Espionage: A Guide to Reference Sources

The reader who ventures vicariously or otherwise into the murky world of spies and spying will quickly discover a semantic confusion in which the terms “espionage” and “intelligence” are used with a bewildering profusion of meanings. Basically, however, “intelligence” refers to information; thus, intelligence agencies and agents are involved in the collection, evaluation and dissemination of information for a variety of purposes. “Espionage,” on the other hand, properly refers to the collecting of usually secret information by means of clandestine techniques and methods. Espionage is only a part of the larger function of intelligence activity but the terms have become thoroughly confused in much of the literature as well as in the public mind.