Glenn Carr grew up in Boston and studied at Harvard University. As Carr immersed himself in history, philosophy, and the humanities, he felt drawn to seeing the world.
In those days, hardly anyone took a year off from college. Karl bucked the trend and went to France. As a young man, he was immersed in French culture and mastered the language. Karl’s life in Paris was avant-garde, simple and frugal. At the same time, it is rich, wonderful and colorful. To this day, France is still Karl’s second home.
After Carl finished his studies at Harvard, he had a career in mind. As a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) from a noble family with a tradition of civic duty, he thought about public service. At the time, Carr was studying international relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, majoring in economics.
Carle dreamed of combining his love of international affairs with public service, and he thought about joining the State Department as a diplomat. He also applied to the CIA. Carl got into both. The story of how he applied to the CIA is being told. He asked the woman at the Harvard Career Center how to apply to be a spy, and she wrote a number for him to call.
In some ways, Carl was born to be a spy. He’s ready for an international game of trickery. As a graduate student, he visited Prague, then the capital of Czechoslovakia. He forged a document and, with the help of his friend, had it stamped by a policeman, thereby helping a young lady enter France. He helped a young man escape by sending him computer chips to sell on the black market, bribing an official, and fleeing to Italy.
The CIA probably saw that Carr would make a good employee and recruited him. As an operations officer, he learned that his job was to recruit spies and steal secrets. He learned the five-stage process of developing a spy: discover, assess, develop, recruit, and dispose.
This process can last anywhere from an hour to 10 years. His job, and the job of any good intelligence officer, is to identify the weaknesses, desires, and traits that might make someone betray their country or regime. Not everyone can be a proxy, but almost everyone can be a source. Weaknesses can be turned into strengths. Weaknesses can be turned into strengths. Finding the right person is the core of on-site cadre work.
As a field officer, Karl ended up in France. By this time, the Cold War was thawing. Europe, especially France, was seeking more independence from the United States.Europe has allowed the USSR to build Urengoy-Pomaly-Uzhgorod Pipeline that allows natural gas to flow from Russia to Europe. When he questioned the wisdom of the move, he was received coolly by his French counterparts. She wasn’t amused by this naive American.
For years, Karl was one of the Cold War fighters stationed in Europe, where the Soviet Union stationed 1 million soldiers. The specter of nuclear war persists. While Karl was in Strasbourg, the Berlin Wall fell, and before long the seemingly invincible Soviet Union collapsed like a house of cards, and the CIA suddenly found itself looking for purpose, direction, and relevance.
[Matthew Knudson wrote the first draft of this piece.]
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The article Meet the Spy: Beyond the Iron Curtain appeared first on Fair Observer.
