A fog of spies, spies, and mysterious shadow people

What is a spy, who is he, what are the types

A spy is a person who secretly collects information for another state, organization or power. A normal spy can also become a double agent at some point. US intelligence officer Aldrich Ames used to smuggle secret information to the Soviet Union. Ancient Chinese political thinker Sun Tzu said in his book 'The Art of War' that spies are essential to winning wars.

A spy handler is a person who gives orders to a spy, receives information from him and maintains communication. When Soviet intelligence officer Oleg Penkovsky provided information for the West, MI6 and CIA officers played the role of his handlers.

A spy network is an organized group of spies, handlers and assistants who collect and exchange information together. During World War II, the 'Red Orchestra' was a large Soviet spy network that collected information from inside Nazi Germany.

How university teachers work for intelligence agencies

The famous British spy thriller writer John le Carre was himself a spy for MI6. The role of university teachers in recruiting spies has repeatedly emerged in his writings.

Some teachers identify students who are talented, fluent in languages, calm in nature or interested in international affairs. Later, their names are secretly passed on to the intelligence agencies. Sometimes the teacher asks the student, “Is there a government research or diplomatic work, are you interested?” In this way, they are gradually introduced to people from domestic and foreign intelligence agencies.

Teachers give recommendations on the student’s character, talent and political position. Historically, this has happened at Cambridge-Oxford. Austrian-born Arnold Dosch used to find students in Cambridge for the Soviet NKVD in the 1930s, from which the ‘Cambridge Five’ were later created.

Some teachers are not directly spies. But they identify talented students and inform the intelligence agency—this is called ‘talent spotting.’ Later, agency officials try to recruit those students.

Foreign cultural centers and intelligence networks

A familiar method in the history of intelligence is to identify potential people through universities, research scholarships, and cultural exchanges. This is not always a formal policy, but in practice it has been seen that cultural institutions, university teachers, and scholarship networks create an environment for talent spotting.

The British Council mainly runs language, education, and cultural exchanges. But some books on the history of British intelligence say that the British diplomatic and cultural network created a social space to find potentially talented students abroad. Some of those students later joined the British government service or intelligence agencies.

The Alliance Française works around the world as a center for teaching French language and culture. Research on the history of French diplomatic and intelligence shows that long-term relationships are formed with foreign students through language and cultural centers, research fellowships, and university connections.

The Goethe Institute, in addition to promoting German language and culture, created a kind of intellectual network. During the Cold War, the West German diplomatic network maintained contact with students in Eastern Europe and the Third World.

In the United States, institutions such as the US Cultural Center in Dhaka, under the United States Information Agency, ran language education, libraries, lectures, and scholarship programs. As part of the same network, the Fulbright Program was created, which served as a means of US policy influence and long-term contacts.

During the Soviet Union, the Soviet Cultural Center promoted the Russian language, science, and socialist culture abroad. Many students were awarded scholarships to study at universities in Moscow or Leningrad, which was a major means of expanding Soviet influence.

Bangkok: The Casablanca of South Asia

For many countries in South and Southeast Asia, Bangkok is a city where foreign diplomats, journalists, businessmen, and military officials can easily meet. Much like the city of Casablanca in the movie, where various parties communicated secretly during World War II.

The US intelligence presence in Thailand has been very strong since the Vietnam War. Jerry Daniels worked with Hmong generals in Laos in CIA operations conducted from Thailand.

In 2002, it was later revealed that a secret CIA prison was operating in Thailand. This center was codenamed ‘Detention Site Green’ or ‘Cat’s Eye’. Prisoners were waterboarded here. The head of this center was Gina Haspel, who later became CIA Director.

There has been a long-standing close cooperation between the US and Thai military-intelligence agencies. According to a US Senate report, the CIA chose Thailand because of its close relationship with Thai intelligence agencies. For this reason, many analysts call Bangkok the ‘Casablanca of South Asia’—a city where politics, intelligence work, media and international networks converge.

Khondaker Mushtaq Ahmed and the CIA Connection

American journalist Lawrence Lifshultz, who was the South Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review in the 1970s, revealed that one of his main sources, who alleged CIA links with the political leadership of the coup, was the US ambassador to Bangladesh, Eugene Boster.

After Boster's death, Lifshultz revealed that in 1977 the ambassador