Today on CityCastGC, is it really paranoia if they actually are out to get you?
In DC, where there are an estimated 10,000 spies, there's a non-zero chance that you're
being tailed.
So today, we're revisiting a conversation we had back in May with former CIA agent Lindsay
Moran on how to spot a spy.
Today's Tuesday, November 14th, I'm Richard Todd, and here's what DC is talking about.
So Lindsay, there are a lot of spies in DC, and knowing that there are all these spies,
I'm just like a little bit paranoid, even just going to the store.
Is that a spy?
Is that a spy?
Anybody who asks you about myself or my work, is that a spy?
Level with me.
How many spies are there really in the DC area?
Countless.
You cannot swing a dead cat in DC without hitting a spy or for an agent, and I'm not really
joking.
No, but that's a good mindset that you have going out in DC because the truth is DC,
like some other big capital city, like Vienna and Austria or Berlin, it's a spy hub.
And that makes perfect sense.
This is the seat of power in the United States.
A lot of other countries want to get information.
And so while DC is not crawling with spies like I was a spy, former CIA officers or CIA
officers, because we're operating overseas, it is crawling with foreign spies.
And I'm a DC native and still have a house in DC.
And even though I've been out of the CIA for a number of years, I still in some ways conduct
myself like a spy when I'm in Washington.
I'm always looking for surveillance, I'm always looking for cameras, I'm wary of people
who chat me up in bars or restaurants, particularly around embassy row, the foreign embassies, those
whole areas are crawling with spies.
So you are very right to beware and be on your guard.
See, so my paranoia is justified, it's not paranoia if they really are out there, you know?
They are out there.
And it's kind of funny because before I got into the spy business, you know, before I joined
the CIA, it never really occurred to me that, you know, you think of DC as a city that's
crawling with bureaucrats and as like a really boring city.
But once you start to peel back the layers of Washington, DC, you realize that there's
this kind of hot underbelly of the city of like espionage and intrigue.
So being from the DC area, do you think that played an interest into your becoming a spy
in the first place like being in DC?
Absolutely.
When I was young growing up in the DC in the 70s and 80s or the DC area, it was my childhood
dream to be a spy.
And part of that was because I became obsessed with this character, Harriet, the spy and
kind of fashioned my life after her, but part of my favorite book as a kid, I'm not
even kidding.
It's timeless.
Harriet, the spy is absolutely timeless.
I would, you know, at the age of nine or whenever I was reading those books, I would, I
got a little notebook and I would spy on my parents and my brother and my neighbors
because there was really nobody else to spy on.
But aside from that, my father did top secret work for the US government.
He wasn't a CIA officer, he didn't work for the Central Intelligence Agency.
But he designed ships for the US Navy.
And that's the kind of interesting thing about DC and what makes DC such a unique and target
rich city for spies from other countries is that it's not necessarily that they're targeting
people at the FBI or the CIA to become double agents.
But there are countless people in the Washington area who have access to information that other
governments want.
There's all kinds of military personnel here.
There are people who do research and development for the military.
Everybody in DC, either by virtue of their own job or by virtue of people they know, even
their neighbors, has some kind of what we call placement and access in the spy business.
And that is placement and access to information that other governments want.
Is that something that makes DC different from other cities in terms of spies that there's
lots of people here who are connected to that kind of information?
Absolutely.
I mean, New York is a spy rich city, too, because you've got the United Nations there.
Other big cities, there are certainly spies and foreign spies where there are installations
and consulates.
But DC is really the hub of it all, the center of it all.
So if you're a Russian intelligence officer, a Chinese intelligence officer, or any one
of our adversaries, or frankly, even some of our allies, if you get stationed to Washington
DC, where you're going to go try to recruit Americans to commit espionage, to commit treason
basically, to sell out their country, there's no more target rich place than DC.
Because everybody is somehow connected to the government.
And a lot of people have clearances in DC.
And those are the kinds of people that are going to be targeted by foreign spies.
But lest you think, oh, I don't have a clearance, nobody's going to go after me.
Well, maybe you know someone who does.
Maybe your boyfriend does, or your father does, or you own a shop at the base of a building
that has a lot of people who work for the CIA, who work for defense intelligence agency.
You are a target, too, that's what we call placement.
Does DC being such a target rich city, what kind of impact sort of the ability to maintain
your cover, so to speak, does it make it more difficult?
How does it impact that?
Well, we used to always joke at the agency that the hardest place for us to maintain our
covers was in Washington, DC.
First of all, especially for someone like me who grew up in this area, and I have had
when I was working for the agency and was operating under cover, I was known to all of my agency
colleagues by a pseudonym, an agency assigned pseudonym, and my first name was Janice.
And so I was out once at the Uptown Theater, and one of my high school friends was like,
hey, Lindsay, and the person that I was with, who was an agency colleague, referred to
me as Janice.
