Myths Hollywood Taught You About Espionage

Explore the myths and realities of espionage as we debunk Hollywood's depiction of spies. From the truth about licenses to kill, to the mundane reality of paperwork, uncover the real world of espionage.

[Negativecreep]

"We no longer use that spy tactic."
Exactly what a spy agency would want us to believe....

[thehangmansdaughter]

My late Father had a neighbour who was a retired spook. He was an intelligence analyst and was one of the most forgettable men I've ever met. I can't remember a single feature that stood out about him. I asked his wife, a charming woman, about his work and she explained that she made the mistake of asking once and was bored to tears.

[evilwelshman]

On the subject of a fancy party full of millionaires where people show up in fancy cars, I'd argue that a spy wouldn't show up like that. Rather, they'd be undercover as one of the wait staff. After all, the aim of the spy is to be invisible and servants at such events are often just that - invisible or at best pretty much indistinguishable from one another in the eyes of the rich folk!

[tsbrownie]

I'm so deep under cover that even my handlers don't know who I am.

[bandit]

Regarding the, "a spy's life isn't as exciting as you think", this reminds me of when I came back from deployment to Iraq:
-Friend: "Hey man, how bad was it over there?"

-Me: Flashes back to dumping sand spiders out of my boots in the morning, MRE after MRE, giant flakes of salt chipping off my uniform from all the sweating, coughing up mud-phlegm from eating dust while in the turret on convoys...."It was hell on earth, bro" *takes sip of beer, gazes off into the distance dramatically*

-Friend: "you must have seen some terrible s*** in combat"

-Me: *blinks* "Combat?"

😆yeah, reality is much less exciting than seen on film.

[ticijevish]

The USSR tried to honeytrap the leader of Indonesia to keep him from joining the Non-aligned movement. They taped him having a menage a trois with a pair of hot, Russian flight attendants.
When they confronted him with the proof, he laughed, thanked them for a good time and asked for a copy of the film for himself.
Epic fail for the Ruskies, or epic win for Sukharto? Discuss!

[blankseventydrei]

In defense of „Bourne“, he is more an assassin than a spy.

[geodkyt]

Given that Bond was based on an amalgamation of Ian Fleming's wartime experiences working *with* SF/intel operatives (James Bond being a ladies' man being likely based on Roald Dahl seducing, say, the Swedish Ambassador to the US's wife for intel, whilst Bond's "License to Kill" based more on the SOE direct action missions where they literally were sent out to kill people), I would argue that *as and when* originally written, it isn't horrible characterization... as long as one accepts that what Bond does is literally several entirely different jobs that woukd have been carried out by entirely different people in different parts of the organization, and represents a very narrow slice of time (Fleming stated the stories basically only cover 1951 through 1962 or so - the real Wild West of covert operations).

Bond's portrayal was an idealized, exaggerated, and composite example of how intel and covert ops really did work in WWII and the *very* early Cold War. And Bind was originally portrayed in the early stories as a literal assassin (often doing counterintelligence assassinations) as much as he was an intelligence gatherer. Somewhat similar to the way fictional police detectives tend to work a wide range of crimes (but only the "interesting" ones) rather than often being specialists in one particular field of crime.

By the time the Bond movies took off, the "James Bond" style of covert action had pretty much passed, in favor of more clearly separating covert direct action by paramilitary or purely military teams from actual spy work.

And, the period involved is also where a lot of the wackiest intel operations and most open assassinations of agents really did occur. The crazy CIA assassination plans for Castro were the very tail end of this period, and would fit nicely into a "spy thriller" novel.

[mikeguilmette]

I always laughed when movies depicted the inside of NSA as some high-tech super fortress, while I had a desk from the '50s. That said, the scene in Patriot Games that showed a cubicle inside the CIA with a bumper sticker that said "Please don't feed the analyst" was pretty accurate.

[llywyllngryffyn]

Technically Bond isn't a Spy, he's an assassin. To become a 00 agent, you have to have two confirmed kills. Espionage is secondary to his purposes.

[keithwalmsley]

I always thought that the film "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" was a far better and accurate depiction of the world of MI6 and espionage than any James Bond movie, though I admit they are more entertaining!

[michaelhurley]

The best spy isn't the handsome, debonair James Bond type. The best spy is someone you'd ignore. Think Paul Giamatti more than Sean Connery!

[gbonkers]

I also wondered how good is James Bond as a secret agent if everyone knows who he is. He gets captured and the bad guy always goes, "what does MI6 have in mind for me?"

[liquidwombat]

When I was in high school a good friends, aunt retired and had a big party and it wasn’t until the party that anyone in her family found out she’s been working for the CIA for 35 years. One of the coolest things she told me is that there’s a store somewhere in the CIA building in Langley that basically has postcards and small souvenirs like you would bring to family members and kids frommajor cities all over the world so you could just spend the weekend in Washington doing whatever needed to be done. Bring back souvenirs and postcards from London or Tokyo or whatever.

[timriggins]

I remember in DS9 when Garak saw Bashir's holosuire program and said "Evidently I joined the wrong spy organization."

[MrJontte]

Real life intelligence work is like computer hacking in the sense that a completely realistic depiction would make for the most boring movie *ever*! 😂

[cat_a]

You missed industrial espionage. It even happens when two companies work together, one as a supplier to the other for instance. Sometimes it becomes necessary to steal certain information from the supplier, especially if the supplier is in a foreign country.

[swaggery]

You forgot the part that spy work isn't going to be exciting either. There's no world domination plots. For human intelligence it's going to be boring stuff like reporting on organizational structures, what some random guy is doing in his day to day life, stuff like that.

[SmeRandmPrsn._.]

to be fair, in the Daniel Craig Bond films, they do refer to him as an assassin, and same with Bourne. As for Kingsman, that’s a massive spoof.

[brandontrafford]

I love your videos man. Fun to watch, educational and a great source for fun facts.