Who said the golden age of espionage was over?
Ok, maybe it is. But Anna Chapman is definitely from that era of sultry beauties and secrets and sex. Well, two out of three aint bad. Sure, Anna Chapman – the Russian spy expelled from the U.S. recently on charges of espionage – is pretty and reportedly liked kinky sex, but she pretty much sucked as a spy. The info she was caught selling to the Russians consisted of stuff she probably just dug up from various websites.
Not surprising really, since the good spies are the ones you don’t notice.
Back in WW2, there was this German spy who funneled information about troop movements, shipment schedules, and cargo contents to his Nazi handlers for years before finally getting caught. His info allowed the Germans to cherry pick the most high-value ships for torpedo attacks.
He would’ve kept on feeding information to the Nazis were it not for one of his letters getting flagged because of a routine censorship check. He wrote his friend about how the falling leaves outside his house reminded him “of that time we spent in Estoril.” Estoril was – and still is – a seaside resort town known to be a kind of half-way house for Nazi spies. As a result of that letter, federal agents started their investigation of him.
First, they talked to neighbors. They were amazed at how ordinary his life was. He had a dog who died of distemper; he kept pigeons; he was an air-raid warden who was known for how seriously he took his job of making sure that people got into the air-raid shelters every time the sirens sounded.
His occupation? He worked at a dockyard canteen, serving food and sweeping up the floor. The information he passed? Loose talk from sailors and officers who came to eat at the canteen. Neither a loner nor a flamboyant James Bond, this spy operated for years without attracting attention and gave Nazi Germany some of the best intel of the war.
And then, we have Anna Chapman. Ahh. Incompetence hasn’t looked this good since Anna Kournikova.
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