The next chapter we're going to look at is...
Chapter 4, Models of Espionage, by Carson Eoyang
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In the section "Psychological Models"
"... Despite the attractive simplicity of MICE, it is deficient in not recognizing other espionage motives such as alienation/disaffection (Air Force Sergeant Davies), revenge/vindictiveness (Army Sergeant Daniel Richardson), alcoholism/drug use (Christopher Boyce), and whimsy (Sir Anthony Blunt)." (p. 72)
The focus of this chapter seems to be on how to predict who will become a spy in order to deny such individuals security clearance to begin with. And the author is pointing out how difficult this is to do. Here he refers to "MICE" which appears to be a variant of "SMICE" from the earlier article.
Even as a teen I remember feeling that dad was always "right". It's like he was a bulwark of seeming perfection with no possible avenue of corruption. I understood that even how he behaved on business trips put his colleagues to shame. I'm sure this put him in a good position regarding his work, but I never had the impression that it was contrived or anything. This may have even dated back to when he was a teenager and his dad would basically berate him into perfection. Mom and dad were careful to avoid some of the things they experienced growing up, so we didn't get that kind of treatment that his dad gave him.
On my part, out of all of these things listed, revenge would probably have been my weakest point. I already discussed alienation, and said the Russians/Soviets would have had to prove that they were any better than the U.S. But revenge is different, I think, and wouldn't have perhaps required me to think anything particular one way or another about Russia. But if I were to help them you'd still have to come back to why would I want to help them if I didn't think they were any better than the U.S.? When I was in Russia I checked into getting a dual citizenship, and I would have liked that (maybe even still - if I had a dual citizenship I could have returned to Russia and found work when I had so many problems here finding good work). It's ironic how things turn out sometimes, but I won't go into that any more yet.
It's sort of like there were these two big bullies (the USSR/Russia and USA) that were itching to fight each other and I was caught in the middle. To borrow the words of a song: "Jokers to the right of me, clowns to the left, here I am stuck in the middle with you, and I don't know what it is I should do..."
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Apologies to Mr. Eoyang, but I'm going to take some liberties with this next text. The parts in brackets are my contextual changes:
"The very intensive efforts of the Soviet intelligence services to penetrate the [Christian mission] and compromise [missionaries] stationed there has been well known for decades. The hostile threat coupled with the cultural isolation of foreigners made Moscow perhaps the highest-risk [mission] in the world..." (p. 77)
That's how it felt there when I was in Vienna with the mission. They isolated themselves though; it wasn't technically thrust upon them. It's not that I think that they were the target of Soviet efforts in the way that the US embassy in Moscow was (that's what the original text was about), but that's how it felt from the way the mission acted. That was my experience of working with them.
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"The administration of industrial security programs further reinforces this pervasiveness of evil by subjecting all employees to inspection, control, and monitoring." (p. 78)
I wonder how pervasive this was in dad's work.
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"S-models do not address why some people contact the FBI as soon as they encounter any suspicious contacts, while others are recruited fairly easily or even volunteer to work with foreign intelligence services." (p. 80)
I am proud to say that although I was in no position requiring clearances, I did once in 1990 contact the FBI in a situation where I thought I might be dealing with a Soviet spy trying to recruit me (to get to my dad). I didn't dilly-dally about it, although I did deliberate a few days on what to do about it before deciding that I should make that call. It's not that I was going to cooperate, but it's just that I'd not had to deal with that kind of thing before and wasn't sure what to do. A professor of mine at the time had extensive experience in the Soviet Union and I shared my concerns with her and she helped by confirming my concerns, which then prompted me to act. But that's later, so I'll tell you about that when we get there. But I did act in good faith; I didn't want anyone to think that I had any intentions of cooperating with the Soviet Union.
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"Since espionage may unfold in several ways, it is very likely that different types of personal characteristics may be associated with the different espionage categories - just as these different kinds of espionage may occur in various situational circumstances. So identification of, and protection against, premeditated treason, opportunistic volunteers, recruited agents in place, defectors, and planted moles should not be the same." (p. 88)
I'm not sure exactly what some of these espionage categories are, what they mean in layman's terms. I could have been considered a defector at one point, but by then it was just about a non-issue as my dad was fairly suddenly retired, although I understand that there's still a certain length of time after that that he could have had still-useful information (from a Soviet perspective).
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There's this really fantastic chart on page 89 called "Behavioral Countermeasures" that's very interesting. It'll be hard to put here, and I don't know if I should scan it in and upload it as an image, because I don't want to press the copyright issue.
The column headings are: clearances; training, education; leadership/counseling, situational matching
The row headings are: Intention; planning/conspiracy; access; acquisition; deception; foreign contact; exchange; consumption; escape.
I'll just address a few of the individual boxes that seem pertinent to my experiences.
1. Personnel rotation. I know they had this at dad's work with each new contract / proposal, but even missions did this, although, I'm not sure how much of it was for security reasons.
2. Group cohesion. This was really strong in Vienna. It sort of reminded me of an ingrown toenail, though, almost like those 18th century mission compounds in Africa. Any activities outside the mission generally was for the good of the mission, such as starting an English speaking Christian school (where the missionary kids could go to school).
3. Travel restrictions. When my parents visited me in Vienna we were planning on taking a trip into Hungary. Dad said he'd submitted his request to go into Hungary the day he left (so there wouldn't be time for whoever it was to object). There was an experience in Hungary that really had dad on edge too, in a taxi there.
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"More effective would be training and education efforts to publicize the great risks and minimal rewards of espionage, and leadership and counseling programs to reduce the alienation and disaffection that underlie so many recent cases of espionage by Americans." (p. 89)
Sheesh! I feel alienated and disaffected, and I wasn't even a spy! I can't imagine being more alienated and disaffected than I am. Do spies feel even more alienated and disaffected that I am? That must be terrible, to say the least.
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"The actions of an ideological spy who is committed to world disarmament, for example, are directed toward advancing a strongly held moral position." (p. 109).
Now this is an interesting proposition. I did research on social movements, which I started in my doctoral studies in adult education. Actually, most of this work came after I left because I didn't want to be a professor and I was being led to believe that that's exactly what I would be if I got the doctorate.
Anyway, the point here is that an pacifist of the nature described in this quote would consider this an act of "civil disobedience", which says that there are moral standards that are above any government and any government (for example) violation of these standards is illegitimate, and therefore disobedience is justified.
Actually, missions in "closed" countries really act on this premise too, although I don't remember it ever being called "civil disobedience". In such cases, for example, deception is justified because government limitations on the practice of religion are illegitimate, so disobedience is then legitimized.
I hadn't really thought this through before like this, that I can remember anyway, until now. But there is a key difference between these two positions. The pacifist may or may not be a Christian, but the (Christian) mission is, presumably, anyway (in a sense I'm not God to make the final determination on whether they are Christian or not) is. So the Christian mission, especially if they're evangelistic Protestant, should be answerable to Biblical teachings. Titus 1:2 says that God cannot lie. In contrast, it is the devil who "is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:42-44). And here's what Revelations has to say about lying:
"But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Revelation 21:8)
I think this passage is talking especially about people who practice these things as a way of life, and my contention is that when you have to routinely use deception in ministry that is a "way of life" and is pretty serious.
Of course, if the pacifist is an evangelical Protestant s/he would also have to deal with texts like these. I'm specifying evangelical Protestant here because some other Christians have some other authorities, such as Church tradition, and liberal Christians may accept other texts or question the Bible's authority.
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I'd really like to finish this tonight, but it's already after midnight. So I'm going to have to finish it in the morning. At least we'll be beginning a new chapter.
Good night.
~ Meg
