12 novels and two books of short stories were published in the period of 1953 – 1966. From 1962 until the present 21 “best-seller” movies were shot about the decisive and fearless agent smashing “bad guys” all over the shop. The James Bond stories were “a catechism” for several generations of citizens who trusted that “evil plots” were weaved globally against the Western democracy.
They trust even now. Moreover, the scripts about Bond adventures are on line production (for example, this November a new 22nd movie will be released). Where there’s demand, there’s supply.
Yet, this rule may be read backwards. Reasonably formulated idea supported with careful planning and good cooperation plus powerful infrastructure, has every reason to become popular. It seems that successors of Agent 007 in certain foreign countries follow this very principle producing a new “thriller” in the spirit of Ian Fleming.
For example, on June 21-22, Norway PST, a security (counterintelligence) service, prepared and submitted to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs a file of documents “containing evidence that several staff members of the RF Embassy in Oslo are involved in espionage activities”. It was stated that a majority of suspects “are GRU officers working under official cover in the diplomatic mission”. According to PST, the scope of the espionage activities reached the level of the Cold War.
Early this July, rather respectful and popular British media outlets including The Times and The Sunday Telegraph as well as national broadcasting corporation BBC distributed materials devoted to “activation” of the Russian spy networks in the territory of the United Kingdom. The articles were published and show was broadcasted practically simultaneously on July 4 6 and 7 that is rather indicative. Unfortunately these events are nor exceptional.
So, according to The Sunday Telegraph (referring to anonymous sources) “the Moscow espionage has grown to such dimensions that the British security services have to detract their limited resources from the war on terror to counteract the Russians”. The article reads further that “every fifth official Russian representative in the country is involved in the activities that have nothing to do with his diplomatic status”. It was noted that “the Federal Security Service is not less active than the KGB of the Cold War”. The Times reads quoting from statements of British counterintelligence officers: “Security officials say that only al-Qaeda terrorism and Iranian nuclear proliferation are greater menaces to the country’s safety than Russia”.
Describing the activities of the Russian intelligence services The Sunday Telegraph reads that they “manifest insatiable appetites” “in stealing state and commercial secrets relating to the defense and energy technologies”, to this end “they spy on British businessmen, members of parliament and scientists”.
Another important direction of the alleged Russian intelligence activities is the work against opposition representatives residing in the United Kingdom. According to the article published in The Times, “special agents of Moscow spy upon movements and activities of political emigrants and opponents of the Kremlin”. In turn, The Sunday Telegraph raised a problem of “state-sponsored political murders”. In this connection it (once again!) mentioned the death of former FSS officer Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006. The Sunday Telegraph reads: “Russia is a country under suspicion about murders in the streets of Great Britain, and it is necessary to proceed from the premise that if they did it once they will do it again”.
According to BBC show News Night broadcasted in the second national TV channel of the United Kingdom referring to an anonymous top-ranking British security officer, “there are reasons to believe that it (the death of Litvinenko – Author’s note) was an act performed by the state”. This show recalled as a sensation that “in June 2007, the security officers succeeded in preventing an attempt on the life of Boris Berezovsky residing in London”.
Obviously, such allegations are not new. Actually this April former KGB officer Oleg Gordieyevsky who defected to the West in the 80s and currently resides in Great Britain blamed on the Russian special services for all “deathly sins”. According to him in November 2007 this former intelligence officer and today defector after taking sleep pills received from Austria lost consciousness for 34 hours, got partially paralyzed and was admitted at hospital. Gordiyevsky said that the circumstances of the accident were investigated by a special Scotland Yard department. However, allegedly on the insistence of British MI-6 (Intelligence) the file was closed and reopened only “due to interference of high-ranking officers of British MI-5 (Counterintelligence)”. To the question what poison was used against him, Gordiyevsky answered that certain signs confirm the use of “thallium that causes the death practically in all cases”. Evidently, the British security services do not overindulge the public with various scripts. Please, recollect that Litvinenko was allegedly poisoned with polonium, the logic is clear – the more incomprehensible the cause, the more believable it looks.
Understatement and fuzziness of wording, use of anonymous sources and evident bias of stove-piping devoted to the “Russian spies”, determined the response to this media activity. In so doing, many independent experts called the aforesaid a special operation. Remembering that “any covert operation is a lie in its essence” (the words of US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, famous for his involvement in covert operations in the mid 80s) experts who would like to receive an objective answer, ask a question: Who stands to gain from it?
Certain experts assumed that the materials have been prepared through the efforts of special services to get additional funding. For example, in Great Brittan “knights of the cloak and dagger” permanently complain about deficient budgetary funding yet the budget of MI-5 (Counterintelligence), MI-6 (Intelligence) and GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in 2008 totals more than 2 billion Pounds (about 4 billion Dollars).
Other experts noted that such articles are published on the eve of important meetings of the Russian leaders with their Western colleagues in order to potentially induce tension and elements of mistrust in their dialogue. For example, it took place on the eve of the first meeting between UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and RF President Dmitry Medvedev in Japan in early July, 2008.
Third experts recollected that not the situation is so unambiguous in this case, and refer to evident facts. In particular, on July 10, the UK Foreign Office had to recognize that the Russian Federal Security Service had questions to Christopher Bowers, the acting director of UK Trade and Investments, British Embassy in Moscow, who in fact was a high-ranking MI-6 officer. Representatives of business community and regional authorities of Norway regularly visiting the North-Western region of Russia say that their national civil and military special services often bear pressure upon businessmen and civil servants who visited the Russian Federation in order to obtain intelligence information from them. Sweden is witnessing a scandal relating to Stockholm Government-initiated law on monitoring electronic transmissions. Independent experts and journalists believe that the law is designed to let the Swedish authorities spy upon Russian global Internet users (up to 80 per cent of Russian Web traffic runs through the lines laid across the territory of this Scandinavian state).
And we may say absolutely exactly that currently the West is staging a propaganda show. The leading-motive of this show consonant to the main idea of a confession made by another former MI-6 agent and spy-novelist John Le Carre: “In the intelligence the ends justify the means”.
In fact the question is ”Do they?”
