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CIA Agent and Inventor
Glenn Howard Whidden (27 March 1928 - 24 November 2011)
was an electronics engineer who worked for the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
for 28 years. After he left the CIA he founded his own company
Technical Services Agency (TSA).
He was the inventor of the COMPUSCAN
bug tracer and was also the founder and president of the Espionage
Research Insitute (ERI).
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Glenn, a self-taught electrical engineer, was only 18 years old when he
joined the CIA in 1946, shortly after WWII, where he was trained by the
government in clandestine operations.
In the light of the Cold War, he built up experience in most types of
espionage activity, such as mail intercepts,
electronic eavesdropping (bugging),
surreptitious entry (lock picking) and
Technical Surveillance Counter Measures (TSCM).
In 1974 he retired from
the CIA, after 28 years of active service during which time he operated
in 72 countries worldwide.
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After leaving the CIA in 1974, he started his own company by the name of
Technical Services Agency Inc. (TSA),
where he developed and marketed
electronic equipment for eavesdropping detection
(bug finders). He became the US distributor for the
Scanlock series
of bug tracers that had been developed by his good friend
Lee Tracey in the UK. But he went further.
He extended the Scanlock Mark VB
with the first fully automated bug scanner: the so-called
COMPUSCAN.
Glenn Whidden was the holder of five US patents on the subject of
bug tracing, and wrote several books on this topic,
such as 'A Guidebook for the Beginning Sweeper'
and 'The Attack on Axnan Headquarters'.
He also held positions in several institutes and organisations.
In 1999 he co-starred in the fascinating Channel 4 documentary
'The Walls Have Ears' [3] along with his UK friends
Lee Tracey (inventor of the Scanlock),
Charles Bovill
(inventor of the S-Phone
and the Broom).
On 24 November 2011, after a short illness, Glenn Howard Whidden
passed away at the age of 83,
leaving behind his wife Natalie, his three sons and many grandchildren.
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The following products of Glenn Whidden are covered on this website:
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- 1946-1974: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
- Technical Services Agency (TSA)
- Instructor at the Institute for Countermeasures Studies
- Part-time instructor at the World Institute of Security Enhancement
- President of the Espionage Research Institute (ERI)
- President of BECCA
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- A Guidebook for the Beginning Sweeper
- The Russian Eavesdropping Threat (1993, 1994)
- The Attack on Axnan Headquarters: An Espionage Operation. 20 August 2000.
- Who's listening in? (a story about telephone security). 28 July 2005.
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© Copyright 2009-2013, Paul Reuvers & Marc Simons. Last changed: Sunday, 26 January 2014 - 19:51 CET
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![Glenn Howard Whidden. Photograph Copyright JD LeaSure [2].](img/500458/000/small1.jpg "Glenn Howard Whidden. Photograph Copyright JD LeaSure [2].")
