A fair number of sleeper agents like this have been outed over the years. Another example that comes to mind is the KGB agent couple on which the TV show "The Americans" was based: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/discovered-our-parents-were-russian-spies-tim-alex-foley" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/discovered-our...</a><p>FBI Operation Ghost Stories arrested 11 people back in 2010. <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/ghost-stories-russian-foreign-intelligence-service-illegals/images" rel="nofollow">https://vault.fbi.gov/ghost-stories-russian-foreign-intellig...</a><p>What I'm wondering is: how many other agents are out there and haven't been caught yet? Or were here and left without being caught?<p>I wonder if this type of agent is still in active use, in the sense of seeding more of them. Given the arrests just 7 years ago, I'd guess so. But perhaps not, since hacking and electronic surveillance can be so effective. You don't necessarily need an agent within a country's borders to penetrate a lot of their networks, email, and other communications.<p>But you never know ... what lengths would Russia go to to get an agent TS/SCI clearance and access to a SCIF?
For people who like this sort of thing: <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/v10/n16/paul-foot/the-great-times-they-could-have-had" rel="nofollow">https://www.lrb.co.uk/v10/n16/paul-foot/the-great-times-they...</a> (on the British Royal family being infiltrated by fascists).<p>The TV series <i>Deutchland 83</i> is also well worth watching for a snappy spy drama about a young man from East Germany being coerced into being a double agent.
In the end, it all seems so mundane. Secretive to be sure, but a talented life accomplishing nothing.
Well, maybe an improvement on East Germany in the 80s but that's it.
60 minutes produced a segment about him. Here is the transcript: <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-kgb-spy-jack-barsky-steve-kroft-60-minutes/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-kgb-spy-jack-barsky-steve...</a>
This sounds true and similar to what I thought it would be, based on how laughably bad were the Russian "illegals" caught in 2010. It is virtually impossible to fit in having been born and raised in a different culture. Even simply the accent is almost impossible to overcome (women seem to have better luck defeating the accent than men and you have a chance up to the age of 17 or so).<p>The Americans is a cool show, but the real life illegals could not fool anyone.<p>These days Russia probably has no need for this type of presence, since there are enough Russians living in the US and enough of them support Putin that a small percentage may choose to work as spies. Same for China.<p>Another interesting detail that came out of the 2010 illegal bust was that America is so diverse and people are so respectful of privacy, that one of the spies was doing just fine with an American name ("Jack Ryan" or "Patric Foley" or something like), fully American "legend" and a heavy Russian accent. People wondered but nobody asked any questions.<p>P.S. And who needs spies when you can have a whole administration? :)
I had some level of respect for The Guardian vis a vis Glenn Greenwald. But wow, the brazen seed on current events "Might Trump have been recruited by Putin?" and "right wingers are easier to convert". First class journalism right there folks, way to be taken hook line and sinker by the intelligence community while doing an article on the intelligence community. Pretty comical.
Just like engineers, they think they are smart and they are changing the world and blablabla but it is actually all about billions and power going to the big guys