Seduced by Secrets

Four and a half FASCINATING Stars!! An intensive examination of East Germany's spy machine during the Cold War. Based primarily on the actual files of the East German Ministry for State Security (aka the "Stasi" and "MfS") which were released after the fall of the Berlin wall, Professor Kristie Macrakis presents a comprehensive picture of the agency, its leaders and staff, the structure, real spies 'in the cold' (especially Agent "Gorbachev") who were recruited or 'turned', the electronic gadgets and techniques ("Spy vs spy") used and developed during the heyday of the Stasi. She examined a voluminous amount of files and index cards, conducted interviews, and visited spy sites, disclosing the ultimate weaknesses of an organization that succumbed to the ultimate seduction. It must be remembered that she and others got last 'dibs' on the files after the then Soviet Union KGB, the US CIA, and West Germany spy agencies got to pore over and presumably remove some of the files first, which makes this book all the more remarkable. At times too technical and organization-centric, it nonetheless satisfies on many levels, is DEFINITIVE, and is Highly Recommended! (Hardcover, 369 pages, with photographs, documents, charts and graphs)

The Eastern German Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, was a premier intelligence agency, perfecting both political, social and economic espionage during the Cold War era. Engaging in covert operations throughout Western Europe, the United States, and elsewhere, Stasi was able to infiltrate both government entities and corporate organizations in order to further the country's technological, military and industrial prowess. Kristie Macrakis, Professor of the History of Science at Michigan State University, has written a masterful, impeccably and meticulously researched book, which explores in engaging scope and detail, the machinations of this both feared and respected organizations. Drawing on Stasi's archives, interviews with former officials, and a wealth of material from other groups including the CIA, her picture of Stasi is a comprehensive exploration that reads like a novel in the finest traditions of the espionage genre. Although the primary focus is on the technology developed, borrowed, or stolen by the agency, the book artfully captures the human element ranging from personal motivation, organizational politics and maneuvering, and insular culture that represented the paranoia of the time. Carefully crafted, Professor Macrakis' work displays a clean crisp writing style, eschewing unnecessary jargon, to unmask the face of a faceless organization. Not content with merely secondary or documentary sources, she has interviewed numerous participants in this dance of seducton, providing the reader with in-depth knowledge and experience. Here we see flawed human characters, carefully and deliberately exposed, to paint a detailed portrait of this relic. Without becoming mired in sensationalism, "Seduced by Secrets," provides a vivid uncompromising picture of those motivated by both idealistic and baser human emotions. It serves as an effective reminder of the human personalities that engage in similar work throughout the world and a warning to those who think that The book is worthwhile from the standpoint of history and human behavior. I cannot recommend this book more highly and hope to see additional books from Kristie Macrakis. If her lectures at Michigan State are as interesting as this book, her students are privileged indeed.

Americans have always had a fascination with and a fear of spy culture. In the popular imagination as portrayed in print fiction and film, operatives are suave, coldblooded, fearless and clever and their clandestine lives are filled with intrigue and danger at all times. Shows such as "Alias" depict a world so far removed from the rest of us that we could scarcely imagine it if we even knew. Kristie Makrakis' book, "Seduced by Secrets" opens a portion of that world to the average citizen, revealing a community that is intimately wedded to creative and sometimes diabolical technologies, but eminently steeped in human error, imperfections and the mundane realities of the detail-oriented business of information extraction. Makrakis' painstaking and thorough research about one of the most famous spy organizations of the 20th century, East Germany's Stasi, is an invaluable source of information about spy culture, but also an incisive critique of the role of science and technology to save us, at least as far as politics and international relations are concerned. The book examines this opaque world in two distinct parts: first, by detailing the East Germans' efforts to acquire technology, even (or especially) through theft; and second by revealing the complicated set of technologies themselves that the Stasi believed would provide East Germany with strategic predominance on the world scene. With this structure, the reader gets both a sense of the personalities involved in the struggle as well as a complete description of specific means the East German government employed to observe the enemy, track the enemy and communicate discreetly about the enemy. For example, the reader learns about invisible ink and secret writing formulas that are revealed for the first time. A historian of science and technology, Makrakis clearly has done her homework, sparing the rest of us from poring over all the classified documents recently made available about this period behind the Iron Curtain. If you are interested in the reality of how spies complete their missions, or are a technology wonk who can't get enough of decryption, surveillance and surreptitious photography, this book will surely prove to be an essential component of your library.

Macrakis is to be commended for combining an impressive level of historical detail with a most engaging style. The book should therefore appeal to historians, espionage buffs and the general reader. As some of the early reviews noted, the book is both extremely well- researched and well-written. The author's passion for her subject is readily apparent throughout this richly researched work. She demonstrates that, as is all too often the case in the spy world, the operatives become so preoccupied with the spy game, that the game becomes an end in itself. A wealth of documentation and anecdotes generously illustrates this theme. The book contains a number of major finds. Perhaps the most exciting of these is the author's invisible ink revelations. Macrakis and her team of science students was able to reproduce an authentic super-secret invisible ink method. This, I believe, is a "first" in the history of espionage. Even to this day the CIA apparently refuses to declassify its invisible ink files. Another intriguing technique was the uncovering of a secret program using radioactive isotopes to track people or their objects. Perhaps contrary to most readers expectations, the use of this technology actually originated with the British police in 1940, and not the KGB! Macrakis also reveals evidence the FBI experimented with them in the 1940s. The author also explodes the myth surrounding the yellow dust cloth, or "smell science." As the author shows, this technique was used not just against dissidents, but also a general tool against criminals by the Stasi. In short, I found this book as illuminating and informative as it is entertaining. The author's blend of creative research techniques and first rate story-telling turns a subject that could easily be just one more dry-as-dust historical exposé, into a thoroughly enjoyable experience. As author Pete Earley put it, "Macrakis writes with a scholar's eye and a novelist's skills." And that's an all too often hard to find combination in history writing. Highly recommended.

Once the two distinct German states were created shortly after the end of World War II, the communist East German nation developed a security service designed to simultaneously spy on the western nations, particularly West Germany and keep their citizens in line. This security agency was formally known as Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security) but was commonly abbreviated as Stasi and known by the acronym MfS. The MfS wove a vast network of internal informants and sent a large number of sleeper agents posing as refugees into West Germany. The common language and culture of the people of the two German nations in combination with their vastly different ideologies meant that there was a constant struggle between the security services of both nations. This was also one segment of the greater struggle between the spy agencies of their two sponsoring superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union. This book is a (very) detailed description of the tactics of the Stasi. Some of it is amusing, for example the clothes containing the smells of suspects kept in sealed glass jars. Other aspects are disturbing, such as the alleged use of dangerous and radioactive substances to track suspects. Overall, it is a fascinating look into the methods and tactics of the near forty year existence of what was a very effective spy agency. Given their weakness in technology, the MfS concentrated on human weaknesses to cultivate their human intelligence sources. It turns out that the spy game is much like most of the other aspects of life. To get people to do what you want, often against their wishes, you exploit their weaknesses for money, sex, power or appeal to their ego. Communism failed as a political and economic system, yet they were very efficient in some areas. Three of them were education, keeping the crime rate low and in spying on everyone the state deemed worth investigating. This book demonstrates how effective one communist state was in carrying out the third.