Spies

Re Perspectives on the Cold War, Commentary, Nov. 9: I was not surprised to encounter Ronald Radosh weighing in from the right to rehabilitate the Red scare of the 1950s as a virtuous campaign against domestic radicals smuggling in a Soviet threat in their red underclothes. But Nelson Lichtenstein's lukewarm defense of Cold War-era liberals was hardly a counterpoint. It is true, as Lichtenstein notes, that 1950s liberal intellectuals distanced themselves from radicals, fellow travelers and avowed communists.

NEW YORK - Dharun Ravi had appeared stoic for three hours, but he broke down in tears as his mother sobbed beside him while pleading with the judge to spare her son from prison. She got what she wanted, up to a point: Judge Glenn Berman on Monday ordered Ravi to spend 30 days in jail for spying with a webcam on his gay Rutgers University roommate, Tyler Clementi, who killed himself days later. Ravi could have received a 10-year term for a crime jurors concluded was motivated by anti-gay bias.

Spies of the Balkans A Novel Alan Furst Random House: 288 pp., $26

WASHINGTON - Concerned about possible cyber spying, U.S. national security officials are debating whether to take the unprecedented step of recommending that a Chinese government-owned mobile phone giant be denied a license to offer international service to American customers. China Mobile, the world's largest mobile provider, applied in October for a license from the Federal Communications Commission to provide service between China and the United States and to build facilities on American soil.

Alan Furst discusses 'Spies of the Balkans' with film and TV writer Dick Clement When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday Where: The Writer's Guild Theatre, 135 South Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills. Tickets: The event is hosted by Los Angeles literary group Writers Bloc and tickets are available for $20 from http://www.writersblocpresents.com.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he had met with Russian spies swapped in an exchange with the United States earlier this month, and promised them a bright future in Russia. "I have no doubts they will have interesting, bright lives," Putin, a former KGB agent, told reporters during a working visit to Ukraine. Ten people pleaded guilty this month to being agents for Russia while living undercover in the United States in one of the biggest spy scandals since the Cold War. They were deported to Russia, which in turn agreed to release four people imprisoned for suspected contact with Western intelligence agencies.

If your knowledge of spies and terrorists is limited to the names of Benedict Arnold, Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden, visit Philadelphia this spring and learn about anarchists and traitors that have haunted America since its birth. On March 4, “ Spies, Traitors & Saboteurs: Fear and Freedom in America ” opens in the National Constitution Center ’s new exhibition space in the Center’s lower level. Created by the International Spy Museum in Washington, the exhibition combines artifacts, multimedia elements and interactive exhibits to reveal tales of espionage, treason and deception in the U.S. from 1776 to today.

A high-ranking intelligence officer betrayed Russia by exposing a secret spy ring operating in the United States until June and defecting, a newspaper reported Thursday. The officer, identified only as Col. Shcherbakov, was instrumental in the high-profile arrests of Russian spies in New York, Boston, Virginia, New Jersey and Cyprus, according to a cover story in the Moscow-based Kommersant daily. Shcherbakov, who the paper said handled the spy ring in the United States, reportedly left Russia shortly before U.S. officials announced the arrests in June.

Two weeks ago, she turned up at the launch of a rocket carrying two cosmonauts and an American astronaut to the International Space Station. On Monday, she appeared at the Kremlin, along with her nine fellow spies deported from the U.S., to receive Russia's highest honor from President Dmitry Medvedev. And on Thursday, her image graced the glossy cover of the Russian edition of Maxim magazine. She was clad in lacy black underwear, with a big gun in her hand. Talk about exposure.

