The Wikileaks collection

[jmm99]

is this:

from JMA
The aim (IMHO) is to sort Bradley Manning out and not try to use him to get to Assange. As the Brits will tell you... a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Oh, are the UK folks going to tell us about Kim Philby (cryptonym: Stanley), Donald Duart Maclean (cryptonym: Homer), Guy Burgess (cryptonym: Hicks) Anthony Blunt (cryptonym: Johnson), and John Cairncross (cryptonym: Liszt) ?

For them and more links, see the Cambrifge Five; and for the more diligent, The Vassiliev Notebook and The Mitrokhin Archive - at the Wilson Center, Cold War International History Project). Also, at GWU National Securiy - the Rosenberg Grand Jury Transcripts, and at NSA - Venona (the mother lode).

The idea in any conspiracy case (which includes all true espionage cases) is to determine whether there was a conspiracy (which usually means that a conspirator flips); and then who was involved in it (which usually requires lengthy interviews with the flipped conspirator and with all other leads). Instead of using the term "conspirators", you may use "accomplices before the fact" with more universal legal meaning.

When to pull the trigger in these cases is a matter of judgment - too quickly, and other birds fly; too slowly, and all birds fly. Was the trigger pulled too quickly on Manning ? Perhaps, perhaps not; I don't have the evidence to even suggest an estimate. Since the trigger has been pulled, trying to determine "conspirators" ("accomplices before the fact") is only prudent. We'll see if Manning will co-operate in tht endeavor.

Regards

Mike