Espionage

The Expanding Spectrum of Espionageby Americans, 1947 – 2015 


The Defense Personnel and Security Research Center (PERSEREC) dates from 1986. It was founded because of the espionage of John Walker and his ring of spies. Part of a record year for spies in 1985, when eleven Americans were arrested for espionage, Walker’s capture and the revelation that for 20 years he had betrayed the trust the U.S. Navy placed in him as a cryptographic radioman, provoked outrage. A commission to investigate security practices then formed under General Richard G. Stilwell. Among its recommendations for improvement was the creation of an organization to perform behavioral science research on personnel security policies and practices, so the Department of Defense (DoD) established PERSEREC a year later to ground those practices in objective research. For 30 years, PERSEREC has been working to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and fairness of the DoD personnel and industrial security systems. One consistent research focus has been the phenomenon of trust betrayal in crimes such as espionage. This report is the fourth in a series of unclassified reports on espionage based on information collected in a database maintained by PERSEREC.1 Materials on espionage and espionage-related offenses, including attempted espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, and theft or illegal collection of closely held national defense information with the intent to commit espionage, have been coded into the database. These reports are based on open sources in order to facilitate public access to them. A founding goal of PERSEREC’s is to improve security education and awareness; broad public distribution of unclassified analytical products about espionage furthers that goal.