And then I had to kind of stumble to explain why was this person calling me Janice.
So DC is a hard place to maintain your cover, but not just for people like me who grew
up around here, if you're working under cover in the agency.
Part of it is the fact that DC is a smart city.
People here are savvy.
They know that CIA is here, they know state departments here, that FBI is here.
So even if you're just like an ordinary bureaucrat, and that's really all you work for the US
Department of Agriculture, but you travel a lot, there are going to be people suspecting
that you might be a spy.
So it is one of the hardest places to maintain your cover.
When I got overseas, nobody suspected that I was a spy, but DC is a tough place to maintain
your cover.
The other thing I want to say about that is DC is, you know, it's a city for workaholics,
and it's a city where your job, it very much defines who you are.
DC is filled with power brokers.
And so having like a cool job gets you status in DC.
And so when you're working under cover at the CIA, and you have to act to everyone else
like you have this really boring, lowly job, not only is it hard to maintain your cover,
but it's hard to have a social life if you're single because you're coming across as someone
who's just a boring bureaucrat who has nothing interesting to say.
Oh my God, I feel like my ego would not allow for me to be a very good spy.
We had a saying at headquarters like, you got to park your ego at the door because
you're doing one of the coolest jobs in the world, but you can't talk about it with anyone.
Having done this work, you know, you sound like somebody who has the temperament to be a
great spy, but you have to have heard some wild stories about not so great spies.
What are some of the wildest spy stories you've encountered here in DC?
Well, I mean, there was a kind of famous case a couple of years ago with this Russian woman,
Maria Bettina, who was not necessarily like a Russian intelligence officer,
but she was definitely an access agent.
And so she was sort of put on the ground in DC and elsewhere in the United States to target
men in positions of power, and particularly in the NRA and at the top of the Republican party.
And what really cracked me up about this case is she was like not only a honeypot out of central casting,
but kind of like a bad spot.
I mean, she was so obvious.
And she would hit on these really powerful men and they always fall for it.
I'm not going to say this is uniquely true to dudes, but the old honeypot trick works so well
on the savviest, most sophisticated, most powerful men.
You know, these ancient daughtering guys who suddenly think, Oh my gosh, this young hot Eastern
European woman is in love with me and it works every time.
So there are many stories, you know, I always joke with my DC, particularly my DC male friends.
Yeah, if you're in a bar and a beautiful young woman with an Eastern European accent
is acting super interested in you, I hate to break it to you, but she's probably not
really interested in you.
She might just be a spy.
And also I'd be like, we have to talk about it because I feel like it does take a little
bit of like honesty about yourself.
Like if you're a five and you're being approached at a bar by a 10, some part of you has to
be like, I don't know if this is really on the up and up.
Like maybe it does take a little bit of honesty and insight into who you are and the situation
to sort of avoid that from happening.
But I bet a lot of guys out there will throw this training out the window if a hottie is
talking to them 100%.
I've seen it a number of times.
Even when we were in training, there were always some guys also in training who kind of
wanted to like flex their CIA creds in the bar.
And you know, would answer like if someone asked you, what do you do?
You're supposed to make yourself sound as boring as possible and as hard as that is on
the ego and being a single person, you know, I would do it like I work in regional affairs
in the basement of a building in Washington.
A lot of the guys would say things like, well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to
kill you.
You know, it's like, come on.
And it's funny to me now because I do, maybe it's my spy training.
Maybe it's just my personality.
I do like to kind of hang out at bars and do my work there and eavesdrop on other people.
And so a lot of times when I'm in the Washington area, I'll be eavesdropping on a conversation
and I'll think this seems like a scenario right out of training.
And usually it's a man who's falling for it.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
So how would someone listening be able to tell if they're talking to a foreign agent or
a spy like, like give us some tips how you can spot this?
Yeah.
Well, number one, you point it out the obvious.
And again, it's hard for some people to accept.
But yeah, if you're a five and you're being hit on or approached by a 10, something's
up there.
I'm sorry.
You know, like, I mean, I'm 53 years old.
And if like a young 20 something dude comes up and starts talking to me, I know either
he's got like a fetish for old women or like sums up there.
He's trying to get information.
So that's one thing is just kind of, you know, when you're in these social situations,
and I would do this when I was trying to recruit foreign agents, when I was overseas, I would
approach someone and it starts out kind of personal.
But if someone's asking a lot of questions about your job or really interested in where
you work, what kind of work you do, those kind of questions, particularly if you have
a job that's sensitive in some way, shape or form, those should be red flags to you that
maybe this person is trying to gather information.
Or if somebody does what we call bumps you, you know, they come up and they have some kind
of really sort of obscure excuse for why they were supposed to talk to you.
I used to love doing bumps because I would, it's so much easier for women.
I would work it like seamlessly into the scenario.
