the U.S."
2. FDR: The Other Side of the Coin -- How We Were Tricked into World War II. New York: Vantage, 1976.
3. Tragic Deception -- FDR and America's Involvement in World War II. Greenwich, CT: Devin-Adair, 1983.
[WWII/PearlHarbor]
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