MetaFilter posts tagged with coldwar and spies

"a real-life James Bond. His boozy amours, his tough postures, his intelligence expertise..."

The Whelk — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 11:55:35 -0800

In 1948, when John was five, Guy Burgess came to stay for a holiday. John's mother resented Burgess and his close relationship with her husband, and began staging accidents to claim attention; she once reported being mugged in her car, and on another occasion set fire to the living room, suffering serious burns. She was later sent to a Swiss clinic for treatment. Philby was posted to the United States the following year. The strange life of John Philby, the son of "the most hated man in England", Kim Philby, a member of the notorious Cambridge Five spying ring. (via)

hatchink fiendish plan to catch moose and squirrel

shothotbot — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:14:05 -0800

Interested in Soviet era spying by the KGB in the United States? Bummed that you cant get into the KGB archives? Well it turns out that someone copied all the good stuff already, and you can take a peek. Alexander Vassiliev was a KGB officer who turned to journalism in 1990. From 1993-96 he had access to the KGB archives for the 1930s to early 1950s to write notes for a book project on Soviet spying in the Stalin era. His original notebooks - including extensive verbatim transcriptions - were left behind in Moscow when he moved to London but smuggled out via an elaborate plan. There are eight notebooks, on the Cold War International History site there are scans, transliterations and translations of each notebook, free for nothing. Vassilev assisted in the transcriptions and transliterations. The whole story is in Alexander Vassiliev’s Notebooks: Provenance and Documentation of Soviet Intelligence Activities in the United States (pdf). "Since the KGB’s archives remain closed, Vassiliev’s notebooks are as close as we are likely to get to the actual documents for many years, likely decades"

A Tale of Two Airplanes

kurmbox — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:35:34 -0800

"Once Upon A Time... there were two very special airplanes that lived.... far.... far.... away on a tiny island in the Bering Sea. One was named Rivet Ball and the other was named Rivet Amber. Very few people knew anything about these two planes or the men that flew them. Even family members knew very little. That's because their mission was... TOP SECRET." (some photos and language within are NSFW) [via the wonderful PointNiner]

The Mystery of Ales

anastasiav — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:21:53 -0800

The Mystery of Ales :: a new take on the Alger Hiss problem

50 year anniversary of the Rosenberg's execution

jokeefe — Fri, 20 Jun 2003 16:04:52 -0800

Robert Meeropol, the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, writes about his parents. I'm suprised nobody else posted about this yesterday--June 19th was the 50th anniversary of their execution for espionage.
The executions at Sing Sing on June 19, 1953, ended a sensational Cold War case that still symbolizes the years when McCarthyism held sway and the government's word was accepted more readily than today. It was the first execution of civilians for espionage in U.S. history and it reverberated into the issues of dissent, anti-Semitism and capital punishment.
Pete Seeger and others comment here; the Guardian here. The Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Trial (which features representations of the couple by Picasso, among others) notes that:
In August of 1993, members of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation re-enacted the 1951 trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. A moot trial was conducted with expertise and meticulous concern for accuracy. The unanimous verdict of the twelve jurors was "Not Guilty." This "trial" and its dramatic outcome was widely reported by the media - for one day only.