Blackmail and bribes
on anyone who might be of interest to them (I would give a good deal to see the folder on myself) and they are quick to take advantage of any human weakness these files disclose. Once entrapped, the victim is given a choice between passing along information or having his career or family life wrecked.
William Vassall, a British civil servant with access to important naval secrets, is a recent case in point. Vassall is a homosexual and had served behind the Curtain, where the Communists could easily analyze his weaknesses and set up his recruitment.
The case of our own traitor, Irvin Scarbeck, the State Department employee who was compromised in Warsaw with a Polish girl and then blackmailed into serving the Polish intelligence service, is of a similar sordid type.
Two of the most serious cases of blackmail-induced treason have recently come to light in West Germany. Alfred Frenzel, a prominent Socialist member of the West German parliament, had a secret Communist past. He easily succumbed to the threat of exposure.
The entrapment of Heinz Felfe, who by 1960 had become a senior officer of the West German intelligence service, shows the more usual side of the coin. Felfe had had a sordid past as a member of the Nazi Gestapo. Moscow knew he was trying to cover this up. The threat of disclosure, fortified by a substantial bribe, induced Felfe to work for the Soviets.
5 Money led to Judas Iscariot's treason, and money makes traitors today. It played a major role in one important recent case — that of Col. Stig Wennerstrom, Swedish air attaché in the United States. (See Page 7.)
6 Finally, people become traitors for reasons which defy rational analysis. Nourished grievances and hatreds may bring strange psychopathic reactions. There are many misfits, and human beings just do queer things.
This irrational pattern can be found in many of the cases of lower-level military people who cross over to escape a neurotic life situation which they blame
on the "system" or "the authorities."
A more serious instance of neurotic treason was exposed by the flight behind the Curtain in 1960 of two technicians, William H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell, from our highly sensitive National Security Agency.
Can we block treason?
If we know these six roads which lead to treason, why can't we block them? If in the future you are shocked by the exposure of other cases of treason, remember that in the free world the security services cannot go prying into the private lives of people, even government employees, without good evidence of questionable behavior.
We have learned not to hire the known heavy drinkers, the homosexuals, the neurotics and those with Communist taint who would be easy victims of the Soviet
net.
But, as in the case of Scarbeck, it is possible to hire a young man or woman with a spotless record. Five years later, under the stress and temptation of extensive overseas work, you can have a security risk on your hands.
That is why Gen. Bedell Smith, my predecessor as Director of Central Intelligence, startled the press one day by saying one must assume that there could be a Soviet agent in the CIA. During my period of service, we detected several rather emotional attempts to penetrate the agency; so far as I know none succeeded.
As long as people have strong ideological convictions, human weaknesses and distorted pride, there will be those who betray their native land. Both sides in the ideological struggle will have victories and defeats in this secret war Communism has thrust upon us. Of one thing I can assure you
never before has our nation been so well protected as it now is by the FBI and the CIA. The very fact that today we are catching more of the traitors and spies is a tribute to the West's growing skill in counterespionage. No system can be foolproof, but the tide in this particular area of conflict is turning in our favor.
THE IND