Well, don't stare at them. You know in advance that your contact will be walking down Merriweather Lane at 11:30am. If his shoes sport a single "X" near the bottom, that means the dead drop has the microfilm ready for pickup. If it doesn't have that "X", then try again next Tuesday.
If you see two X's in his lacing, the package is at the alternate drop site.
If he has 3 X patterns, you're burned! Make your way to the safehouse after losing any potential tails.
> Every Tuesday, shortly after 7:00, a British MI6 officer would take a morning stroll at the Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow. He would pass outside a designated bakery at exactly 7:24 a.m. local time. If he saw Gordievsky standing outside the bakery holding a grocery bag, it meant that the double agent was requesting to be exfiltrated as a matter of urgency. Gordievsky would then have to wait outside the bakery until a second MI6 officer appeared, carrying a bag from the Harrods luxury department store in London. The man would also be carrying a Mars bar (a popular British candy bar) and would bite into it while passing right in front of Gordievsky. That would be a message to him that his request to be exfiltrated had been received.
Just read the same in Wikipedia. This is extremely strange. Harrods bag and Mars candy in 1985 Moscow would be a telltale the size of Kremlin tower. Kutuzovsky avenue was a KGB owned turf, lots of Communist apparatchik lived there, including late Secretary General Brezhnev.
It reminds me a joke about Soviet spy arriving in Berlin and caughting stares from everyone around. What's wrong with my cover? Is something gives me out? Maybe it is a parachute? Or AK-47? Ah, it should be blue Slavic eyes! And he wears a sunglasses just in case.
This seems either unlikely or questionably competent. Gordievsky was well known to the KGB and loitering pointlessly outside a bakery would only have aroused suspicions - which would have been confirmed by the second agent, because anyone carrying a Harrods bag in Soviet Moscow would have stood out like a very obvious person of interest.
That was poorly conceived. They'd have to keep those things stored somewhere for as long as the spy was active. What if a rat ate the last Mars bar at 6:00am?
>> someone’s shoes trying to identify slight variations?
If you have a military background it is completely normal. Beyond boot polishing, how one ties one's shoes can identify their nationality, background and even trade. They don't think twice about looking at someone's shoes.
There is an old method for spotting a US marine: Ask them to change their socks. The guy who takes one sock off at a time, changing one sock before even untying the second shoe, that's a probable marine. The guy who doesn't actually tie his laces, that does a strange wrap-around-then-tuck thing... US army. The guy who skips a few holes in the middle: air force.
You’ve clearly never been in the Eastern European countries. Eye contact is... iffy.
There is an old joke. How do you tell an extroverted Estonian from an introverted Estonian? He stares at your shoes, not his own.
There are (at least now) plenty of “extroverted” Estonians, but I’ve heard dozens and dozens of stories of the “don’t make eye contact, just keep walking” variety during the USSR.
Also, staring at either party’s shoes may mean their own smartphone these days...
> Decades later rumors swirled that the British Royal Air Force pushed that message as a cover-up for the recently adopted radar technology they were secretly relying on for their nighttime skirmishes.
> whilst the [British] Air Ministry were happy to go along with the story [of carrot-improved vision], they never set out to use it to fool the Germans.
> The German intelligence service were well aware of our ground-based radar installation and would not be surprised by the existence of radar in aircraft. In fact, the RAF were able to confirm the existence of German airborne radar simply by fitting commercial radios into a bomber and flying over France listening to the various radio frequencies!
That's true! To be more specific, the British had just invented the ground interception radar to spot incoming aircraft, and didn't want the Germans to think they had developed a technological solution.
I don't know if they ever thought the myth would catch on as well as it did, but it's still widely believed today. (Perhaps because there's no downside, eating carrots is still good for you, it just doesn't improve your eyesight.)
You and me both! I mean, I like carrots, so I was eating them as a snack (my preferred method was to get a full carrot, eat around the core, and then eat the sweet core by itself), but I remember thinking whenever I got one "I wonder how much this will end up helping my vision" some day.
They absolutely do. And they might release very good information along with a carefully planted piece of terrible advice. So you might see a tutorial about how to send drugs through the mail that is 99% good advice, and one piece of intentionally bad advice that police officers are currently watching extra carefully. You don't have to get very high up in government to see examples of people planting false information to lead people astray about how things really work.
If you scroll down to the "CIA Lacing Gallery" you can see that on men's dress shoes the different lacing techniques would be pretty obvious with a quick glance. The laces are either - or X
Well, don't stare at them. You know in advance that your contact will be walking down Merriweather Lane at 11:30am. If his shoes sport a single "X" near the bottom, that means the dead drop has the microfilm ready for pickup. If it doesn't have that "X", then try again next Tuesday.
If you see two X's in his lacing, the package is at the alternate drop site.
If he has 3 X patterns, you're burned! Make your way to the safehouse after losing any potential tails.
Glance quickly, agent, and keep moving.
This setup reminds me of operation PIMLICO:
> Every Tuesday, shortly after 7:00, a British MI6 officer would take a morning stroll at the Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow. He would pass outside a designated bakery at exactly 7:24 a.m. local time. If he saw Gordievsky standing outside the bakery holding a grocery bag, it meant that the double agent was requesting to be exfiltrated as a matter of urgency. Gordievsky would then have to wait outside the bakery until a second MI6 officer appeared, carrying a bag from the Harrods luxury department store in London. The man would also be carrying a Mars bar (a popular British candy bar) and would bite into it while passing right in front of Gordievsky. That would be a message to him that his request to be exfiltrated had been received.
https://intelnews.org/tag/operation-pimlico/
Just read the same in Wikipedia. This is extremely strange. Harrods bag and Mars candy in 1985 Moscow would be a telltale the size of Kremlin tower. Kutuzovsky avenue was a KGB owned turf, lots of Communist apparatchik lived there, including late Secretary General Brezhnev.
