Saturday, July 13, 2013

LESSONS FOR MEN How to Use Sex Like a Russian Spy

Peter Sullivan at Foreign Policy writes:
Getting someone to fall into a sexual trap -- a "honey trap," in spy talk -- is not automatic. Markus Wolf, a former head of East German intelligence, was one of the masters. His idea was to dispatch male agents, known as "Romeos," to targets like NATO headquarters with the mission of picking up female secretaries. He later told Melton that a good Romeo had three critical traits: he was likeable, he knew how to make himself the center of attention, and he listened well, which made women enjoy talking to him.

If a Romeo wants to recruit women, Wolf told Melton once, "you don't go to them, have them come to you. You become the center of the party, you buy the drinks, you tell the jokes. You're the life of the party. She will come to you. And then naturally that will make it easier."

The next step in East Germany's playbook was to escalate the relationship. The agent would propose marriage and later reveal to his wife that he was a spy -- but for a friendly country (like Canada!). The finishing touch was for the agent to explain that he would have to be recalled, ruining their precious relationship, unless the wife could cough up some information to satisfy the bosses back home.

These tactics were so successful that by 1978 East German intelligence had racked up at least 53 cases of women falling for Romeos. By 1980, NATO had started compiling and monitoring a registry of single female secretaries to make sure they weren't marrying East German spies.

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