I remember going to like a lounge where a target was sitting on a couch and acting like
I had been sitting there earlier and I dropped my earring and so getting this guy up and
looking for my earring with me.
And then that was just an opportunity to spark a conversation.
If you're not a paranoid person, you might just think, oh, this is a friendly, you know,
encounter.
But in the DC area, you always want to be wary of those kind of weird, certain, dipitous
ways that you might meet someone because maybe they're a spy.
What were some of the other tactics that you enjoyed or were really good at?
I mean, I'll talk to anyone and one of the things that the agency looks for when they're
looking for undercover operatives like I was, is they're looking for people who are
extroverts.
The agency has a very formulaic way of hiring operations officers.
And so you have to be able to go up to anyone from any race, any nationality who's younger
than you older than you.
Maybe somebody who's misogynist, maybe someone who's, you know, hates Americans.
And you have to find some way that you're going to be able to have a conversation with
this person and not only have a conversation, but secure a second meeting.
It comes down to social skills and street smarts.
People think, you know, oh, getting into the CIA's clandestine service, it is one of
the most competitive organizations and entities that you can get into.
But they're not looking for the brainiest person or the broniest person.
And it's not like James Bond or Jason Bourne.
They're looking for people with basic social skills and street smarts.
The ability to think really quickly on your feet, looking for those clues.
What are those openings that you can insert yourself into the conversation?
Oh my God, if podcasting doesn't work out for me, I might try my hand being a spy.
I think you seem really personable and friendly like someone people want to talk to.
I'll tell you one of the hardest things for me.
And I think for a lot of other operations officers is our extraversion.
It really helps us.
But in order to be a really good spy, you have to listen.
I've always maintained that women make better spies.
And one of the reasons is that I think we're conditioned a little more to sit back and listen.
And we're also like, just as I said, saviour.
From a very young age, women are conditioned to have situational awareness,
to know like how safe am I right now.
You know, we know not to walk alone in dark parking lots.
These are things that guys don't ever think of.
So we have that kind of natural security awareness
and what we call operational security hardwired into our brains.
That's such a good point.
How can people tell if they're being followed or if maybe they're under surveillance?
Yeah, so that's a good question.
I had all of us who were in the clandestine service have extensive what we call surveillance detection training.
And so that is driving around, walking around and looking for clues that someone is following you.
If you can't master surveillance detection, you're never going to be a good spy
because you'll end up dragging surveillance to your meeting with your foreign agent.
And then your foreign agent will be either arrested or, you know, in some parts of the world killed.
So it's a very important aspect of spy training.
And it takes time.
It's not something that comes to people naturally.
But there are some tricks of the trade using mirror, using window panes as mirrors
to see if people are behind you executing like left hand turns if you're walking
so that you have that opportunity to look back and see if someone's behind you
and taking kind of circuitous roots, we have a rule of thumb with surveillance detection
that if you see the same person, it's not like, you know, you're walk down a street
and there's one person behind you as you're walking down the street.
In order to really confirm surveillance, you have to have seen that person
over time and distance in multiple places.
Now, really good surveillance will change their clothes.
So it can be hard to detect surveillance, but I still do it to this day.
I mean, I have no reason to think that anybody's following me to this day,
but my kids laugh at me because I'll get in the car and I'm looking in the rear view mirror
and sometimes driving out-hoc surveillance detection roots to make sure we're not being followed,
which of course we're not.
I mean, once the spy, always the spy is like in your blood.
It's in my blood, yeah.
And I feel like, you know, you can take the girl out of the CIA,
but you can't take the CIA out of the girl and Washington DC in particular
because I'm so aware of the fact that as we said at the beginning of this conversation,
the city is crawling with spies.
So I'm looking out for them all the time and they're not going to be dressed in like trench coats,
you know, with like a hat and dark glasses.
They're going to be ordinary looking people.
I mean, being a spy does sound kind of fun, but it also sounds kind of lonely and isolating.
Do you miss it? Do you miss this life?
That's a great question.
Every once in a while, I do miss it, but you're absolutely right on there.
It is, it is lonely and it can be isolating.
There are very few people who you can talk to and share aspects of your life.
And even within the CIA itself, the operations that you're running are so compartmentalized,
you can't even talk to your colleagues about those.
But more than that, it's like maintaining a social life can be extremely difficult
because if you're going to have an intimate relationship with someone,
you want to be able to share everything with that person.
And that is just down right impossible if you're operating undercover.
So it can be very lonely, very isolating.
I mean, I must admit, sometimes I miss the thrill of it.
I loved training.
I loved being operational DC.
You can take spy tours of DC.
They're available in DC.
And those are fantastic because they show you all of these kind of like neat little spy things
that have happened throughout history in the DC area.
Lindsay Moran, thank you so much for being here.
The book is blowing my cover.
So if folks want more incredible, interesting spy stories, definitely check that out.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
That's all for today here on CityCast DC.
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Talk to you then.