Sinister brownouts of red troubles

(First published ca. 2001)

British authorities are weighing bringing charges against about 10 persons suspected of having been agents of the East German secret police, the Stasi, according to Stephen Grey and John Goetz of London's Sunday Times.

They were identified as the result of the cracking of a Stasi computer code by a computer buff who once lived under communist rule. However, not only British spies were exposed. Agents operating in the United States and elsewhere were evidently exposed.Reputedly, the CIA has tried to thwart exposure of the red agents, whether in America or elsewhere, claiming it would compromise some secret operations.

The Sunday Times tells of concerns that the CIA is covering up for a nest of high-level traitors. It will be recalled that three ex-East German agents, including a lawyer working at the top rung of the Pentagon, have been convicted.Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, was Moscow's representative to the Stasi when the newly exposed agents were active. The question is, did this red network remain active, perhaps under Russian control, after the collapse of East Germany? Putin may have been advised that the code was uncrackable.

On another Putin matter, John Sweeney of Britain's Observer links Putin and security service allies to the Moscow bombings that were used as a reason for the Chechnya war.

The most interesting bomb was the one that didn't go off, the incident being bizarrely transformed into a "training exercise." News agencies and media serving America have virtually ignored the Stasi story, as if FBI interest -- or lack of it -- in communist networks in our government is ho-hum news in America.

And, investigative news reports on the Moscow bombings are difficult to come across, particularly in the United States. Other topics on ConantNews pages include China's nuclear espionage offensive and MI6's battle to censor the press, along with a discussion of the mathematics of Florida's presidential election. Links between pages have proved inadequate.