Lured into becoming a Foreign Spy

What makes you betray your own country?

Whilst it’s no secret that spies operate worldwide, there are many spies that often act as double agents, betraying their own country for another. Such spies share valuable information and documents that often end up costing the careers and lives of their fellow agents. According to Keith Melton, an intelligence historian, such double agents typically don’t last “more than 5 years”. Upon being discovered, they face heavy charges and penalties, both themselves and their families are usually endangered, and they are often executed. In light of such high costs, what makes spies defect?

AUTHOR: ISHA SINGHAL

CW: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS A BRIEF REFERENCE TO CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

According to spy literature there are four main factors intelligence agencies consider when recruiting a foreign spy. That is, there are 4 characteristics that they look for in an agent, so they can assess their likelihood to betray their country. These 4 characteristics are acronymised as MICE.

The M in MICE stands for money. Money is often described as the root of all evil, and money as a temptation needs no introduction. With agent salaries capped and accorded as per government guidelines, some with a desire for a more extravagant lifestyle, concerning family debt or other obligations readily offer their services in exchange for money. One such spy was Aldrich Ames. Ames was an American spy turned KGB double agent, who at the time of his arrest had compromised more highly classified CIA assets than any other officer in history. Ames fell in love with Rosario, a Colombian diplomat. However, Ames, who was paying divorce settlements to his first wife, knew that he would be unable to afford the lifestyle she wanted, and thus began making contacts with the Soviet Embassy. Ames successfully informed the Russians of many American spies, many of whom were then executed. In his assessment it was concluded that Ames believed there was “as much money as [he] could ever use” in betraying these intelligence assets, but also that their elimination would help ensure that his own betrayal wasn’t discovered. Ames was clever, having passed two polygraph tests during his term. He was, upon being discovered, greatly detested by his colleagues, with fellow CIA Officer Sandra Grimes commenting that he knew exactly what was going to happen to those agents, yet that never stopped him.

Ideology, known as the ‘I’ in MICE, is another powerful tool. Some spies simply disagree with what their government’s goals are. This was especially true during the Cold War, when communism versus capitalism was rife in different parts of the world. An example of this is Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two New Yorkers who joined the Young Communist Party as teenagers and were the first of many American and British youth to feed secrets to the KGB. Ideology can also relate to nationalism or religion. People’s beliefs can act as their moral compass, and sometimes it becomes what you believe over what your superiors or leader believes. This was especially true in politically unstable nations, where spies wouldn’t support a new leader in power, and consequently may have assisted a foreign country in invading it by providing intelligence. Compromise is the other, and perhaps more obvious motivation. In addition to compromise, the C could also stand for coercion, where spies are either blackmailed or threatened into betraying their country. “Sexpionage”, or sexual espionage, also plays an important role here. In some cases, diplomats or agents are photographed in sexually comprimising positions by a country’s agency, either relating to specific individuals, minors, or in homosexual relationships. They then have deeds extorted out of them based on those photos. Mathilde Carre of the French Resistance was captured by the Nazis and threatened with torture unless she turned on them. Sometimes the family of the agent is also threatened, as was in the case of Svetlana Tumanova, who was told by the KGB that her family in the Soviet Union would be harmed if she didn’t help them. Compromise typically arises from fear of some sort. A famous example of this is the Petrov Affair. The Petrov Affair involved Vladimir Petrov, a Secretary of the Soviety Embassy in Canberra who defected to Australia after fearing that he would be executed in Soviet Russia following a change in leadership there. In exchange for political asylum, he agreed to share cases of Soviet espionage with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

The final, and perhaps less obvious is ego. While the E can also refer to excitement, it has typically been used to refer to ego. Sometimes people want to feel more important as was in the Hanssen case. It gives them a sense of pride. David Charney, a psychiatrist and US Intelligence Consult on the mind of the Insider Spy, said that it is worth noting that 90% of these traitor spies are men. Perhaps there is something about male pride and ego that makes agents feel the need to gain a more important role, even if it means betraying their own country, and endangering themselves.

In addition to MICE, love can be an important factor. However, with the boundaries of love hard to define, and its reality probably rarer than as depicted in movies, MICE remained the important mnemonic both to identify potential defectors and understand the motives of previous defectors. Why an individual spy might be tempted to take these steps is definitely an individual decision, but broadly, these are the reasons that convince spies to act against their own. Temptations often appear to offer us a short-term reward, however we shouldn’t forget the long-term costs that they may bring.