Benjamin B Fischer
Biographic Data
| ID | 6729340 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin B Fischer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin B |
| FAMILY NAME | Fischer |
| SIGNATURE | FISCHER B B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Advanced Technology Systems Company (United States) |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 39 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Stalin’s Best Spy: Ben Macintyre: Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy . Crown, New York, 2020, 337 p., $28.00
Misinterpretation Leads to War
The One Who Got Away: Jan-Willem Van Den Braak: Hitler’s Spy Against Churchill: The Spy Who Died Out in the Cold Pen & Sword, Philadelphia, 2022, 289 p., $42.95
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. FischerBenjamin B. Fischer, the former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is a specialist in Eastern European and Soviet affairs. He served for nine years in the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence as an analyst of Soviet issues, fifteen years in the Directorate of Operations in the United States and abroad, and ten years on the History Staff at the CIA’s Center for the S…
Believe It or Not: Ann Hagedorn: Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 2021, 259 p., $17.90 (paperback)
How did a nice Jewish boy from Sioux City, Iowa, and an avid baseball fan find himself in the Red Army, pressganged into military intelligence, and sent back to the land of his birth to spy on Amer
Cold War Inflection Point: Serhii Plokhy : Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis W. W. Norton Company & Company, New York, 2021, 444 p., $35.00
Moscow, 1977: My Encounters with the KGB
The United States and Russia are fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. There were proxy wars during the Cold War, but they were fought on the periphery of the superpower conflict in places like Angola d
Forlorn Hopes of the Russian Diaspora: Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan: The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Emigres, and Agents Abroad Public Affairs, New York, 2019,…
Kim and Jim Redux: Michael Holzman: Spies and Traitors: Kim Philby, James Angleton and Betrayal that Would Shape MI6, the CIA, and the Cold War Pegasus Books, New York, 2021, 342 p., $27.95
Penkovsky, the Spy Who Tried to Destroy the World
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) lore and popular culture tout Col. Oleg Penkovsky as “the spy who saved the world” during the Berlin and Cuban missile crises. In fact, his contribution to U.S. intelligence and policymaking is exaggerated, distorted, and in several instances falsified. More disturbing, Penkovsky harbored a murderous rage against the Soviet system and repeatedly tried to inveigle the West in a quixotic quest to destroy it. He dev…
“Real” Americans: From “Ghost Stories” to Buzzfeed
My Two Moles: A Memoir
During my career, I had the dubious experience of crossing paths with the two most notorious foreign intelligence penetrations (“moles”) of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) during and after the
A Cold War Palimpsest and Warning to the West: Gordon Corera: Russians Among Us: Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories, and the Hunt for Putin’s Spies William Morrow, New York, 2020, 438 p., $32.50
To Catch a Spy: David Wise: The Seven Million Dollar Spy. Audiobook and audio CD, Audio Studios, New York, 2018–2019, 6 hours, 21 minutes, $14.00 and Gus Russo and Eric Dezenhall: Best of Enemies: The…
Counterintelligence officers live by an axiom based on history and experience: It takes a spy to catch a spy. “Counterintelligence services rarely expose agents,” according to former Committee for
Lubyanka’s Nightingale and the Novel That Exposed CIA Operation TRIGON
When Yuri Andropov offered to divulge how the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) foiled an important Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation, Julian Semyonov (“Lubyanka’s nightingale”) jumped at the chance to write a spy thriller based on real people and events. TASS is Authorized to Announce ... (1979) is a fictional version of a CIA operation involving Soviet diplomat Aleksandr Ogorodnik (a.k.a. TRIGON). The novel confirms Director …
Fictitious Spies and Fake History: Antonio and Jonna Mendez: The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics That Helped America Win the Cold War Public Affairs, New York, 2019, 228 p., $28
The late Antonio (Tony) Mendez had just completed his fourth book, The Moscow Rules before his death and the second publication co-authored with his wife, Jonna.1 Mendez was a highly decorated and
Repudiating Yalta
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Snowden
By now most people interested in Edward Jay Epstein’s How America Lost Its Secrets will already know the plot and how it ends. A geeky twenty-nine-year-old information technology contractor named E
The Days of the Assassin
