Introduction

The early Cold War period witnessed an expansion of security agency mandates and resources as national governments declared threat levels elevated and public opinion in turn demanded forceful responses. To counter, contain, and disrupt activities that bore the suspicious hallmarks of subversion – ‘political-ideological diversion’ in East Berlin, ‘disruption of the constitutional order’ in Bonn – or foreign espionage, HUMINT capacity building called for little in terms of investment in expensive infrastructure. The optimum towards which governments quietly strove by way of appeals to a higher loyalty (J. Edgar Hoover spoke of ‘an obligation of citizenship’) was a vigilant citizenry, its members mobilised to serve as the eyes and ears of the state. In Europe, one retired security agency chief boasted when the Cold War was over about the nationwide web of agents that his men and women had been able to call on when a job demanded it. A medley of contemporaneous and reminiscent matter, his memoirs describe how they approached ‘people who are able to serve as sources. Each section of the Security Police actively maintains its own web made up of altogether thousands of local politicians, union officials, business leaders, regional government civil servants, and residents close to military installations.