The Man Without A Face

One of the more interesting characters in the spy game was, as we put it in the business, 'permanently disavowed' today when he died in his sleep at his home in Berlin. Markus Wolf was known in the intelligence community since the Cold War days as the "Man Without A Face" because for a long time Western intelligence could not get a picture of him. He is one of my personal role models, not for his politics or his blind obedience to the East German Stasi (mostly assholes), but for his professionalism and his dedication to improving spycraft (and for his penchant for dressing rather sharply). Some of his innovations have become business as usual; for example, the 'Romeo Method', as they call it; he sent out young male agents to seduce lonely secretaries in foreign offices in order to gain access to secret documents. This is a practice that I still find useful, as well as just plain fun even when there are no documents involved. An interesting note; Wolf noted in his memoir that many of the spies sent to 'infiltrate' these secretaries ended up having long and successful marriages with their targets. Suckers.

Wolf even wrote a cookbook; Secrets of Russian Cooking. In it, he talks about the similarities between espionage and making food, which I wouldn't know anything about. I can make a four-course gourmet meal from the common ingredients you'd find at your local gas station (part of our training), but when it comes to cooking, I don't get near the enjoyment from making a seafood bisque as I do, for example, seducing secretaries. Plus I don't see the similarities. He also uses the opportunity to complain about how the world has viewed him very unfavorably due to his work under the corrupt and generally evil Stasi. I can think of no better place than to defend your standing in history than in a cookbook. (Interesting review of book here)