In the 1950s Bogdan Stashinsky, a Soviet KGB (USSR Committee for State Security) assassin, murdered two prominent leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement in Munich, Germany. Serhii Plokhy’s r
Scolding Intelligence: The PFIAB Report on the Soviet War Scare
The Board is deeply disturbed by the US handling of the war scare, both at the time and since.—President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory BoardIn October 2015, the private sector National Security A
An American Family's Road to Hell: Kati Marton: True Believer: Stalin’s Last American Spy Simon & Schuster, New York, 2016, 272 p., $27. Tony Sharp : Stalin’s American Spy: Noel Field, Allen Dulles an…
The story of Noel Field lends credence to the adage that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. Field, a Quaker convert to Communism, wanted to do good for mankind. His trivial life
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Paul Stombaugh found himself where no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer ever wanted to be, in an interrogation room in the Lubyanka, the infamous headquarters of the KGB (Committee for Stat
A DCIA Settles Scores: Michael V. Hayden: Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror Penguin Press, New York, 2015, 448 p., $30
A New Approach to Intelligence
Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn: Constructing Cassandra: Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947–2001Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2013, 372 p. $29.95.Milo Jones and Philippe
Doubles Troubles: The CIA and Double Agents during the Cold War
Double agents are a special breed of people. They pretend to spy for one foreign intelligence service while actually spying for another. All intelligence services fall victim to such deception from
Tolkachev Evidence Still Skimpy
I here reply to David Hoffman's earlier comments in these pages.1Hoffman cites secret “technical information” that Soviet radar engineer Adolf Tolkachev reportedly gave the CIA but asks the reader
No prominent works on this page.
Farewell to Sonia, the Spy Who Haunted Britain
(2002). Farewell to Sonia, the Spy Who Haunted Britain. International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence: Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 61-76
The Soviet–American War Scare of the 1980s
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. FischerBenjamin B. Fischer retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in late 2005, after more than thirty years of service. He served in both the Directorates of Intelligence and Operations, and, at retirement, was Chief Historian on the History Staff of the Agency's Center for the Study of Intelligence. Mr. Fischer was also a member of the Editorial Board of the CIA's publication, Studies…
A Review of: “Stalin's Fictitious Spy”
Spy Dust and Ghost Surveillance: How the KGB Spooked the CIA and Hid Aldrich Ames in Plain Sight
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. FischerBenjamin B. Fischer, the former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board and a frequent contributor to the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence
A Dangle or the Real Deal
In “The CIA and Tolkachev vs. the KGB/SVR and Ames: A Comparison,” Professor Joseph W. Wippl notes that for almost two years CIA Headquarters rebuffed Adolf Tolkachev's repeated offers to spy for t
An Unconvincing Thesis
In intelligence jargon, “blowback” refers to the unintended and unforeseen consequences of clandestine operations that go awry. The term gained popular currency after the rise of al-Qaeda, its decl
Schellenberg's List: Reinhard R. Doerries : Hitler's Intelligence Chief: Walter Schellenberg . Introduction by Gerhard L. Weinberg. Enigma Books, New York, 2009, 390 p., $25.00
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. FischerBenjamin B. Fischer is the former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency. A member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, and a frequent contributor to its pages, he is the author of numerous classified and unclassified CIA reports on issues of security, particularly on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
Solidarity, the CIA, and Western Technology
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. FischerBenjamin B. Fischer, the former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a specialist on East European and Soviet affairs. During his career, he served in both the analytical and operational directorates of the CIA. He edited several of the Agency's classified publications on Cold War events, some of which have been partially or fully declassified. Mr. Fischer is an Edito…
Canopy Wing: The U.S. War Plan That Gave the East Germans Goose Bumps
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. FischerBenjamin B. Fischer, the former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a specialist on Eastern European and Soviet affairs. A graduate of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and Columbia University, New York City, he served for nine years in the Agency's Directorate of Intelligence as an analyst of Soviet issues, fifteen years in the Directorate of Operations in the U…
