Book Review: Two Spies and the Cold War

The volatility of the Korean Peninsula could make anyone long for a Paul Dillon and a Dmitri Polyakov, two men who likely prevented a nuclear war.

Hardly anyone knows them, of course, because they were secret agents – spies, if you will – for the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively. 

This is what Eva Dillon, Paul’s daughter, does so well in her new book, Spies in the Family:  She puts a human face on what’s done anonymously, enlightening us to the heavy burden carried by those working incognito and, sometimes, the fatal end that awaits them. 

Paul Dillon spent nearly 30 years in the U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency, from the early 1950s, when he was undercover in Germany, to his untimely death due to disease in 1980.  He and his wife took their children around the globe – including to Mexico City, Rome and New Delhi – as he pursued numerous opportunities to turn Soviet spies into double agents. 

His biggest turncoat, Soviet Major General Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov, provided a treasure trove of information that likely helped reduce East-West tensions and, possibly, prevented World War III.

Polyakov, a decorated World War II veteran, started giving information to the United States in 1960, while working at the Soviet Union’s United Nations mission in New York, identifying Soviet spies in what would become the “biggest penetration of Soviet intelligence the FBI ever made.”

Polyakov wasn’t a double agent for personal gain.  He had a noble mission, Dillon says, wanting “to lessen the inevitability of a disastrous clash” between his country and the United States.  Even when offered political asylum and U.S. citizenship, he turned them down, saying he would die a Russian.

Paul Dillon met Polyakov in 1966 in Rangoon, Burma.  Their relationship continued when they were both working in New Delhi, with Dillon undercover as the U.S. Embassy’s first secretary and Polyakov undercover as the Soviet Union’s military attaché.

The two became close – even going on weekend hunting trips together – and, in time, Polyakov provided Dillon with precious insight into Soviet thinking about a nuclear war, showing that Moscow didn’t think such a war was winnable. 

CIA Director (and future Secretary of Defense) Robert Gates later told Time magazine that Polyakov “may have prevented U.S. miscalculations that would have touched off a shooting war” between both countries.  James Woolsey, CIA Director under President Clinton, described Polyakov as a “crown jewel,” the one who “kept the Cold War from becoming hot.”  Polyakov was so valuable to the United States that even President Reagan, in one of his final meetings with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, asked about him.

A spy’s life can be fraught with terror and a grim end, sometimes by the hands of his own people, sometimes even after he's retired.  That would become Polyakov’s tragic fate after infamous CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames turned over his name, along with others, to his Soviet handlers.  Reagan’s request was two months too late, Gorbachev informed him.  Polyakov was already dead.  Video of his arrest by the KGB is available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0-1ogBb6kg. 

As the United States faces renewed tension with Russia, as China builds military bases in the South China Sea, and North Korea appears to make good on its threat to arm itself with nuclear missiles, even threatening to use them – and that’s before considering Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and terrorist threats – this book should be required reading.  It should prompt all of us to hope that somewhere, in diplomacy’s deep, dark underworld, there’s a Paul Dillon and a Dmitri Polyakov working diligently so that cooler heads will prevail. 

This is a very readable and well researched book, with a nice mix of primary and secondary sources.  The author was able to interview some of her dad’s former colleagues as well as Polyakov’s son, Alexander.  In addition, we learn that working at the CIA is hardly what’s depicted in movies or television shows and that the skill set of its agents is broader than many might expect.

If there’s a flaw in this book, it’s when Eva met Alexander.  Given their connection, I was hoping there would be a chapter discussing what it was like to meet the son of a man who took so many chances.  In many ways, Eva and Alexander should be almost like brother and sister.  But, similar to the silent service of their fathers, little is revealed about their time together.

Spies in the Family:  An American Spymaster, His Russian Crown Jewel, and the Friendship that Helped End the Cold War, Eva Dillon, HarperCollins Publishers, $28.99, 327 pages

Hold the applause on North Korea

While President Bush and his administration are giving themselves high fives for their diplomatic victory against North Korea at the United Nations, let’s keep in mind what the sanctions didn’t address on Saturday – the demise of North Korea, which means, for the foreseeable future, Kim Jung Il will continue to menace the world in general and the United States in particular.

China, North Korea’s best ally, sharing a border with the rogue state that’s about 880 miles long, has every reason to support Kim Jung Il. While Beijing may have lost some respect for not being able to control their stooge in Pyongyang, their interest in mining North Korea for gold and other precious metals supersedes anything they lost last week.

The Chinese have their eyes on the country’s natural resources and are prepared to pay North Korea for the rights to mine them. China will sell these precious metals. North Korea, for that matter, needs assistance bringing these natural resources to market; in addition, Kim Jung Il knows that whatever payment he receives from the Chinese will prop up his regime.

