Spycraft - Melton [212]
The psychologists provided professional personality assessments of recruitment targets, individuals who volunteered to work with the CIA, and defectors. Depending on the specifics of the case, the assessments were used for guidance in building a relationship, refining a recruitment pitch, addressing agent-handling problems, minimizing issues at agent termination, preparing for agent resettlement, and framing counterintelligence judgments about assets. The assessments were frequently combined with results of polygraph testing administered by the Office of Security for the fullest possible understanding of the subject. Defectors, whose bona fides were in question, such as the high-profile cases of Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko and Anatoly Golitsyn, were assessed by the TSD psychologists both to support both counterintelligence analysis and to assist officers responsible for resettlement.6
These assessments could be either direct or indirect depending on whether or not the psychologist could personally interact with the subject. When personal meetings were not possible, assessments relied on the psychologist’s analysis and interpretation of credible, secondary data.
The most complete assessments included direct personal meetings between the OTS psychologist and the target. For security, these operational meetings usually employed various elements of clandestine tradecraft, including disguise, alias identity, and surveillance detection runs. Under normal circumstances, such meetings with the target were conducted in a manner that did not reveal either the psychologist’s true profession or intended purpose.
The psychologists conducted the assessments in whatever venues could be arranged for meeting with the target. In Germany during the mid-1980s, a leader of a terrorist cell had been an intermittent contact of a case officer, but little progress was made toward recruitment. The question of whether or not to continue recruitment operations against the individual came to OTS. Because the target frequented a nightclub that drew its patrons from the international community, an OTS psychologist was directed to make the nightclub part of her weekend activities. For her disguise, the psychologist chose a “blonde bimbo” look based on knowledge that the target’s eye gravitated to every blonde that entered the club.
On a particular Friday evening, the psychologist, with the assistance of disguise specialists, selected a slinky dress, put on a curly blonde wig, blue-tinted glasses, rosy pink lipstick, and blue eye shadow. As she walked out of her office, the psychologist passed the chief ’s secretary offering the standard “Have a good weekend” greeting. The secretary looked up with surprise to ask, “Who are you? Have you signed in?” After a moment of silence, both found amusement and appreciation for the superior work of the OTS disguise officers.
At the nightclub, the psychologist observed the movements and interaction of the target and put herself in a location to attract his notice. The ploy worked and the two engaged in a conversation that moved quickly from introductory chitchat to increasingly friendly banter. It was a good night for the psychologist, whose questions were so readily answered that she needed to periodically go to the powder room to jot notes and confirm that her disguise elements were in place. As the evening progressed, so did the personal level of their conversation. The terrorist, clearly enjoying the pursuit of his blonde prey, became increasingly familiar and uncomfortably suggestive with the psychologist. Seated in a dark corner of the nightclub, he leaned very close and whispered a well-practiced line, “I’d just like to run fingers through your blonde curly hair.” The psychologist choked back the