What follows is a transcript of an interview I did with Nicholas Best, a correspondent, with Norwegian Public Radio. It was done in connection with a series of broadcasts he is producing on the Arne Treholt espionage case. The well-born Norwegian diplomat and government official, now almost seventy-six years old, was convicted of high treason […]
Main Content
Read Chapter One – 1st Book
Read the first chapter of The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence, which tells the story of Nazis spies operating in America, focusing on the case of Guenther Rumrich, his arrest by the FBI, and how the case changed the FBI. Read More
Read Chapter One – 2nd Book
Read the first chapter of Hoover's Secret War Against Axis Spies: FBI Counterespionage During World War II, which tells the story of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's moment-by-moment weekend when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Read More
Buy Ray Batvinis Books
FBI in Moscow
Read about FBI Agent Louis Beck who was sent undercover to the US Embassy in Moscow during WW2 to assess the security situation in the embassy. What he found was shockingly lax security attitudes that allowed the Soviet NKVD control of the place -- and of secret US codes. Read More
FBI in Honolulu
Relive the hour-to-hour experiences of the FBI field office in Honolulu as they respond to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Read More
Future of FBI CI
Read The Future of FBI Counterintelligence Through the Lens of the Past Hundred Years, an essay by Ray Batvinis which was published in The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence.
FBI Studies Blog Posts
Facts and the new “Wall of Spies” re Koval and Weisband
Read this Washington Post article then read my letter below to the author of the article regarding the facts regarding what was said about George Koval and William Weisband: The ‘Wall of Spies’: A new museum you can’t visit dedicated to American turncoats (Washington Post) In November 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised a glass […]
Senate Caucus Room
Today, I had a special treat when I visited the Senator Richard Russell Senate Office Building and toured the beautiful Senate Caucus Room. I was accompanied by Dr. Kate Scott, an Associate Historian with the US Senate’s Office of the Historian. The reason for the walk-through had to do with some research for a book […]
American Citizen Arrested for Acting as an Illegal Foreign Agent of the People’s Republic of China
This arrest highlights an interesting look at Chinese espionage tradecraft: (DOJ) The Department of Justice unsealed charges today in a criminal complaint charging Xuehua Peng, also known as Edward Peng, 56, for acting as an illegal foreign agent in delivering classified United States national security information to officials of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry […]
North American Society for Intelligence History 2019 Conference
I will be the Discussant for a counterintelligence panel at the 2019 North American Society for Intelligence History conference which will be held at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC on October 20-21, 2019. The Panel 5A: Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism will be on Monday, October 21 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm in the […]
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What Was He Thinking?
“What was she thinking”? That was a question posed by former FBI director James Comey in his 2018 memoir, A Higher Loyalty. It refers to his bewilderment over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decision to set up an unsecure email server in the basement of her New York home to conduct American foreign policy […]
The FBI’s Role in D-Day
“Tangle within, plot and counter-plot, ruse and treachery, cross and double cross, true agent, false agent, double agent, gold and steel, the bomb, the dagger and the firing party, were interwoven in many a texture so intricate as to be incredible yet true.” —Winston Churchill This month marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the surprise landings […]
VENONA: The Opening Moments
I spent a terrific few hours the morning of 10 May 2019 at the National Cryptologic Museum chatting with Tanya Cimonetti and her husband, Bill. The name is probably unrecognizable to you, but Tanya’s maiden name is Tanya Zubko. She is the daughter of the late Leonard Zubko. Still in the dark? Well, Lieutenant Leonard […]
A Vanished Dream: Tsuruja Miyazaki Case
This is a sad story but, in its own way, a truly American one. It focuses on what we refer to today as an “undocumented immigrant” victimized by a nation suddenly, and, unexpectedly, caught up in the grip of irrational fear. My role in the saga began last fall with an email message from a […]
ATKID: The Atlanta Child Murders Case
This article regarding the Wayne Williams, the Atlanta child killer, was written by my dear friend, Susan Lloyd (FBI 1979-2004). I hope you enjoy it. It appeared in the January/February 2019 FBI Grapevine published by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. ATKID: The Atlanta Child Murders Case (pdf) When the first murder […]
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One of a Kind – The National Law Enforcement Officers Museum is now open
This was my article for the December 2018 issue of The Grapevine: October 11, 2018 was a very special day for the American people. After more than a decade of waiting, a sea of local, state and federal law enforcement professionals along with friends, family members, and the loved ones of fallen officers gathered together […]
Ex-FBI agents: McCabe and Strzok’s role in Flynn interview ‘problematic,’ ‘highly unusual’
I was interviewed by Leandra Bernstein, the National Political report for Circa and the of the Sinclair Broadcast Group regarding the approach and credibility of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former FBI agent Peter Strzok not advising then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn about the consequences of lying to the FBI: Ex-FBI agents: McCabe […]
Michael Flynn Sentencing Memorandum
What follows is taken from pages seven through nine of a 178-page document entitled United States V. Michael T. Flynn “Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing” dated December 11, 2018. It was submitted to Judge Emmett Sullivan by attorneys Stephen P. Anthony and Robert K. Kelner on behalf of retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. At 12:35 […]
“But I’m a Great Man”
The Gathering Storm was a wonderful British docudrama produced and directed in 2008 by Ridley Scott. The movie takes its name from the title of the first of the monumental six volume history of the Second World War Winston Churchill wrote between 1948 and 1953. The story focuses on Churchill’s so-called “wilderness” years during the […]
Interview about bomber
A few weeks ago Andy Weber, a journalism major in his senior year at The George Washington University, asked me to do an on camera interview for a campus TV news program that goes out to GWU students, Andy was a student in my History of American Counterintelligence course three years ago. As an aside, […]
