by Bart King
One mean way to get a captured agent to cooperate is called “false flag deception.” Here, the recruited spy is told that he will be working for a certain agency or country when he is actually working for an entirely different one! In other words, Russian spies might pretend to be American agents, thus tricking the flipped spy.
But the most common dirty trick is just to threaten a captured spy, often with blackmail. However, many agents (like me!) have such innocent lives, it doesn’t matter if their enemies take secret photographs of it.
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[19] Some U.S. spies even have three identities: a government cover, a commercial cover, and their true identity as CIA agents.
[20] Unfortunately, the pilot then confessed to being a spy, which sort of ruined the denial.
[21] The spy was shot in the back of the head with a huge gun. This makes identifying the person by his face impossible.
[22] This technique is taken from a method that a CIA interrogator created. It’s called Tactical Behavior Assessment, or TBA.
[23] A really defensive liar may freeze up and have fewer hand gestures than usual. Her hands may go into her pockets and never come out, or she may cross her legs and arms and stay in that posture.
The Best-Dressed Agents
Throughout history, important people have hired bodyguards to protect their... bodies. Usually, these guards stayed right by the person they were protecting to scare away would-be assassins.
Take the Praetorian Guard of ancient Rome, for instance. Assigned to keep the emperor safe, these warriors stood openly and proudly behind their leader, gleaming armor and sharpened weapons at the ready. The Praetorians made up the most bloodthirsty, toughest bodyguards you could imagine! How awesome were they? Well, the Praetorian Guard itself was responsible for the deaths or disappearances of ten different Roman emperors!
Yep—the bodyguards often KILLED the guys they were supposed to be protecting. So maybe having the guards onstage wasn’t such a good idea after all. Clearly, these Praetorians wanted more attention than was healthy!
Maybe this explains why the Secret Service is in charge of protecting the President of the United States of America. (Note the key word: SECRET.) They’re supposed to keep a low profile! But while you might not notice them, Secret Service agents don’t just stand around by the president’s side. They keep busy. After all, an average of about 30 people each year try to ram the White House gates with cars, or climb over the fence that surrounds it, or get on the grounds some other way. The fact that none of these attempts work tells us how effective these agents are.
Hit Them With Your Best Shot
When the president is on the move, agents are stationed as snipers along his travel route. Their job is to keep an eye on the crowd and be ready to “pick off” would-be assassins. These agent snipers are pretty amazing shots. They are tested monthly on being able to hit targets 1,000 yards away.
But one of the greatest challenges that Secret Service agents face is the president himself! Over the years, presidents have often gotten tired of having bodyguards constantly around them, so sometimes they make a break for it. For instance, President Gerald Ford (term 1974–77) was a terrific skier. He would often get off a chair lift and go tearing down the mountain, taunting the agents, who were eating his snow. (Good thing the Praetorian Guard wasn’t around. They probably would have fired an arrow through Ford’s ski goggles.)
To deal with the runaway president, his Secret Service agents assigned the best skier on the force to President Ford. This agent was so world class, he’d get in front of Ford and then turn around and ski BACKWARDS down the mountain while Ford tried to keep up!
And then he’d shoot an arrow through Ford’s ski-goggles. (Kidding!)
The Secret Service is also in charge of guarding the vice president. This is usually a little easier, as the v.p. isn’t as popular a target for assassination. In fact, when George H. W. Bush was vice president (1981–89), Agent William Albracht was posted to be the overnight guard at Bush’s home. The agent was jokingly instructed that it was the responsibility of the house’s cooks to bake cookies for the next day. And it was the responsibility of Secret Service agents to FIND those cookies!
Albracht laughed, but by 3 a.m., he was getting hungry. He went into the kitchen to do some reconnaissance. No cookies. Suddenly, there was a voice behind him!
“Hey, anything in there good to eat?” It was George Bush! And so the Secret Service agent and the Vice President of the United States combined forces to find the hidden cookies. Mission accomplished. Bush went back to bed with a glass of milk and a stack of chocolate chip cookies. And as for the Secret Service agent, he enjoyed the sweet taste of victory.
Keeping Secrets Is Easy Underwater: The submarine fleet of the U.S. Navy is known as the Silent Service.
It used to be a lot easier to get into the White House. Since the president is chosen BY the people, the idea was that the president should be available TO the people. And that’s why the first American presidents didn’t have ANY bodyguards at all.
