Russian Spies Short on Secrets

For all the hubbub over the discovery of an 11-person Russian spy ring this week, it seems that the agents were remarkably unsuccessful at their task. U.S. officials report that though the group was monitored for several yeas by the FBI, they were never caught sending any classified information back to Russia, and were mostly compiling briefs of well-known political gossip and economic issues. The spies were told not to seek government jobs to avoid scrutiny, and many ended up supporting themselves with paying jobs in the U.S. One drew a salary of $50,000 as a Spanish-language journalist. “The effort is out of proportion to the alleged benefits,” one baffled former CIA boss told The New York Times. “I just don’t understand what they expected.”