In Brian De Palma’s 1996 film, Mission Impossible, spy-catcher Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) tells international baddie Max, (played by international baddie Vanessa Redgrave) she’s about to find herself surrounded by “Virginia farm boys.” No doubt a reference to the Central Intelligence Agency’s Camp Perry training grounds, (nicknamed “The Farm”) near Williamsburg, VA. The reference makes for fun dialogue. It also evokes images of clear-eyed-clean-cut-do-right men acting with patriotic purpose.
Again, fun fiction. Of course the truth is much less clear but WAY more interesting.
Historical precedence
At the outset of the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress knew they faced tremendous deficits. The English literally outgunned, outmanned, and outclassed the colonials. They also had ships and easily moved troops along the coast and up the big rivers. The only thing the colonials could hope to counter the crown’s advantage was information.
The Continental Congress needed a spymaster. He had to be cunning, if not brilliant. He had to understand tactics, economics, and weather. If that were not enough—because the Continental Congress was also perpetually broke—the spymaster had to be cheap.
“It just so happens I know a guy…” -Benjamin (probably not) Franklin
George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army was many things. Mostly, as Benjamin Franklin said, he was always the tallest man in any room. What Washington was NOT was cunning, tactical, and probably couldn’t spell “economics.” However, Boston was not the general’s first taste of war. A junior officer with the English Colonial Army Washington made his bones at Fort Necessity hip-deep in the French and Indian war.
Washington knew the value of intelligence and he also knew the best people to press into service: criminals. Criminals know the back roads, back rooms, and back doors. They know how to dodge the authorities and/or which authorities will look the other way for a coin or two. Criminals also know how (and when) to listen. If they failed to cultivate those talents they don’t stay criminals (or free) long.
Best of all, with the promise of amnesty after the war, criminals are spies who pay themselves.
“Poverty is the mother of crime,” -Marcus Aurelius
The Culper Ring began with Abraham Woodall, a farmer who’s crop had failed to blight. The pithy cabbages he managed to salvage wouldn’t pay his bills in Suffolk County, New York. However those crops were worth ten times as much across the river on the besieged Manhattan Island. Overnight, Woodall went from farmer to smuggler. Just as quickly, he went from smuggler to spy. Writing reports as “Samuel Culper,” Woodall provided Washington with troop movements, prisoners in custody, and even the status of enemy provisions.
Like the oldest profession but less scrupulous
The Art of War, written in the 5th century BCE, includes lessons on the importance of reliable intelligence and how to cultivate spies. Two hundred years prior to Tsun Tsu’s masterwork, the bible mentions spies in Numbers. Even earlier, spies were documented at Pharaoh’s court a thousand years before the first scrolls of the Old Testament.
The elements are the same: discretion, listening, and patience to build a network of connections/conduits of information.
Discretion, listening, patience? Yeah, no. Ian Fleming’s international player has none of those things. Also, he doesn’t do a lot of spying. Nor does he do a lot of spy-catching. Where he does fall perfectly in line as a spy is in psychological profile. Bond is pathological in his motivations. Angry, violent, and bigoted, he perfectly reflects a substantial segment of entitled, upper class white men in postcolonial England.
Diamond in the septic tank
Amid the racist attitudes and misogyny, Bond/Fleming does evolve in the mindset of who the enemy is. Over the course of 11 years and 14 books, Bond went from early fisticuffs with Nazi expats and errant Soviets to ultimately battling the true enemy of any nation: unchecked wealth in unscrupulous hands.
Bond/Fleming accurately predicted the rise of the ultrarich—with ALL the money and privilege money can buy but no fulfillment, their pastimes are unraveling the social fabric. They are THE salient threat to national, if not global, security. They: Sills, Blofeld, et al, are the existential threat to earth. However Bond’s motivation remains shockingly similar to the monsters he vies with—the threat simply represents a license to kill, rape, and destroy.
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| Drinks and birds? A lot of bloody reading is what it is. |
The spy in the unemployment line
In his arthritic-real spymaster, George Smiley, John Le Carré wrote the anti-Bond. A dedicated civil servant, Smiley is workman-like in cultivating and running street-level spies. Spies like Ricki Tarr, a field agent posing as an import/export man (with all the graft that goes with it) and Toby Esterhase, a multi-lingual command officer, as well as a smuggler and con-man. In short, Smiley actually does the work of spying and does it quietly. Also unlike Bond, Smiley is able to subvert his ego when, in the aftermath of a Kim-Philby-esque defection, Smiley (previously fired) must find a mole in “The Circus” through insult-to-injury circumstances.
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| The ultimate man of mystery. |
The Ace of Spies who inspired them all
Sidney Reilly, or Zigmund Rosenblum, or Pedro, is perhaps the ancestor for all modern-day spooks. With exploits known only years after his execution, Reilly meticulously muddied all waters of his background. What is known is that he was well-educated, likely upper-class, and probably Jewish by culture if not faith.
The greatest talent for any spy to cultivate
Reilly claimed to have arrived in London with £1500 and a passport as a reward for saving a British military officer in Brazil. Purportedly starting as an immigrant informant, he parlayed his talents into higher and more political circles. Ultimately, he worked for no less than four intelligence services across half-a-dozen conflicts.
It is more commonly believed that Reilly landed in London with a large (much more than £1500) amount of cash just after two political extremists were found robbed and murdered on a train in France. Yan Voitek, Reilly’s Polish accomplice, most likely did the knife work.
Therein lies Reilly’s greatest talents. A master liar and manipulator, he wrote his own story, created his own mystique, while duping others into doing his heavy lifting. With those skills, he betrayed a British intelligence agent into tipping his hand and sealing his own doom, so Reilly could get the plans for a nascent German war fleet—which he then sold to the English for a fortune. Reilly would repeat the process countless times.
A bridge too far
Reilly confounded everyone who would “know” him and ultimately controlled his own image. Mysterious and dashing, British Diplomat, Robert Lockhart recounted Reilly could discuss a variety of subjects (but possessed little more than superficial knowledge on anything), exuded charm, and drew attention from women. Lockhart also stated that Reilly was personally courageous or at least indifferent to danger. Which would ultimately lead to his undoing.
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| As mugshots go, it's not the worst I've seen. |
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| Lenin survived...but, damn... |
Mission Impossible: AARP
Twenty-five years ago, the first Mission Impossible film debuted. Betrayed, paranoid, and extremely violent, Ethan Hunt represented the American take on the spy tradition. More reactionary than Bond and WAY less pensive than Smiley, Ethan is the spy with the least of Reilly’s DNA. Sadly, that extends to the movie.
Like the stunt-fest MI movies, Ethan is bloodless and clear of conscience. Neither criminal nor spy, he’s a movie star in an action-thriller. The espionage is incidental, like Ethan’s shoes or socks. The good guy with a federal-benefits dental plan, he’s completely unencumbered by pathology or past, bright-eyed and feckless as the popcorn he sells.
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| The Bond that should've been. |
Taking the movie for what it is, I’ll still see it, if for no other reasons than Ving Rhames and Indira Varma. But then I’d pay to see her read Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. No. No, I don’t get out much.
I own none of the images above. All are used for educational/instructional purposes, as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
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