One of the features that fascinated me in the early John LeCarre novels was the panoply of devices that cold war spies used to recognize and communicate with one another. The subtle features of visual signs for identity and "drops" and the precision of wording in messages or speech made for gripping literature.
Now Uncertain Times has posted a link to a Cryptome page that delineates recognition signals used by the CIA. The document was released through the FOIA in 2003, but is undated and seems from its content to have been written (on a typewriter) many decades ago.
The document is difficult to read, but rewards careful perusal. It begins with the traditional "chrysanthemum in the buttonhole," and moves on to discuss feathers in the hat, variations in the bow of the hat, gift-wrapped boxes, rubber bands on books, Band-Aids on the skin, shoelace patterns, and thumb tacks in shoe heels.
If you use a Band-Aid on your skin to signal to another spy, remember to inflict a wound underneath it, in case the counterintelligence people pull the bandage off during your interrogation...
You learn something every day.
Photo credit.
I suspect this kind of signaling would be more difficult in modern times-- at least as far as it relies on decorations in hats. Wearing a hat, in itself, often makes you stand out.
ReplyDelete