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American Spies In The Cold War

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From the 1940’s through 1991, America and the Soviet Union were in the middle of a constant stalemate pitted against the ideologies of the Untied States idea of capitalism and the Soviet Union’s idea of Communism. Although most of the conflict was based around political viewpoints rather than military action, in between the 1945 to 1948, by 1950 the Soviet Union lead the communist takeover of China. According to the Teaching Elenaor Roosevelt Glossary study on the Cold War, by 1960, both sides had invested in a large amounts of money and effort towards nuclear weapons. From the perspective of both sides, this was seen as an attempt to maintain parity with each other's stockpiles, but also the idea of deterring conflict through "mutually assured destruction". This had come to be regarded as vital and dire to the national interest of both governing bodies. …show more content…

One of the ways that the Soviet Union was able to get close to American borders was through undercover espionage. From the post Secret files reveal techniques of Cold War Soviet spies posted in The Telegraph¸ Dr. Klaus Fuchs, a nuclear scientist and an undercover agent ,who was responsible for immeasurable damage to the American and British interests by giving away top secret information about the Manhattan Project and Britain’s atomic research. According to prison interviews with MI5 officers, Dr. Fuchs explained how his Soviet Spymasters had properly instructed Fuchs to throw a copy of a men’s magazine over a garden fence in Kew, south-west London, if he wanted his spymasters to contact him. This connects the correlation between Nash looking for hidden messages within newspapers and magazines, to how the Soviet’s would communicate with their

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During the Cold War, the United States was caught several times in trying to interfere with the spread of communism through covert means. President John F. Kennedy was looking to rid communism from Cuba, through secret actions leading to the Bay of Pigs incident. President Ronald Regan administration utilized covert operations referred to as the Iran-Contra affair, which the operation helped arm a sworn enemy in Iran, and provide funding for anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua (Clark 2007, 2-5, 11-12).

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Mao faced a belligerent US after defeating the nationalists in the Chinese Civil War and pushing them back to Taiwan. Khrushchev, on the other hand, was involved in tensions relating to the question of nuclear arms. "... Mao Tse-Tung... said that during his meetings with Comrade N.S. Khrushchev in Moscow in November 1957 and in Peking in July-August 1958 he had exchanged views on the questions of turning the Cold War into a factor which would be unfavorable for the Americans..." (Antonov) This quote shows that perhaps the two leaders were continuing with the war because of possible damage to the United States, which states a

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Espionage was a crucial component of World War II, where covert operations were used to gain an advantage in a highly contested conflict. Espionage played a pivotal role in the outcome of World War II, as covert operations were instrumental in gathering critical intelligence and shaping strategic decisions, ultimately influencing the course of the war and impacting the development of intelligence agencies in the post-war era. Espionage in World War II impacted 3 important battles: The Battle of Stalingrad, The Normandy Invasion, and The Battle of Midway. Richard Sorge was a Soviet spy who provided valuable intelligence to the Soviet Union during World War II, including information that had a significant impact on the Battle of Stalingrad.

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Soviet Intelligence was interested in incorporating American journalists into their espionage network because they offered various talents that could aid the Soviets in gathering information such as, their access to resources not available to the Soviets, their ability to gather new recruits, and their skill to not draw attention to their work. Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev created Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (2009) to exemplify the history of the KGB in America and the USSR’s reasons for needing American agents. Because the Americans offered so many outlets to gather information, the Soviets sought them out in order to gain a competitive advantage over a world that wanted to prevent the spread of communism. The journalists had access to information that was unattainable to

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Many historians, such as Judson Knight, call their cracking of the code “the single greatest cryptanalysis success of the war (Knight).” Considering the U.S. and Britain

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In the secret service, trust between an agent and their agency is a necessity for success, but double agents and the emphasis on secrecy can make trust a difficult condition. In John Le Carré’s, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, the aftermath of World War II emphasizes the idea of conflict and secrecy between East Germany, West Germany, and Britain. Leamas is an agent for the Circus and he is set up by his boss, Control, to kill Fidler, a member of the Abteilung. Control tells Leamas that the goal of the mission is to kill Mundt, a member of the Abteilung, but, Leamas is unaware that Mundt is actually a double agent for the Abteilung and the Circus. During the book, Leamas almost hits another car with a father and his kids.

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To examine the Cold War consensus, one must discuss the Cold War. The Cold war was the tension between the United States, standing for capitalism, and the USSR, standing for totalitarianism and socialism, following World War II. Although it was not a physical war between the two superpowers, many proxy wars had came out of it as way to spread or combat communism throughout the Free World. The Free World, as the U.S. came to define it, did not necessarily mean free as countries were being ruled by military regimes and dictatorships, but free from communism(70). During the Cold War, the spread of communism frighted the American People.

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A) The conflict was between two superpowers: The Communist Empire of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Cold War dominated international relations from the late 1940s to the collapse of the Soviet Union 1991. Among historians there is a debate over how and why the cold war began. Some historians state that the Americans didn't tell Soviets, especially Stalin, about the Manhattan Project and the building of the A- bomb, and even after using A-bombs against Japan, United States refused to share the technology with the USSR.

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The “loss of China” to communism led the American leaders to perceive the cold war as even more threatening and demanding an American response. To prevent further communist expansion elsewhere in Asia, the Truman administration Truman sent troops to North Korea in 1950 when communist forces crossed the thirty-eighth parallel. All of these events in Asia, along with the Soviet expansion in eastern Europe after world war II, fueled the American belief that the Soviet Union was trying to expand communism on a global

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"But it is hard to imagine how the U.S. government could have prevented a Communist victory short of getting involved in a massive military intervention, which would have been risky, unpopular, and expensive"(Tindall 964). "The discovery of the Soviet bomb in 1949 triggered an intense reappraisal of the strategic balance of power in the world, causing Truman in 1950 to order the construction of a hydrogen bomb, a weapon far more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, lest the Soviets make one first"(Tindall 964). The onset of the cold war the ideology drove more of the Soviet behavior. "American 's traditional commitment to democtatic capitalism, political self determination, and religious freedom conflicted with the Soviet Union 's preference for spheres of influence on its periphery, totalitarianism at home, and state mandated atheism"(Tindall 970). Kennan stressed that U.S. needed to be responses to the Soviet adventurism.

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Many nations that had much power on the world stage such as the UK were heavily depleted by the effects of war and the USA and Russia found themselves as the two global superpowers. After initial hopes of harmony it became evident that both nations had contrasting views upon the best way of achieving this ‘good life’, the USA and other western nations believed in liberal democracy and of free markets , Russia of communism based upon ideas from Marxism whereby the state would intervene in an attempt to level the playing field . These opposing ideologies divided the world and provided the backdrop to what became known as the cold war, a war that was not fought directly but rather through proxy wars, propaganda and technological superiority to achieve power. (Open University,

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