The Arcane World of Espionage

“A spy is one of the loneliest people in the world.”—Dr. David Charney (qtd in “Quotes”)

Well here it is, the big 30 page paper I had to type for my english class my senior year of high school. This paper is actually two years old now, and I don't know why I waited this long to put it up. At least now I can say that I'm adding it to the site to celebrate not only its four year anniversary, but also it's revival from the dead since it's been forever since the site has had any MAJOR updates. I wonder how many people are actually gonna read this whole thing. Probably none. Keep in mind that I was still in high school when I wrote this, so it may not be PERFECTLY written. Oh well, here it is for all you bored people out there. Enjoy.

“The name’s Bond. James Bond.” When people hear the word “spy,” this is normally what they think of; the sophisticated, debonair agent 007, James Bond, a creation of Ian Fleming who stars in several novels and movies. It is this glitz and glamour world full of fast cars, high-tech gadgets, beautiful women and adventure that lures thousands of people each year in pursuit of a career in intelligence. Unfortunately, espionage in real life is often almost completely different from what we see in the movies, except for a few similarities.

There is speculation, however, that Ian Fleming’s fiction character is based on a person. James Boone, a former administrative inspector in the British Foreign Office, liked to pretend to his friends that he was a daring spy who took part in dangerous and exciting adventures. In reality, his actual job involved the mundane task of examining supplies stored at British missions in the Middle East and Africa. This, he assured his friends, was just a cover-up for his real profession (Silverstein 11).

He did have an adventure of sorts one night while working in a British mission located in Teheran. When a drunken man tried to molest Boone’s girlfriend, the drunk was killed by a single karate chop from Boone. It was later discovered that the man was wanted in five countries for smuggling heroin. Boone supposedly lived the rest of his life living in a “fantasy world,” convinced that he actually was an undercover spy who took on dangerous assignments as a living (Silverstein 11).

Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Richard Miller had to learn the hard way that spying is not all it is cracked up to be. He was arrested in 1985 for letting secrets slip to another country. At the time, Miller was on suspension because he had a weight problem and was a “bumbling, clumsy agent” who never kept up with his work and kept losing his badge. He let beautiful Russian immigrant Svetlana Ogorodnikova seduce him, and gave her classified documents in exchange for “sexual favors.” Upon arrest, he claimed he was just trying to live his “James Bond” fantasy (Silverstein 13).

It is this common misconception that all spies live an extravagant, adventurous life full of romance and excitement that leads people into working for high-security intelligence agencies (Silverstein 15). These men and women just want to add something to their life they would otherwise never experience.

Though most aspects of spy films are often greatly exaggerated and often border on absurdity, there are some parts based on fact. Spies frequently use codenames in place of their real name to make detection more difficult. They use some sophisticated gadgets to aid them in their work (although fully loaded Aston Martins equipped with machine-guns and oil slick dispensers do not fit under this category), and the use of “drops” to relay information back and forth is prevalent.

A drop is “a hiding place for secret messages” (Knudson 178). For example, Hanssen was arrested in a park dropping off a garbage bag containing classified FBI documents (Thomas 22). Also, another Russian spy, Reino Hayhanen, let his contact know of his arrival in the United States by sticking a thumbtack into a sign in Manhattan (Silverstein 21).

When the subject of espionage comes up, most people think only of the world portrayed to them by the media. Though the average person most likely has enough sense to understand that spy movies and television shows are merely made for entertainment and are not documentaries meant to portray a real-life profession, there are some who get too enraptured with this mysterious world and take it too far. Although there are some minor exceptions to the rule, as you will see in later chapters, a spy does not normally live the James Bond lifestyle that virtually anyone would love to have.

The Arcane World of Espionage | Sex, Money, and the Roles they Play in Espionage | Spies of the Past | Too Close to Home | The Agencies Behind the Espionage | The Consummation | Works Cited | Bibliography

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