Murphy, David E. 1921–

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MURPHY, David E. 1921–

PERSONAL: Born June 23, 1921, in Utica, NY; son of Howard Leo and Anne K. (Brown) Murphy; married Marian Escovy, February 29, 1944 (died February, 1978); married Star Hellmann (a Central Intelligence Agency employee), January 6, 1979; children: Steven J., Vincent B., Gerald H., Barbara A. Ethnicity: "Irish." Education: Attended Cortland College (now State University of New York), 1942, and University of California, Berkeley, 1943–44, 1946. Politics: "Independent." Hobbies and other interests: Boating, swimming.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Yale University Press, P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520-9040.

CAREER: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Washington, DC, career officer, beginning 1947, served in Korea and Japan, chief of combined OSO/OPC Soviet Operations Base, Munich, Germany, 1951–52, deputy chief for Soviet operations, Washington, DC, 1953–59, chief of Berlin Operations Base, 1959–61, representative on Berlin Task Force, deputy chief (became chief) of East European Division of Clandestine Services, 1961–63, chief of Soviet Russian Division, 1963–68, special assistant to ambassador to France, 1968–74, national intelligence officer, 1974–75; Science Applications International, intelligence specialist, beginning 1979; retired, late 1980s. Military service: Served in Germany and France during World War II.

AWARDS, HONORS: Notable Book of the Year, New York Times, 1997, for Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War.

WRITINGS:

(With Sergei A. Kondrashev and George Bailey) Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1997.

What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarrosa, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2005.

Contributor to professional journals.

SIDELIGHTS: David E. Murphy was a career officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during one of the most volatile periods in twentieth-century American history, from the end of World War II in 1945 until the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. With Sergei A. Kondrashev and George Bailey, he documents these years in Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War. Murphy told CA that "the reason for writing this particular book was the need I felt to make available to historians an insider's account of intelligence operations which did so much to shape the policies and actions of all governments involved in this key Cold War city." Murphy and Kondrashev, a retired KGB (Soviet secret police) general, drew on documents from their respective agencies, their work augmented that of Bailey, a former director of Radio Liberty and a German affairs expert.

Joseph E. Persico wrote in the New York Times Book Review that the book "is hardly a romp for the general reader. Microscopic descriptions of cogs within cogs in the spy bureaucracies, a flood of acronyms and a rain of polysyllabic Russian names create, at times, pages that only a Sovietologist could love. Yet the book does present a remarkably balanced view of the Berlin spy wars."

Kondrashev, who rose to become the deputy head of the KGB, had under his supervision the spy George Blake, who from his position within British intelligence delivered American and British agents to Moscow. Kondrashev was successful in retrieving eighty-seven photocopies of documents, as well as portions of approximately 250 files from the closely guarded KGB (now SVR) archives, although he was unable to secure documentation about Soviet officers who were sent abroad as foreign nationals, nor was he able to provide documents from the program responsible for spreading propaganda to influence Western opinion.

Murphy goes into detail about such subjects as the 400-yard Berlin tunnel the Americans dug into East Berlin so that they could tap Soviet-sector phone lines. In fact, the KGB knew of the tunnel's existence from the beginning, having been informed by Blake, and they leaked only inconsequential information and even invented false information to deceive the Americans. Murphy notes in an appendix the real value of the tunnel.

The Berlin Wall was erected to stem the flow of refugees from East to West Germany. Murphy, who briefed President John F. Kennedy when the wall was erected, said in a CNN.com online chat that "the administration was perfectly prepared to stand by and allow the East Germans to take whatever measures they thought necessary, to regulate the outflow of refugees. What did come as a surprise to them was the reaction of the West Berliners. The cable, which was sent to President Kennedy by [West Berlin Mayor] Willy Brandt, emphasized that the West Berlin population was indeed shocked at the fact that the West took no action to counter the closure of the sector borders. They interpreted this as perhaps the first step of the West's abandonment of West Berlin." As a result of the Berlin Wall and Stasi (East German security), communications between the CIA and its informants and contacts in East Germany were severely curtailed.

Understandably, both sides of all issues are not presented in Battleground Berlin, nor are there always equally balanced profiles of various spies. However, as Oleg Gordievsky wrote in the Times Literary Supplement, Murphy's book "is the first serious attempt by Russian and American writers, working together, to write the objective history of the intelligence war between East and West."

In What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarrosa Murphy studies the intelligence war between Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and German dictator Adolf Hitler from 1939 to 1941. He shows that Stalin believed, based partly on letters from Hitler to that effect, that Germany would never invade the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, however, Hitler did just that. In spite of warnings from his own generals, Stalin was unprepared, a failing that ultimately cost the lives of million of people.