by Denis Bukin
Test yourself
Why did the Kolos restaurant waiter E. P. Duzhkov remember Kovalev and Alvarez from 21 April 1955? (You may choose more than one answer)
A) They gave a generous tip
B) They behaved unusually
C) The waiter said that one of the guests was a foreigner
D) The waiter had seen Kovalev before his lunch with Alvarez at Kolos
5
OPERATIVE
An operative is the workhorse of intelligence and counter-intelligence. They work in cooperation with agents and direct them, they interview people during the investigation and conduct external surveillance. They do detective work and are answerable for everything. Without them, intelligence is not possible.
Operative work is complex and the job requirements are often very high. He or she should be a good psychologist and be able to get on the right side of people. He or she should be highly intelligent, be able to compare data and synthesize information. He or she should have high working capacity and stress resistance. He or she should be able to keep secrets, because it’s often vital not only for the success of the job, but also for the lives of his or her subordinate agents. And, of course, his or her memory should be sound.
Remembering faces and names
Intelligence officers should also learn to remember people. Not only their names and faces, but also their appearance, what they like, their hobbies, habits, weaknesses, past – everything that can help to establish contact in the future. Humans are social beings, so they have the genetic ability to recognize human faces, but need to work harder to remember names, favourite drinks, hobbies, etc. The best way to remember this information is to connect it to appearance.
Observe the person. Note his or her unusual features. This can be anything: a high or a low forehead, a unique nose or ear shape, wide- or close-set eyes, a dimple in his or her chin, a mole or a scar. Then, make up a story that connects the name to this feature. In order to better remember the story and the person, establish your emotional attitude. Do you like his or her main feature or not? Why?
When meeting someone for the first time, look at their face and listen to them. Visualize the unusual features of their appearance. If possible, talk to them, calling them by name. Try to repeat the name, recalling it from your visualization. Do not hesitate to ask again if you have forgotten it.
Exercise
Find unusual features in photographs of different people in newspapers or magazines. You should be able to process a face and identify its unusual features automatically.
Start with the face type that is common in your country. Then move on to faces from other continents.
13 September 1955
Today, I signed my last time card. I no longer work at the university. I don’t know yet what my new cover story will be.
After my trip to Berlin, I started getting looks at the university, people started whispering behind my back. On 2 September, when a huge party erupted in celebration of the beginning of classes, Kravchuk had too much vodka on an empty stomach and in his drunken frenzy poked me in the stomach, called me a snitch and talked about my trying to recruit him. Everyone giggled nervously and kept quiet.
I told my superiors about this and now I’m wondering whether being assigned to the office is a promotion or a punishment.
Memorizing information about people
When memorizing a name, you have been noting an unusual attribute, connecting it to the name and forming an emotional attitude towards it. Other information can be connected to the exaggerated attribute, not just a name. Preferences and interests can also help you find a common language.
For example, Mark Walker has a high forehead, likes chess, the TV show House, and gets annoyed when people watch football on television. Imagine this man with a high forehead painted like a chessboard. Imagine a little house in the middle of the chessboard, and a group of kids playing touch football in front of it. Suddenly, the ball goes flying right through the window and hits the television inside. An annoyed old man comes out of the little house pushing a walker in front of him. He writes on a piece of paper in red marker: ‘NO FOOTBALL’ and puts the sign on his door.
With practice, you will be able to create these pictures in a second or two and remember them for a long time.
Family is an important subject to everyone and one that you can use to make people trust you. It is important to remember family situations correctly so you do not accidentally, for example, ask a childless bachelor how his son is doing at school. You can also associate information about family with a main attribute too. Imagine an unusual story involving the family members vividly and emotionally.
Exercise
Continue studying the photos of people in magazines and newspapers. Study the appearance of interesting people, and remember information about them. This knowledge will be useful to you.
★ Train your brain – Profiles. Level 1
Remember the names and faces of people as you look through a newspaper. Notice unusual features in their appearances. Use vivid associations to link these with a name. Create an emotional attitude towards the person.
Verbal description
Protocols for describing someone’s appearance, developed in the nineteenth century by the French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon, revolutionized the science of crime investigation. These techniques can help to identify a person, find them and confirm the presence of that person at a crime scene.
It is extremely useful to study how to compose verbal portraits. It helps to indicate what should be noticed when analysing appearance. In the future, this will allow you to remember someone better. A verbal portrait is then easily recounted to someone else, especially because it might be too risky to keep or transmit photos of the target. In this case, an accurate verbal portrait can secure the agent against a possible set-up, where an enemy counter-intelligence officer could make contact instead of the person you were supposed to meet.
