Killing CIA informants, China stifled U.S. spying
Those who rejected the mole theory attributed the losses to sloppy U.S. tradecraft at a time when the Chinese were becoming better at monitoring U.S. espio - nage activities in the country. Some FBI agents became convinced that CIA handlers in Beijing too often traveled the same routes to the same meeting points, which would have helped China’s vast sur veillance network identify the spies in its midst.
Some officers met their s o u r c e s a t a r e s t a u r a n t where Chinese agents had planted listening devices, former officials said, and even the waiters worked for Chinese intelligence.
This c arelessness, coupled with the possibilit y that the Chinese had hacked the covert communications c h a n n e l , woul d e x p l a i n many, if not all, of the dis- appearances and deaths, some former officials said. Some in the agenc y, part i c u l a r l y t h o s e who h a d helped build the spy network, resisted this theory and believed they had been caught in the middle of a turf war within the CIA.
By 2013, the FBI and the CIA concluded that China’s success in identifying CIA agents had been blunted — it is not clear how — but the damage had been done.
T h e C I A h a s t r i e d t o rebuild its network of spies in China, officials said, an expensive and time-consum- ing effort led at one time by the former chief of the East Asia Division. A former intelligence official said the former chief was particu- larly bitter because he had worked with the suspected mole and recruited some of the spies in China who were ultimately executed.