W H O X I S X R O B E R T X E R I N G E R ?
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RUSE |
RUSE
Undercover with FBI Counterintelligence
APRIL 2008
For just shy of ten years, the author lived a clandestine life of intrigue and lunacy, conducting a spectrum of covert operations for the FBI’s foreign-counterintelligence division.
The author’s primary assignment: A sting-penetration into the austere existence of Edward Lee Howard, an ex-CIA officer who defected to Russia in 1985. Objective: To lure this American traitor to capture.
Utilizing cover as a book publishing consultant – combining elements of writing, editing and book packaging – the author gained Howard’s trust as his editor and confidant. As the ruse progressed, the author pierced not only Howard’s inner-circle of KGB cronies, but also his Cuban Intelligence contact network in Havana.
The author even made the acquaintance, through Howard, of KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov – and rused the Soviet spymaster to believe he would orchestrate publication in the West of his memoirs. The author leaned on Kryuchkov to answer scores of sensitive questions that would supposedly improve his dead horse of a book – questions designed by FBI analysts to shed light on sensitive espionage cases. Kryuchkov actually incriminated Edward Lee Howard with candid remarks confirming CIA operations Howard had betrayed to his Soviet handlers (and which Howard had always denied). Bottom line: Through the author the KGB’s former chairman became an unwitting FBI asset!
Over time, the author established such depth of credibility with the Russians, honorary membership in the KGB’s Foreign Intelligence Veterans Association was bestowed upon him by that entity’s general-director, KGB Colonel Igor Prelin. The author was issued a red faux leather, gold embossed membership card, # 4038.
The author commissioned Howard to write Spy’s Guide to Central Europe, including a chapter on spy tradecraft, subsequently used as a blueprint by a joint FBI/CIA task force to strategize how best to lure this traitor to capture. But an operation to repatriate Howard – known as an extraordinary rendition – was scrapped at the eleventh hour by a highly-politicized Justice Department, whose officials worried about embarrassing the Russian government even while corrupt Russian leaders were laundering billions of dollars, and the SVR and FSB, Russia’s intelligence services, were taking advantage of eased tensions with the West by teaming with the Red Mafia and doubling their espionage efforts worldwide.
In addition to his counter-espionage docket, the author undertook assignments for the FBI’s criminal division, including a ruse he devised himself to hasten the extradition from France of convicted murderer Ira Einhorn.
The author’s mastership of the ruse allowed him flexibility from the FBI to a) explore new intelligence opportunities that caught his eye, and b) recruit others to assist him, some witting to their true employer, some not.
Thus, managing a cluster of ever-evolving cases, the author ran his own spy-net, operating as a self-styled maverick unrestricted by geographic boundaries, mixing it up with bad guys in Moscow, Zurich, Geneva, London, Havana, and Champagne-Mouton, France. He did so with the full resources of the FBI – and complete confidence of the Bureau at its most senior level.