A History of Spycraft

www.ozy.com [OZY]() The newsletter to fuel — and thrill — your mind. Read for deep dives into the unmissable ideas and topics shaping our world. Dec 15, 2021 TODAY It’s glamorous, isn’t it? At least that’s how Hollywood has long depicted the shadowy world of spycraft, never mind the risks involved in the actual work. Yet while that has helped shape the popular perception of espionage, the truth — appropriately for the craft — is far more gray, sophisticated, dangerous and only rarely involves gun-toting, tuxedo-wearing agents with ripped abs. It’s also a ton more fascinating than films can ever capture. Join us in today's Daily Dose as we take you on a journey of the history of spycraft. Early Days 1 - “Beating the Spies” The earliest recorded evidence of espionage and counterintelligence — and unfortunately torture as a part of spying — dates back to the 13th century B.C. The ancient Egyptians under Pharaoh Ramses II were marching toward what is today the Syrian-Lebanese border for the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites under Emperor Muwatalli II. They met two men who claimed they were Hittite defectors and insisted Muwatalli’s army was far away. In fact, they were [Hittite spies deliberately sent to misinform Ramses](. They succeeded, and the Egyptians nearly walked into a trap, saved only because they then caught two other spies and tortured them into revealing that the Hittites were close by. The war ended in a stalemate with both sides claiming victory. But the undeniable winner was the newborn art of espionage. 2 - Know Your Enemy There’s arguably no military strategist more read and venerated in the West and Asia than Chinese general and philosopher [Sun Tzu](. His famous lines — such as “He who knows the enemy and himself will never in a hundred battles be at risk” — captured in his classic, The Art of War, remain widely quoted in intelligence communities around the world. But the sixth century B.C. strategist didn’t just come up with quotable quotes. He outlined the [first detailed thesis on spycraft](, and identified five kinds of secret sleuths: local spies (who hail from an area they’ve observing); inward spies (plants in the opposition military); converted spies (the enemy’s spies who switch to serving you instead); doomed spies (those who get caught); and surviving spies (those that make it back safely). 3 - “Hannibal is at the Gates” When your enemy’s best strategy for defense is paranoia about your abilities, you’ve already won the battle of the mind that is at the heart of intelligence. So it was with [Hannibal, the iconic Carthaginian military commander]( and spymaster who ran circles around the mighty Roman Empire, forcing them to adapt to his strategies. His spies in Rome and in the empire’s military cantonments used [secret hand gestures]( to communicate. But perhaps his greatest influence on modern espionage was his astute use of psy-ops — getting into the mind of the enemy, filling its soldiers with fear and frustration, and getting them to act irrationally. Such was his success that he became a bogeyman for Romans, who for generations would warn their children in moments of crisis that “Hannibal is at the gates.” His tactics are a central part of the curriculum in most modern military schools. 4 - The Spymaster It’s one thing to use espionage to uncover the enemy’s secrets, but something entirely different to use it to capture evidence of a plot you already know of. [Sir Francis Walsingham](, the spymaster general and secretary of state of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century, excelled at both these skills. His intensive network of spies helped him identify and disrupt plots by Catholic European nations to invade England and overthrow Elizabeth. Then, once he was convinced that Mary, Queen of Scots — and Elizabeth’s cousin — was the titular figure around whom those plots revolved, he trapped her by intercepting communications hidden in a beer barrel she was sending out while imprisoned in a castle. That information was used to convict her of treason and execute her. 5 - City of Masks The keeping of secrets — and exposing the enemy’s — is a [central pillar of Venice’s history](. The former city-state set up one of the world’s first centrally organized intelligence services. What was unique about its experiment was that Venice opted for a collective leadership of its espionage, under a so-called [Council of Ten]( that managed the city’s spy network through a combination of personal loyalty and bureaucratic structures. Modern Masters 1 - MI6 The [British external intelligence agency]( is the inheritor of Walsingham’s legacy, and in many ways the trendsetter in modern spycraft. Set up in its present form in 1912, it cut its teeth in World War I and in the 1930s and 1940s was the preeminent intelligence agency in the world. So much so, that it was MI6 that trained America’s Office of Strategic Services — the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 2 - CIA Befitting a good spy agency, it quickly changed its original identity, replacing the OSS in 1947. America was late to the game among major nations in setting up a professional foreign intelligence network, but the CIA has since been among the most successful espionage agencies in the history of spycraft. The [sword arm of American efforts during the Cold War](, it is also arguably the most controversial element of the U.S. strategy for global dominance over the past 70 years: orchestrating or facilitating coups that brought dictators to power in countries ranging from Iran to Indonesia, Chile to the Congo, Brazil to Bolivia. 