jOINING AN INTELLIGENCE OUTFIT

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

Everybody out there,

After the really fascinating posts by Mr. Twigsnapper and after reading his challenge to those who might be out there who could add some knowledge about the different "special operations groups" and I thought it might be interesting to ask those same people what it might have been like to "join up" in that kind of outfit.................... I figured I would just put this "pool" out here and invite anyone who has had personal experience in that kind of field to join us.

Of course I know tht the world has changed and joining an outfit like that now (Army Intelligence? .... Navy? .... Private?) all that might be terribly different now. But maybe there are some similarities.

Any body out there ready, willing, and hopefully able? .... to teach us a little bit of what its like to be in that lifestyle? The pool is all yours. The waters fine! Elizabeth

[Trickfox]

Elizabeth since this pool is empty I thought that I might want to jump in and splash around a bit. I've been carefully reading all the posts and also imagining the WWII operations that Mr. twigswnapper and Dr. Brown were participating in, and I'm wondering how well our intelligence agencies have been performing in the past as compared to the present day.

It seems that these days the CIA is really looked upon as some sort of cold blooded and evil society where everyone specializes in cut-throat tactics and backstabbing manipulative skulldugerry. All we hear about is the corruption, and evil deeds that are being exposed on CNN and other news channels.

Of course nobody ever hears about the successes over the past several decades. I guess that is the price paid for being "silent warriors". The problem seems to be that there is a larger gap than ever in the public perception of the agency and the agency's actual functions.

Then there is the dramatic NEW Hollywood version of secret agencies. I saw MI3 last night, and boy do they ever put on a good action packed adventurous human drama filled with impossible gadgetry.

I'm increasingly deceived with the unrealistic maner in which these spy movies are seemingly distorting this type of work. Of course I really have no point of reference except for the ever so few biographies written about famous people like Peter Wright, Sir William Stephenson, and other non-fiction like the "Puzzle Palace", "By Way of Deception" and other well researched books .

When I was younger I use to watch the old mission impossible series on TV, and it seemed to me at the time that there was WAY LESS violence, and a lot more "MIND GAMES".

In most, if not all cases, -only the bad guy was hurt or caught and usually the "MIND GAME" was exposed in the end, making the bad guy look like a fool as he's taken to prison. If you remember the series it appeared that VIOLENCE was carefully avoided as best as possible.(a mater of familly values I suppose)
I'm told that the old TV series was regularly mailed to "Station Chiefs" oversees and that they greatly enjoyed seeing this type of "outsmarting the fox" strategy which seemed to show the world that American secret agencies were so crafty that they never even had to kill the bad guys. They just got the bad guys to kill each other off instead.

I have a feeling that the reality of it all is closer to this old fashion MIND GAME than this new "everyobody dies in a huge explosion" movie plot which is just TOO INCREDIBLE to believe any more.

After all, isn't it true that the CIA picks the very sharpest minds and tries to work it's deceptive manuevers without making it's presence known or seen under any condition if possible.

Look what we have now: The president and his staff are "outing" covert operators for the sake of partisan politics. In the real world, CIA is now synonymous with absolutely every nasty kind of activity like assasination, torture, and all kinds of generally disgusting behaviour. Many people are openly proposing to scrap the agency and start all over again.

While all this is going on Hollywood is using the "IMPOSSIBLE MISSION FORCE" as some sort of detached entity which uses impossible technology to perform impossible feats in an impossibly stupid human tragedy plot.

So for the sake of those in this forum who are interested, I would like to ask our resident secret agent "Twigsnapper" (who has now effectively halfway outed himself), if he watches modern day spy movies, and if so which of these movies comes closer to the truth, -both nowadays and in the past.

I'm sure many of us would be pleased to hear his take on what has been potrayed as "His type of lifestyle". Both in the past and nowadays "providing that he still has enough insider knowledge of such modern tactics".

