About

Covert Council is an independent reference to the history of espionage and intelligence, from the Soviet deception operations of the 1920s to the spy cases at the end of the Cold War. It has 80 operation files, 18 agencies, 51 people, 14 tradecraft explainers and 74 key documents: 178,654 words in all.

The aim is the short account a careful historian would write: what happened, when, who was involved, how we know, and where the record is incomplete or disputed. Each file cites its sources, most of them the declassified documents themselves. The methodology page explains the source policy and publishes every check.

The site is not affiliated with any government, agency or museum. It is history only: it does not cover current events, and nothing on it is guidance on how to do anything.

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