Lee Harvey Oswald did it — both ways, to the Soviet Union and back again.Kim Philby did it — a high-ranking British intelligence officer and double agent, recruited from the halls of academe but secretly in thrall and ideological bondage to Moscow. Part of the notorious spy ring known as the “Cambridge Five,” which included Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt.William Marlin and Bernon Mitchell did it — friends who joined the navy on the same day, later cryptologists for the U.S. National Security Agency. Vamoosed over the Kremlin wall together in 1960, although apparently deeply regretting their renunciation of America afterwards. Both died alcoholics.Igor Gouzenko did it — a cipher agent working at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, spilling his guts about foreign espionage in Canada, initially ridiculed for his claims by most media in this country.Bowe Bergdahl did it — haplessly, as a deserter from the U.S. army in Afghanistan, held captive by the Taliban for five years and then returned to American in a controversial exchange for five Guantanamo detainees.Edward Snowden did it — a former CIA and NSA employee who leaked thousands of classified documents to journalists before securing asylum in Russia, although some consider him heroic as a whistleblower for disclosing details about mass surveillance programs.Benedict Arnold did it — his name a metaphor for double-crossing, defecting to the British Army during the Revolutionary War.Betrayers all, most especially those who swore allegiance to their country, then worked clandestinely to sell out their nation and their undercover colleagues, resulting in untold deaths.But Monica Elfriede Witt, she may be a first: A U.S. Air Force counter-intelligence specialist who shifted her loyalties, uniquely, to Iran.Witt, 37, actually flew the coop in 2013 but details about her astonishing perfidy were only disclosed on Wednesday with the unsealing of a 27-page indictment documenti ...
|
