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James Comey testifying on Capitol Hill on Monday. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times

Counterintelligence is long, hard work. Investigators need time to string along suspects — seeking the who, what, when, where and why of the case. The Federal Bureau of Investigation tries to build 3-D chronologies of who did what to whom. Agents usually follow the money, the best evidence. That’s how the feds got Al Capone: for tax evasion.

The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, is running the most explosive counterintelligence case since Soviet spies stole the secrets of the atom bomb more than 70 years ago. Some of those atomic spies didn’t speak Russian: They were Americans. We now know that President Vladimir V.…  Seguir leyendo »

President-elect Salvador Allende, of Chile, arriving to pay respects to Gen. René Schneider, who was lying in state, killed by a commando. Robert Quiroga/Associated Press

It is familiar, the outrage and alarm that many Americans are feeling at reports that Russia, according to a secret intelligence assessment, interfered in the United States election to help Donald J. Trump become president.

I have been through this before, overwhelmed by a similar outrage and alarm.

To be specific: On the morning of Oct. 22, 1970, in what was then my home in Santiago de Chile, my wife, Angélica, and I listened to a news flash on the radio. Gen. René Schneider, the head of Chile’s armed forces, had been shot by a commando on a street of the capital.…  Seguir leyendo »

El presidente electo Salvador Allende llega a rendir el último homenaje al general René Schneider. Credit Robert Quiroga/Associated Press

Es tristemente familiar para mí la indignación y alarma que muchos estadounidenses sienten ante la noticia de que sus servicios de inteligencia han confirmado que Rusia intervino en las recientes elecciones con la intención de que Donald Trump fuera el próximo presidente.

He vivido antes esa misma indignación, esa misma alarma.

Para ser más específico: la mañana del 22 de octubre de 1970, en lo que por entonces era mi casa en Santiago de Chile, escuché, junto a mi mujer Angélica, un flash extraordinario por la radio. Un comando de ultra-derecha había atentado contra el General René Schneider, jefe de las fuerzas armadas chilenas.…  Seguir leyendo »

I’ve never been enamored of the cliché about an “October surprise”; it’s an artificial construct for anything unexpected in the final weeks before an election. Actually, the only surprise in this turbulent election would have been if nothing out of the ordinary happened in the closing days. It felt a bit weird that—up until about 1:00 PM on Friday, October 28—we seemed to be drifting toward an inexorable and overwhelming victory for Hillary Clinton, while Donald Trump was headed toward a humiliating defeat. The esteemed political analyst Charlie Cook predicted that the Democrats would win five to seven Senate seats and take over that body in the next session; even the highly gerrymandered House of Representatives was seen as possibly in play.…  Seguir leyendo »

Moscow, September 2008. Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

The second act of the Trump-Putin farce seems to be playing out faster than the first act, but following the same general trajectory: apparent revelations followed by exaggerated interpretation followed by a subdued debunking, all of it somehow giving weight to what, in the end, has never been much more than a matter of speculation. The theory is that Russian President Vladimir Putin is actively trying to bring Donald Trump to office and in fact has direct ties to the onsandidate. The evidence is scant, but the assumption is strong. The reality-based world view is further weakened and American political culture is the loser.…  Seguir leyendo »

FBI director James Comey, Washington, DC, July 7, 2016. Rex Features via AP Images/Shutterstock

Is FBI Director James Comey “fiercely independent,” as President Barack Obama described him three years ago when nominating him for his current job, or fiercely self-serving? That’s the question that looms large in the wake of Comey’s unprecedented decision to wade into a presidential race eleven days before election day by announcing that he’d reopened an investigation into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton concerning her private email server—an investigation that he had brought to close in a major press conference in July. The announcement, which came in a very short letter to members of Congress Friday, violated two long-established rules governing criminal investigations. …  Seguir leyendo »

During the Cold War, the Soviet KGB coined the term “desinformatsiya,” or disinformation, which the CIA defined as "false, incomplete or misleading information" fed to various targets. Both the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in the same game, though the Russians played it far more vigorously.

In the digital age, the players might not have to go to the trouble of altering information, or mixing true information with false. Simply hacking into sensitive emails or other data, even when the information is true, can have the same impact as disinformation.

Witness WikiLeaks’ release of a steady flow of emails the group asserts are from John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and former counselor to President Barack Obama.…  Seguir leyendo »