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I continue to be stunned how inept Western HUMINT was in trying to penetrate the USSR. How did they expect this kid to succeed?
by gwern 5y ago
I continue to be stunned how inept Western HUMINT was in trying to penetrate the USSR. How did they expect this kid to succeed?
- kingcharles 5y agoI don't think they gave a fuck. I assume they also had plenty of competent intelligence gathering, and as another poster pointed out, this definitely had value in keeping KGB assets busy and distracted, and could be seen as a operation to lull the Soviets into thinking all the American HUMINT was this inept.
- arcticbull 5y agoIndeed, those who have been caught cannot reasonably be expected to represent the whole set. I believe this is a kind of survivorship bias, where only those who are competent remain in the game while we hear about those who fail. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:Survivorship-bias.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:...
- xorcist 5y agoIt depends on what your definition of success is. It probably gave insight in how organized the counter intelligence is and what their various response times are. The cost was low, especially given the possibility that the spy exchange that he took part in after a few months in jail might well have been planned long in advance. Military and intelligence organizations do this all the time, to constantly keep track of adversaries' response plans. They constantly change and have to be re-evalutated.