Friendly spies

by Peter Schweizer

Friendly Spies is a look into the murky world of economic espionage carried out by our closest allies to gain a competitive advantage over American companies. Countries such as Japan, Germany, France, South Korea, and Israel may be U.S. political allies, but they are also our economic rivals, and their intelligence operations reflect that reality. Based on exclusive interviews with more than seventy intelligence officials from U.S. and foreign spy agencies, Friendly Spies sheds light on dozens of espionage operations aimed at U.S. economic targets. The sophisticated intelligence and covert operations of giant Japanese multinational corporations such as Mitsubishi and Hitachi are described in detail. Schweizer also chronicles how the KCIA (South Korean intelligence) recruited a top aide to the U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives, in Operation White Snow; reveals the contents of a secret CIA report, which estimates that 80 percent of Japanese government intelligence assets targe