International Conference
“Need to Know III: Them vs. Us. Image of the Enemy”
Visby (Sweden), 26–27 September 2013
The work of intelligence agencies is an integrated part in both domestic and foreign policy. Governments want to keep their eyes on possible threats and security risks. The aim is in general to foresee threats to the political system and the states’ sovereignty, or to obtain advantages in dealing with opponent or foreign powers. In any case, a states’ perception – or image – of its enemy is vital to how well the state or its organizations are able to benefit from collected intelligence. Fundamental ideological bias or group thinking may divert resources into false directions, making imagined enemies appear almighty or enable actual security threats to slip under the radar.
The image of the enemy also plays an important part in the battle for hearts and minds. Enemy spies or illegal networks in a given state are portrayed as villains and their goals as illegitimate. In contrast, the domestic services are portrayed as having only noble goals and as either credible or at least merely a deterrent. The means are a variety of media strategies, intelligence professionals appearing in the public, writing memoirs or even producing popular culture like movies, novels or cartoons. In the end the image of the enemy may determine the degree of cooperation in the population and thus in the end the security of a nation.
The image of the enemy is furthermore a tool for intelligence practitioners in their operative work. Elaborate psychiatric profiles and preparation are key elements in recruiting sources in a hostile environment. Thus, knowing one opponent is also a matter of operative psychology. Using human sources to one’s own end – with the risk of disclosure, severe punishment and in some cases death – also raises ethical dilemmas and the fundament morals issues of the intelligence business.
The conference is organized by the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, the University of Gotland after July 1 part of Uppsala University (Sweden), the Center for Cold War Studies of the University of Southern Denmark and the Baltic Intelligence and Security Studies Association.
The language of the conference will be English. Conference participation is free of charge.
We invite all interested to participate as auditors.
Additional information: lilie@sdu.dk or marie.engegard@hgo.se (after 1 July: marie.engegard@uadm.uu.se)
View the program below, or click here to download it (534,5 KB).
Program
Opening of the Conference
Session I – Image of the Enemy
Chair: Przemysław Gasztold-Seń, Institute of National Remembrance (Poland)
- Dr Thomas Wegener Friis, University of Southern Denmark (Denmark) – H. C. Andersen Makes a Sleepy Impression
- Dr Kristina Burinskaite, Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, Vilnius University (Lithuania) – Image is not Everything: The Essence of the KBG
- Dr Christian Domnitz, Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (Germany) – Construing the Enemy, Creating the Communist Self: Counter-Intelligence and Surveillance of the Stasi in Other Countries of the Eastern Bloc
- Constant Hijzen, Leiden University (Netherlands) – Designating the True Enemy. Enemy Perceptions and the Institutionalization of Intelligence and Security Services in the West
- Prof. Wanda Jarząbek, Institute of Political Studies (Poland) – An Age-Long Enemy? Germany as the Object of the Intelligence Activity of the Communist Poland
Discussion
Session II – Analysis, Indicators and Warnings
Chair: Dr Erik Kulavig, University of Southern Denmark (Denmark)
- Dr Władysław Bułhak, Institute of National Remembrance (Poland) – Polish Communist Intelligence and the Coming of the Information Age
- Prof. Kurt Jensen, Carleton University (Canada) – Research in Intelligence: When the Doors are Closed
- Prof. Mark Kramer, Harvard University (USA) – The Soviet KGB and Moscow’s Concerns about Western Attempts to Undermine the USSR
- Ben Fischer, (USA) – A Cold War Atavism: The East German Intelligence Alert of the 1980s
Discussion
Session III – Israel, the Jews and the Middle East
Chair: Prof. Michael F. Scholz, Uppsala University (Sweden)
- Przemysław Gasztold-Seń, Institute of National Remembrance (Poland) – In the Land of All-Powerful Mukhabarat. Polish Communist Intelligence Services in the Middle East and North Africa
- Prof. Rumiana Marinova-Christidi, St Kliment Ohridski University (Bulgaria) – Israel as an “Enemy State”: Israel’s Image in the Documents of the Bulgarian Communist State Security
- Dr Bożena Szaynok, University of Wrocław (Poland) – Image of the Enemy: Zionists, Jews, Israel… The Anti-Jewish Policy of the Security Apparatus in Poland after the World War II
- David Palkki, National Defense University and Council on Foreign Relations (USA) – Assessing Credibility: Insights from the Captured Iraqi Records
Discussion
Session IV – High Risk Groups
Chair: Associate Prof. Svend Gottschalk Rasmussen, University of Southern Denmark (Denmark)
- Dieter Bacher, Ludwig Boltzmann-Institute (Austria) – Comrades in Ideology Allies in Intelligence? The KPO as Recruiting Ground for Czechoslovakian Intelligence Services in Austria and the American Point of View
- Dr Sławomir Łukasiewicz, Institute of National Remembrance (Poland) – Target: Exile. And its Influence on the Early Structures of Communist Intelligence in Poland
- Dr Matej Medvecký, Nation’s Memory Institute (Slovakia) – Irreconcilable Servants of Imperialism – Czechoslovak State Security and Emigrants
- Dr Joanna Wojdon, University of Wrocław (Poland) – Polish American Enemies of the Communist Regime in Poland in the Files of the Intelligence of the People’s Poland
Discussion
Session V – Intelligence and Popular Image
Chair: Dr Władysław Bułhak (Poland)
- Dr Ivo Juurvee, University of Tartu (Estonia) – Permanent “Fight against Fascism”: Self Representation of Estonian SSR KGB in Literature and Cinema: Case Study of Estonian SSR KGB
- Prof. Michael F. Scholz, Uppsala University (Sweden) – Images of Spies and Counterspies in East German Comics
- Dr Douglas Selvage, Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (Germany) – Human-Rights Activists as the Enemy: Transnational Helsinki Activism between the KGB and Stasi, 1976–1985
- Alexenia Dimitrova, (Bulgaria) – How the Bulgarian State Security Planed to Discredit the CIA and the President Reagan
Discussion
Session VI – Cases: Agents, Spies and Officers
Chair: Prof. Kent Zetterberg, Swedish National College (Sweden)
- Witold Bagieński, Institute of National Remembrance (Poland) – The Role of Polish Communistic Intelligence in the Exchanges of Soviet Spies: Gordon Lonsdale and the Krogers
- Daniel Běloušek, Security Service Archive (Czech Republic) – The Mutual Competition Between Czechoslovak and British Intelligence Services from the Prague Spring to the Velvet Revolution
- Dr Petre Opriş, C.S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor Institute for Studies in Socia lSciences and Humanities, Craiova (Romania) – The Short Biography of a Soviet Spy: Romanian General Ion Şerb
- Svante Winqvist, Göteborg (Sweden) – The “Sven” and “Britt” Case, a Comparison of Two Images
- Dr Patryk Pleskot, Institute of National Remembrance (Poland) – Apart from Kukliński. Poles Arrested by Polish Authorities on a Charge of Cooperation with Western Intelligence Structures (1945–1989). A Statistical Approach
Discussion
Conclusion of the conference