Category: society

24th February 2021

I’m feeling rather trivial today. Through a gently tilted wine glass, I wonder how dull the world would be without good old fashioned cloak and dagger activities. You may ask what does that mean and I would reply that by example I mean assassination attempts, espionage, counter surveillance…

In this obscured world, individuals, corporations, states at times involuntarily uncloak to us, the ignorant public, dubious activities in the name of freedom, pride, righteousness, greed or power. Don’t get me wrong. I know that what we witness is just the tip of an iceberg into which we do not want to venture; that such acts defy the rule of law and to be honest reveal a very frightening world. But It’s somehow thrilling and slightly nuts at the same time knowing such spectacles occur. There is something inspired about society being slightly less predictable and I derive a satisfying curiosity in attempting to knit together why and how human wit, arrogance and self belief coalesces in a bid to win against the laws of a land. That these conjured activities run the gamut of decent to evil to downright ridiculous is fascinating. 

As we tilt away the wine glass, for this piece, let us delve into some of the more insane activities that have taken place in this muddied world.

For me one of the most farcical of assassination attempts entailed the CIA trying to kill Fidel Castro (of Cuba) in the 1960’s by replacing the cigars which he liked to smoke with exploding ones – this didn’t work. Another CIA endeavour involved recruiting Castro’s lover and offering her poison pills to sneak into his drink – which also failed as she ruined the pills by storing them in her cold cream! There was almost an attempt to do the deed by offering Castro a dive suit (he loved scuba diving) covered with Tuberculosis – but that never went through. Other CIA plots against Castro called for character assassination. One considered using a product that would destroy his famous beard and another to lace his studio with LSD so that he spouted nonsense during a public broadcast. 

The New Yorker mentions that in the 1950’s and 60’s, the CIA investigated mind control through drugs. A chemist called Gottlieb assisted the CIA in researching drugs that could produce programmable killers. Gottlieb investigated the use of LSD which at the time had not been widely unleashed onto the American public. This research went off in some very strange directions including giving consideration to how agents could extract information for sex whilst on LSD. In another nugget of cloak and dagger, the CIA hired a magician to teach mis-direction so agents were more able to secrete toxins into an unsuspecting victim’s glass. 

Carlos Ghosn, the former CEO of Renault and his escape from Japan stuns that it was possible. In a shadowy world we are vaguely aware of are people who ‘get things done’. In this case, the man who masterminded Ghosn’s escape specialised in ’spiriting people out of complex situations’ (Vanity Fair, July 2020). His name is Michael Taylor and he had worked unofficially with the FBI and the US special forces in situations they couldn’t be seen to be involved in. Now he was being asked to get Ghosn out of Japan. 

Ghosn was trapped in his house on charges of embezzlement and other financial wrong doings, only being allowed out for lunch or to visit his lawyer which doesn’t sound crazy but the real problem was that this incarceration had no end date. Taylor was employed by Ghosn’s wife through a middle man. He was able to pull together a team of specialists including airport security, IT and counter surveillance. His plan was to smuggle Ghosn out of the country in a box on a charter plane, but it couldn’t be an ordinary structure. The box couldn’t surprise anyone with its weight when it was holding a human inside; it needed casters so it could be moved smoothly and formed so a human could breathe when inside of it. Taylor discovered that although Ghosn had an ankle bracelet for surveillance, it was not checked daily which meant that by smuggling a phone to him he could co-ordinate the day of escape utilising his complex web of helpers. With some impediments, the plan worked and Ghosn escaped Japan to Lebanon where he is currently undergoing a trial on his conduct as CEO. 

But I cannot mention cloak and dagger without broaching Russia. The GRU is the intelligence arm of the Russian military. I have mentioned this in a previous blog, but the Russian intelligence arms seem to have no compunction about poisoning opponents.  I recently read of how the Russian spies involved in the 2018 Skripal poisonings in Salisbury were uncovered by an investigative website called Bellingcat. Bizarrely, as the pressure on the Russian Government to deny involvement grew, a new tactic was deemed necessary to deflect the story. This resulted in the two spies who’d carried out the act, being interviewed for tv. Unconvincing they spun a series of lies including some strange lines about being Salisbury tourists who’d visited it twice because it had a world famous cathedral (really?) This turned the GRU into a global laughing stock but more damagingly resulted in the expelling of Russian diplomats in Europe and the US. 

Russian opposition leader Navalny was poisoned by the FSB (the main security agency of Russia and successor to the KGB) when the nerve agent Novichok was placed in his underpants in August 2020. He survived and was later able to trick the agency into admitting its actions. 

But there are many successes. For example In 2010, two of Israel’s Mossad dressed up as tennis players in fake wigs and beards to murder a senior member of Hamas. With some panache, they arrived in the country on fake passports, checked into their hotel and through clever surveillance deciphered the room number of their target. They entered the room by manipulating the lock electronically and committed the deed. Done. In 2017, in Kuala Lumpur airport, Kim Jong-Un’s half brother was dead within 20 minutes of coming into contact (he was touched on the face unsuspectingly by two women) with nerve agent XV on the orders of Kim Jong. 

All of this feels surreal. The two Salisbury spies were never seen again and the GRU’s top commander Korobov fell ‘ill and died’. I am sure the FSB agent who was tricked by Navalny into confessing will also be going on a long holiday. Cloak and dagger is a real world phenomena that has existed through the ages. Dangerous and creative and at times ridiculous it adds a little flamboyance to the tip of an ominous iceberg.