This led to some awkward moments. When the White House was first built, a crazed man wandered into the building, intent on killing President John Adams. This wasn’t a security breakdown. There WAS no security, and the White House was open to the public! Since Adams didn’t have any bodyguards to call for help, he did something sensible: the president invited the crazed man into his office and talked to him calmly.
Problem solved! (Temporarily.)
By the time Abraham Lincoln took office, he received so many death threats that he had to have a bodyguard. So police officers working in shifts were assigned to protect Lincoln. But these early bodyguards didn’t take their jobs very seriously. Take Officer John Parker. He was on duty in 1865, the night Lincoln went to a play at Ford’s Theater. And when John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln in the back of the head, Parker was down the street in a saloon, having a drink.
Amazingly, Lincoln’s death failed to teach a lesson about presidential security. It took 36 more years and two more presidential assassinations before the Secret Service was FINALLY given the responsibility for protecting the president.
The Secret Service had already been around for years, but its main job had been to catch “counterfeiters” who made fake money. (Many states minted their own cash back then, and about a third of all the money in circulation was counterfeit.)
Once the Secret Service was in charge of presidential security, its agents immediately tried to stop the practice of allowing visitors to freely roam the White House. But this policy wouldn’t changed until the 1940s. But enough history. It’s time for a test!
Imagine that you’re in the Secret Service. You’ve had training in firearms, spotting suspicious people in crowds, evasive driving, and many other awesome things. But during your training, which of the following lessons was MOST important?
Learning how to take a bullet for the president.
Learning not to flinch at the sound of gunfire.
Learning how to defuse a stink bomb.
Answer below![24]
True or False? Secret Service agents wear sunglasses to look cool. While this is nice, it also makes it easy to spot the agents.
Answer below![25]
When people threaten the life of the president, which of these types of messages do you think most people use for their threats?
Phone call
Email
IM
Video
Snail mail
Answer below![26]
All presidents receive threats, and lots of them. But when a certain president took office, the rate of presidential threats increased 400 percent. Who was this president?
Answer below.[27]
Secret Service agents refer to would-be assassins as
barmy.
jackals.
sadly misguided individuals.
Answer below![28]
If you got all of these answers right, you might consider a career
in the Secret Service. Oh, and have you guessed why Secret Service agents are the best dressed of all agents? Just think of all the formal dinners, galas, and balls that the president and his family have to attend. That means the bodyguards protecting the president have to be in their best formal wear a lot of the time. I mean, have you ever seen an agent in a T-shirt and flip-flops at a presidential speech?
But not all Secret Service agents are dressed in suits and wearing sunglasses. Whenever the president makes a public appearance, there are a number of agents in plainclothes, moving through the crowd. Yes, they are secret Secret Service agents. But whatever their outfit might be, you just know that all of the agents want to have that little microphone in their shirtsleeves. These are excellent for communicating with other officers—and they have other uses, too!
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[24] b. Learning not to flinch at the sound of gunfire. With proper safeguards, no agent should have to “take a bullet.” (And contrary to popular belief, stink bombs are ineffective assassination weapons!)
[25] False and false! Glasses are worn for eye protection and also so that people cannot see where the agents are looking. But there are also plainclothes agents without shades or earpieces, walking around the White House or wherever the president is located.
[26] e. Snail mail. Surprised? Me too, but apparently, letter writers think the president will actually read a real letter.
[27] Barack Obama. Being the first black president meant that he was a target for racists, and the Secret Service had to be on high alert at all times.
[28] b. Jackals.>
Famous (& Infamous) Spies
A spy goal is to be invisible, secret, and otherwise unnoticed. That means a good agent is like an anti-celebrity! So, does this mean that famous spies are actually losers? I’m not sure. Maybe I need to ask an expert, like...
The Spy Who’d School You
Elsbeth Schragmüller (1887–1940) was a German who became the dean of a school for spies that she founded. And not only did she have that going for her, but Schragmüller also had two cool nicknames: “Tiger Eyes” and “Fräulein Doktor.”
When World War I began, Schragmüller volunteered for service to Germany. Fräulein Doktor’s intelligence and savvy led her to lead a school for spies. Much of this school’s activities are still shrouded in secrecy. But supposedly, to make sure the students at the espionage school didn’t know each other’s identities, Schragmüller had them all wear masks! And to graduate, the spy students had to undertake an actual (but safe) mission that involved deception, guts, and intelligence.
Wooden Leg? What Wooden Leg?
Virginia Hall (1906–1982) was a one-legged spy for the Allies in World War II. And she may have been the best there was. German intelligence said, “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.”
