Clandestine HUMINT - Penetrations of Foreign Targets By People Loyal To Their Own Country - Dangled Mole

Dangled Mole

Dangled moles start out being loyal to one country B, but go to work for another service A, reporting back to their original service. Such operations can become "infinities of mirrors" as the mole may be detected and the service by which they are employed tries to double them, which may or may not work.

One of the best-known, and apparently most successful, was the early Soviet recruitment of Kim Philby (i.e., service B), who was then dangled to the British Secret Intelligence Service (i.e., service A), for whom Philby went to work and rose to high rank. Philby is discussed further below.

As far as is known from public sources, the only mole, already loyal to a foreign service, who went to work for the CIA (i.e., in the service A role) was Karl Koecher, who actually was loyal to the Czechoslovakian intelligence service (service B1), while Czechoslovakia was a Soviet (i.e., service B) satellite state. Koecher became a CIA translator and a good source of information to the Czechs and Soviets. While, as far as is known in public sources, still loyal to his original agency, Koecher was ordered to report to Moscow by Oleg Kalugin, longtime legal resident of the USSR in the US. Kalugin accused Koecher of being a US double agent. Koecher retired from the CIA and went to work in academia, but was subsequently reactivated by the KGB and went to work, part-time, for the CIA. During this period, he was discovered by the FBI, who attempted to double him against the KGB, but the FBI considered him unreliable and eventually arrested him. The arrest was legally tainted, and Koecher was eventually exchanged for Soviet prisoners, both sides apparently not wanting the affair to be in a public court.

The US used Katrina Leung as a dangled mole to the PRC, although the true loyalty of Leung, who came to the US on a Taiwanese passport, is not known with certainty. She may have had a long-term allegiance to the PRC, been loyal to the US and then been turned by the PRC, or primarily been loyal to herself.