Many random firings of synapse lead to a post such as this one. Every writer must be keenly aware of that proverbial butterfly in the rain forest flapping its wings. It’s really stunning to see just how many writers get it so incredibly wrong and just how many hundreds of millions Hollywood will spend on making the movie. Many don’t even get the terms correct. Here are the American centric definitions.
Spy – A covert operative, usually trained by the CIA, currently under the employment and direction of the CIA. You don’t stop being a spy just because you came home for a while.
Asset – Anything or anyone which is not a spy yet can be deployed. This can be a vehicle, gun, foreign national who has been turned, wet work team, assassin/mechanic, etc.
Spook – CIA employee which rarely, if ever, goes into the field. Internet hacking, electronic surveillance, etc. are their main functions. In short, these are people who spend 90+% of their time working at an installation. Some installations will put them in harms way, but their mission isn’t infiltration. Jessica Chastain’s character in “Zero Dark Thirty” was a spook.
Backstop – The historical depth of a fake identity. The more deeply backstopped a fake identity/legend is, the more difficult it is for another clandestine agency to spot the spy/asset/spook. Yes, even though a spook isn’t “covert” you generally can’t send them to work at an embassy in a foreign country with their Langley employee ID hanging around their neck. In today’s world, this isn’t just a credit history with a few fake W-2s. It will involve a complete social media presence going back years, a few traffic violations, and under age drinking bust in college and a much less than perfect credit score along with a healthy balance on the current set of credit cards and maybe even a past due utility bill. Having said that, older people don’t bother with Facebook.
As I stated earlier, many random firing of synapse combined with an even more random sequence of events leads to the generation of a post like this. It’s a culmination of having watched too much, heard too little and been given too much time to think. I think the final tipping point came when there was some half heard burn on radio news about Snowden. Probably trying to get sanctuary in another country or something. As I said, it was only half heard. This happened about the same time I watched “Jason Bourne” for the Nth time.
By and large, the “Jason Bourne” movie gets things correct, in my opinion. This didn’t stop me from being disappointed in the movie, but they tend to get things correct in that franchise. I liked the kind of haggard look they gave Nikki, spook out in the cold. I liked the film having her point out he couldn’t live like he was much longer, especially when they took pains to make her look almost as rough as him. I started losing interest in the movie when they trotted out the old trope of killing a woman close to Bourne to activate him. It kind of went downhill from there for me. Great action scenes, but, the movie as a whole was a car with three flat tires.
Jason Bourne was an asset.
You have most likely all seen at least one episode of “Burn Notice.” Many people called it “Blowing Shit Up in Miami.” This is a rather stylized and cheesy spin on a spy being cut loose without being terminated. The story and show moves forward based on the premise the spy was a pure patriot who would only do “ethical” freelance work while desperately trying to get back into the outfit. Not a completely outlandish premise. In order to survive intense training one would have to either have a severe mental disorder or be a pure patriot. Well, a pure patriot who lets their former IRA terrorist girlfriend run guns and bombs through Miami while you are trying to get your former life back.
Micheal Westen was a spy.
Having said all of that, the premise at the very beginning of “Burn Notice,” that the outfit/firm/agency (whatever they wish to be called this week) would simply cut off a spy without physical termination is really where the story got it so wrong. Oh, don’t get me wrong. The series was enjoyable and it took great pains to have Micheal monologue various spy-craft sounding things like lining a car’s body panels with phone books for a poor man’s armored vehicle, but the initial premise is where it jumped the shark. The thought that any clandestine organization would simply cut loose a highly (and expensively) trained operative allowing them to flail about on their own with a deadly set of skills just exceeds all levels of credibility.
Spies do get burned in the field, but not by the agency which birthed them. They get burned by other clandestine agencies or by walking talking examples of why abortion needs to be encouraged ala Libby and George W. Bush. (Hmmm, maybe that’s why the elite in the Republican party are so against abortion, if it was free, widely available and encouraged, most of the elite would have never been born.) For those not following that seemingly random arc of synapse, you need to read up on The Plame Affair. This is where Libby, most likely under the direction of G. W. or his V.P., deliberately outed a deeply planted spy, just because her husband wrote something critical about a stupid idea and the dumb ass who brought it forth.
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