Re "The Loud Fight Over Reporters' Silence," Commentary, Dec. 7: New York Times reporter Judith Miller claims: "This is all about the public -- the public's right to know." To know what? The names of our spies? Absurd! This is not about the public's right to know; it is about the Bush administration's power to destroy anyone who gets in its way -- in this case, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife was a CIA undercover operative. Justice should protect those who serve the public interest, not those who serve as conduits for the cynical abuse of power.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is beefing up its spy service to send several hundred undercover intelligence officers to overseas hot spots to steal secrets on national security threats after a decade of focusing chiefly on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The move comes amid concerns that the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's spy service, needs to expand operations beyond the war zones and to work more closely with the CIA, according to a senior Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the classified program.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will reorganize its spy service to target national security threats around the globe after a decade of focusing chiefly on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior defense official said Monday. The official said several hundred case officers and analysts at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency would be shifted to the new Defense Clandestine Service. The fledgling service is supposed to work closely with CIA officers based at U.S. embassies overseas to collect and distribute intelligence on foreign terrorist networks, nuclear proliferation and other difficult targets, the official said.

CAIRO - Egypt's volatile presidential race was jolted Saturday when the election commission disqualified three controversial front-runners - the nation's former spy chief and two impassioned Islamists - just five weeks before voters go to the polls. The commission removed Omar Suleiman, the intelligence director under deposed President Hosni Mubarak; Khairat Shater, a leading voice for the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood; and Hazem Salah abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Salafi Islamist with wide populist appeal.

An American Spy A Novel Olen Steinhauer St. Martin's/Minotaur Books: 386 pp., $25.99

On two separate occasions over the last nine years, Olen Steinhauer has brought a thriller series to a close. The first was the end of a five-novel series set in an unnamed Eastern European bloc nation. Focusing on a People's Militia homicide unit and stretching over a 40-year period, the historical sweep and breadth of those novels catapulted Steinhauer's work from the mystery to spy genre in a spectacular and satisfying manner - and created high expectations for the series that followed.

TheU.S. Navyhas grounded a fleet of helicopter drones after two of the aircraft crashed overseas within a week. Known as MQ-8B Fire Scouts, the robotic spy choppers were developed by Northrop Grumman Corp.engineers in Rancho Bernardo, Calif. Armed with high-powered cameras, radars and sensors, they were first deployed to war zones in Afghanistan and Libya last year. On Tuesday, the Navy confirmed that it had temporarily suspended flight operations for its 14 remaining Fire Scouts while system performance and operational procedures are reviewed.

The Cold War's abrupt conclusion seemed to take a good bit of the narrative wind out of the espionage genre's sails. Partly, that had to do with the way the conflict ended — only a handful of prescient and implacably anti-communist historians and intellectuals had foreseen that, once contained, the Soviet bloc simply would collapse under its own weight. Partly, it had to do with the loss of that forces-of-light versus forces-of-darkness dichotomy provided by the global struggle between Soviet-style Marxism and the Western democracies.

I am outraged to read the June 24 commentary by Paul D. Moore ("How China Plays the Ethnic Card"). His suggestion that the entire Chinese American community are potential spies for China is not only demagoguery but downright racist. This is precisely the kind of racist stereotyping that caused hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans to be rounded up inside internment camps during World War II. Under the guise of national security, let us see how many of these racists will be crawling out of their dark hiding places.

Before Abdul Majeed was swept away by intelligence agents a year and a half ago, he weighed 154 pounds. Now he weighs 88. Shuffling out of Courtroom 1 at Pakistan's Supreme Court clutching a catheterized urine bag in his hand, he sobbed as he described his secret detention. His only food every day was a small serving of boiled lentils. Lack of water left him severely dehydrated. He says he never saw a doctor, not even when his kidneys began to malfunction. "All of these health problems happened to me while I was in custody," he said.

Is any place less safe than a safe house? In the entire lexicon of movie locations, is any setting more likely to be visited by chaos and destruction on a biblical scale? Not very likely. So it's no surprise that the Denzel Washington-starring "Safe House" is a take-no-prisoners action extravaganza that doesn't stint on either bullets or brutal hand-to-hand combat. It also shows how much can be done with a business-as-usual CIA-thriller script when it's bolstered by effective acting and expert direction.