Of course my personal favorite in all these movies was Arnold Schwatzanegger's "TRUE LIES". It even had an honest romantic scheme that may not have been so far from the truth after all. There is that one line in the movie that made me fall off my chair with laughter. (when the bad guys shows Arnold an MX warhead and asks him if he knows what it is)

Anybody else want to comment here?

trickfox

[twigsnapper]

"Dinner out" .... was that the phrase?

Spy Games, Brad Pitt, Robert Redford.

Course, maybe I liked it because it exposed a little of the interoffice politics that is always right under the surface .... in any agency.

Then theres the interaction of mentor and student .... of course I have always felt that Redford was running the girl too, as well as Pitt .... But thats just my look and I doubt that Hollywood considered that twist to the plot. That would have made the whole deal more realistic.

and ...... I liked his old sportscar. Twigsnapper

[Trickfox]

Well now, I have never seen "spy games" but this is the second time someone recommends it, so I guess I'm going to have to rent it and watch it in the next few weeks. Thanks for the opinion Twigsnapper.

trickfox

[twigsnapper]

Trickox,

Yes, you will enjoy it. Speaks on many levels. Whoever the bloke was that did the tech advising seems to have known something.

Since we are talking about recruiting here. Notice how the Pitt character is "recruited".... note how he is put into a certain mental frame before he is even approached. Pretty accurate. Anybody else out there want to comment.

Am I seeing it wrong?

Twigsnapper

[Trickfox]

Trickfox,
Whoever the bloke was that did the tech advising seems to have known something.

Am I seeing it wrong? (I'll comment after I see the movie)
Twigsnapper

OK well,speaking of spy movies, I have to confess that I was a technical advisor on a Wesley Snipes film called "the art of war".

I made the "subcutaneous implant" prop for the scene where the oriental doctor secretly sews the implant into snipe's character's shoulder. Once snipe's character discovers he's tagged, he digs out the implant himself and leaves it on the business card of an FBI agent in a phone booth.

I had originally suggested using a glass encapsulated "DESTRON" RFID tag (the Texas Intrument chip design). The movie producer told me it was too small and it did not fit the plot so I told him I would make him a mock-up SOT 23 packaged oscillator on a tiny SM board with a chip coil. They did not care if it worked so long as it fit the general size and shape and had enough colors on it to suit the movie script.

Last night I went and saw MI3 and guess what they were using to portray a radio controlled explosive charge injected into the brain thru the nose? It was a Destron glass encapsulated RFID transponder! (the kind they inject in animals)

And while we are on the subject of movie props, I really thought that the technology portrayed in "Enemy of the State" was pretty good too. I think the technical advisors (there were a couple of them) were pretty good on the keyhole based satellite tracking stuff. It just looked a tiny bit phony when they managed to track the man thru a steel and concrete multi-story building. The only technology that could possibly do that are ultra-wideband parametric transponders and I'm not sure if those exist or not yet.

Yup, Well, I better stop here because I could spend hours talking about this. I'm so fascinated by this stuff I wrote a "coffee table" book about it. As hard as I tried, I suppose I never was priviledged enough to work on stuff like Peter Wright's toys and such. I just spent a lot of time searching the technology in libraries. Perhaps later on I will get older wiser and better in my abilities.

[twigsnapper]

Trickfox,

Perhaps you could spend a few more minutes and tell me a little bit more about "Peter Wrights toys?"

Twigsnapper

[Trickfox]

Trickfox,

Perhaps you could spend a few more minutes and tell me a little bit more about "Peter Wrights toys?"

Twigsnapper

Let me tell you exactly what happened to me after you asked that question.

I remembered that I had read Peter's book back in the late 80s or early 90s but I can't remember exactly when. He was my hero. He had come up with very crafty methods or locating enemy radios through their I.F. emanations, and picking up sound with a very long wire, and all kinds of neat ideas which I thought were absolutely brilliant. Peter had even wrote the code names of the projects right there in his book. If I remember well, the "MOP" was one of his inventions. In any case I decided to look it up in google with the intention of locating all of the technical project names again, well something very stunning happened.

