Dissecting the Anatomy of a Spy For Intent and Motivation with Author Michael Smith

The Live Drop

Focusing on the motivations, The Anatomy of a Spy by Michael Smith tells the story of why spies spy, presenting a wealth of spy stories—some previously unknown and some famous—from the very human angle of the agents themselves. He breaks them into categories that go beyond the widely shared MICE - Money, Ideology, Compromise/Coercion, Ego. We discuss some classic examples from his book: Operation Diamond where the Mossad used sex and coercion on pilots to fly a MIG-29 out of Iraq in the early 60s; Gabriele Gast - who was caught up in a Stasi Romeo-operation; Polish spy Ryszard Kukliński was a patriot who shared the Warsaw Pact operational plans. We touch on the intentions and needs of spies like: Oleg Penkovsky, Aldrich Ames, Stephen Hanssen, and Ronald Pelton - what was the nugget they were after?
Michael shares some of his experience working for the BBC Monitoring Service - listening in on Cold War transmissions across Poland and East Germany. We also discuss the similarities to journalism with both terminology (stringer, fireman, source) and tradecraft from his experience as an award-winning journalist for the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times. Smith is the author of a number of books, including The Secrets of Station X, Killer Elite and Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews, and MI6: The Real James Bonds. He is a visiting fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford.
Look for the debut of the #dozendecions that Michael makes in under a minute that reveal if his true nature is that of a spy, handler, or analyst. I’m thinking he’s secret agent material. Episode 037
More on the author at michaelsmithauthor.com
Resources Cited:
An Alternative Framework for Agent Recruitment: From MICE to RASCLS, Randy Burkett
Ryszard Kukliński
Kuklinski Documents on Martial Law in Poland
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