Antonio J. Mendez, with Malcolm McConnell: The Master of Disguise. My Secret Life in the CIA. (NY: William Morrow, 1999). 351 pp. Glossary, no index, no ill.
Let’s start with my favorite story from this book, one that could be called “The Dilemma of the Spilled Cognac.” How would you, a CIA agent operating undercover, get out of the following situation? In a Moscow night club, a well-dressed stranger “accidentally” knocks over your glass of cognac which he instantly (and wordlessly) refills from his own decanter. In Antonio Mendez’s presentation, “If I drank the cognac, became violently ill, and found myself in some isolated KGB hospital, what might I reveal under additional drug therapy? On the other hand, if I conspicuously avoided touching the refilled glass, I would practically be admitting I was a trained operations officer, not a naïve, oblivious technician.” (pg. 227)
Mendez came up with a plan of action on the spot, which was all the more remarkable because it involved the tacit, spontaneous cooperation of his colleague, here called “Jacob.” Using him as a shield, Mendez tipped the suspicious contents onto the floor, then went through a convincing pantomime of draining the glass, which was in fact empty. Then he and his fellow agent rapidly departed. Later that night he launched a story about becoming violently ill on the train, just in case anyone was listening. Count that bullet as dodged, in part because Mendez had taken to heart the advice of Sun Tzu: “[As our] spies we must recruit men who are intelligent but appear stupid…” (pg. 51)
Though the agency often turned to him as “the de facto expert in disguise operations,” (pg. 175) this example shows the efficacy of deception without any use of masks. In fact, the book might better be called “Master of Deception” than “Master of Disguise,” though of course Mendez is both. Deception requires the audience to be distracted at the precise moment when the crucial change-over occurs. This is a vital point he spends little time describing to except to say that it has to be brief, as little as 20 seconds. Instead, he concentrates on the importance of misdirecting “the attention and interest of the audience to execute a believable illusion,” adding later that disguise is “only one element” in a complex problem. (pp. 184, 211) One could add that judo, like magic, also relies on misdirection, with the difference, of course, that the important thing there is to misdirect the power of the enemy’s thrust.
This book is not just a tale of Mendez’s daring exploits, but of his personal growth. He started as a happy warrior who, without being naïve, enjoyed his work. He was ambitious enough to leapfrog ahead of colleagues, but diplomatic enough to do so without offending them. One of the men he beat out for a coveted assignment even ended up shaking his hand in congratulation.
Later in his career he took great risks, which in conversation he learned to make light of, turning misery into an adventure. At the same time, he was becoming addicted to the adrenaline thrill that he “could not easily abandon.” (pg. 157)
Here are some nuggets of good advice: “… humility is a powerful tool in the spy business.” (pg. 58) And as a corollary to this axiom – avoid confrontation, stick to your cover. When confronted abroad with a seemingly minor bureaucratic hurdle that could unravel a whole operation, act innocent, ignorant and indignant. (I might add that to certain of my fellow country-men, this comes naturally.) What an intel officer needs as “the most important attributes” are: “practical flexibility and a neutral perspective.” (pg. 334)
Questionable
Many trained diplomats tend to look down on the spooks and avoid them when possible (see my review of Robert Ober’s memoir Tchaikovsky 19, elsewhere on this site). Mendez reciprocates the attitude. “Unlike diplomacy, espionage is a mentally and physically demanding business. Overseas, we learned, when the diplomats were falling into bed relieved after a long evening of cocktails and dinner, the case officers, who had attended the same parties, were out on the street, heading to their meetings or sending late night cables. CIA employees could be easily identified from the cars parked at the office on weekends.” (pg. 63) This caricature is amusing, and will play to the expectations held by many readers of this book, who probably enjoy hearing about how masterful and successful our spies are, while disdaining the doddering diplomats. But would Mendez include, for example, George Kennan in this characterization? Here the author inadvertently reveals one of his own blind spots.
Here’s another: Not to take anything away from his talent and hard work (one does not get to be named one of the top fifty agents by a fluke) – but Mendez was pretty firmly grounded in the magical wing of the agency, not the doping, kidnapping and assassination department. It’s not clear he was called on to do anything that might have troubled his conscience, at least in his telling. In the beginning, if he lost sleep, it was the night before, when he worried whether the next day’s mission would succeed or fail, not whether it was justified or wrong-headed. Only later does he briefly admit to suffering from “nightmares for decades,” which he attributes to “nervous tension.” (pg. 156) One suspects the author is being less forthcoming than he could have been. While nerves make it hard to sleep, nightmares tend to come from a guilty conscience.
