Wilderness of Mirrors

"This was probably the first book detailing Soviet offensive operations and American defensive counter-intelligence. It’s about the CIA’s largely unsuccessful efforts to root out suspected Soviet spies within the US intelligence community. It tells the story of James Angleton, the man in charge of counter-intelligence at the CIA, that is, stopping people from infiltrating the organisation. There was a Russian defector in the 1960s, Anatoly Golitsyn, who went to the States and started talking and Angleton basically believed him when he said there was a mole inside the CIA. He tore the CIA apart looking for the mole and the question was: was he a KGB plant getting the CIA to tie themselves up in knots? Nobody knows. The term ‘wilderness of mirrors’ is still used today. How do you penetrate the wilderness and find out the truth? There is no real answer. But Angleton created the craft of counter-intelligence. He was based in London during the war and learnt a lot from the Brits. Kim Philby was a close associate of his at the time. He kept enormous card indexes of people and how they related to each other – tried to follow the patterns. He became very paranoid by the end. Yes."