Friendly Spies: How America's Allies Are Using Economic Espionage to Steal Our Secrets

This alarmist book is less an investigation than a survey of past examples of corporate theft by foreign intelligence agents. Though Schweizer, a consultant to NBC News, quotes U.S. spymasters on the growing dangers of economic espionage, he never solidly assesses its impact and magnitude. In chapters on Japan, France, West Germany, South Korea and Israel, the author offers mini-histories of different nations' intelligence operations as well as accounts, mainly based on secondary sources, of both minor and major spy cases. Schweizer concludes with debates concerning the CIA's possible development and application of its own economic espionage capability. (Feb.)