Michael Peri

Last updated
Michael A. Peri
Born1967 (age 5455)
NationalityAmerican
Known forBeing charged with espionage during the Cold War

Michael Peri (born 1967) was a Military Intelligence Electronic Warfare Signals Analyst for the United States Army during the Cold War, who was convicted of espionage in 1989 and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Contents

Biography

On February 20, 1989, Peri vanished from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) in Fulda, West Germany. An exhaustive search was conducted to locate him when it was discovered that he had stolen a portable computer that was used to store classified military defense plans. Peri was not found, although it was suspected that he had defected to East Germany when a Humvee that he had stolen was located near the East German border. [1]

Eleven days later, for reasons that have never been fully explained, Peri turned himself in at the front gate of the 11th ACR. He was greeted at HQ by Col Abrahams and arrested by Military Police SPC Shull. [2] He was court-martialed for espionage, where he was convicted on June 25, 1989, and sentenced to 30 years. [3] [4] Even after the conclusion of the court-martial, investigators were perplexed at what had caused this strange turn of events. Peri had twice been nominated for a "Soldier of the Month" award in his unit. During interrogation, Peri admitted he felt overworked and taken for granted by his superior officers. Other soldiers who were interrogated said Peri was often seen with an attractive woman whom they believed to be an East German agent. The woman whom he had been fraternizing with likely exploited his dissatisfaction with the Army to entice him to defecting to East Germany. Peri's voluntary return to West Germany and his surrender to the U.S. Military Police was most likely due to him being overcome by a guilty conscience for a rash decision.

See also

Related Research Articles

Espionage, spying or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangible benefit. A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy. Any individual or spy ring, in the service of a government, company, criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law.

Cold War espionage

Cold War espionage describes the intelligence gathering activities during the Cold War between the Western allies and the Eastern Bloc. Both relied on a wide variety of military and civilian agencies in this pursuit.

Aldrich Ames Central Intelligence Agency counter-intelligence officer and analyst

Aldrich Hazen "Rick" Ames is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer turned KGB double agent, who was convicted of espionage in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana. Ames was a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer who committed espionage against the U.S. by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. At the time of his arrest, Ames had compromised more highly classified CIA assets than any other officer in history until Robert Hanssen's arrest seven years later in 2001.

Espionage Act of 1917 United States federal law

The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18. Specifically, it is 18 U.S.C. ch. 37

Karel František Koecher is a mole known to have penetrated the CIA.

Reinhard Gehlen German general (1902–1979)

Reinhard Gehlen was a German lieutenant-general and intelligence officer. He was chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military intelligence service on the eastern front during World War II, spymaster of the CIA-affiliated anticommunist Gehlen Organisation (1946–56) and the founding president of the Federal Intelligence Service of West Germany (1956–68) during the Cold War.

Federal Intelligence Service Foreign intelligence agency of Germany

The Federal Intelligence Service is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence headquarters. The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries. In 2016, it employed around 6,500 people; 10% of them are military personnel who are formally employed by the Office for Military Sciences. The BND is the largest agency of the German Intelligence Community.

Larry Wu-tai Chin was a Chinese Communist spy who worked for the United States Government for 37 years (1944–1981), including positions at the U.S. Army and the CIA, while secretly being a mole for the Communist Party's intelligence apparatus from the very beginning. He kept passing classified documents and secret information to the People's Republic of China even after his retirement, until he was finally exposed in 1985.

George Kisevalter was an American operations officer of the CIA, who handled Major Pyotr Popov, the first Soviet GRU officer run by the CIA. He had some involvement with Soviet intelligence Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, active in the 1960s, who had more direct relations with British MI-6.

This page is a timeline of published security lapses in the United States government. These lapses are frequently referenced in congressional and non-governmental oversight. This article does not attempt to capture security vulnerabilities.

James W. Hall III is a former United States Army warrant officer and signals intelligence analyst in Germany who sold eavesdropping and code secrets to East Germany and the Soviet Union from 1983 to 1988.

John Kiriakou

John Chris Kiriakou is an American author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of Political Misfits on Sputnik Radio.

The American media referred to 1985 as the Year of the Spy because law enforcement arrested many foreign spies operating on American soil. However, the preceding year, 1984, actually had more arrests for espionage in the United States.

George Trofimoff was a United States military intelligence officer of Russian descent. He was convicted in a U.S. Federal court of having spied for the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on September 27, 2001. George Trofimoff is the most senior officer in U.S. military history to have been charged with or convicted of espionage.

Yosef Amit is a former Israeli military intelligence major who was convicted of espionage in 1987. Amit is thought to have spied for the United States and a European NATO country, though this has never been confirmed by the Israeli government.

William Peter Kampiles is a former United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee during the Cold War known for selling a top secret KH-11 spy satellite manual in 1977.

The Gehlen Organization or Gehlen Org was an intelligence agency established in June 1946 by U.S. occupation authorities in the United States zone of post-war occupied Germany, and consisted of former members of the 12th Department of the German Army General Staff. It was headed by Reinhard Gehlen who had previously been a Wehrmacht Major General and head of the Nazi German military intelligence in the Eastern Front during World War II.

Stuart Arthur Herrington, Col, U.S. Army (Ret.) is an author and retired counterintelligence officer with extensive interrogation experience in three wars. Herrington's 2003 audit of interrogation practices by U.S. forces in Iraq, including conditions at the Abu Ghraib prison and other sites, prompted scrutiny of U.S. interrogation efforts in the Global War on Terror.

Hüseyin Yıldırım is a Turkish-American auto mechanic who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States for his courier role in the espionage activities of U.S. serviceman James Hall III during the Cold War era. Yıldırım was later pardoned and extradited to his homeland, where he was sentenced to 17 years in prison but served only one day.

Sexpionage is the involvement of sexual activity, or the possibility of sexual activity, intimacy, romance, or seduction to conduct espionage. Sex or the possibility of sex can function as a distraction, incentive, cover story, or unintended part of any intelligence operation. Sexpionage is a historically documented phenomenon and even the CIA has previously added Nigel West's work Historical Dictionary of Sexspionage to its proposed intelligence officer's bookshelf. Female agents using such tactics are known as sparrows, while male ones are known as ravens.

References

  1. "Laguna Niguel GI Missing; Army Fears He's Defected : His Mother Expresses Concern". latimes.com. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  2. "A G.I. in Germany is Accused of Spying". nytimes.com. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  3. "Soldier Who Left Post in West Germany Is Charged". latimes.com. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  4. "A U.S. Soldier Who Defected Is Given 30 Years for Spying". nytimes.com. Retrieved 1 March 2012.

Further reading