I googled myself into a University of Cambridge Technical Report #577 by Markus G Kuhn which happened to meet my google search criteria for "Peter and his toys".
Now it so happens that I have gathered everything I could find about Kuhn since he wrote the stuff on "Soft Tempest". When I found this new 2003 report just a few minutes ago however, I began to realize something shockingly familliar on page 14 and 15 of the report under section (1.2 Motivation and scope.)

I had a hell of a "hiccup" when I realized what you have just done to me Mr. Twigsnapper. I have just sent a CDROM to Paul who will himself be very impressed with what has just happened between us on this forum on this date.

I'm just not so sure if we can take this subject any further public than it is at the moment. Suffice it to say that we would end up boring a lot of non-technical romantics that don't need or want any secret decoder rings.

Tricked fox

[jbm]

From page 24, "2.2 Receivers" of that ominous Kuhn report:

"...a Wiener filter , will optimize the signal-to-noise ratio..."

Yep, I frequently find that n>s

Where do I locate me one of these "wiener filters"? I'd put that baby into operation tomorrow!

dp

[Victoria Steele]

Yep, I want one of those little guys too.

Until then ....( love ya Trickfox) ... I will remain, thankyou very much .... that "non-technical romantic". Its a pool I prefer to paddle around in .... though I get the impression that you guys are onto something?

Everybody else out there? Theres an old routine that George Gobbel (sp?) pulled on an ancient Johnny Carson show. He was sitting with Dean Martin and a couple of other really dapper gentlemen and he made the satement ... something like ..."Ya ever feel like the whole world is wearing tuxedos and you're a pair of brown shoes?"

Thats what this forum can remind me of sometimes.

So Paul? Are you going to have anything at all for us this Thursday. I'm like sitting here ... waiting .... (I do have a life, HONEST .... but I am sort of one of those individuals that gets zeroed in on a subject, thats pretty much it. Besides this is still so absolutely fascinating! I never thought this subject would go where it has gone and for that reason I can hardly wait to see what is next!)

Did you guys happen to see last night "The Unit" TV program? Another cosmic ha ha .... I am sure .... unless someone who has been guiding the discussion here (yes you Mr. Twigsnapper) has his fingers in TV scripts too.

Last week we were all discussing the knife that played such an important part in Marks relationship with the Dad that he never really knew. A special commando knife. Last nights program centered on a son who was trying to get to the truth of his Dads death ... he is writing an article and is searching ..... the commander of this special unit ... tells him the story of how they found his father ... by tracing this knife .... the commander at one point hands the knife to the kid ..... and since I have already been curious enough to look up the Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife ... thanks to Mr. Twigsnapper.... I recognized the knife being handled as a Fairbairn-Sykes style commando knife. Now how absolutely strange is that? Is that just a co incidence?

If no one has watched it yet. "The Unit" .... (Sunday evening) .... last programs this next week. Don't know if it will be renewed. But its been speaking to the problems that an anti-terrorist team might face today. (Including problems with their wives .... who at least have got the concept that they are not supposed to ask what and where their husbands are.)

One of them said " Missing? Our husbands are always missing! ... until they come home." Gee, sounds just like something that Josephine might have said! Early in his virtual book Paul said that there were many times that Townsend Brown left his family for unexplained periods of time. So now it just seems to make much more sense. THIS IS A GREAT STORY PAUL! SPEAKING UP FOR ALL OF THE FOLKS THAT WOULD FALL OFF THEIR CHAIRS IN BOREDOM IF WE JUST HAD TO LISTEN TO THE SCIENCE OF IT.I AM A HOPEFUL ROMANTIC AND PROUD OF IT. I really want to hear more about these two couples ....... Victoria

[Paul S.]

...so that I'll be notified when there are future posts to this thread.

And, Trickfox, thanks for the very concise 'mini-review' of MI3. I really like your perspective on the genre: "no more mind games, eveybody just gets blown to smithereens." With that in mind I think I'll probably join the multitudes who have also passed on that particular afternoon at the Bijou.

I have seen "Spy Games" and while I don't recall all the details of it at the moment, I do remember it as being a much more engaging kind of thriller. I still have the DVD on my shelf, it probably deserves another viewing.

