Prompted by the recent attempted murder, I started pondering about the life of spies, with my first thought being that I would find living a lie rather uncomfortable. Living my life pretending to all those around me that I was something that I was not.
Second thought was of the serried ranks of fictional spies. From the glamour of James Bond, through Harry Palmer and onto the rather grotty life of field agents in the stories of le Carré. Then of all those tales of derring-do from the North West frontier, of chaps who could speak a dozen indigenous languages and pass for a native in half of them. And who might be experts on the magnolias of Bhutan for good measure. Think of the stories of Buchan and Kipling – not to mention those of Lawrence of Arabia.
Third thought was to try a thought experiment. A thought experiment which is expressed here in terms of the Russians spying on us, but it might just as well have been the other way around. I don’t suppose that there is all that much to chose between us as far as this sort of thing is concerned.
Let us suppose that I am a middle ranking official in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. A regular man from the ministry, complete with bowler hat, mostly concerned with developing policy, in conjunction with the man from the RSPCA, about the quality of life and the end of life treatment of loch farmed trout.
It also so happens that I have no associations with the commies, the trots, the paddies, the animal rights people or anyone else of that sort and so I have a good quality security clearance. I have good access. Nevertheless, I am known to be a bit of a leftie. Quite possibly vote for people like Corbyn and Abbott.
So one fine day I get seconded to the secretariat of something called MISC13, a secretive committee which is formulating fisheries policy in the light of Brexit. Something which the Russians, for reasons best known to themselves, find absolutely fascinating. They are prepared to go to considerable lengths to get onto the inside track.
So they arrange for me to be caught with my nose in a line of white powder while in the scantily dressed company of a young lady who is known to our authorities as a member of one of the Russian security outfits. Caught with my hand in the till as it were. So with all the care & cunning described by le Carré, I slowly get reeled in. For modest doses of candy from time to time, I give away bigger and bigger secrets from MISC13. No way out now and there is even talk of MISC14.
The question is, how much lying and unpleasantness does my treachery involve me in?
To all my friends and relations there was no change. I remained an obscure civil servant working in some obscure ministry. Never was much given to talking about my work as I was much more interested in the progress of my model railway.
Which turned out to be rather helpful to the Russians, because, as is well known, railway buffs love taking pictures of their trains and swapping them with other buffs. So the Russians got one of their chaps to join the same club that I belonged to. They gave me a supply of cameras which looked very like mobile phones but which were certainly not connected to any network which might be monitored by our authorities.
All it then needed was a bit of privacy in which to photograph the documents passing through the secretariat of my committee. They gave me some very helpful training about how to do this without attracting attention to myself. Secrets of the craft mean that I cannot say more than that it worked – and that I was able to swap snaps with my new found friend at the club for many years.
So to my colleagues also there was no change; I was just pushing paper about and moaning about the size of my desk (or whatever) in the time honoured fashion and my modest consumption of candy remained hidden from their view. And even if it should be picked up in the course of my security clearance being reviewed, it could probably be passed off as a minor vice which they did not need to trouble themselves about. And there was certainly nothing in the way of odd sums of money turning up in my bank account. Perhaps just a promise that they (the Russians that is) would look after me if it all went pear shaped.
My train club carried on pretty much as before, but there was now a fly in this ointment. My club had been rather sullied by being mixed up with the stolen photographs and my Russian minder was all too assiduous in his attendance, although, to be fair, he fell short of 100% attendance, which would have been a bit conspicuous in a newcomer. I thought about going to another club, as well as my regular club. But they are not that thick on the ground and I would be a bit conspicuous going to a club other than that which served my area of residence.
And even going to the pub was not quite the same as it was. I got a bit paranoid about people watching me and about spilling the odd bean in my cups. There was definitely a fly in this ointment too.
Still and all, not as bad as I had thought it might be. The worst bit is probably not the lying – explicit or implicit – but the having to live with the thought that there might be a slip up, that I might be found out. The Russians might tell on me for some obscure purpose of their own. The leakage of what was supposed to be secret might get too blatant. Or I might get mixed up with some exchange deal which went wrong. The trick is to keep the worrying under control, while maintaining a proper level of care & vigilance. But no real worries there as the Russian shrinks had checked all that out before they went after me.
So treachery yes, impossible to live with, probably no. And anyway, who could possibly get excited about a bunch of fishing secrets?
But how would it be later on, perhaps when, late in life, one has gone into exile; betrayed and lost one’s mother land, one’s mother tongue for ever? Perhaps wallowing in the maudlin nostalgia of the expatriate, for ever waiting for the arrival of the day’s Daily Mail. All for a moment of weakness and a few pieces of silver? I think that I would have regrets.
All in all, a dirty (if sometimes necessary) business.
I should add that, since my day, the open plan offices of the MISC13 secretariat have been fully tooled up with CCTV. Even moving a document out of range of the CCTV is a security breach and I would have had to have packed it all in anyway. Maybe even moved to the Isle of Wight, far away from the world of loch farmed trout and all its attendant problems.
PS: as it happens, I have just read that the Duke of Wellington used intelligence officers to scout in front of his lines, perhaps even into the lines of his enemies. But they always wore their full uniforms and trusted to the quality of their horses to get them out of scrapes. No skulking around in disguise for them.
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