Spies, Patriots And Traitors: A Look Back At Espionage During The Revolutionary War

Jonathan Dame at the Needham Times in Needham, Massachusetts offers an interview with former CIA officer Ken Daigler, author of Spies, Patriots and Traitors.

Needham resident Ken Daigler can’t write much about his two decades with the CIA. Most of his colleagues at the agency, where he finished his career as countintelligence chief for East Asia, can’t either.

But thankfully for Daigler, author of the new book "Spies, Patriots and Traitors," whatever non-disclosure agreements might have existed for spies in the 18th century have long since expired.

"There are lessons to be learned," said Daigler, whose book is about how the colonists used intelligence operations to help win the Revolutionary War. "You never hear bout the key intelligence issues."

Daigler said the basic tradecraft of intelligence work hadn’t changed much since the Revolutionary Era; spies just have more tools and technology now.

The Times asked him some questions about his book. Here are his responses:

What got you interested in the topic of your book? How long were you working on it?

Even in today’s society "secret intelligence" still mostly remains secret, and few folks are aware of its impact on political and military events. But after some 200 years, it is a bit easier to identify some of the individuals and activities related to Revolutionary Era intelligence. The degree to which our country’s independence depended upon intelligence activities is a surprising fact to most, yet well documented when official correspondence and the personal papers of those involved are looked at from the perspective of an intelligence professional. My book provides that perspective starting with the growth of the Sons of Liberty in 1765, hardly a drunken mob but rather an organization that within nine years effectively controlled the colonies, through the British evacuation of New York City in November 1783, when George Washington entered the city and personally thanked several of his trusted spies who resided there.

You can read the rest of the interivew via the below link:

http://needham.wickedlocal.com/article/20141103/NEWS/141109817