Top Secret: A Clandestine Operator's Glossary of Terms

140 Pages·1987·5.441 MB·English

by  Bob Burton

. TOP
SECRET
OF TERMS
Bob Burton
2 :
;
7
al
TOP
SECRET
£) ey]. [2a
2 Zz q | H
Bob Burton
PALADIN PRESS
BOULDER, COLORADO
Aiverno College
Library Media Center
Top Secret: A Clandestine Operator’s
Glossary of Terms
by Bob Burton
Copyright © 1986 by Bob Burton
ISBN 0-87364-350-X
Printed in the United States of America
Published by Paladin Press, a division of
Paladin Enterprises, Inc., P.O. Box 1307,
Boulder, Colorado 80306, USA.
[phone]
Direct inquiries and/or orders to the above address.
All rights reserved. Except for use in a review, no
portion of this book may be reproduced in any form
without the express written permission of the publisher,
Neither the author nor the publisher assumes
any responsibility for the use or misuse of
information contained in this book.
Contents
Foreword ... v
Acknowledgments ... vii
Introduction ... 1
Glossary... 3
Appendix 1: Evaluation of Intelligence ... 113
Appendix 2: Equivalent Security Classifications of
Foreign Countries and International
Pact Organizations ... 116
Appendix 3: The Intellisence Cycle... . 122
Appendix 4: The Intelligence Community ... 124
Appendix 5: Persona Non Grata ... 127
-ili-

Foreword
The drama and secrecy of international espionage fascinate people
from all walks of life. Many take an almost religious interest in this
devious field of endeavor. Since the end of World War II, both fiction
and nonfiction books on espionage have been at the top of the best-
seller lists in the United States and Europe year after year. Nonfiction
accounts of espionage use jargon and acronyms to describe to the
reader operations conducted by intelligence services, their agents and
targets. Ironically, fictional books on spying tend to utilize entirely
different jargon. Thus the readers of both of these kinds of books must
try to decipher the jargon unique to each author in order to make
sense of the text.
Bob Burton has come to the rescue of the millions of devout readers
of spy books by painstakingly amassing the only comprehensive dic-
tionary of espionage terminology available to the public. This outstand-
ing lexicon of espionage jargon and acronyms will enable readers world-
wide to better understand the literature, both fiction and nonfiction.
Not only will readers benefit, but authors will also flock to purchase
copies so that they can add realism to their spy novels by using the ter-
minology used by the intelligence services in the real world of espion-
age.
By virtue of having devoted over twenty-five years to working
against the Soviet Union’s infamous Committee for State Security
(KGB) on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), I can assure
those who acquire this treasure of espionage terminology that intel-
ligence services on both sides of the Iron Curtain will see to it that
Burton’s dictionary of espionage terms is read by their best operatives.
There are a lot of terms in this book that are not known to a substan-
tial number of intelligence services, especially in Third World countries.
Now for the first time spies all over the world will be able to decipher
their adversaries’ secret documents!
The year 1985 has got to be known as the year of espionage disclo-
sures. Every day newspapers are loaded with the latest scandal involving
the Soviets’ KGB penetrations of our Defense Department, high tech-
nology labs, the FBI and even the CIA. Such new espionage terms as
spy dust are sure to be included in the books on international espionage
that are being rushed to the bookstores by publishers eager to cash in
on the public’s keen interest in espionage.
This lexicon of espionage jargon and acronyms will enable you to
intelligently decipher all the books on espionage written over the past
twenty-five years, as well as the thousands of spy books that will flood
the market in the years that lie ahead.
Jack F. Mathews
Santa Barbara, California
Former acting chief of
operations for Latin America
Central Intelligence Agency
Acknowledgments
Any book of this nature depends upon the goodwill of many people in
sensitive positions. Often, security precautions will create an overly
security-conscious mentality, guarding even the jargon and terminology
of the trade.
In accumulating these entries | had to earn and communicate good-
will to the various security officers, active and retired, that I dealt with.
Special thanks must go to Mr. Jack Mathews, a former senior official
with the CIA. Mr. Mathews was instrumental from the beginning of
this book to the final pages in assisting me with some of the almost
unverifiable words that I ran across. Thanks are also due to Mr. Richard
Gookin, associate chief of protocol with the US Department of State
for assistance on the expulsion procedure ofa captured foreign espion-
age agent.
Special thanks must also go to the many active duty officers of the
various intelligence agencies alluded to in this book. Their wish to
remain nameless will be honored but they shall not go thankless.
A mystery was cleared up for me by Mr. Donald Stigers, chief,
Security Branch, Office of Intelligence Support, Department of State,
regarding the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Many thanks to Mr.
Stigers. The security officers at several foreign embassies proved help-
ful with words belonging to their own services and clarification of in-
house slang. They wish to remain nameless and will be so honored.
Ultimate responsibility, however, remains on my shoulders for any and
all errors.
-Vii-
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/topsecretclandesOOOOburt_r7v1