On This Day: An Incredible Spy Story in a Tweet Storm

Sometimes interesting stories just fall in your lap or, in today's case, across your computer screen. Just a few minutes ago Code and Dagger was minding its own business, checking Twitter for the latest security news and photos of puppies, when the relatively little known National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) popped up out of nowhere with a tale about a Cold War spy who was recruited by a priest and wasn't caught until decades after his betrayal. I'll let the NCSC's Twitter feed take it from here:

1/ #OTD in CI & Security History: In Sept. 2001, 74yo retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel George Trofimoff is... https://t.co/EGvpRft5iG … pic.twitter.com/t3ETmS9NEo

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

2/ sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of espionage for the USSR. His period of spying occurred in Germany in the 1970s-80s...

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

3/ but Trofimoff was caught in an FBI sting in 2000 post-retirement, while living in Florida. He had been recruited by a Russian Orthodox...

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

4/ priest who was a KGB collaborator. From 1959-1994, Trofimoff was a U.S. Army civilian working in military intelligence in West Germany...

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

5/ and the Kingdom of Laos. In 1969, he became the Chief of the U.S. Army Element at the Nuremberg Joint Interrogation Center (JIC), a...

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

6/ a center for questioning defectors and refugees from the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries, where he had access to highly...

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

7/ classified info. At Trofimoff's trial, an unprecedented witness for the prosecution was former KGB General and defector Oleg Kalugin...

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

8/ who testified that Trofimoff was Soviet Agent "Markiz" and Kalugin had met personally with Trofimoff in Austria. Trofimoff was an...

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

9/ inmate at a U.S. Penitentiary in California and passed away in 2014 at the age of 87. He is the most senior U.S. military officer...

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017

10/ ever to be charged with or convicted of espionage.

— NCSC (@NCSCgov) September 27, 2017