Espionage work is mostly waiting and watching, assessing and analyzing. To make an exciting movie, Hollywood has to stray from the truth.
First and foremost, Hollywood does its job well. Very well. It creates spy movies and action adventures likethat keep us on the edge of our seats from opening shot to closing credits. But are they realistic? Not quite. And while we viewers instinctively know that, what we may not appreciate is how poorly real-life spy work would translate to the big screen.
A few years later Soviet engineer Adolf Tolkachev reached out to the CIA, offering the U.S. access to Soviet military schematics. It took several more attempts and two-and-a-half years before the CIA believed he was sincere and took the next step to authenticate his interest and intent. Once Tolkachev was brought on board, he communicated with his handler through clandestine personal meetings, dead-drops, and brush passes.
Brittany here and, after a decade in the CIA, I agree… It’s not all Hollywood’s fault. Hollywood’s job is to create compelling and enjoyable TV shows and films about the CIA, not to reveal the CIA’s sources and methods. And quite honestly, we don’t want them to get it right. If they did and our communication methods were revealed, we would have a very hard time keeping our work secret, and more importantly, our CIA employees and assets safe.
The concealment of these communication technologies is also very important. Not only must the concealment adequately hide our technical gear—it also has to be consistent with a source’s cover. By that I mean if your source is a traveling shoe salesman it wouldn’t make sense for him to be lugging around a huge computer with multiple hard drives.
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