Haviland Smith: Agents of influence

Editor’s note: This commentary is by Haviland Smith, of Williston, who is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe as well as the Middle East. He was executive assistant to the CIA’s deputy director and chief of the counterterrorism staff in charge of CIA’s recruitment operations against Soviet Bloc countries in the 1970s. His other writings can be seen on rural-ruminations.com.
The Soviet Intelligence Officer’s Handbook defines an “agent of in