The Big Book of Spy Stuff

by Bart King

  So how did the Russians do it? Simple. A spy named Sergei Fabiew had stolen the Concorde’s plans and passed them along.

  Moral: If a spy steals the plans for your plane, get revenge by canceling his frequent-flyer miles.

  9. A spy has good information on something REALLY important. And nobody listens!

  Dusan Popov (1912–1981) was a real super-spy. He was a wealthy playboy and ladies’ man who also worked undercover as a successful secret agent for Great Britain. Popov spoke several languages fluently and even developed his own recipe for invisible ink. He was a smooth operator! Popov was so impressive, writer Ian Fleming partly based James Bond on the famous spy.

  In 1941, Popov learned of a secret Japanese plan to bomb almost the entire U.S. naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. And so he traveled to Washington, D.C., to warn the Americans! A meeting was arranged between Popov and J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI. With a reputation like Popov’s, you’d THINK that Hoover would have paid attention to the agent’s warning. No dice. You see, there was one little problem with Popov that made Hoover suspicious.

  Popov’s secret spy code name was...“Tricycle”! And the director of the FBI couldn’t imagine WHY a spy would have such an odd nickname. It was outrageous! Ludicrous! Suspicious!

  So Popov was ignored, and Pearl Harbor caught almost everyone by complete surprise—everyone except J. Edgar Hoover.

  Moral: Being a little paranoid is healthy. Being TOTALLY paranoid doesn’t get you anywhere.

  10. A spy is caught and...hey, where’d he go?

  George Blake was a high-level British intelligence agent. He was also spying for Russia from 1953 to 1961!

  When Blake was caught, it was believed he had betrayed between 40 and 400 agents. That jerk! Blake was sentenced to prison, where he served five years. Then he managed to pull out a loose bar from his jail cell window, climb a down a rope ladder he had knitted himself, and escape. He left England and traveled to Moscow, where he conducted advanced classes for spies.

  Oops.

  Moral: Never let a captured spy knit. (You don’t need a sweater that badly.)

  11. A great victory turns into a dashing defeat!

  During World War II, the British ambassador to Turkey left the top secret plans for the invasion of Europe in his personal safe. Bad idea! A spy named Ilyas Bazna, who was working for the Germans, made wax impressions of the ambassador’s keys. With the copies he made, Bazna opened the ambassador’s safe and photographed papers that gave away a number of Allied secrets, including the REAL plans to D-Day!

  Bazna sold his fantastic intelligence to the German military for the equivalent of over a million dollars. And the Germans thought it was worth it! No one could believe how fantastic this information was!

  No, seriously, the info was so good, the Germans eventually decided Bazna’s information was fake and they never acted on it. Oops!

  As for Bazna, he escaped to Argentina with his huge piles of cash. But when the time came to count his earnings, the spy had made a shocking discovery: the money the Germans had paid him was FAKE.

  Double-oops!

  Moral: You can sometimes trust a spy. But you can NEVER trust a Nazi.

  12. Nobody will EVER find this top secret stuff!

  The Russians once built a research station way far up into the Arctic. So, naturally, intelligence agents for the U.S. Navy were curious about what the Russians were doing. Was it submarine research? A new invention? What?

  The Russians eventually abandoned their frosty and almost-impossible-to-get-to station. So the U.S. Navy created Operation Coldfeet to learn more about it! First, two agents were parachuted down to the station. They spent two days finding dozens of top secret documents and pieces of equipment. And on the third day, the agents left in an unusual way.

  The Arctic location was too remote for helicopters to access, and no plane could land near the station. But a plane could fly OVER it. So the Navy agents put on special harnesses. The harnesses were attached to a line that was carried skyward by a huge balloon.

  The plan was for a U.S. aircraft with a hook-on attached to its nose to fly over and snag the line hanging from the balloon. The officers would find themselves suddenly YANKED into the air, and from there, they could be hauled into the plane.

  I know, I know, it sounds like the stupidest plan ever. And guess what? It worked perfectly!

  Moral: I’m still too amazed at that airplane trick to think of a moral to this story.

  Hang on—I think I hear an ice cream truck. Gotta go!

  Weird Assignments

  Agents can get mixed up in all sorts of wacky things. For instance, in the 1950s, the CIA director ordered his spies to investigate UFOs. The director’s reason was that if aliens existed, it would be REALLY important for the United States to know about them.

  You know, I was going to make fun of that idea...but it actually makes sense!

  I’ll bet that if I look, I can find some other spy assignments that are peculiar. Hey, here’s something: when a spy gets what’s called a “wet job,” that means it is a mission that might involve people bleeding.

  So if you’re assigned to a wet job, dress appropriately. For example, bloodstains don’t show up as well on dark clothing. And waterproofed fabrics won’t stain at all!