3 - KGB It was in many ways the USSR’s mirror image of the CIA, with one key difference: The [KGB also spied on Soviet citizens](, something the CIA is forbidden by law from doing. At its peak during the Cold War, the KGB was the world’s largest intelligence service, with millions of informers — including in most rival spy services. Even as the Soviet Union decayed internally, its economy bogged down by corruption under a bureaucratic elite, the KGB remained a ruthless weapon deployed by the Communist Party against internal and external enemies. In post-Soviet Russia, the KGB’s principal role as foreign intelligence agency is administered by a [body known as the GRU](. 4 - Mossad No spy agency is more mythologized in popular culture — its successes the inspiration for myriad films and books, its operations spurring both fear and admiration among other nations and their intelligence organizations. Its most stunning operations include the [extraction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann]( from Argentina; the intelligence behind Israel’s rescue of a hijacked passenger plane in [Entebbe, Uganda](, and its infiltration of Syria’s top circles in the 1960s through the spy [Eli Cohen]( — played in a recent series by Sascha Baron Cohen — among others. But the Mossad has also played vital humanitarian roles, such as [Operation Moses](: a weeklong secret mission to pull out 8,000 persecuted Ethiopian Jews from that country and bring them to Israel. In 2020, the Mossad was a key weapon in Israel’s armory as it raced to secure medical supplies to [tackle COVID-19](. 5 - Stasi Not many spy agencies have [museums dedicated to their legacy]( — especially now-dead organizations. But the Stasi was no ordinary spy agency. One of the most effective secret services of the second half of the 20th century, the [East German intelligence body]( turned [citizens into spies](, asking them to report on the most mundane activities of their neighbors as possible signs of disloyalty to the socialist state. The Stasi was disbanded after the reunification of Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and its records made public. But for many Germans, the [trauma of its memories lingers](. And old habits, it seems, die hard. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Germans [routinely reported on rule-flouting neighbors]( to authorities, mimicking the behavior that was common in East Germany. 6 - SNI Set up by the [Brazilian military junta]( immediately after it came to power through a coup in 1964, the National Intelligence Service (SNI) became — like the Stasi in East Germany — the embodiment of a repressive state unwilling to brook any dissent or opposition. Aided by the CIA in its initial years, the [SNI used abduction, murder](, beatings, physical and psychological torture and other measures during its 26 years of existence. It was disbanded after Brazil returned to democracy. Great Contests 1 - MI5-Nazis This project was literally called [Double Cross](. During World War II, the U.K.’s domestic spy organization, the MI5, converted nearly four dozen German spies in Britain to their side — some of them volunteered — and used them to mislead the Nazis at key moments. Ahead of the Allied landing in Normandy, these double agents helped the British convince the Nazis that the invasion of France could be launched at Calais. So successful was the Double Cross project that some of the German spies who were working for Britain received war medals from the Nazis.   2 - CIA-KGB The Cold War remained cold because it was for the most part fought by spies — not armies. From the Korean peninsula to Angola, Vietnam to Cuba, Germany to Albania, the CIA and KGB fought [proxy war after proxy war](, each securing wins and suffering losses in a tit-for-tat battle for supremacy in the shadow of nuclear weapons. No trick in the trade was spared, but despite death and destruction across the planet, the spy agencies managed to ensure that the two most powerful militaries in the history of humankind didn’t feel compelled to resort to a direct hot war against each other to defend their interests. 3 - Mossad-VEVAK When Iran’s top nuclear scientist, [Mohsen Fakhrizadeh](, was assassinated in broad daylight in Tehran in November 2020, the country was quick to blame Israel. And independent experts believe the Mossad might well have been behind the killing. After all, the [Israeli spy agency]( has long used its intelligence prowess to target strategic Iranian facilities and individuals. And Iran has tried to do the same, through its intelligence agency, the [VEVAK](, which is widely viewed as responsible for — among other attacks — the Buenos Aires bombings of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and a Jewish community center in 1994 that killed 120 people in all. More recently, Israel has accused Iran of bomb attacks [against its diplomats in India and Georgia](. 