Can You Trust Your Intel

For John, BLUF:  Maybe President Trump's caution with regard to the Intelligence Community isn't so foolish after all.  If Maggie Thatcher couldn't scare them into being frank with her, what chance does Mr Trump have?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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How A KGB Double Agent Saved Britain And Won The Cold War For The West

Here is the sub-headline:

Historian Ben MacIntyre's new book, 'The Spy and the Traitor,' tells the thrilling story of how the KGB's Oleg Gordievsky helped check the Soviet Union as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan fought communism.

From The Federalist, by Mr Tony Daniel, 26 October 2018.

Here is the lede plus two:

In his new book The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War, veteran espionage historian Ben MacIntyre confirms a troubling decision—or lack thereof—that some had suspected for years.  This is the fact that in 1983 the man overseeing both British spy services MI6 and MI5, head of British Civil Service Robert Armstrong, knew that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s main opponent in the upcoming election was a KGB agent and did not tell her.

Labor Party leader, member of Parliament, and former employment secretary Michael Foot had been a paid KGB agent for decades, and was still on the KGB books as an agent of influence when he headed the British Labor Party and ran against Thatcher for leadership of England in 1983.  Foot would have become prime minister if Labor had won.

MI6 told MI5, its domestic sister agency, and MI5 told Armstrong, but Armstrong kept Foot’s duplicity to himself.  Nobody informed Thatcher.

Here is the Wikipedia article on Mr Michael Foot.

And here is the Wikipedia article on Baron Armstrong of Ilminster (Robert Armstrong).  It turns out that Baron Armstrong was "economical with the truth" when it came to not only Intelligence information, but also pedophiles in the UK Upper Crust.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff