Herrington, Stuart. Traitors Among Us: The Spy Catcher's World. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1999.
The intelligence wars were not the exclusive territory of Le Carre-esque, middle-aged savants, or gee-whiz technicians. The United States Army fought a successful war against Soviet penetration right up to the 1990s and the warriors were an exceptional band of enlisted soldiers. Enlisted ranks in counter-intelligence work have tradition in the United States. In Traitor's Among Us: the Spy Catcher's World, former Army Colonel Stuart Herrington sets out to tell their story and his own. The author uses exploits throughout his career and two famous investigations to introduce the reader to the world of military counter-intelligence.
Herrington, former military intelligence officer, military author and enthusiastic cold warrior, set out to tell a new spy story in Traitors Among Us and when he relies on his own passion he succeeds. Herrington led Army counter-intelligence units in the last days of the Cold War and scored dramatic successes in apprehending Warsaw Pact agents directed against the United States Army, Europe. AlthoughHerrington did not personally take part in all the operations described in detail in his memoir, the retired colonel, Zelig-like, was omnipresent in the world of counter-espionage.
The pursuit of the traitors James Hall and Clyde Conrad were the most important investigations of their kind in the post-World War II military. It is a suspense novel already written and Herrington uses the facts of the cases as a framework on which to hang his memoir.
The technical passages of the book should be required reading at Fort Huachuca where the Army trains its special agents. But this is no how-to book. Herrington is telling the story of non-commissioned officers who undertook to outsmart seasoned KGB intelligence operatives, and pulled it off. The single failing of the book is that the reader never gets to know the American soldiers as people, but perhaps this is done to protect the private lives of active intelligence officers. However, it is tantalizing to muse about what motivates these soldiers to seek this kind of work. Instead of portraits, Herrington offers up rather flat descriptions: "right-stuff," "dogged" or even in one case "handsome." Herrington perhaps forgets that it is the character of the intelligence officer that makes readers love a spy story. I served with many of the special agents who make up Herrington's narrative and I know them to be tough-minded, intellectually curious women and men who did a tough job with great humor and passion. The book would be richer if it described that side of the spy catchers.
Traitors Among Us takes us from what Herrington luridly describes as "the dark streets of Berlin" to the military intelligence bureaucracy in the United States and abroad. Herrington knows this subject and he shines light on an aspect of the Army often left unexplored by other authors. The author's previous books dealt with intelligence operations and failures in Vietnam. He brings the experienced officer's passion for the chase to his book and when he is describing the pursuit of enemy agents, his prose is as compelling as any superior work of spy-fiction.
George M. Frederick
US Department of State