Spies Like Us

Here we are behind what used to be an "iron curtain." Now it's rusty and porous. Growing up in the 1950's, during the cold war it was very real and, at times, very frightening.

There was the "west", the USA and western Europe (the good guys.) There was the "eastern bloc" (the bad guys.) The USA and the USSR were engaged in a metaphorical gunfight at the OK corral with missiles rather than six guns.

The spy business was booming. Both sides wanted to know what the other was doing and employed thousands of spies to gather the info. There was microfilm, pens with hidden compartments, secret codes and scores of other ways to pass clandestine information from one side to the other. (No, there was no internet and twitter was a bird sound.)

The spy business attracted the attention of newpapers and magazines and spy stories abounded Spy stories spawned movies (Bond, James Bond...) and TV shows (name is Smart, Maxwell Smart...)

The spy business was very much a part of my growing up culture.

Now I am behind the former iron curtain in the capital of the former "evil empire" and I wonder if all the spying stuff is history or if--just say if--the people I see are innocent bystanders or members of a new generation spy network, still hard at work.
-Is that guy on the bench really reading the paper or waiting for his "contact?"
-That woman just handed a magazine to another. What does it contain? Plans for some industrial enterprise?
-The guy in the black leather coat over by the elevator just has to be doing something nefarious. Everyone in a black leather coat must be up to something!
-The woman in red coat left a newspaper folded just so on the bench. Who is going to pick it up?

Are any of these suspicions for real. Not likely. But they do take me back to those wonderful and somewhat scary days of the 1950's and 60's. And there is no harm in letting my imagination run wild a little. There might be a good story in there somewhere.

But, what about that dark haired guy across the way, I wonder if....