China will talk a good game about enforcing the U.N.-approved sanctions against North Korea, but don’t expect them to lead the charge, let alone do much. In addition, China views North Korea as part of their area of influence. As The Economist reports, Beijing considers a unified Korean peninsula a potential threat to national security. They prefer a divided peninsula because it maintains their influence with Japan.

To be sure, some damage has been inflicted on North Korea. Kim Jung Il’s favorite bank, Macao-based Banco Delta Asia, has been pressured by the United States to shut down or freeze the accounts of the North Korean leadership. This certainly crimps Kim Jung Il’s style but not so much that he feels his days are coming to an end.

So, essentially, very little progress has been made against North Korea. The only thing that’s likely to bring the regime to an end is either a U.S.-led war or a charge led by renegades inside North Korea. Neither is on the horizon.

North Korea

If we are to believe today’s news reports, North Korea has a nuclear bomb. If you’ve been following the news for the last few years, this shouldn’t surprise you. The best guesses on this most secretive regime was that it was developing a nuclear bomb for quite some time.

The question, as always, is does North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, have the willingness to use it. And this is a question that can only be answered with sheer speculation.

To be sure, the latest reports indicate this isn’t much of a bomb. It wasn’t anywhere near the size of the atomic bomb, today’s Wall Street Journal reports, that the United States dropped on Japan during World War II.

Still, a nuclear-armed North Korea shouldn’t settle well with anyone. It doesn’t help China’s self-perceived position as Asia’s honest broker to see its key ally openly defy it, which it did by exploding a nuclear bomb. And it begs the following questions:

• Do the Chinese still have any influence with Pyongyang?
• Are the Chinese, while officially against a nuclear-armed North Korea,
secretly celebrating this latest development?

The answers: Who knows?

So this latest development begs us for options. Here they are:

1. Invade North Korea. While this might settle well with all of the hawks, the problem with this policy is that President Bush doesn’t have enough political capital to take the country to another war. If North Korea successfully launches a nuclear strike against the United States or Japan, then the President’s political position changes. But until then, North Korea remains safe from a pre-emptive war.
2. Cut off aid to North Korea. This one might actually fly. For years, the United States, through the United Nations, has provided food to North Korea. The deal went something like this: We give food to North Korea so they don’t develop nuclear weapons. Since this deal has been violated, the United States is in a good position to tell North Korea, the United Nations, and, more importantly, China, that it will no longer provide food assistance to North Korea. The latest reports suggest that North Korea, a country of around 23 million people, is practically starving.
3. Give nuclear arms to Japan. This changes the balance of power in Asia dramatically and it won’t settle well with China, which views World War II as something that happened last week. But it might actually be something the United States can do to keep North Korea guessing. It might also be the strongest military action the United States can successfully carry out in the near term. Questions about this option will involve China’s response. China can be expected to react strongly against a nuclear armed Japan. Japan might resist this option because it has a new prime minister, and he may not be ready to risk any chance he has of improving relations with China.
4. Complain to the United Nations. The problem with this body is that it can’t resolve the average, run-of-the-mill genocide. So don’t expect it to resolve, to our liking at least, anything as complicated as North Korea and nuclear weapons. This is a nice choice from the standpoint of increasing our goodwill throughout the world; but, seriously, don’t expect it to do much in terms of bringing this issue to a resolution.
5. Do nothing. This policy might settle well with the isolationists in the United States but it’s problematic. South Korea is an ally and the United States is committed to its defense and survival. This is not an option.
6. Find out what the Chinese know. Spending time with the Chinese makes sense because China is North Korea’s best ally. The latest developments in North Korea make the merits of such talks questionable; but the Chinese, on the q-t of course, might release information about North Korea that only they know. Which might help the case the United States is making.
7. Survey our allies in Asia. This means finding out what the thinking is with Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand about the developments in North Korea. This is helpful and important but doesn’t provide any immediate satisfaction in terms of resolving the issue.
8. Continue the six-party talks with North Korea. Given yesterday’s news, the possible results of this plan are questionable.
9. Talk one-on-one with North Korea. This is exactly what Kim Jong Il wants – respect from the United States. George W. Bush is in the final two years of his presidency. He’s coasting, you might say, until he turns over the keys to the Oval Office. There’s a case to be made for him to talk one-on-one with Kim Jong Il but it’s highly unlikely that the United States will ever enter into direct talks, alone, with North Korea.

The problem with all of these options is that, with the exception of the first one, none of them leads to the solution which is needed – the demise of North Korea. The problem with keeping North Korea around is that it will likely behave in the same manner – or worse – in the coming months or years.

And it begs the question why does the United States want this problem to remain unsolved. It doesn’t but right now the president doesn’t have the political capital and the military doesn’t have the means of taking out North Korea once and for all.

So we’re stuck with this problem – unless Kim Jong Il acts irrationally. He won’t. He’s far too smart. Be prepared for more saber-rattling from North Korea and a few more explosions.