Spy Time

June 20, 2024 1:21 AM

The recruitment cycle is slow and methodical, and the core step is the development of a Subject, which can last months or years. There are specific milestones a “developmental” must meet before moving to the next stage. At first, the acceptance of an expensive meal may be an indicator but over time, these financial benefits increase. A timepiece, whether luxury or affordable, is an ideal gift. It’s immediately recognizable, and it’s something that the agent can wear as a constant reminder of the friendship with the Case Officer and thus the greater relationship with the US Government. Further, the soon-to-be agent’s acceptance of an expensive gift from an American official is a strong indication that the individual is willing to move in the direction of a clandestine relationship. from Bribes & Operational Gifts - The Role Of Timepieces In Clandestine Operations [Watches of Espionage via The Morning News]

*This article has been reviewed by the CIA's Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information.

posted by chavenet (13 comments total)

That was a terririfc post. Sometimes it's easy in macro conflict days to forget how important or influential micro efforts can be. But leave it to the US to have a bureaucratic ops manual for spying!

Slightly related: oh great a new website to obsess over and read every article from.
posted by chasles at 2:41 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]

A brand new Rolex Daytona on the wrist of a Russian Third Secretary would be difficult to explain, but a Seiko 5 costing a couple of hundred bucks could easily be explained away.
Marie Antoinette or i walk [Breguet]
posted by HearHere at 3:10 AM on June 20 [3 favorites]

First, severely disappointed by the lack of laser beams or even high-res cameras in this post.

Second, it was interesting to catch up with my friend who's in Geneva and hear him say, after covering the diplomatic sector, 'yeah, besides that you have to be into making mechanical time pieces or else there's not much industry'.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 4:07 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]

Got a real weird feeling seeing that photo of the Dalai Lama. The whole game is written like a slow-burn seduction and that photo just gave me “little black book” vibes. Great post.
posted by eirias at 4:21 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]

What I'm hearing is "Never trust anyone wearing a nice watch."
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:20 AM on June 20 [9 favorites]

Really interesting article. Thanks for sharing
posted by ellerhodes at 5:49 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]

What I'm hearing is watch it [blogspot]
posted by HearHere at 5:59 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]

>While the DOJ indictment described the watch as a "bribe," in reality, it was an operational gift

Are operational gifts not bribes?
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 6:57 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]

Are operational gifts not bribes?

And then that person went on to receive $200,000 in cash payments which were also not bribes but "remuneration".

Sounds like the DOJ just doesn't appreciate the respectable and above-the-board work of spycraft.
posted by clawsoon at 7:58 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]

Big ups to the article for mentioning the International Spy Museum in DC, maybe the best non-governmental museum in town. When I went back in 2016, they not only had a lot of authentic spy equipment--spy cameras the size of a pack of gum, hollowed-out nickels for hiding microfilm, and the like--but also a nifty James Bond exhibit, including one of the Aston Martins and the metal teeth Richard Kiel wore as Jaws.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:37 AM on June 20 [2 favorites]

Gentlemen, synchronize your watches!
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 4:37 PM on June 20 [2 favorites]

Anent the International Spy Museum in DC, not far outside town is the National Cryptological Museum in Maryland, which sits in a kind of fistula in the security fence around the NSA's headquarters and contains a hell of a lot of their no-longer-classified souvenirs, including stuff like a bundle of WW2 Engima machines, and (in working order when I visited in 2008) a Connection Machines CM-1 supercomputer and a decommissioned Cray; also esoteric stuff like the biographies of their greatest linguists, and details of their Bible collection.

(Every time a new and hitherto uncontacted tribe is discovered by Christian missionaries the first thing they do is learn enough of their language to translate the Bible. So the NSA went to great pains to acquire a copy of every Bible translation, because it was the best Rosetta Stone out there. Ahem. Until the Google Translate team worked out that the UN and EU bureaucracies do a similar job for government papers. And even then, the Bible repository has the keys to numerous languages that aren't spoken in the UN.)
posted by cstross at 5:43 AM on June 21 [4 favorites]

which sits in a kind of fistula in the security fence around the NSA

Now that’s the kind of content that keeps me coming back to MetaFilter Dot Com.

Re: the NSA’s Bible collection, I’m wondering if they picked up a copy of the smallest Bible.
posted by eirias at 3:35 PM on June 22