Hall never intended to be a spy, though! She was working for the U.S. State Department when she was accidentally shot in a hunting accident. Hall’s left leg had to be amputated and replaced with a wooden one. Forced to quit her job, Hall chose to become a journalist. Her intelligence and bravery led British agents to recruit her when World War II broke out.
As a spy, Hall worked with the French Resistance. She spent almost three years in occupied France. During that time, she narrowly escaped capture by the Nazis’ secret police force, the Gestapo. Given her limp and accent, this was especially remarkable!
In addition to being praised for her courage, Hall got a cool nickname—“Agent Heckler.” She showed her humor by also giving her artificial leg its own code name: Cuthbert. As a joke, Virginia Hall once told her boss that she hoped “Cuthbert” wouldn’t give her any trouble as she escaped on foot from France to Spain.
Not getting the joke, the spymaster’s response was, “If Cuthbert [is] troublesome, eliminate him.”
The World’s Greatest Lover Was a Spy!
Giovanni Casanova (1725–1798) was a legendary ladies’ man. And for years, he was also a secret agent in France and Italy. Casanova seemed to enjoy his spy work, saying, “I did not hesitate to deceive nitwits and scoundrels and fools.”
Too Honest for His Own Good
Nathan Hale (1755–1776) was the first American spy. Which is ridiculous, because by now YOU have had more military training than he did! Before joining the revolutionaries, Hale was a schoolteacher. In 1776, after learning that George Washington supported spying, Hale volunteered to be an agent, even though the teacher had no background in intelligence. And there were important factors working against Hale. For instance, he was really tall and he had a big scar on his face. In short, Hale stuck out!
But Hale was brave. He managed to sneak into the British encampment in Manhattan. Then he managed to get caught after a few days. Since Hale wasn’t a professional spy, he believed that honesty was the best policy. MISTAKE! He admitted to being a spy. And so the commander of the British forces ordered Hale’s execution. (This was a rip-off, as there was no trial.) Before he was hanged, Hale reportedly said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” I think we all agree those are pretty awesome last words.
Reminder: What Not to Do
Grim Man:Are you a spy?
Young Person(enthusiastically): YES! How’d you know?
Who Are We Working For?
The CIA defends the U.S. from its enemies. But every now and then, someone suggests that its spies do industrial/commercial espionage for American corporations. To that, one CIA agent said, “I’m prepared to give my life for my country, but not for a company.”
Organized Chaos
In the very silly TV show and movie Get Smart, super-agent Maxwell Smart is assigned to stop the evil plots of an international organization known as KAOS. But it turns out that the KAOS name wasn’t as goofy as the show’s writers believed. The CIA actually started something called Operation CHAOS (pronounced KAY-oss) in 1967. CHAOS was created to watch American war protesters to see if they had support from other governments.
After tracking thousands of people for years, CHAOS reached a startling conclusion: some people just don’t like wars!
British Spies Like to Write!
Daniel Defoe (ca. 1660–1731) wrote the famous survival story Robinson Crusoe. He was also a troublemaker who ended up being thrown into jail a few times. But because Defoe was extremely smart, had a terrific memory, and observed EVERYTHING, he was recruited by the British government to be a spy.
Defoe was so good at spying, he ended up in charge of a spy network in England that he created himself. (For this, he was called “the father of the British secret service.”) Then Defoe got so caught up in the double-crossing world of espionage, it got to the point where he would befriend and then betray almost anyone.
Well, you know what they say: never trust a writer!
Roald Dahl (1916–1990) grew up around secrets. In fact, he ate them! Before he became the author of classics like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, and James and the Giant Peach, Dahl went to school near the headquarters for the Cadbury candy company. There, Dahl and his fellow students were used as taste-testers for newly invented sweets. This gave Dahl a lifelong interest in candy and high security. (See Agencies chapter to see what I mean.) And as an adult, Dahl was a spy for the British government during World War II.
Flying Cars Rule
Dahl also wrote a children’s book about a flying car called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1964. At first, I didn’t see why, but then I realized that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang can take aerial reconnaissance photos!
Ian Fleming (1908–1964) joined British Intelligence in 1939, where he showed himself to be an imaginative agent who was good at plotting dangerous missions. Fleming’s abilities led him to directing a group of commandos that stole enemy papers and infiltrated Nazi spy agencies. Not only that, but Fleming carried around a fountain pen with a tear-gas canister inside it! (Or at least that’s what he said.)
After the war, Fleming began writing fictio
nal plots for his invented super-spy, James Bond. He partly got the idea for Bond after meeting a super-smooth Serbian spy named Dusan Popov.
