Honor Among Spies

Vladimir Galkin is a former spy who on Oct. 29 came in from the cold of a Moscow autumn to what he expected would be the welcoming warmth of a trade show in New Jersey, where he hoped to do some business. But when Galkin set foot on U.S. soil for the first time he was immediately taken into custody by the FBI and charged with espionage. It seems that Galkin, who retired from the KGB in 1992, once directed a spying operation from Moscow that sought to steal technical information on a U.S. antimissile system. In the FBI’s view, that made him a wanted felon.

But neither the CIA nor the State Department saw it that way. As the Russian Foreign Ministry quickly reminded Washington, there has long been an unwritten agreement that neither side would bump off the other’s spies or put them on trial. When spies are caught spying, they are usually quickly and often quietly deported. Equally protected from punishment are former agents who, like Galkin and numerous CIA retirees, might find themselves traveling on business to the very countries they once spied on.

These pragmatic rules put a veneer of civility on a tough line of work. But to be effective they have to be mutually respected. How, then, did the FBI come to arrest Galkin? Officially, blame is put on a miscommunication between the FBI and the CIA, which have a long history of intense rivalry. If that’s indeed the case, it can hardly encourage confidence that the two top U.S. intelligence services are able to communicate clearly and candidly with each other on matters of real importance to U.S. security.