SPIES AND SECRETS

How to Publicize Spies: Turkish State Media Exposes Agents

In Ankara, the Turkish government unwittingly revealed hundreds of its spies in a photo on social media.

“The life of spies is to know, not to bee known.” George Herbert

As novels, manuals, and accounts of former moles reveal, the world of espionage is shrouded in a veil of secrecy. Snooping and spying occur where lies, secrecy, undercover, and double identities are part of everyday existence. To go even further, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once quipped to Stalin that “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies,” before the British army raised the ante of espionage to deceive Germans into thinking that the famous landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, would occur elsewhere. The trick worked.

In Turkey, some spies are no longer secret to the public. On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a speech to Turkey’s spy community at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) only a week after law enforcement rounded up dozens of people suspected of spying on behalf of Mossad, Israel. Previously starved of funds and manpower, Turkey’s…