Entry tags:
The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics that Helped America Win the Cold War by Antonio J. Mendez a
The Moscow Rules
3/5. Thoroughly entertaining partly autobiographical tales of CIA operations in Moscow in the 70's and 80's, focusing on the tradecraft techniques developed with the assistance of magicians in order to thwart omnipresent KGB surveillance. The text got a bit mangled in places by what I suspect were significant redactions, but this is enjoyable and informative. My favorite was the casual mention of a failed project – they were like "we have foldable popup people we can deploy in cars, why can't we have a foldable popup car?" Yeah, that was a bit beyond them. Also, it's interesting to me that the heart of these techniques -- visual misdirection, playing on inattention -- are the same as those deployed today in, say, HK by civilians. In some ways, automated surveillance doesn't change the landscape as much as you might think.
3/5. Thoroughly entertaining partly autobiographical tales of CIA operations in Moscow in the 70's and 80's, focusing on the tradecraft techniques developed with the assistance of magicians in order to thwart omnipresent KGB surveillance. The text got a bit mangled in places by what I suspect were significant redactions, but this is enjoyable and informative. My favorite was the casual mention of a failed project – they were like "we have foldable popup people we can deploy in cars, why can't we have a foldable popup car?" Yeah, that was a bit beyond them. Also, it's interesting to me that the heart of these techniques -- visual misdirection, playing on inattention -- are the same as those deployed today in, say, HK by civilians. In some ways, automated surveillance doesn't change the landscape as much as you might think.