Trapping honey
Let’s pause for a moment to reflect on the former nation of East Germany (b. Oct. 7, 1949; d. Oct. 3, 1990). Once believed a formidable part of the East Bloc of countries aligned with the former Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), as it was named, ran a police state and open-air prison for its inhabitants. And it was quite good at employing police-like “organs” of the state to quash internal dissent.
To the outside world it exported its agents, too, in particular to its big neighbor, West Germany, a.k.a. the Federal Republic of Germany. The foreign spying of East Germany was not thought to be much of a threat in the West—or anywhere else for that matter. The Germans generally had never shown much of the talent for the skullduggery shown historically by other countries’ spies, like Russia or the United Kingdom. Thus, the East Germans were treated as something of a joke.
Yet recent research has found evidence that the East German security agents had done a good job of planting agents at the upper levels of the West German government during the Cold War. They did so by using men to seduce the women who served as executive level typists, secretaries, and other support staffers to the men at the top, especially those in the office of the West German chancellor—the head of the government.
The details were featured in the “Stories of Our Times” podcast from The Times and Sunday Times newspapers from London. In brief, the GDR spies used male agents (“Romeos”) to seduce younger women office workers (“Juliets”) who they thought might be unhappy in their private lives. The operations were a new take on the traditional covert manipulation of people’s heartstrings known as “honey traps.”
The men chosen to act as Romeos were considered charming and were a bit older than their female targets. They were given plenty of spending money and compelling back stories for extravagant romancing.
The scheme was tried and found to work in as early as the late 1950s, and after some counter-espionage successes for the West German authorities, the program was started again in the 1970s and ran almost to the collapse of the East German state. The podcasts have more of the details: two episodes of around 30 minutes each. Recommended if you’ve got the time and/or interest.
Here are the podcast links:
London Times podcast on GDR spies, part 1: School for Seduction
London Times podcast on GDR spies, part 2: The Spy Who Left Me
Note: I seemed to be having some problems with the links above, so in case either doesn’t work, the link to The Times’s podcasts is below, and the episodes in question are dated Nov. 24 and Nov. 27, respectively:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/podcasts/stories-of-our-times
The East German story reminds me of a story my wife would tell. Attending a college with a 60-40 female to male ratio, guys had their pick of women. My wife told me whenever a really hot guy hit on her or one of her friends, he typically wanted some place to stash some drugs.
I asked if I needed to be drug tested to date her...She said no.
Ha, those gullible women...lol...for some reason this made me think it would actually work better the other way around, lower level women seducing upper level men? Of course, there were hardly any upper level women then, so that wouldn't work
Morning all...
Today on the radio on the way to work I learned something cool...twice in the past year a bobcat has been sighted in a remote part of one of the state parks in Cuyahoga County ( Cleveland's county)...one has not been seen here since 1850. How cool is that? ( Bears are coming back here , coyotes, another of the wild cats, I think maybe mountain lion?, not sure...we have eagles now too... which were gone for a while). We have a deer overpopulation problem, while I don't know that one bobcat can do much, I guess it is a start?
I had a very frustrating morning and in response my boss made me laugh by putting my plus Santa upside down and playing my penguins who sing " Baby, it's cold outside ( one of my favorites and I guess his too...lol...he is just the best