The Other Part of That War, Continued
January 7th, 2011 | The Wires | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
The Hmong community in the U.S. is mourning the death of a revered leader, Vang Pao, today. Pao, who was 81, died Thursday night in Fresno, Calif., following a battle with pneumonia.
The general led Hmong guerrillas in their CIA-sponsored effort against communists during the Vietnam War, and after the war, helped his fellow Hmong refugees resettle here. He is seen above (C), in this file photo from a decade ago – “laying a wreath at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, marking the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War in the Kingdom of Laos as Lao veterans watch 11 May, 2000. (LUKE FRAZZA/AFP/Getty Images).
Shadowland
July 30th, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
Former deputy chief of the KGB station at the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC, KGB Maj. Gen. Oleg Kalugin (Ret.) – reflected in a window – speaks at the Spy Museum about his 32-year long career in the intelligence trade. He oversaw Moscow’s spy network in the United States, and as head of KGB foreign counter-intelligence, he directed the KGB’s most valuable clandestine agents inside the United States, most notably the Walker case.
John Walker was a Navy communications specialist who gave the Soviets significant intelligence for almost twenty years – and was recruited simply when he walked into the Soviet embassy in DC, looking to sell a radio cipher.
Kalugin’s book has just been reissued, and Kalugin – now a U.S. citizen and a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies – spoke about one of the differences between Russian & Chinese spy services versus the U.S. “We would recruit young students, and invest in a long term view. One of my students eventually joined the State department…..they take a long view of the trade, and don’t worry about the money being spent on that investment. Here, it’s like a Starbucks culture, you have to have instant results when the CIA spends money.”