To Mendez, it’s incomprehensible why Iranian students or East European communists – or really anyone at all – would distrust or fear the agency he worked for. To him it is so self-evident that he is on the side of truth, justice, and the American way of life that anybody on the other side must be a deluded victim of clever propaganda. Apparently it is a mystery to him why in 1977 students on the streets of Tehran would shout “Death to the CIA” or refer to “the despised CIA.” (pg. 270) Incidentally, the part on Iran forms the basis for the Ben Affleck movie “Argo.” Mendez later went on to write a book detailing the backstory: Argo: How the CIA & Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History (2012).
Assignment to Moscow (1976)
Most reviews concentrate on the success stories detailed here, especially in Iran, and avoid mention of the most signal failure he recounts: The loss of the top informant Alexander Ogarodnik, code name TRIGON, though Mendez gives it as TRINITY, showing that even codenames can have codenames. (For a fuller version of that story, readers should consult David D. Hoffman: The Billion Dollar Spy, and Milt Bearden & James Risen: The Main Enemy, also reviewed elsewhere on this site.)
By examining those two books, one can rather easily identify some of the pseudonyms Mendez came up with. “Bill Fuller” is probably Robert Fulton. (See Hoffman, pg. 26f.) “Gore Harrington” is most likely Gus Hathaway, Fulton’s replacement. (Hoffman, pg. 33f.) “Mary Peters” would seem to be Marti Peterson. These examples indicate that while Mendez may be a master of disguise, he is far from a master of the pseudonym.
Another fiasco involved Edward Howard, who was assigned blame for some things that should have gone to Aldridge Ames’s account. Undetected for a long time in part because he was an agency insider, Ames exposed many assets, a good number of whom were killed. But Howard was hardly innocent – Mendez points out that at the very least he did reveal secret disguise techniques. While Ames is spending the rest of his life in Federal prison, Howard was unique in that he managed to escape to Russia, retiring to a dacha. One fine day in 2002 he had a fall there, broke his neck and died. No doubt an unfortunate accident.
Though published in 1999, this book only goes up to Mendez’s retirement in 1990. One wonders if the 2013 arrest of Ryan Fogle and the embarrassing display of his disguise on Russian TV has put a dent in the use of the old-fashioned techniques. Convincing though they may be to the casual observer, the agency-issued glasses and wig certainly looked ridiculous when exposed to the glare of publicity.
Mendez ends on a note of muted triumphalism. Even though the good guys won the Cold War, one cautionary note is worth remembering: “The 100,000 people who once worked for the KGB did not simply retire to their dachas and take up gardening.” (pg. 343)
Drawbacks
The author, or someone at William Morrow, seems to trip over names with double “a”. The Baader-Meinhof gang appears as “Bader”-Meinhof (pg. 175), and the Swiss region of Aargau is misspelled “Argau.” (pg. 304)
George Kiesevalter, the agency’s only supergrade case officer, appears as “Kesvalter” (for more on him, see William Hood: Mole, in which he figures as “Domnin.”)
As I have said in other reviews, the frequency with which the word “legendary” is used in a book about the agency is a good indicator of the extent to which the author buys into the whole romance and mystique of undercover work, or at least seeks to promote it. The more often the word appears, the more uncritical the author’s admiration. Here, the first “legend” pops up only about half way through. (pg. 186) Thereafter it resurfaces twice. (pp. 287 and 323) Call it restrained boosterism.
The book is rounded out with a glossary, from “Abwehr” to “window dressing,” though the abbreviation “BOQ area” goes unexplained. (pp. 61, 68) There is, alas, no index, nor any illustrations, which seems rather odd for a book about disguises.
The NY Times obituary for Mendez appeared on January 21, 2019, and unsurprisingly concentrates mostly on his heroic work rescuing the hostages in Iran. Asked about his technique, he told the Times in 1997, “It’s not just the makeup. Disguise is not just the face you present. It’s the 6,000-year-old secrets, the capability to create illusions. The essence is illusion and deception.”
© Hamilton Beck
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