It reminds me a joke about Soviet spy arriving in Berlin and caughting stares from everyone around. What's wrong with my cover? Is something gives me out? Maybe it is a parachute? Or AK-47? Ah, it should be blue Slavic eyes! And he wears a sunglasses just in case.
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This seems either unlikely or questionably competent. Gordievsky was well known to the KGB and loitering pointlessly outside a bakery would only have aroused suspicions - which would have been confirmed by the second agent, because anyone carrying a Harrods bag in Soviet Moscow would have stood out like a very obvious person of interest.
1 reply →
That was poorly conceived. They'd have to keep those things stored somewhere for as long as the spy was active. What if a rat ate the last Mars bar at 6:00am?
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Thanks for explaining like this. It seems from the downvotes to my comment most people don’t see it as a valid question.
Par for the course here. Glad your question was answered, I was curious as well.
Sit at a cafe reading a paper or the menu, but look past it at the ground?
Use the standard issue prop newspaper with holes cut out for the eyes.
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Staring depressed on the ground wouldn't have looked out of place.
The X as a signal is a big deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JMHrrSshgc
Excellent description. Love it. I couldn't understand the website description of this technique.
>> someone’s shoes trying to identify slight variations?
If you have a military background it is completely normal. Beyond boot polishing, how one ties one's shoes can identify their nationality, background and even trade. They don't think twice about looking at someone's shoes.
There is an old method for spotting a US marine: Ask them to change their socks. The guy who takes one sock off at a time, changing one sock before even untying the second shoe, that's a probable marine. The guy who doesn't actually tie his laces, that does a strange wrap-around-then-tuck thing... US army. The guy who skips a few holes in the middle: air force.
Think I am exaggerating? search youtube for military shoe tying vids: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=military+shoe+l...
> The guy who doesn't actually tie his laces, that does a strange wrap-around-then-tuck thing... US army.
That’s this lacing technique: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/commando-lacing.htm
In fact, Ian's Shoelace website mentions several lacing and tying methods used and prescribed in the military of different countries.
Well that sounds like a very specific scene.
You’ve clearly never been in the Eastern European countries. Eye contact is... iffy.
There is an old joke. How do you tell an extroverted Estonian from an introverted Estonian? He stares at your shoes, not his own.
There are (at least now) plenty of “extroverted” Estonians, but I’ve heard dozens and dozens of stories of the “don’t make eye contact, just keep walking” variety during the USSR.
Also, staring at either party’s shoes may mean their own smartphone these days...
Well, there's the answer for whether Estonia is a Nordic country.
For the reference: https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/aj6MYgw_700b_v1.jpg
https://external-preview.redd.it/UMjBaFaE-dFYMu_VZ8nKO4_tj0E...
http://www.linkbcit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Finland-bu...
They perfected social distancing before it was cool.
Those images are much more commonplace these days
I sometimes wonder if FBI and other agencies release fake information so we all look out for them rather than their actual secret methods.
True story : I was devastated to learn that eating carrots for enhancing night vision was a WWII British hoax to confuse the Germans.
I spent the better part of my teenage years eating raw carrots to be a better Ninja!
> Decades later rumors swirled that the British Royal Air Force pushed that message as a cover-up for the recently adopted radar technology they were secretly relying on for their nighttime skirmishes.
> whilst the [British] Air Ministry were happy to go along with the story [of carrot-improved vision], they never set out to use it to fool the Germans.
> The German intelligence service were well aware of our ground-based radar installation and would not be surprised by the existence of radar in aircraft. In fact, the RAF were able to confirm the existence of German airborne radar simply by fitting commercial radios into a bomber and flying over France listening to the various radio frequencies!
Link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-c...
I wasn't however able to find if there is any reason for the british to push such a message if it wasn't to confuse the germans.
4 replies →
That's true! To be more specific, the British had just invented the ground interception radar to spot incoming aircraft, and didn't want the Germans to think they had developed a technological solution.
I don't know if they ever thought the myth would catch on as well as it did, but it's still widely believed today. (Perhaps because there's no downside, eating carrots is still good for you, it just doesn't improve your eyesight.)
2 replies →
You and me both! I mean, I like carrots, so I was eating them as a snack (my preferred method was to get a full carrot, eat around the core, and then eat the sweet core by itself), but I remember thinking whenever I got one "I wonder how much this will end up helping my vision" some day.
They absolutely do. And they might release very good information along with a carefully planted piece of terrible advice. So you might see a tutorial about how to send drugs through the mail that is 99% good advice, and one piece of intentionally bad advice that police officers are currently watching extra carefully. You don't have to get very high up in government to see examples of people planting false information to lead people astray about how things really work.
If you scroll down to the "CIA Lacing Gallery" you can see that on men's dress shoes the different lacing techniques would be pretty obvious with a quick glance. The laces are either - or X
Direct link to one of the photos: https://www.fieggen.com/Dont_Link/CIALacing1a.jpg
It depends where it happens : if it's a sitting meeting yes it would look strange. But in the street do you even look at passing people shoelaces ?
If you're a spy and one of your assets is passing you a message, then of course you would.
And if that's not the case, you're probably not looking at other people's shoelaces - which is the entire point.
Probably knew which variations to look for on top of looking for slight hints, while trying to show a lacking sign of confidence by looking down.
Take a picture, it will last longer