Just about any average adult in the United States now knows that the only time politicians lie is when their lips are moving. The average adult also knows that a large portion of both private business and government, particularly those who speak to the press, often give, shall we say, misleading, incomplete, or not quite true summaries of whatever it is on the news that particular day. At best, it’s their side of the story, told how they want to tell it, and relating how much they’re willing to give you. In many cases, they’re giving you disinformation. Disinformation is what ordinary people call lies.

All that said, I — having spent many years working for various U.S. Government intelligence agencies, including NSA, both overseas and in the U.S. — found Pete Earley's Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War to be very informative and revealing. In some cases, irritating and exasperating. Not with the facts as presented, not with the author, and not with the subject of the book — Russian spymaster, defector, and double agent Sergei Tretyakov — but with what the author and Tretyakov, code-named Comrade J, tell us about the sorry state of affairs within our own government.

Now for some specifics. First, an example of sorting out the truth. Early in the book, Tretyakov says, according to the author, “… Russian intelligence targeted President Clinton’s deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott, and ran a carefully calculated campaign designed to manipulate him.” Talbott, in a written reply, said, “… he knew that Mamedov was relaying all of their conversations …” back to Russian intelligence.

The following paragraph says, “Just the same, the FBI took the accusations about Talbott seriously … In 1999, FBI officials asked Secretary (of State) Albright not to share information with Talbott ...” Talbott, as then described, was tagged by the SVR, Russia’s new name for the KGB, “… as a ‘specific unofficial contact’ – a specific term that the SVR used to identify its most secret, highly placed intelligence sources.” “Specific unofficial contact” also means a person who’s passing classified, or inside, or both, information.

See what I mean? Obviously, there’s a little more to the story in Untold Secrets, but nothing that would unmuddy the waters.

An example of self-serving words is this, when Earley was introduced by his “FBI contact” to Tretyakov: “ ‘Our only purpose here today is to introduce you. We are not encouraging him to tell his story, nor are we discouraging him. He wanted to meet you and we agreed to facilitate it. We will have no part in your talks.’ ” All this verbiage in diplospeak means is, “He can (wink, wink, nod, nod) spill his guts because we think it will serve our purposes.”

Think back. When has the FBI or CIA or any of the alphabet soup agencies ever set up a meeting between a defector and a reporter, or writer, before they had their case built? Let me save you some time. The answer is never. If they don’t have the defector in their pocket, whether it’s with money (the usual way), or with threats (who knows?), or patriotism towards his new country (HA!), he flat does not speak to anybody. Often, the people “protecting” him don’t let him see even his own family.