Likewise "Enemy of the State" I recently re-viewed. Best line, after Gene Hackman blows up his Faraday cage: "Because you had to make a stupid phone call!"

And... Victoria, your post appeared while I was typing the above. Yes, I think there will be something new onine tomorrow, or possibly tonight, since I'm flying to Salt Lake tomorrow for the Widow Farnsworth's funeral.

So don't touch that dial...

--PS

[twigsnapper]

Paul , Trickfox ... everyone

I don't know. I enjoyed MI3. Great red dress, and of course I notice long legs stepping out of a low sportscar. Explosions, sure! Mindless? ... well, sort of ...But there was a thread I found interesting. Who saved the day at the end? The girl. Why? Because she responded instinctively. An untapped force that came through at the end, past all the training and all the technology. The perfect blend ....scientific training AND instinctive intuition.

Pass the popcorn. No Junior Mints Buffett ... still no Junior Mints .... but HOOTS worth another round.

Twigsnapper

[LongboardLOVELY]

Well now, I have never seen "spy games" but this is the second time someone recommends it, so I guess I'm going to have to rent it and watch it in the next few weeks. Thanks for the opinion Twigsnapper.

trickfox

The two of you (Trickfox and Twigsnapper) mentioned two of my favorite movies of the 20th century! True Lies was hilarious in parts, and relatively realistic. I like the part where Jamie Lee Curtis pretends to be a woman of ill-repute. I agree with you, Mr. Fox that the M.I. triad were just too commercial and unrealistic to be enjoyable. Also, I am starting to really dislike that Cruise fellow. In Spy Game I really liked the scene where Redford was on the phone in the room with all of his colleagues and superiors and said that "Dinner Out was a Go", and in the background you hear that someone was saying to someone else that if that's the way he talks to his wife, no wonder he's divorced. (Or something like that). Get the movie, Trickfox, and see it. You'll really like it. But get the DVD and see the deleted scenes because you'll need one of them to understand the movie better.

Peter Wright's name is familiar. Is who you are referring to the same one who wrote the books SPYCATCHER and HINDSIGHT?
I agree with you, Trickfox, that the old MI teevee series was much better. Just like the old Star Trek much better; more thinking involved, less shoot 'em up, blow 'em up stuff. I believe also that AGENCIES use mind wars more than anything.

LB

[Trickfox]

Also, I am starting to really dislike that Cruise fellow.

You would think that he had learned a lesson after doing "Eyes wide shut" but "no" he still believes in the scientology "click". Sometimes I wonder if Colleman's eyes were opened by the making of "Eyes wide shut".

Peter Wright's name is familiar. Is who you are referring to the same one who wrote the books SPYCATCHER and HINDSIGHT?

I've only read "Spycatcher" and that was a long time ago, but yes that is whom I'm speaking of. What an absolutely brilliant man!!!!

Trickfox

[Trickfox]

I would like to stir up this interesting little thread because of JBM and Victoria who still like to remain "private" for a good reason. I know that a bunch of us are busy these days, but you know "mental health issues" are important too.

Remember the movie "Eyes wide shut",That is when you hide in red while everyone wears Black. Outsiders are naked of course!!!

Does any agenda cause these privacy issues to result in mariage break-ups?

The answer is YES. The reason is "god"or "sexual partner" either one is the ultimate in intimidy. There is a movie I dislike very much and it's because it portrays technical people playing with exotic toys, just to secretly entertain themselves on the intimacy of individuals.

How about the disgusting "T.V. Camera under a toilet seat" ideas that security proffesionals cringe when they hear someone talking about it.

Yup, them toys are just like guns...... You don't play with them.... Because if you do...You are in the wrong job position and probably risking prosecution for it.

Enough shop talk

Don't forget to do your doggy paddle swin in a natural mineral water source late at night under a desert star filled night.

It's so nice to see the types of minerals and quantity lists for those great places like the one we visited near Las Vegas last November at the crash conference. That foxy Oriental gal with the white rose was there. It was nice to meet some of the people in this forum. I hope it will happen this fall again!

Anyone else interested? Send me a PM.

Trickfox