The modern system of verbal description is based on four types of features:
• anatomical, describing the human body (sex, age, height, etc.);
• dynamic, apparent in motion (posture, facial expressions, etc.);
• distinctive, individual features (scars, missing body parts, a limp, etc.);
• additional features (clothing and how it is worn, accessories, etc.).
A verbal description is not just any description of the face and appearance, but a limited set of parameters for each feature. For example, the forehead in profile can be sloping, straight or protruding. Thus, a person is not so much described as typed. It radically simplifies the understanding of a verbal description given by someone else.
Here’s a short version of a verbal description.
1. Anatomical features
A) Gender
B) Race, colour of the skin
C) Approximate age, with an accuracy of up to five years. For example, 20–25, 45–50
D) Height. For men: short (less than 5'6"), medium (5'6"–5'9"), tall (5'9"–6'2"), very tall (over 6'2"). For women these numbers are 2" less
E) Build: slight, average, full, stout
F) Hair
– Colour: black, brown, dark brown, dark blond, light blond, red, grey
– Texture: straight, wavy, curly
– Beard, sideburns, moustache
G) Forehead
– Height: high, medium, low
– Profile: sloping, straight, protruding
H) Face shape
– In front: round, oval, rectangular, trapezoidal, triangular
– In profile: convex, straight, concave
I) Complexion (for Caucasians): pale, tan, red, yellow
J) Fullness of the face: thin, medium, full
K) Eyebrows
– Colour: light, dark
– Shape: straight, arched, twisting, joined
– Form: tilted inwards, tilted outwards
L) Eyes
– Location: deep-set, bulgin
g
– Colour: light, dark, grey, light blue, dark blue, green, brown, black
M) Nose
– Length: small, medium, large
– Width: thin, medium, wide
– Shape: straight, concave, convex, wavy
N) Mouth
– Size: small, medium, large
– Corners of the mouth: horizontal, raised, drawn
O) Lips
– Thickness: thin, medium, thick
– Position of the upper lip relative to lower: upper protruding, lower protruding, even
P) Ears
– Size: small, medium, large
– Adherence: sticking out, close to head
2. Dynamic features
A) Step: fast, slow, waddling, bouncing, wobbly, shuffling. Limp, use of a cane or crutches
B) Posture: the slope of the head and neck forward (stooping), vertically (straight back)
C) Manners (unique actions): hands in the pockets, arms at sides, behind back, rubbing the hands. Smoothing the moustache, beard, or rubbing the forehead. Biting nails, spitting, holding a cigarette in a certain way
3. Distinctive features
Scars, birthmarks, baldness, hirsuteness, tattoos, facial or body asymmetry, body and other unique attributes
4. Additional features
Clothing, accessories: Particular attention is paid to the preference for any individual style, colour, fabric
Exercise
Continue working with photos of people. Make up their verbal descriptions using the system outlined on the preceding pages. Do this while watching movies, the news, and observing other people. An intelligence officer’s observational skill consists of two things: knowledge of features worth noting and a lot of practice.
Exercise
Complicate the previous task. Try to describe a mutual friend, a famous actor or a politician to another person, so that they recognize him or her from your verbal description. Use the system described above when constructing the portrait. Then switch roles.
2 October 1955
I’m spending entire days preparing for Alvarez’s arrival and my meeting with him. I don’t want to jinx it, but I think the moment of truth is approaching. I just have to make sure not to spook the Argentinian.
The various courses of our conversation branch and sharpen every day. There must not be any surprises. We’re combing Moscow for an appropriate place to meet. One place has too many people, another place is too quiet, a third is inconvenient for external surveillance.
If Alvarez really did kill Kovalev, I have to be especially careful. I really don’t like the possibility of being poisoned, even though our medics assure me that they won’t let me die. ‘Too much honour,’ they joke.
I’m most afraid of a dead end. What if nothing works?
★ Train your brain – Profiles. Level 2
In this exercise, in addition to the face and name of each person, you need to remember their date of birth and occupation. Remember everything you can as you will need to recall the information in the final stage of the book. Birthday greetings are a good excuse for maintaining or renewing contact with a person you are interested in.
In addition to the exercise in this book, memorize the people you come across in your life. You never know where and when you may need such contacts.
Test Yourself
What number appears under the memo headed ‘On the last weeks of Kovalev’s life’?
A) 247
B) 346
C) 479
D) 125
E) 925
★ Train your brain – Items on a table. Level 3
Memorizing the positions of items trains your memory and attention, develops your observation skills, organizes your thinking. Try to also do this exercise in your real life, remembering how books are placed on a shelf, how the things are arranged on your desk, how cars are parked, etc.
