Tradecraft
- Tradecraft:
- The methods of the covert operatore. The term includes the
techniques of surveillance and counter surveillance, and
communications between case officers and agents. Also includes the
techniques of covert entry and interrogation.
- Backstopping:
- The creation of a cover involving a legitimate
business. If questioned, the business confirms the cover.
- Blind Date:
- Meeting at the place and time of someone else's choice,
with accompanying risk of set-up.
- Blow:
- To expose, often unintentionally, elements of clandestine
activity.
- Brush contact:
- Discrete momentary physical contact between two agents
in which material is transferred.
- Brush pass:
- A meeting in a public place for the exchange of
material. Usually no words are spoken and the participants do not
acknowledge each other.
- Bucket Job:
- Surveillance work.
- Burn:
- To deliberately expose the status of a spy
- Cacklebaldder:
- Technique for making a live body look like it has been
shot and killed. Often used to blackmail the shooter. (Name comes from
the use of poultry blood in the deception. I'm not making this
up. Honest.)
- Cannon:
- Professional thief used by intelligence agents, often to steal
back `inducements' given to enemy agents.
- Capture signal:
- Innocuous-sounding phrase or word that indicates the
sender has been captured and is operating under the control of
opposing organizations(s).
- Cell:
- Small group of individuals. The smallest unit of a network.
- Chicken feed:
- Disinformation included in true information to a known
turned agent. Smoke.
- Commercial drop:
- A dead drop where a viable business or organization
is used as the intermediary.
- Conductor:
- Leader of a spy ring
- Cover:
- Identity under which an agent operates.
- Cut-out:
- A go-between who makes it unnecessary for two members of the
same network to meet each other. Usually a go-between the conductor
and the agents.
- Dead Baby:
- False identification.
- Dead Drop:
- Place or receptacle where material is placed, to be picked
up by another agent at some later time. Used when the two agents
should not know each other or be seen to know each other. Also a dead
letter drop.
- Desk:
- Office or offices concerned with a given topic ("German desk" or
"Japanese desk")
- Double Agent:
- Agent seeming to work for one organization while
actually working for another.
- Doctor:
- Police agent
- Dry Cleaning:
- Losing a tail.
- Escape Line:
- Path of escape from a given situation.
- False Flag:
- To operate or recruit under the name of one organization
while actually working for another.
- Fist:
- The characteristic rhythmic "signature" of a radio operator
transmitting Morse Code.
- Fix:
- Compromise, blackmail, or con.
- Flap and Seals Man:
- Expert at opening sealed envelopes.
- Fur-lined seat cover:
- Oblique reference to agent who has a female
passenger.
- Game:
- The profession of espionage. Also the profession of
prostitution.
- Go to Ground:
- To go into hiding.
- Green house:
- House or apartment operated as a temporary brothel to
incriminate or blackmail a certain patron.
- Honey Trap:
- Use of sex to compromise a principal and open them to
blackmail.
- Hospital:
- Prison.
- Illegals:
- Agents without diplomatic or official cover
- L pill:
- Cyanide pill to be used to avoid torture.
- Ladies:
- Female agents, often from high society, out to compromise
enemy agents through seduction.
- Lamp-lighters:
- Counter-intelligence agents in disguise as garbage
collectors, telephone repairers, and so on.
- Legend:
- Coherent and plausible cover story, including background,
employment, living arrangements, etc.
- Live Drop:
- Person who unwittingly carries material or communication
between agents.
- Magpie Board:
- small pack of keys, wires, knives, etc. to aid escape.
- Make:
- To recognize someone.
- Make a Pass:
- Transfer a message to or from courier or agent.
- Measles:
- Murder that is taken for natural causes
- Mole:
- Double sleeper agent, typically allowed to sleep for long
periods of time before activation so as to rise in the target
organization
- Music box:
- radio transmitter. Also piano.
- Musician:
- Radio operator. Also pianist.
- Orchestra:
- Network of agents under one leader. Apparat.
- Pavement Artists:
- Surveillance team, or agent keeping watch on a
house.
- Pianist:
- Radio operator.
- Piano:
- Radio transmitter, music box
- Piano Concerto:
- Transmitted message.
- Playback:
- Captured agent forced to keep transmitting back. Often used
to convey false information.
- Plumbing:
- Work done in preparation for a job.
- Raven:
- Male agent employed top seduce male or female agents of
opposing organizations.
- Safe House:
- Innocent appearing residence unknown to opposing
organizations. Commonly used as refuge from pursuit.
- Setting-up:
- the trapping of an individual my manipulating them into a
compromising position for the purposes of blackmail.
- Shadow:
- To follow without being noticed. Tail.
- Sheep-Dipping:
- The erasure of all records of the target as an employee
of an intelligence organization. Alternately, insertion of false
records reflecting the resignation or expulsion of the target from the
intelligence organization.
- Shoemaker:
- Forger for a spy ring
- Shoes:
- Forged papers
- Sleeper:
- Agent planted in an organization or area without specific
orders, usually to be activated at some later point.
- Smoke:
- Disinformation given to a known turned agent. Chicken feed.
- Stringer:
- Spy who works on an occasional, freelance basis.
- Surface:
- To come out of hiding.
- Tail:
- to follow without being noticed. Shadow.
- Taxi:
- Homosexual raven. Also `fairy.'
- Thirty-three:
- Emergency
- Toss:
- Surreptitiously enter and search a target's domicile.
- Turn:
- To recruit the agent of a given organization into being a double
agent.
- Watchers:
- Surveillance team
- Zomie:
- Agent who as officially dies and has assumed a new identity for
cover.
- Zoo:
- Police station
(From the
Dictionary of the United States Intelligence Services,
William Wilson, 1996, and
Spyclopedia Richard Deacon, 1987, and
Delta Green, Detwiller, Glancy and Tynes, 1996)
Posted by jon at January 18, 2003 11:29 PM