Experts: US Flooded By Thousands Of Russian Spies

(NewsCore) - America is infiltrated by more Russian spies than at any point in history, say former intelligence agents quoted in Sunday's New York Post.

"I would say there are a few thousand here," said Boris Korczak, a former double agent who worked for the CIA, spying on former Soviet intelligence agency the KGB from 1973-1980.

The number is so high because each mole is a long shot, and the Russians want to maximize their odds.

"Out of 1,000 spies, one or two will perform, will get access to our nuclear secrets," Korczak said.

"The current atmosphere in the U.S. is that we're having a love affair with Russia, that the Cold War is over," agreed Eugene Poteat, a retired senior CIA operative who served from 1960-1990.

"But there are more Russian spies here now than during the Cold War."

Among the 10 accused Russian spies taken into custody last week is Anna Chapman, 28, a flame-haired socialite who, unsurprisingly, attracted the most attention.

She is currently being held in solitary confinement in a federal prison in New York and her lawyer, Robert Baum, said that she was "very unaware" of the media frenzy she sparked.

Chapman, a Russian native who once said her father was a high-ranking member of the KGB, spent her time in New York City circulating among rich and powerful men. In 2002, she married a British student named Alex Chapman, now 30. They divorced in 2006, after she began spending a lot of time without him and with her "Russian friends" instead.

Once in New York, she allegedly began dating a politically connected businessman from New Jersey named Michael Bittan. He refused to comment.

Chapman, who dressed in designer clothes, drank in swank downtown Manhattan spots, had her hair dyed red every week (she's a natural brunette) and got frequent mani-pedis, was suspected by acquaintances of working as a prostitute to fund her expensive tastes.

Korczak believes that Chapman (real name Anya Kuschenko) was likely schooled by the SVR -- Russia's post-KGB intelligence agency -- in the art of seduction.

During the Cold War, "the Soviet Union had a number of schools that trained beautiful women how to lure and satisfy powerful, rich, American men, sexually and intellectually," he said.

"They're called 'worm-on-a-hook' agents."

Some of these schools are located in small towns in the southern part of the country. None appear on a map. They are exact replicas of American suburbs such as Chevy Chase, Md. -- just outside Washington, where the bulk of KGB agents were deployed during World War II.

Russian spies-in-training in these towns, Korczak said, "buy groceries at 7-Elevens, eat hamburgers at McDonald's, watch American TV and go to American movie theaters, get American newspapers delivered every morning and speak only English."

Once a spy seems suitably Americanized, they are sent to a way station -- usually Finland or the Netherlands -- where they attempt to pass as American. If they do, they are sent to the United States, almost always as sleepers.

"The Russians are very patient," Korczak said. "My experience with the CIA was, 'It has to be here, now, and make a big splash.' The Russians will wait 15, 20 years -- whatever."

Read more: New York Post

(This article is provided by NewsCore, which aggregates news from around News Corporation.)