Espionage presents itself as the force of both good and evil. In this book both can be discerned. Here is an eyewitness-to-history story of betrayal and crushing disappointment told in the background of intrigue, near nuclear holocaust, assassinations, protest movements, the elimination of nuclear missiles in Europe, German reunification and the status of US Forces. There is a lesson here for the New Cold War and the danger of nuclear war by mistake and miscalculation.
Before I arrived at the United States Embassy, Bonn, Germany, in 1983, the counterintelligence apparatus knew there was a major leak of classified documents at the Embassy. This was compartmentalized; need to know information that was never shared until the apprehension of my former secretary, Gabriele Kliem, on March 13, 1991, for espionage.
Recruited by brutally handsome East German Romeo Agents under a false flag of a journalist working for an organization dedicated to peace, Gabriele, my German secretary, would deliver over 1500 classified documents to the East German spy agency, the STASI, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. Unknowingly, the most prolific spy in the history of the Cold War. Also, ironically, her pilfered documents and three other sources not known to her would convince Moscow not to launch a preventive nuclear strike against NATO at the end of exercise Able Archer in November 1983.
The consequences of a near nuclear strike convinced President Ronald Reagan to alter course and pursue the elimination of atomic weapons. The 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty signed with Mikhail Gorbachev eliminated all land-based nuclear missiles on European soil. As I write, the United States and Russia have cancelled their atomic arms limitation treaties. Once again we stare over the abyss as we confront a New Cold War.