Wippl Discusses BRIXMIS and Cold War in His New Book Review
In his latest piece for the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Prof. Joseph Wippl of Pardee School reviews BRIXMIS and the Secret Cold War: Intelligence Collection Operations Behind Enemy Lines in East Germany by Andrew Long.
Titled as “British Commanders’-in-Chief Mission,” Wippl applauds the historian’s deep dive into Britain’s efforts to gain critical intel on Soviet Union and East Germany forces during the Cold War. This exercise of gathering critical intelligence was of paramount importance to Britain, America, and France at the time, in case the Cold War were to escalate into a hot war.
“The relationship between the British and the Soviets was both competitive and congenial,” says the professor, highlighting the capricious dynamic between the two. “BRIXMIS personnel on ‘touring’ could be chased, shot at, beaten and detained, followed by an evening of socializing with their Soviet hosts.”
With an emphasis on the bravado and ingenuity demonstrated by the British personnel, Wippl describes how the book recounts covert tactics used to access Soviet Union’s classified information related to proprietary weapons and invasion plans in Western Europe. The review further touches upon Long’s detailed descriptions of the modestly recruited yet mighty BRIXMIS division and its preparation for ground surveillance.
“The BRIXMIS unit was small, well-trained, and motivated to carry out the mission of intelligence collection on Soviet and East German military capabilities. Touring included three individuals per tour car who were trained to identify military equipment, trained to photograph military hardware, and trained to evade Soviet and East German monitoring of their activities.”
Apart from engaging storytelling, Wippl praises Long for including a list of acronyms and a copy of “Robert-Malinin Agreement”, so that readers lacking context could understand the various nitty-gritties of an intelligence mission.
To read the full book review, click here.
Joseph Wippl, Professor of Practice of International Relations at Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies is a former CIA officer. In his extensive career of 30 years, he has served as an operations officer and operations manager in multiple locations overseas including Guatemala City, Luxembourg, Mexico City and Berlin. Before entering academia, he occupied the Richard Helms Chair for Intelligence Collection in the NCS training program. To know more about Prof. Wippl, visit his faculty profile.