Coercion, often the threat of exposing a potential recruit for past sins such as previous co-operation with the recruiting agency itself, has proven to be an effective way to recruit foreign agents (defectors). Threats of physical harm, expecially to members of the target's family are known also to work. Some 30 years ago, LL was told of a Canadian of Estonian heritage, who was approached by representatives of the KGB in Canada and threatened with severe harm to his family left behind in Estonia during the war if he did not become a willing associate to the Soviet agency. Canadian officials acknlowedged that these types of cases were extremely rare.
These are heavy-handed, non-sophisticated tools of the trade. There are, however, other approaches that provide the impetus to defect (in this context meant to denote secret co-operation with the enemy service).
The feeling that one is involved in activity that gives them a certain “power” over others is a known incentive to work for the other side. It's also the need to feel “important”. Thus intelligence recruiters have their eyes out for people holding down menial jobs, but who may have access to desired information.
Financial reward is certainly a known incentive to become an agent. Thus, simple of offers of money, especially to those known to have financial problems becomes a powerful, no-nonsense incentive.
An ideological inclination to view the world in the same light as the recruiting country is known to have been successfully used. The most publicized example of recruits motivated by clear-cut ideological reasons were the group of Cambridge alumni who were able to position themselves deep within the British intelligence community and who did irreperable harm to British interests. Even though Anthony Blunt claimed that none of the infamous “Cambridge Five” were recruited by the Soviets until after they had graduated from Cambridge University, all five were known to have been active in far-left organizations as students.
Four members of the “Five” are known: Kim Philby (said to have also been the reason why MI6 was forced to abandon its plan to help infiltrate Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian ex-officers into the post-war occupied countries as active anti-Soviet resistance fighters), Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and amd Anthony Blunt. Blunt being older than the rest of the group was known to have been the talent spotter with the actual recruitment done by Russian front-man Arnold Deutsch who worked actively for Moscow until the early fifties. Several individuals have been suspected of being that fifth man of the “Cambridge Five” with John Cairncross being identified by KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky.
The “Cambridge Five” are probably the most well known group to have been motivated by ideological considerations. It became clear decades ago that they all developed solid left-wing sympathies, in fact ideological inclinations so obvious that they became visible to Soviet intelligence recruiters. It has been said that the left wing attraction among some students at pre-war Cambridge was so strong it possessed an almost religious quality. For many, who were at a distance, the Communist Revolution in Russia simply meant the overthrow of an old corrupt order and an opportunity for people to better their lives. Outright repression or the terrorizing of the population were simply denied by fellow travellers in the West or rejected off-hand as necessary for the success of the revolution. In spite of the naïve ideological bent of the “Five”, Soviet intelligence ironically never fully trusted the Cambridge group and could never quite believe their luck in recruitment.
It would be easy to suggest that top communists in Estonia would make logical choices for recruitment currently. They were supposed to be ideologically inspired to struggle their way up the party ladder. However, most observers insist that ideology played a minor role (if any at all) in an individual's aspirations to make the Communist Party a venue for career advancement. In most cases, climbing up the party's ladder was for personal gain, power, privilege etc. It's said that very few highly placed party prominents actually believed in Communism's goals. Thus ideology as a motivator for working for the other side can be generally discounted for former party hacks. But one cannot ignore the possibility of acutely embarassing skeltons in the closet as an achille's heal for the former party elite.
Even more compelling is the fact that former prominent communists are now of the age that places them out of the career positions with access to material and information that Moscow considers to be vital. It's highly likely that Moscow is constantly trying to spot those younger individuals, with access to political, military, economic, etc. secrets. But those individuals also must have a vulnerability that makes them susceptible to recruitment. (To be continued.)
Laas Leivat
