Martin Scicluna writes (October 17) that “For those my age who, as foot soldiers, fought and won the Cold War”, the recent reports of “Russia’s bungling spies” have been “a source of great amusement”.

I was a (potential) war correspondent during the final – and the most dangerous – days when the Cold War was rapidly overheating. We frontline reporters were issued with NBC (nuclear-biological-chemical) clothing, in which to work and to sleep. It was not easy to hear what was going on, to take a shorthand note, to type or to use a phone while wearing it. But that is only a line to establish my own Cold War credentials, to match Scicluna’s, a “foot soldier” who should not have been anywhere near the action.

Russian spies were not “bungling” in those days. In fact, they prevented the start of World War III.

The Russian spies in the west told the Kremlin that Nato was only playing “war games”. It was, but these were serious games. RAF and USAF fighter bombers, making no attempt to avoid radar detection, were flying straight at the (Warsaw Pact) borders and veering off at the very last moment. The plan was to test the opposition, to see how, and how rapidly, it would react to a real threat.

Russian spies in Moscow told Nato that Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader, unconvinced by the reports from his own people, had become totally paranoid about these practice attacks, that he believed they were leading up to the real thing and that he was about to “retaliate first”.

As a result of Russian intelligence – happily, the part of it that was on our side – the ‘war games’ were abruptly stopped.

I knew quite a few KGB men. Of course, that should have been impossible, because they were spies. But, obviously, the dangerous spies were the KGB men we did not know about.

So here’s (finally) the point that I think Scicluna, and others like him, may be missing.

If you are unaware of the activities of Russia’s foreign intelligence services (formerly the KGB, now the FSB and, militarily, the GRU) you have cause to worry. Where are they? What are they up to?

If, on the other hand, you see them operating, and perhaps part-failing, you regard them as bungling oafs and look on, like Scicluna, “with amusement”. Nothing to worry about. Even when they kill people.

If you are unaware of the activities of Russia’s foreign intelligence services you have causeto worry

A simple, local comparison might be the frequent reports of successful drug discoveries by the police. Acting on a tip-off, they make an arrest and announce a massive “drug haul”. Meanwhile, the drug dealers are smuggling in bigger quantities. Undetected. (It happens in other countries, too.) But the effect is to make the authorities appear to be on the ball when, in fact, they are fighting – a slight exaggeration – a losing battle that the dealers are convincingly winning.

Same goes for the Russians. How daft do we imagine Vladimir Putin (a former KGB man himself) to be?

It was only a couple of weeks ago that the (UK) National Cyber Security Centre felt able to expose “a campaign by the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service, of indiscriminate and reckless cyber-attacks targeting political institutions, businesses, media and sport”. (And sport? Now, that’s serious.)

We have all been reading, meanwhile, of such cyber interventions for a couple of years – Brexit, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, to name but a few. And these reports have often been dismissed under the heading of “they would say that, wouldn’t they?”

It is not half as interesting as watching – often on local CCTV, but interestingly even on Russian state TV – the exposure of bungling Russian spies.

How inept those Commies are, eh? How smart are our own intelligence agencies in so quickly and easily rumbling them? We, the west, can show those Russkies a thing or two in the great game of intelligence, don’cha know?

But perhaps it is just that we are too easily distracted.

Perhaps... well, you should have got the plot, by now.

Few readers may remember one of the most dangerous and most successful British traitors (so far as is known) called Guy Burgess. He worked inside MI5 (and also for the BBC). An outrageous drunk and homosexual in the days when homosexuality was still illegal, he told everybody he was actually a communist, working for the USSR.

And everybody who knew him looked on.

With amusement...

Revel Barker is a (semi) retired Fleet Street reporter who resides in Gozo.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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