Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: U.S. Covert Action and Counterintelligence [Paperback]

Roy Godson (Author, Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Godson's impressive study, notable for its clarity, defines both counterintelligence and covert action, arguing that both are necessary. Counterintelligence, he writes, includes the identification, neutralization and exploitation of the intelligence activities of others (thus protecting state secrets from adversaries); covert action encompasses efforts to influence events in other parts of the world without revealing or acknowledging involvement. Godson outlines ``ideal'' counterintelligence and covert action, describes how both have been practiced by the U.S. and suggests possible ways to employ each more effectively in the national interest. Godson, a professor of government at Georgetown University and consultant to the National Security Council, has written a textbook accessible to the general reader.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 337 pages
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers (December 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765806991
• ISBN-13: 978-0765806994
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #415,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roy Godson is President of the National Strategy Information Center in Washington, DC, and Emeritus Professor of Government at Georgetown University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Bush's Advisers Are Telling Him, February 20, 2001

By 

Alan Judd, Daily Telegraph (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: U.S. Covert Action and Counterintelligence (Paperback)

A quick, cheap alternative to setting up your own spy network.

SPY BOOKS have evolved. Early in the 20th century we had thrillers and fantasies, shamelessly implausible but racy and fun, culminating in Bond. Thoughtful spy novels began with Somerset Maugham's Ashenden (1928), featuring a detached hero on a journey to disillusion, a process brought to its apotheosis by le Carre via Greene. In parallel with this were volumes of reminiscence prompted by espionage of two world wars and the Cold War. But in recent decades, another strain has emerged: the academic study of intelligence, of which this book is a good example. Roy Godson is a Professor of Government at Georgetown University and heads the American-based Consortium for the Study of Intelligence. He rightly asserts the importance of intelligence studies to any understanding of 20th-century international relations. Given the number of Cold War political decisions to which intelligence was a contributor - sometimes a determinant - any history of the period which leaves it out is, at best, one-eyed. Counterintelligence (CI) and covert action, the subjects of his book, are significant sub-divisions of intelligence activity, although syping can happen without them. In Godson's definition, the primary mission of CI is to "identify, neutralize and exploit the intelligence or secret infrastructures of others". In other words, CI is spying on spies, studying, distrupting and, if possible, turning against themselves the activities of hostile organizations who are trying to spy on you. Most examples given are American, but one familiar to British readers is Oleg Gordievsky, the British agent who ended up charge of the KGB's London operations and who, according to Godson, was thus able to prevent the M15 officer Michael Bettaney from spying for the Russians. (In fact, Gordievsky was more than an outstanding CI agent: he was also a producer of very high-grade political intelligence.) Godson defines covert action as "influencing conditions and behaviour in ways that cannot be attributed to the sponsor". It ranges from getting articles into the press to sponsoring guerilla warfare. Although governments without an intelligence service can mount effective covert action - the American 1902 acquisition of rights over the Panama Canal is an example quoted - it usually demands resources that only an intelligence service could maintain. Thus, when the British and American governments sought the overthrow of the Mussadegh government in Persia in 1953, they mounted a joint covert action using the existing British intelligence network. This is not a collection of shock-horror spy revelations or stories of derring-do but an academic study of the bureaucracy of the cloak and the politics of the dagger. The ending of the Cold War, Godson rightly says, does not mean an end to conflict - "World politics continues as it has for much of mankind's existence" - and the present "low levels" of government in parts of the world does not mean the end of the nation state. There are, he estimates, more than 100 intelligence organizations targeting American interests. American attitudes towards CI and covert action have traditionally suffered from "fits-and-starts" - as often too much as too little - and what are now needed are consistent, well-thought-out foreign policies to which these activities contribute systematically. They should neither dictate policy nor be tactics of last resort. If you want spy thrills, this is not your book; but if you want to understand how the whole thing works at Washington level, and to have an idea of what George W Bush is hearing from his advisers, then reading this will prove quicker and cheapter than setting up your own spy network.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Critical Insights on Restoring Balance to Intelligence, July 25, 2002

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: U.S. Covert Action and Counterintelligence (Paperback)

Roy Godson is the only person to have systematically studied intelligence requirements in a holistic manner, consistently distinguishing among collection, analysis, counterintelligence, and covert action. His series in the 1980's, and then again in the 1990's, on intelligence requirements, stand alone as efforts to define and measure key elements.

With this book, written and published prior to 9-11,Godson provides both a historical and a prescriptive treatment of the two most neglected and mis-managed elements of U.S. national intelligence: covert action (concealed influence) and counterintelligence (protecting our secrets by catching their spies and agents of influence).

While 9-11 demonstrated our incapacity in both these vital areas that comprise the black art side of national power, there is no other book and no other expert that has done more to itemize the details that must be contemplated (and are not now being contemplated) by those responsible for devising homeland security defenses. The author's appreciation for pre-emptive "offensive" counterintelligence and covert action, and his understanding of terrorist and criminal and other nonstate actors (one should include rogue corporations, of which there are many), make him particularly well-qualified to advise the Administration and Congress as we move toward what must be a draconian reconstitution and revitalization of national intelligence.