Pastor Stephen Grant?

Stephen Grant is the pastor at St. Mary’s Lutheran Church on eastern Long Island. Grant is one of the more unique second-career clergy around, as he once worked for the CIA. Besides theology, his interests include archery, golf, writing, classic films, the beach, poker, baseball, and history. Grant also knows his wines, champagnes and brews. Oh yes, he generally dislikes politicians, and happens to be an expert marksman with a handgun and a rifle, while being pretty handy with a combat knife as well.

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Spy Stuff: Spying on the Soviet Embassy in West Germany

An interesting article from RealLife.com offers a glimpse at CIA operations targeted at the Soviet Embassy in West Germany during the late 1960s.

I particularly found the following points interesting:

The declassified document describes the embassy as a potentially target-rich environment: 89 Soviets were assigned to the diplomatic facility in some form, and an estimated 60 percent of those were suspected to be connected to Soviet intelligence.

And there’s this:

    For Project CATOPHAT, the CIA was working with 12 assets “selected from American, German and third-country nationals in witting contact with target personnel to whom they have natural access.”
    A helpful Annex that comes with the declassified documents describes the assets: from a husband and wife couple who happen to live next to a suspected KGB officer, to an Austrian-born American medical school dropout who spied on his neighbors. 
    Another asset, a French citizen, was apparently “recruited” on a trip to Moscow by Soviet intelligence officers who were apparently unaware he was already working for the West. The Soviets wanted the Frenchman, in turn, to get himself recruited by the Americans.


- Ray Keating

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