4 - RAW-ISI The Indian and Pakistani external intelligence agencies — the innocuous-sounding Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), respectively — are so notorious that they’re virtually curse words in each other’s nations. Brand someone an “ISI agent” in India, and that person is condemned. Ditto for a “RAW agent” in Pakistan. And they’ve earned that reputation, through means both raw and sophisticated. The [ISI]( has trained and supported major militant groups in Kashmir, and its fingerprints are all over the biggest terrorist attacks that India has suffered: including the serial bomb blasts in [Mumbai in 1993]( and the three-day siege in the [country’s financial capital in 2008](. Pakistan has in turn blamed the RAW for attempts at terrorism in its country — including the [massacre at a Peshawar school]( in 2014 that left more than 150 people dead. Key Turning Points 1 - Breaking the Enigma It looked like a large typewriter. Except the [Enigma]( was far more powerful: It was a sophisticated encryption system used by the Nazis during World War II to communicate with their spies and military positions in different parts of Europe. [Polish codebreakers first cracked the Enigma’s mechanism]( and built copies. Building on their work, British mathematician [Alan Turing]( cracked more sophisticated versions of the Enigma that the Germans developed, in the process enabling the Allies to make key strides during the war such as weakening the influence of German U-boats. Some historians estimate that cracking the Enigma may have helped shorten the war by two years and saved up to 14 million lives. 2 - Afghan Quagmire It was the [high point of the CIA’s Cold War efforts]( — and one that would return to haunt America. Using suitcases full of cash, religion, tribal loyalties and a friend in Pakistan, the U.S. spy agency trapped Soviet troops in a war against the Afghan mujahideen that Moscow couldn’t win. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to defend a communist regime that was under threat, sparking the response from America. Its economy increasingly in shambles, the Soviet Union bled resources and troops on the war. As the CIA-backed mujahideen continued to raise the costs for Moscow, it became untenable. The Soviet Union withdrew in 1989, signaling a defeat that was the precursor to the fall of the USSR three years later. But America wouldn’t come away unscathed. The mujahideen formed the basis for the Taliban that would provide a home for Osama bin Laden to launch the terror attacks of 9/11 — an event that dragged America back to Afghanistan for a fresh war. 3 - Front Companies Most major spy agencies have used them — but none with the success of the[CIA and Swiss company Crypto AG](, which successfully won contracts from other governments to build their encryption devices. Because the company was actually owned by the CIA, that meant America could track and decode confidential communication from both allies and enemies for decades.    4 - Hacking It’s the 21st century equivalent of breaking codes, with one major difference. Because your enemy’s digital systems are where they both store critical data and the machines through which they run sensitive military programs, you can remotely destroy or corrupt that information simply by hacking into those platforms. That’s what the U.S. did in [2009 to destroy Iran’s nuclear centrifuges](, setting its nuclear ambitions back. In 2016, [Russia hacked into Democratic National Convention servers]( and accessed emails it then used to hurt Hillary Clinton and assist Donald Trump. And this year, [spy agencies are trying to steal vaccine secrets]( from other nations, again through cyber espionage. History’s Greatest Spies 1 - Kim Philby A senior MI6 agent who headed the agency’s U.S. operations for a while after 1949, Philby was in charge of intelligence cooperation between London and Washington. In reality, he was a committed communist [transmitting top-secret information to the Soviet Union](. He tipped Moscow off about a plan to send armed anti-communist fighters into socialist Albania in 1950, ensuring that the plot failed. He alerted two other Soviet agents within MI6 that they were under suspicion. They defected to Moscow in time. And being relieved of his duties amid a cloud of suspicion, Philby eventually defected to the Soviet Union. 2 - Oleg Penkovsky He was, in some ways, Philby in reverse: a Soviet spy who was actually supplying sensitive information to the U.K and America. He alerted them to [Soviet plans to move missiles to Cuba](, enabling the U.K. and the U.S. to prepare for the crisis when Moscow thought it would come as a surprise. He was eventually arrested in 1962 and executed the following year. 3 - Noor Inayat Khan The face of this Indian-origin British spy [may soon be featured on a set of coins titled “Service to the Nation.”]