Shall We Shoot Them?

So, I’ve been really into spy stories lately… 

It all started in November 2018 while I was watching AMC’s show called “Turn” about Washington’s spies during the American Revolution—the first spy ring in American history. Then, I read the book that the show was based off of, Washington’s Spies by Alexander Rose. One of the most interesting parts of the book to me were the innovations in coding and invisible ink chemical reactions that enabled spies to get information from New York City to George Washington. It could even be said to be revolutionary. (Haha.)

Then, I read Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan, which I initially didn’t know was a spy book. This book is now one of my favorite books of all time. An Italian boy in World War II becomes a spy against the Nazis while serving as the driver for a high-ranking Nazi military commander. It’s also based on a true story, which makes the story even better. 

After that, I read a book called Spies in the Family by Eva Dillon, written about her father Paul Dillon’s real work as a CIA spy during the Cold War. During the Cold War, Eva Dillon’s father was the handler for the highest-ranking Soviet double agent and Soviet military general Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov—code name TOPHAT. Even though Polyakov was spying on his own country, he never accepted any payment for the enormous amount of information he provided to the United States. Instead, he always claimed that he was spying on the Soviet Union to help his country. He believed that by providing information the United States, he would ensure that tensions would not rise into a nuclear firefight. In fact, so much of the information he provided did ease tensions and it’s crazy to think about what might have happened had this spy channel not been set up. 

The book follows Eva Dillon’s life as she lived around the world, following her father’s job in his spy duties to Paris, Italy, Mexico City (one of the Cold War’s great spy capitals and where Lee Harvey Oswald tried to become a Soviet spy), and India. 

One of my takeaways from the book is just how incompetent the CIA was at so many different times. (This continued for many years all the way passed 9/11, exemplified in the book The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright and now a Hulu show starring Jeff Daniels.)

One section of the book discusses how Paul Dillon worked for years in Europe training Eastern European defectors from the Soviet Union to parachute back into the Soviet Union and becomes spies. However, out of a hundreds of attempts to plant spies in the Soviet Union through this channel, not a single person reported back after leaving. It was only found out many years later that the reason why was because every single one was shot the second their parachutes hit the ground. How? Because the soon-to-be CIA head of counterintelligence James Angleton (this guy was crazy in many ways) was sharing the coordinates with Kim Philby, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (M16) who was also a Soviet spy for at least the previous 15 years. Then, Angleton became extremely paranoid about spies in the intelligence community and often missed genuine opportunities because of it.

Another takeaway from the book was the cool technological innovations that came out of trying to spy on the Soviets. When Polyakov was in the Soviet Union with the KGB watching everyone and everything, the CIA built a two-way communications device that could transmit as well as receive messages called UNIQUE. Polyakov would then send documents and other Soviet information to the Americans through airwaves—the world’s first text messages. 

In all of these spy stories, it struck me how important being calm and resolute in what you are doing is. Especially if you are a spy. Like Tom Hanks asked the Soviet spy in the movie Bridge of Spies, “Are you worried?” in which the spy responded, “Would it help?” 

And I could never leave out the all-time great spy show "Burn Notice" from this post. After all, I learned everything I know about self-defense from "Burn Notice." I will end this post with this very important message: 

My name is Michael Westen. I used to be a spy until…

Voice on phone: “We’ve got a burn notice on you. You’re blacklisted.”

(Sam Axe whistles)

When you’re burned, you’ve got nothing. No cash, no credit, no job history. You’re stuck in whatever city they decide to dump you in.

Westen: “Where am I?”

Fiona: “Miami."

You do whatever work comes your way. You rely on anyone who’s still talking to you. (Michael Westen laughs). A trigger happy ex-girlfriend:

Fiona: "Shall we shoot them?"

An old friend who used to inform on you to the FBI:

Sam Axe: "You know spies? Bunch of bitchy little girls.”

Family too.

Sam Axe: "Hey, is that your mom again?"

If you’re desperate.

Michael Westen’s mom, Maddie: "Someone needs your help Michael!”

Bottom line, as long as you’re burned, you’re not going anywhere.

And that's the way I read it.