  But then there is the WRONG kind of a wet job. Did you know that when world leaders visit the United States, they pee and poop? It’s true! And if someone were to collect some of the pee and poop, THAT would be intelligence! By analyzing a person’s number 2, you can find out what his health is like. So, when possible, that’s exactly what CIA agents do! (Consider that a warning!)

  Chemical Agents

  Cleisthenes of Sicyon was an ancient Greek leader who liked to conquer other cities. But at least the headman did it in creative ways. To take over one town, Cleisthenes had his agents put a powerful laxative in its water. As the poor townspeople ran around, desperately looking for a place to poop, Cleisthenes’ soldiers waltzed in and took over.

  Ooh, here’s another really wet job. In 1950, an American agent named Edward Lansdale was in the Philippines working against a Communist group. Knowing that there were local superstitions about vampires, Lansdale spread rumors that bloodsuckers were out and about. Scary!

  After Lansdale’s Filipino allies killed a Communist in battle, the American would have the dead man’s throat punctured and his blood drained. And when the Communist’s body was later found, this would spook everyone... especially the Communists!

  Now here are some other weird intelligence assignments.

  Eve, The Original Double Agent

  You’ve heard the story of Adam and Eve. No espionage there, right?

  Wrong! The serpent that gets Eve to bite the apple is actually an enemy agent working under the “cover” of a reptile. This scaly agent “flips” Eve to his side when he gets her to eat the fruit of knowledge.[30] And then Eve gets Adam to do the same thing! So that means that Eve was tricked into becoming an agent for the other side without even knowing it!

  How to Destroy a World Leader’s Beard

  As the leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro has been a world-famous enemy of the United States for decades. And to get back at the bearded Cuban dictator, the CIA came up with a kooky plan. Castro was going to be traveling, and it was believed that he would put his shoes in the hallway to get them shined. The idea was that CIA agents would then take the shoes and sprinkle a chemical powder in them—and this powder would make all of his hair fall out.

  Once Castro’s famous beard dropped off his face, he would be without his macho symbol of leadership! And then either Castro’s nation would rebel against him or he would just quit.

  But since Castro cancelled his trip, we’ll never know if this would have worked!

  Sports Espionage?

  Baseball

  Think about your favorite sport. Got it? Whatever that sport is, I can guarantee you that it’s filled with informants, double agents, and backstabbers! (Exception
: golf. There are no spies in golf, because they can’t stay awake.)

  I mean, have you ever noticed how football coaches cover their mouths with clipboards so no one can see what play they’re calling? And baseball is even worse! Teams constantly spy on each other to steal the “signs” that coaches use to communicate with their players on the field. And I haven’t even told you about Moe Berg yet!

  Moe Berg was both a genius and a pretty good baseball player. After he graduated from Princeton, Berg was signed by the Dodgers. For the next 16 years, he played major league baseball. But Berg was never a very good hitter, batting a lifetime .243 average. As one teammate said, “[Berg] can speak seven languages, but he can’t hit in any of them.”

  It turns out that Berg’s baseball career was a cover for the fact that Berg was an American spy! What use is a baseball spy? As “the brainiest player in baseball,” Berg could speak fluent Japanese. So in 1934, he traveled with Babe Ruth on an American All-Star baseball tour to Japan. And between games, Berg put on a kimono, hid a movie camera under it, and climbed the stairs to one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo. There he filmed and photographed Japanese military installations for U.S. intelligence!

  After leaving baseball in 1939, Berg worked for the FBI and the CIA. Because he was also fluent in German, Berg parachuted behind enemy lines at least once. He was also sent on missions to help sabotage a Nazi project to build an atomic bomb.

  Through it all, Berg kept up an eccentric reputation. He was known to go on secret missions while still wearing his CIA-issue watch, he read up to 15 newspapers a day, and he was notorious for dropping his gun. (Berg once fumbled his firearm right into the lap of a fellow train passenger!)

  Berg continued doing intelligence work in his sixties, but his full story will never be known. He was supposed to write a book about his adventures, but the editor he was going to work with let slip that he thought Moe Berg was Moe from “The Three Stooges.” Berg was not amused, and the book was never written.

  Horseback Riding

  One of my favorite sporty-spy stories has to do with horseback riding. Yasumasa Fukushima was born to a Japanese samurai family in the 1800s. Growing up, he learned the importance of both spying and riding a horse. As a young man, Fukushima was sent to Germany to gather intelligence as a diplomat. He already had a reputation for doing brave, even foolhardy things. But people were still surprised when Fukushima announced he intended to ride a horse from Berlin, Germany, to the east coast of Russia—a distance of 9,000 miles!

  Since that’s more than twice the distance from California to New York, no one took Fukushima seriously—until he rode off. His daring trip attracted so much attention that the Russians didn’t notice that Fukushima took notes along his entire journey. Yep, he was spying!

  And when Japan and Russia went to war in 1904, guess who was an important officer of military intelligence? Fukushima!

  And guess who won the war? Japan!