Establishing contact
An intelligence service depends on its agents. Agents, ordinary people with access to information, can be recruited in different ways: some are offered money, some are blackmailed, others want to help for ideological reasons. But there is one thing that remains the same in working with any agent: recruitment and contact depend on communication. People want to be able to talk to someone and they are constantly in need of attention and support. Even when agents are coerced into working, the goal of a supervisor is to establish trust.
Typically, a potential agent is under a lot of stress during the first meeting. Not knowing what to expect from a recruiter, they see danger everywhere. One of the most important things to do is to give the agent confidence, relieve anxiety and tension. To do this, engage the agent in a non-threatening conversation, a conversation on safe ground.
A very good subject for conversation can be an agent’s hobby. Everyone has something they can talk about endlessly. The hobby can be ordinary: stamps, chess, photography, football, or rare: growing cacti or oriental calligraphy. If you happen to find the hobby of your agent, talk less and just listen. You won’t have to worry about starting a conversation, only finishing it.
If you do not know an agent’s hobby, try guessing something important to them. Try to start with their profession. You can talk to an engineer about cars and machinery or to a teacher about today’s students. People love to talk about themselves. Listen carefully, keep up the conversation, and you will find the right topic.
When trying to build trust, do not be afraid to discuss unfamiliar topics. Own up to your ignorance, ask and listen. Be genuinely interested. If your questions are not sincere, you will feel awkward, and your target will notice immediately.
Safe conversations relieve anxiety, create a sense of security and can identify the strengths of your conversation partner. For example, a gardener is patient, calm and kind, an engineer is clever, a teacher likes children. Emphasize these traits. Make it clear that they can be proud of them. Say that you do not have such merits. You are different, and acknowledge the superiority of your target. They will feel good about themselves and slightly embarrassed for a while, there will be a pause and you will be able to get to the main topic of the meeting.
Exercise
There are a lot of formal, superficial communications in life, such as with taxi drivers, postal workers, shop assistants, hairdressers, security guards. Use every such meeting as an opportunity to train yourself to establish trust. Talk to the person and try to guess his or her interests. Start a conversation with a taxi driver, asking, for example, about his/her experiences. Ask your hairdresser how s/he learned to cut hair. Praise goods in a shop. An unusual item in the workplace can also be a good opportunity for a dialogue. Experiment, pick different options for starting a conversation. Do not forget to give in, admitting that you do not have the skills and abilities of the other person.
You have nothing to lose if nothing comes of the conversation, but you will gain invaluable experience and, if successful, will learn a lot of interesting things.
★ Train your brain – Items on a table. Level 4
If you have not already, increase the number of items to five. To memorize their locations, you may need a technique. Try to visualize how the objects would fall from a tilted table, how they would lie on the floor. If this method does not suit you, make up and use your own. Experiment, explore the individual attributes of your memory.
Notes
Cover story
A cover story is a spy’s claimed background or biography, which allows him or her to carry out a job.
A cover story provides a legitimate and reasonable justification for intelligence activities. Most intelligence officers are formal employees of embassies in a foreign country. They have diplomatic immunity and can’t be prosecuted if they are exposed. In addition, many of them may be found on official business with different people, which means they can work with their agents almost openly.
Agents prefer professions that involve a wide range of communication: a journalist, a business
man, a teacher, a scientist, an art critic or a collector. This profession provides them with a basis for contacts with influential people, and in case of being exposed, makes it harder to prove involvement in espionage.
A cover story is thought out carefully and prepared before sending an intelligence officer on a mission. The cover story is compiled so that it is plausible, but does not look artificial. False information is mixed with genuine – fictionalized facts that have serious grounds. It’s supported with documents and memorized details about the supposed place of origin of the agent, his or her studies and career, which are evidenced by registration entries made in archives and registries. Reasons for moves and switching jobs are thought out. The secret of a good cover story is that facts are difficult to check, and made-up information does not contradict the truth.
Sometimes a second cover story is created in case the first is uncovered, the purpose of which is to mitigate the consequences and take the heat off the officer’s agents.
Cover stories are usually prepared by people who are not directly involved in intelligence operations. The task of an intelligence officer is to remember a cover story correctly, get into the role and to be able to reproduce it accurately if necessary. It is not always easy.
A cover story is extensive. It has a lot of important details and trivia. There was once a case when a Soviet agent deep undercover was asked about a scuff on the stairs of his previous house. The answer was checked and turned out to have been accurate.
An experienced intelligence officer may have several cover stories to juggle. They are easy to confuse under stress, especially the specific details.
Counter-intelligence also has its own ways of checking cover stories. For example, ask the person to repeat it in reverse order, from the present to the past. Reword the question, expand it or, conversely, make it more specific. Ask about details, and then compare the answers with information from other sources. If there are a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions or there are none at all, this is a reason for doubts.