A Controversial Memoir
Tennent H. Bagley: Spymaster: Startling Cold War Revelations of a Soviet KGB Chief Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2013, 302 p., $26.95. For 50 years the late Tennent (Pete) Bagley pursued Yuri Nose
The Best Kept Secret: An Untold Story of a Cold War Operation
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. Fischer Benjamin B. Fischer, the former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a specialist on Eastern European and Soviet affairs. A graduate of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and Columbia University, New York City, he served for nine years in the Agency's Directorate of Intelligence as an analyst of Soviet issues, fifteen years in the Directorate of Operations in the …
Spying's Exotic Aspects
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. FischerBenjamin B. Fischer, the former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a specialist on Eastern European and Soviet affairs. A graduate of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and Columbia University, New York City, he served for nine years in the Agency's Directorate of Intelligence as an analyst of Soviet issues, fifteen years in the Directorate of Operations in the U…
A Perfect Crime?: A Cold War Mystery
An Agency Insider's View of the World
Additional informationNotes on contributorsBenjamin B. FischerBenjamin B. Fischer, the former Chief Historian of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a specialist on Eastern European and Soviet Affairs. A graduate of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and Columbia University, New York City, he served for nine years in the Agency's Directorate of Intelligence as an analyst of Soviet issues, fifteen years in the Directorate of Operations in the U…
A New Approach to Intelligence
Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn: Constructing Cassandra: Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947–2001Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2013, 372 p. $29.95.Milo Jones and Philippe
Doubles Troubles: The CIA and Double Agents during the Cold War
Double agents are a special breed of people. They pretend to spy for one foreign intelligence service while actually spying for another. All intelligence services fall victim to such deception from
Tolkachev Evidence Still Skimpy
I here reply to David Hoffman's earlier comments in these pages.1Hoffman cites secret “technical information” that Soviet radar engineer Adolf Tolkachev reportedly gave the CIA but asks the reader
An American Family's Road to Hell: Kati Marton: True Believer: Stalin’s Last American Spy Simon & Schuster, New York, 2016, 272 p., $27. Tony Sharp : Stalin’s American Spy: Noel Field, Allen Dulles an…
The story of Noel Field lends credence to the adage that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. Field, a Quaker convert to Communism, wanted to do good for mankind. His trivial life
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Paul Stombaugh found himself where no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer ever wanted to be, in an interrogation room in the Lubyanka, the infamous headquarters of the KGB (Committee for Stat
A DCIA Settles Scores: Michael V. Hayden: Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror Penguin Press, New York, 2015, 448 p., $30
The Days of the Assassin
In the 1950s Bogdan Stashinsky, a Soviet KGB (USSR Committee for State Security) assassin, murdered two prominent leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement in Munich, Germany. Serhii Plokhy’s r
Scolding Intelligence: The PFIAB Report on the Soviet War Scare
The Board is deeply disturbed by the US handling of the war scare, both at the time and since.—President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory BoardIn October 2015, the private sector National Security A
Repudiating Yalta
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Snowden
By now most people interested in Edward Jay Epstein’s How America Lost Its Secrets will already know the plot and how it ends. A geeky twenty-nine-year-old information technology contractor named E
Fictitious Spies and Fake History: Antonio and Jonna Mendez: The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics That Helped America Win the Cold War Public Affairs, New York, 2019, 228 p., $28
The late Antonio (Tony) Mendez had just completed his fourth book, The Moscow Rules before his death and the second publication co-authored with his wife, Jonna.1 Mendez was a highly decorated and
Political science (36 works) · Intelligence, Security, War Strategy (26 works) · Law (25 works) · History (18 works) · Politics (14 works) · Economic history (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Cold war (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Social science (10 works)