Oleg Kalugin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kalugin) was a former head of the KGB at the Russian Embassy in DC in the 1980s. When Oleg returned to Russia, his criticism of the KGB led him to be stripped of his rank and eventually exiled to the USA to avoid serious recriminations in Russia. He was eventually tried in abstentia. It was in DC where he teamed up for a while with David Major, a retired spymaster for the FBI and former adversary, and together they did what could only be done in Washington DC: they ran a paid bus tour.
You heard that right. For $80, we'd get on the bus, and then these two former spymasters on opposite sides of the cold war would get up in the front of the bus with microphones and take us to various dead drops, mark locations, famous spy meeting locations, and so on, and tell stories the whole way, and joke about how one was gonna arrest the other. It was insane. It was glorious.
Both of them later were recruited to be on the advisory board of the Spy Museum, and it is my understanding that Oleg was very effective at acquiring a lot of stuff for the museum from the former KGB.
Edit: in case people don't believe me...
https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/9cc8f17c411182bd874...
I don't understand why it would be in the Spy Museum.
Normally these type of folks are not allowed to write about their experiences much due to there being potential collateral damage in print, but talking? Much smaller radius. Plus you get to size up your audience!
Joking aside I love fun new excuses to explore the city, that’s a great theme for DC.
You can also pick up the mount vernon trail in Roslyn along with the Custis trail if you bike.
They’re trying to make it more of a spot and do weekly free concerts in the park there these days.
Though I guess here in Barcelona tourists love crowding Raval which is also a really bad area full of narco flats.
For starters it is in Virginia and not Washington DC as indicated by the website.
Gah I miss those connections. Facebook ruined my marriage. ICQ helped me learn to appreciate different people.
You're a spy. Suck it up, and take a lesson from the USPS.
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
"Break into the oval office and take a photo of any documents you find there. Upload your photos to advance to the next level"
Now I m stuck in the “prison” part of the game and haven’t been able to figure out how to get out and advance to the next level.
Only two stars because it’s really too hard for normal people.’
Having hundreds of people showing up in various places, doing semi-suspicious things, generally getting in the way, etc is a good way to flood, annoy, and bury observers. Having the same people show up among each of the locations gives good cover for someone else to blend in.
If it's a foreign power, this will probably cost them a fraction of what it will cost observer nations.
"Congratulations, you managed to complete this absolutely meaningless test."
https://i1.theportalwiki.net/img/e/e9/GLaDOS_mp_coop_radarro...
The protagonist runs massive games set in the real world. In the preceding book she exploited her players to solve the murder of one of her co-founders. Now she's recruited by the CIA to use a game as a cover for a coup.
(The title predates the use of Deep State to describe the US government. The term was originally used to describe the Turkish government, where there's an actually plausible academic case it exists)
Can someone correct me if I'm wrong.
To see the value of spying, see two recent news cycles:
The 21-year-old National Guardsman who leaked a bunch of sensitive info for forum cred (thereby causing a lot of headaches for the U.S. presidential administration). Just imagine that info going to a foreign govt instead.
The court case in which Google got admonished for taking any sensitive info off of chat, and auto deleting history. A spy in those offline conversations could still report on what was said.
"Offline" and "in-person" won't mean the same things anymore.
n world of technology, where the problem is no longer the lack of information, but rather the abundance of it, such work is more important than ever.
I guess what I mean is the whole dead drop, casing the scene out, James Bond era of spying.
>Can someone correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't have any special knowledge, but a DDG search for "espionage cases recent" returned a large number of results. Here's a sampling:
https://news.clearancejobs.com/2020/12/30/the-top-5-u-s-espi...
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-11-16/chinese-n...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/us/politics/navy-nuclear-...
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-arrested-a...
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-nsa-employee-arrested-...
https://apnews.com/article/sweden-government-stockholm-57182...
https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/12/27/top-5-u-s-espionag...
I'd note that none of these include any US/Western spies. If you're inclined to believe it (I have no idea one way or another), Evan Gershkovich[0] is another spy.
[0] https://abc7chicago.com/evan-gershkovich-in-court-wall-stree...
You may well be right that it's impossible "for spies to exist in the modern day" but various governments don't seem to hold that view.
Now you've got me curious. What's so different about now that would make espionage unworkable? I'd think espionage would be much easier due to technological advances, not harder.
I'd be quite interested to hear your thoughts if you don't mind expanding on your comment. Thanks!
Edit: I meant to also say that given the number of cases that are being prosecuted, it seems likely that many more folks are engaged in espionage who haven't been discovered or who have been discovered and are being used as a conduit for disinformation. Again, I have no special knowledge about that, but (at least to me) it makes sense that there would be more, possibly many more.
Which Agency is recruiting?
