Spycraft - Melton [296]
4 Documenting the alias identities of officers and agents has remained a core mission of OTS throughout its history.
5 Strahle interview.
6 During disguise presentations, particularly for middle-aged audiences, OTS briefers had one assured laugh line. “Here in the OTS disguise shop we specialize in making you look older and fatter. If you want to look younger and thinner, we recommend you talk with the Office of Medical Service.” There was truth in the humor. No matter how tight the corset, body weight did not change. No matter the direction of push, flesh would not move more than an inch or two. Graying the hair of a thirty-five-year-old and adding a salt-and-pepper beard could make a twenty-year difference. Coloring jet-black the graying hair of a paunchy fifty-year-old produced little more than the appearance of a middle-aged guy unsuccessfully dealing with his midlife crisis.
7 For a more detailed treatment of “exfiltrations” and disguise, see: Mendez, The Master of Disguise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1 David Kahn, The Codebreakers (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 122.
2 Center for the Study of Intelligence, “Intelligence in the War of Independence” monograph (Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, undated), 33.
3 Ibid.
4 Anthony Cave Brown (editor), The Secret War Report of the OSS (New York: Berkley, 1976), 76-77.
5 Ibid., 77.
6 Ibid.
7 McLean, The Plumber’s Kitchen, 11.
8 Ibid., 239-242.
9 For more on MIS-X see: Lloyd R. Shoemaker, The Escape Factory: The Story of MIS-X (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990).
10 David Crawford, Volunteers: The Betrayal of National Defense Secrets by Air Force Traitors (Washington, D.C.: Air Force Office of Special Investigations, 1988), 24.
11 See: Melton, CIA Special Weapons and Equipment, 113, for photographs of a concealment desk.
12 See: Melton, Ultimate Spy, 162, for photographs.
13 See: Melton, Ultimate Spy, 161, for photographs.
14 Mendez, The Master of Disguise, 224.
15 The concealment techs could prepare virtually any type of wild or domesticated animal as “host carcasses” for dead drops. The DO case officers, however, were squeamish and agreed to proceed only with pigeons and rats. Mendez, The Master of Disguise, 224-225, presents more examples.
16 An “exfiltration” is a clandestine operation to move an officer, defector, or agent across international borders without the knowledge of any hostile security service.
17 Mendez, The Master of Disguise, 140.
18 The al-Qaeda terrorist organization used a Trojan-horse concealment to assassinate Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, on September 9, 2001. Two al-Qaeda operatives posing as journalists secured an audience with Massoud. One carried a video camera packed with explosives. During the “interview” the explosive was detonated and Massoud killed.
19 Rustmann, CIA, INC., 53-56.
20 Actor Desmond Llewelyn became Q beginning with From Russia with Love in 1963 and continued in the Bond movies until his accidental death in a car accident in 1999.
21 On occasion, senior CIA executives would visit the lab and be treated to a “show and tell” to demonstrate the value of concealments. During one such visit, a lab engineer proudly displayed a laptop computer that had been configured as an active concealment device for use by a Soviet agent. The electronics for the intelligence function had been masterfully integrated into the overall unit and even when the computer was disassembled, the fact that any modification had been made was not apparent or visible. The executive visitor asked, “How long did this take?” “Two hundred work days,” replied the tech. “How many did you make?” “Only this one.” “Well, if you made a hundred, you can be a lot