OPINION — Robert Baer’s book The Fourth Man leads readers to conclude—falsely—that highly accomplished, retired CIA officer Paul Redmond was himself, a long-time spy for the KGB. As former leaders of Counterintelligence who were directly involved over decades, in the Russian operations and investigations discussed in the book, we found the book to be riddled with errors and what we found to be irresponsible, false assumptions from Mr. Baer’s primary sources.
Let’s dig in to why. CIA counterintelligence investigators who were directly involved in the issues, as well as retired and currently serving intelligence officers at all levels, have voiced strong objections to the book. We owe it to them, to Mr. Redmond, to the intelligence profession, and our commitment to solve real counterintelligence threats, to correct the record.
Dissecting all the inaccuracies in the book is beyond the scope of this article; so, our focus is on the most egregious errors and what might be done to correct them. Because of classification issues, even though we had access to sensitive details in our former roles, we cannot include all of the intelligence to which we were privy, which would further strengthen our findings.
Mr. Baer’s book purports that a still undiscovered, high-ranking CIA officer was the most damaging mole during the Cold War and beyond—the Fourth Man—after notorious Russian spies Edward Lee Howard, Aldrich Ames, and Robert Hanssen. Mr. Baer identifies three retired CIA officers...
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