A Writer By Any Other Pen…

Just got back from an incredible program at the International Spy Museum about two topics that are near and dear to my heart: sex and spying. Fun, eh? And when the topics are hybridized and given a cool name like “sexpionage,” it gets even better. Sold out lecture, packed house.

What did I learn? Let’s see…that sex and spying have been entwined since biblical times. Note the conquest of Jericho by Joshua. Evidently old Joshua sent over a couple of spies who bunked in a brothel before they reached the city gates. And instead of turning them in, the ladies of the night gave them cover, literally (one can only presume) and, y’know, espionagically.

Second thing I learned, well, this is more of an affirmation really, is that people are stupid. You’d expect better behavior from diplomats considering they continuously get warned about this sort of thing, meaning getting caught on video in a compromising situation, over and over again. But apparently not.

And third, amidst all the examples shown during the lecture of various and sundry British, Cuban, Russian, East German, Chinese and even Ghanian sexpionage operations, complete with video even, and discussions of honey trap buildings by the KGB and Romeo operations by the old Stasi, there was a distinct absence of sexpionage missions by American intelligence. Course I had to ask wassup with that. And you know what they said? That American intelligence services don’t play that. That we don’t use sex as a tradecraft tool.

Yeah, right. You believe that? But then again, maybe they were just being crafty. To mislead our enemies and whatnot. What do you think? Think I’m giving them too much credit? Either way I got some cool ideas for the next in my TBATS (“The Blank and the Spy”) series.

After the lecture I went shopping! Bought two of Keith Melton’s books, Bob Baer’s “See No Evil” (which became the basis for George Clooney’s “Syriana”), and Omar Nasiri’s “Inside the Jihad.” I also got a chance to chat up Keith Melton and got his email address. Maybe one day he’ll get a chance to talk to KOD.