海角大神

No one should have trusted an imprisoned ex-CIA spy named Jim Nicholson for a second. After all, as author Bryan Denson puts it, he鈥檇 been 鈥減rofessionally trained at duplicity and deceit鈥� and betrayed his country in one of the most shocking espionage scandals in US history. One top of that he was one fortunate turncoat: Before he finally getting caught, he鈥檇 set off alarms that were ignored.

But the federal prison let Nicholson see one of the only people in the world who trusted him: his young son. Their bond allowed the man behind bars to mastermind more treason and embarrass the US once more, all right under the nose of a clueless system that failed spectacularly. Again.

Harold James 鈥淛im鈥� Nicholson鈥檚 name doesn鈥檛 rank up there with traitorous American spies like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, who became the subjects of documentaries, a network miniseries, and Hollywood movies. But he may gain fame thanks to Denson鈥檚 startling new book The Spy's Son: The True Story of the Highest-Ranking CIA Officer Ever Convicted of Espionage and the Son He Trained to Spy for Russia.

Denson, an Oregon newspaper reporter, focuses on a detailed chronology of events instead of delving deeply into the contradictions and pressures built into espionage. But the timeline packs plenty of punch on its own by revealing stunning ineptitude and failure of imagination among the very people entrusted to protect American secrets and lives around the world.

Consider this: Nicholson 鈥渨as surfing the CIA鈥檚 computers for information he didn鈥檛 need,鈥� but nothing happened. (He was actually copying data and transferring it to disk to give to the Russians.) He filled his bank account with money after overseas trips where he met Russian spies, but no one noticed. He even had a Swiss bank account under his own name.

Eventually, his bosses caught on, but only after getting a tip. The CIA and FBI worked together to take Nicholson down and send him to prison. But the turncoat spy wasn鈥檛 done giving information to the Russians. His next step was to use his son Nathan Nicholson as a go-between to give them insight into the mole on the Russian side who gave him up via that tip. Amazingly, the father managed to do just that, using a variety of stunningly low-tech ways to sneak information in and out of prison.

In fact, one of the most intriguing lessons of 鈥淭he Spy鈥檚 Son鈥� is how much of spycraft is low-tech and even no-tech, just like on TV espionage shows like 鈥淭he Americans鈥�: Nathan Nicholson writes questions from the Russians on his arm when he visits his father, and the elder Nicholson delivers papers to his son through the CIA-sanctioned 鈥渁rt of the brush-pass.鈥�

Meanwhile, spies do indeed confirm each other鈥檚 identity through scripted questions-and-answers on the street (鈥淒o you know the way to the federal post office?鈥�). And they use email just like anyone else. In this case, the younger Nicholson alerted the Russians to a sneaky way that American teenagers hide emails from their parents. That鈥檚 how he communicated with his minder.

Thanks to Denson, who covered the case against father and son when it hit an Oregon federal courthouse in 2009, 鈥淭he Spy鈥檚 Son鈥� isn鈥檛 a grim read.

Denson has a knack for sly wordplay (a 鈥渃ubicle village鈥� at CIA headquarters is a 鈥渃lean-well carpeted place full of file cabinets and misery鈥�) and descriptions (at first, the elder Nicholson in court looks like a man who plays 鈥渢enor sax in a jazz quartet,鈥� but closer inspection reveals that 鈥渢his guy knows he鈥檚 the smartest man in the building.鈥�)

And Denson knows a funny story when he sees one, like when a history-fluent FBI agent offers to help when a boss declares he needs an expert in 鈥渆unuchs.鈥� In fact, he wanted a UNIX computer guru; the agent didn鈥檛 confess his error but contacted Sun Microsystems instead.

More importantly for the story, Denson also uses his powers as a reporter 鈥� and, apparently, a nice guy 鈥� to get the younger Nicholson to spend hundreds of hours talking to him. Denson acknowledges that the two men developed their own father-and-son relationship. They share personal stories and even a blunt honesty.

One day, Denson asks the son whether he betrayed his country. 鈥淎bsolutely,鈥� responds Nathan Nicholson, who gets a sentence that many readers will find head-spinning.

So once again, a Nicholson 鈥� this one trained in the art of deception by his own flesh and blood 鈥� gains trust after committing treason.

This time, we can hope, the son is reformed, unlike his father, a man whose final court appearance featured apologies to his family and to the country he holds dear and felt terrible about embarrassing. No, not this one. Russia.
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Randy Dotinga, a Monitor contributor, is president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.