( The first radio operator to be sent to Paris to work for the British Special Operations Executive’s resistance network, she stayed put under the code name Madeleine until she was arrested in 1943. 4 - Mata Hari A dancer. A charmer. A spy — in fact, a double agent. That was [Margaretha Geertruida Zelle](, better known as Mata Hari. A Dutch dancer and socialite who learned early how to get her way, she spied for France during World War I — until she was found also to be [spying for Germany](. At that point, she stopped getting her way and was executed. 5 - Zheng Pingru Inspired by the attempted assassination of Japanese collaborator Ding Mocun by the female Chinese spy Zheng Pingru, Eileen Chang’s novella[Lust, Caution]( turned into an Ang Lee-directed feature film. But Zheng’s life story offers much more. For her intelligence-gathering during the late 1930s, as well as an attempted assassination bid on Ding, the Taiwanese government formally declared the socialite spy a “martyr,” and the Communist Party of China called her an "anti-Japanese heroine." A memorial with a statue of Zheng was unveiled in Shanghai in 2009. Community Corner Quiz How many German spies did British intelligence convert to their side during WWII’s Operation Double Cross? - - Nearly 100 - Nearly 80 - Nearly 48 - Nearly 500 What is the principal successor to the Soviet KGB called? - - GRU - RGB - FGB - FRU What were the Venetian spymasters called? - - The Secret Ring - Masters of the Universe - Senate of 10 - Council of 10 Which Nazi war criminal did Israel’s Mossad famously extract from Argentina? - - Herman Goring - Adolf Eichmann - Oskar Groenig - Heinrich Himmler Where did the CIA set up a front company that helped it decode secret messages from allies and enemies for decades? - - Iran - Austria - Mexico - Switzerland Who wrote what is widely considered the first detailed thesis on spycraft? - - Sun Tzu - Francis Walsingham - Hannibal - Eli Cohen Answers: - Nearly 48 - GRU - Council of 10 - Adolf Eichmann - Switzerland - Sun Tzu Dive Deep Read: - A Spy Among Friends: Few spies in modern history have managed to succeed so convincingly, and influence the course of events so significantly, as British agent Kim Philby, who was actually working for the Soviet Union. [Ben Macintyre’s nonfiction thriller]( recounts Philby’s career using declassified documents and interviews with other secret agents — including [two of his closest friends]( and colleagues. - Ghost Wars: Steve Coll’s classic look at the [CIA’s war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan]( and the errors that led to 9/11 is a must read for a truly objective understanding of that tumultuous phase of modern history. - The Billion Dollar Spy: This insightful look at the daring steps that the [CIA’s Moscow Station]( took in the final years of the Cold War to crack open the Soviet Union’s military secrets will send chills down your spine. Watch: - My Father the Spy: What if your parents presented you with the ultimate test of loyalty: a choice between them and your nation? [This documentary]( traces the twists, turns and secret lives that families of spies are forced to embrace, through the eyes of a daughter whose [Latvian double agent father]( has plans to defect — and takes her into his confidence. - Raazi: India and Pakistan are on the cusp of war in 1971, when New Delhi hatches an outlandish plan involving a Kashmiri double agent who actually works for India but is close friends with a top Pakistani general. His daughter marries the general’s son and moves to Islamabad, from where she transmits secrets gleaned from the meetings held in the general’s house — until she is caught and must kill to survive, even though that’ll blow her cover. A taut script and brilliant acting make this fictionalized drama [a must-watch](. Listen: - True Spies: If you need an adrenaline rush and don’t have the time for a book or film, binge [this podcast]( for a ride along some of history’s boldest espionage operations. - The Live Drop: [This podcast]( introduces you to some of the great minds of modern spycraft as you hear from them about missions, agents and more. [Kathy Griffin on 'The Carlos Watson Show']( She’s hilarious. She’s inappropriate. She’s comedy legend Kathy Griffin. Find out why the Guinness World Record holder for most stand-up comedy specials calls herself the “comedy zombie,” the inside story of her marriage, and what it was really like being interviewed by the U.S. Secret Service over *that* infamous photo. To listen to the full, unedited conversation between Carlos and [#KathyGriffin](, subscribe to the podcast version of the show here: [( [Watch now]( ABOUT OZY OZY is a diverse, global and forward-looking media and entertainment company focused on “the New and the Next.” OZY creates space for fresh perspectives and offers new takes on everything from news and culture to technology, business, learning and entertainment. [www.ozy.com]( / #OZY Welcome to the New + the Next! [OZY]() [TV]( | [PODCASTS]( | [NEWS]( | [FESTIVALS]( A Modern Media Company OZY Media, 800 West El Camino Mountain View, California 94040 This email was sent to {EMAIL} [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Read Online](