There is commotion in the State Department and in Congress about an FBI report stating that foreign governments are using journalists who cover the department to also spy on it. We are used to arguments about whether the CIA ought to use American correspondents abroad to spy on foreign governments. Judging from the reaction at State and on Capitol Hill, it is a shock to discover that other intelligence services are doing the same thing to us.
All intelligence agencies use the same methods.
They would immediately be ostracized. For intelligence agencies, journalists are among the preferred covers. The jobs of journalist and spy are not very different. Each wants to find out something that government, whether in Washington, Moscow, or elsewhere, doesn't want him to know. For years, also, the CIA has tried to recruit American correspondents to do its work abroad.