Request and Response

"PLEASE," he writes. "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Stop what you are doing PLEASE PLEASE PLASE PLEASE".

I answer him.

"You do not seek to understand. You seek only to affect my behavior.

Do you feel this is fair to you? To me?

They behaved illegally. They were wrong. They took away my safety. My privacy. They made me feel violated. I have the right to defend myself - and I never did because of your fear. Do I let your fear take away my rights again?

Even now, they frighten me. I fear for my safety. And I fear for you and your future and your happiness. Neither one of us should have been held hostage to this fear. It was, and is, very wrong.

If Mac has international criminal charges filed against him, then it is because he behaved criminally. Not because I'm "causing problems" for him. I did not break the law. I am the victim.

I will not live in fear and inaction and impotence any longer. These things have undone me and made me a different and dark person. Surely you have some sense that this is true.

Why would you think that I act because I am angry at you? Do you feel that I should be angry at you? Maybe I should be angry because you didn't protect me. Didn't fight for me. But I only feel the sorrow and pain of losing what we had and what we ought to have been. I can't retrieve it. There is not anger. Only sorrow.

But I am angry at them."

He will retrieve the message. And he will still be angry. He will choose not to understand.

Second Chances

It was a year ago that Sjors stopped trusting me.

The condom broke and suddenly the two realities he had simultaneously entertained collapsed into one awful fear. He cried. His hands shook. My heart in my stomach, I comforted him, said, "no problem. I'll take care of this."
And it was almost too difficult for me. He'd talked about the child we would have. He had volunteered. For months we had discussed the possibility, and in this single accident, it was handed to me. Could I give up the hope?

But he yelled and cried when I returned to say, "please. Just wait a minute. Please wait. Please reconsider. I think I need this possibility." I would ruin his life. How could I be so selfish?

Did he know how awful it was for me? I gave him what he asked for. And then I retreated into misery.

Suddenly and without warning, while I wrestled with my own guilt for capitulating to his fear and doing something I knew was wrong, he began to view me as an enemy.

The intervening time has not made this fact any easier for me, nor has it amended his view. I am the same person that he fell in love with - broke the rules to be with. But now he is a rigid rule keeper. And all the rules are wrong. And I am the enemy.

There are so many things wrapped up in my time with him: the deep passion and affinity and the knowledge that he was my person. Is it inevitable that we disappoint and betray? He promised me that he was mine. But he was never mine. He was a company man.

Last month, I confronted the men who violated my privacy and illegally intruded on my life. The story seems almost surreal to me now: phones that were hacked and tapped and manipulated. They were fucking with him, not me. I was collateral damage. For so long, I stayed silent because Sjors was afraid. I wasn't supposed to acknowledge that I had seen these things; experienced these things. I let my will, my hopes, my needs be subsumed into his fear. Not anymore.

 I will hand their criminal acts to the prosecutor's office and let them pursue it: seek justice for what they did; the fear and anxiety they caused.

 But they are Sjors' colleagues now. And he is a company man now. He is a rigid rule keeper. And all the rules are wrong. And I am the enemy again.

He writes: "Please stop what you are doing. It makes me believe you are crazy. Why do you do it? Please stop causing problems for others, you and me. Please let things be."

I can't answer him. On this anniversary when I lost him. He asks me to put my needs and hopes and losses on the pyre of the status quo. Not anymore.

He is a rigid rule keeper. And all the rules are wrong. So I will smash the rules just as I should have last year at this time. I should have smashed the rules from the beginning.

It's never too late to start.

Formula for Agent Manipulation

Did you know that there is a particular formula for operative and agent recruitment into an intelligence organization? It is quite malevolent. The four following elements bear an uncanny resemblance to the methods used by cults:

1. Minimize the operative's sense of self-worth. According to E. Drexel Godfrey, Jr., former Director of Current Intelligence at CIA, handlers are painstakingly trained in techniques that convert an operative into a "submissive tool", stripping away resistance and deflating his perception of his own value.

2. Know and control every element of the operative's personal life. William Hood, CIA, mentions that the handler's first task is to "maneuver the operative into a position where there is nothing he can hold back - not the slightest scrap of information nor the most intimate detail of his personal life." He says that "no espionage service can tolerate the merest whiff of independence or reserve on  the part of an agent."

When a handler can identify that an agent has been disobedient, they can use this as a leverage point for controlling him.  According to James Angleton, Hood's former boss in counterintelligence, "Whatever lure is used, the point of the sting is to make it impossible for the recruit to explain his activities to his superiors. He is compromised, not so much by his original indiscretion, but for failing to report it."

3. Facilitate the operative to engage in self deception. Miles Copeland, CIA, writes: "As quickly as possible, the principal must enable the operative to deceive himself into believing that he would have become an agent even had he not been caught with his pants down, and that what he is doing is justifiable on its own merits."

4. Convince the operative that the operative's safety and well-being and the well-being of his family are more important to the organization than any information he may provide. Miles Copeland, CIA, mentions that, "maintaining such an attitude might occasionally mean passing up some item of tremendous importance, but in the long run it pays off because it keeps the agent feeling safe and happy."

David Perry put together an excellent academic piece about the ethics of espionage and covert action. It terrifies me.