  Sailing/Yachting

  Yes, spies can be behind a catcher’s mask, on horseback, or even on a sailboat. For example, one of the biggest events in sailing (a.k.a. yachting) is the America’s Cup. It’s only held once every four years, so the sailors have plenty of time to secretly watch each other. Of special interest to yachters is what kind of keel (the part of the boat underwater) their opponents will have.

  To prevent anyone from seeing their keel, sailors seal off their docks and hire armed guards. In 1992, an interesting bit of espionage happened with a New Zealand boat that was being guarded. A scuba diver named Amir Pishdad swam near the yacht. He was going to spy on it! Pishdad took a deep breath and left his air tank on the bottom so his bubbles wouldn’t give him away. But as he was photographing the boat’s keel, Pishdad was seen!

  Two diver-guards who had been hired for just this situation dove into the water. Since Pishdad didn’t have his tank, he couldn’t swim off, and so he was easily caught. Talk about embarrassing!

  From Water to Air

  When people fail to make their car payments, their cars can be repossessed. That means that people working for the bank or car dealership come and “steal” the auto back. This same thing works with jets. And because aircraft can cost millions of dollars, there’s a lot of money at stake with them.

  That’s where repossession companies like Sage-Popovich, Inc., come in. Over the years, its employees have “stolen” back over 1,000 jets. But because aircraft are so valuable, repossessing them is tough. So repo agents have to combine the trickiness of an intelligence agent with the flying ability of a top pilot. Their unofficial rule is “Don’t ask, don’t tell—just get the airplane back.”

  The problem is that it’s easy to quickly hide a jet someplace far away—like another continent! So jet repo agents have to be flexible. They need to know the layouts of airports, how to get their crews in, and where the jets are actually located. But the good news is that once the jet is found, the doors are usually unlocked. (Jet owners just assume that since their aircraft are at secure airports, they’re safe!) Not only that, but you don’t even need keys to start most jets. Sweet!

  One repo pilot described an interesting job at a Paris airport. The jet was surrounded by orange cones, which we can agree is not very good security. (Orange cones can’t stop anyone!) Inside the jet, a legal order was taped to the cockpit door. It commanded that the plane was not to be flown until its owners paid their fuel bills. No problem! As the repo pilot said, “It was all in French, so I just tore it off.”

  But airport security arrived and arrested the repo pilot. He had to leave the country and then re-enter by train. This time, he had the jet re-registered as an American plane. Going to the airport, he found the jet again, only to find its fuel tanks had been drained. Drat!

  Seeing that a nearby jet was being refueled, the repo pilot quickly bought enough to get him to Iceland, powered up the jet, and flew the now “American” plane out of Paris. Nice work! And it allowed the jet repo agent to do one of his favorite activities—imagining the expressions on the other pilots’ faces when they realize their plane is gone!

  Project Mindreading

  You may have heard that the CIA experimented with ESP and mind reading to steal secrets from other countries. It’s true! There was a program like this called “Remote Viewing” that was cancelled in 1995. It was run by a former Special Forces commander named Colonel John Alexander. He spent years trying to convince the military that mind reading was possible.

  As part of the “Remote Viewing” program, Alexander brought in witches and psychics. But he was not impressed by the witches at all, saying they “lacked discipline and protocols.”

  This is sort of like looking for aliens—it’s easy to make fun of. But what if there ARE psychics? Then we spies had better know about them!

  But when the “mad scientists” from DARPA was brought in to evaluate the CIA program, it took them just a few hours to realize something important: mind reading doesn’t work! Rats.

  If You Can’t Beat Them, Steal from Them

  In 1969, the people of Israel were a little worried. One of its neighbors, Egypt, had just set up a new radar station that gave away the location of Israeli aircraft.

  The Israelis considered bombing the radar station, but that seemed like a waste of expensive new technology—even if it was the enemy’s! So one night, a group of special agents were quickly flown into Egypt. They took over the radar installation. Then they dismantled it and had two “heavy-lift” helicopters fly off with it!

  Keep an Eye on the Weather

  In addition to secretly watching people, a good spy observes MANY things—like the weather! Just knowing which way the wind is blowing can be useful. According to legend, a battle was waged in China over 2,000 years ago. Leading one side was a brilliant man named Liang Zhuge. And Liang Zhuge’s army was defeated! Panic-stricken, his soldiers fled certain death by crossing a river.

  Liang Zhuge looked at his men. They were hungry, outnumbered, bone-tired, and facing complete
destruction. On the other side of the river, the enemy happily made camp, secure in the knowledge that they could destroy Liang’s army first thing in the morning. (Destroying one’s enemies at dawn is always a good feeling!)

  But Liang Zhuge didn’t become the leader by being a fool! And as he looked across the river, he noted that the wind was blowing TOWARD the enemy camp. And so that evening, Liang Zhuge ordered his men to light hundreds and hundreds of paper lanterns. And after darkness fell, Liang ordered his men to release the flocks of paper lanterns into the night air.