The 10 Russian spies exchanged in Vienna on July 9 were employed to gather background intelligence. Private lobbyists now carry out this work.

Rather than paying undercover agents for many years in the hope that they will eventually infiltrate decision-making circles in the U.S., most countries nowadays prefer to leave diplomatic and political information-gathering in Washington to lobbyists. Although lobbyists are supposed to declare to the federal government if they are working for a foreign government, many do not bother to do so, and they are rarely penalised.

The Foreign Agent Registration Unit ’s dozen-strong team is in charge of monitoring lobbyists on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Since it was set up in 1996 it has only lodged a few complaints and obtained a mere two convictions.

Via lobbying firms, several former for U.S. intelligence agents sell their savoir faire to foreign governments. These include Mark D. Cowen, a former Assistant Legislative Counsel to the head of the CIA, who is now a partner in the lobbying firm Patton Boggs (IOL 316 ). Cowan’s clients have included the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Sandra Charles ’ firm C&O Resources employs Melissa Boyle Mahle, who spent 16 years with the CIA and spent a substantial period posted in Palestine.

The company Jefferson Waterman, which has a contract with the presidency of Azerbaijan and with the government of Kosovo, is run by three U.S. intelligence veterans, Charles Waterman and Samuel Hoskinson, two former staff of the National Intelligence Council, and Samuel Wyman, who spent 11 years at the operations headquarters of the CIA (IOL 577 ).

China used to be reticent to employ Americans but has done so since 2005. Taiwan, on the other hand, has had no qualms about totally privatising its information gathering in Washington.

Russia is one of the rare countries not to rely on lobbyists, even though Russian publicly-owned conglomerates are regular clients. Gazprom employs the law firm Venable and the lobbying firm Gavin Anderson, while Rosatom uses the services of the PR firm Apco Worldwide and the law firm White & Case.

Jim Roth’s Langley Group, the hedge funds’ preferred investigation firm, has promoted a former journalist Matthew Mogul to be its new managing director.

After ten years in journalism, working for the Associated Press, UPI and at the Charleston Post and Courier, Matthew Mogul got into corporate intelligence in 2007 when he joined the Langley Group. For the past two years he has headed the firm’s European investigations. Roth, a former CIA man, upped Mogul to managing director on June 24. The two men have both spent times in the Middle east, Roth as a CIA operative and Mogul as a UPI journalist.

Roth has been in private investigation for the past decade. In 2000, he founded his own firm, Insight International, which was acquired in 2003 by Business Intelligence Advisors (BIA), the company founded by the former CIA head of security interrogationPhil Houston. Set up to adapt the CIA’s lie detection and body-language interpretation methods for use in the financial world, BIA quickly built up a client base that included some of the biggest U.S. hedge funds (IOL 611 ). They include Cascade Investment, the personal fund of Microsoft magnate Bill Gates. Roth left BIA in 2005 and after a brief stint with Diligence (IOL 514 ) he founded his own company. The Langley Group’s main clients are hedge funds and investment funds.

During a visit to Paris June 7-8, the Georgian president Mikhail Saakachvili presented several requests for military materiel. Paris is currently negotiating the sale of fourMistral class amphibious assault vessels and is therefore less well disposed to sell arms to Georgia than it was three years ago (see p.5 ). In 2007, France was ready to sell Gowind corvettes to Tbilisi as well as ground-to-air and anti-tank missiles.

Israel, which was Georgia’s principal supplier of arms until the conflict with Russia in 2008, has also stepped back from its former client and prefers dealing with Moscow. Last year, the Israeli defence ministry authorised Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to sell four drones, along with a ground station, to the Russian frontier police for $50 million (IOL 610 ). Moscow is currently negotiating the acquisition of several other drones from IAI. The Kremlin has another efficacious means of bringing pressure to bear on Israel: the sale of the S-300 ground-to-air missile to Iran, a deal that is frozen but that could be reactivated at any moment.

Ukraine, the last country to have sold military materiel to Georgia, has had a pro-Russian president since the election of Viktor Yanukovych in February, and it has since cut off relations with Tbilisi. Last year, Kiev was still in the throes of negotiating the sale of Osa and Buk ground-to-air missiles, Kolchuga-M radar systems and BTR-70DI armoured transport vehicles.