Wednesday, November 6, 2024
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Spies and secrets

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By Anirudh Prakash

 

In espionage terminology, “honeypot” is one of several ways to refer to a recruitment that involves sexual seduction. One of the best-known honey traps in spy history involves Mata Hari, a Dutch woman who had spent some years as an erotic dancer in Java. During World War I, the French arrested her on charges of spying for the Germans, based on their discovery through intercepted telegrams that the German military attaché in Spain was sending her money. The French claimed that the German was her control officer and she was passing French secrets to him, secrets she had obtained by seducing prominent French politicians and officers.

During the trial, Mata Hari defended herself vigorously, claiming that she was the attaché’s mistress and he was sending her gifts. But her arguments did not convince her judges. She died by firing squad on October 15, 1917, refusing a blindfold.

After the war, the French admitted that they had no real evidence against her. The conclusion by most modern historians has been that she was shot not because she was running a honey trap operation, but to send a powerful message to any women who might be tempted to follow her example. The lesson here, perhaps, is that resembling a honey trap can be as dangerous as actually being one. Sex and seduction have been used in espionage ever since. Few will deny that the overpowering allure of sex can make you lose your mind, and this is what a crafty intelligence handler will employ. It also happens to be easier to set up. Indians, being relatively more inhibited about sex than many other people make good targets and there have been numerous instances of Indian officials falling for the honey trap. There is the story of how a young diplomat fell for a ballerina in Russia in the 1950s. But when the KGB approached him to work for them, he laughed at their face. He then took a flight to New Delhi and confessed all to prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru who let him off with a caution. The man later rose to the highest offices in the land.

Other stories did not work out so well. K.V. Unnikrishnan of Research & Analysis Wing fell for a Pan Am airhostess who turned out to be a US intelligence agent. In the 1990s, there was the story of our Naval attache in Islamabad who was honey trapped by a nurse in Karachi and pressed to work for the ISI. He came back to India and tried to convince the authorities that he had recruited the nurse to work for India.

But on interrogation, he broke down and confessed. Since there was no evidence that he actually passed information to the ISI, he was dismissed from service and not jailed. There have been other serious instances of honey trapped individuals who were spared punishment because there was simply not enough evidence for conviction. The most notorious one is that of an IB officer who would have become the chief of the organisation had he not been detected by the IB itself in an undisclosed relationship with an American agent.

No doubt the Americans, too, used honey traps to get at East Bloc secrets, but we know more about the latter’s use of the technique because they lost the Cold War and their secrets are there for all to see.

The most worrisome aspect of honey traps for India is its extensive use by the Chinese intelligence. There have been several instances of Indian officials – of RAW and the Indian Foreign Service — who have been trapped in China.

In 2009, the British counter intelligence service, MI5 distributed a 14-page booklet to various British banks and businesses entitled “The Threat from Chinese Espionage” which spoke of an extensive Chinese effort to trap people through long-term sexual relationships. Some time back, an aide of the then prime minister of UK, Gordon Brown who was picked up by a Chinese woman at a disco and the next morning found that his official Blackberry was missing.

But the case that has made waves in UK in recent times is that of the 26- year old Russian girl Katia Zatuliveter who had an affair with a 65-year old Liberal Democratic MP Mike Hancock who happens to be in the Defence Committee of the British Parliament and worked in his office as a researcher. The British counter-intelligence service MI5 wanted to deport her from UK, but she filed a case with the Special Immigration Appeals Commission which upheld her case last month.

President of SIAC Justice Mitting said, “Nothing in the material which we have analysed suggests, let alone demonstrates, that the appellant exploited her relationships for the purposes of the Russian state.” The panel actually said that her relationship with the MP had been “enduring and genuine”.

Stephen Thomas Ward an osteopath and artist was famous for inviting the pick of London’s beautiful young women to his gatherings. One of them was Christine Keeler, a scatterbrained ’60s “good-time girl” who supposedly became Russian spy Ivanov’s mistress. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Keeler was the lover of the married British MP and Secretary of state for War John Profumo, who was then working on plans with the United States to station cruise missiles in Germany.

In 1963, Profumo’s affair with Keeler was exposed in the press. Britain’s famed scandal sheets also blew up the Soviet spy/honey trap angle, for which there was no evidence. Profumo was forced to resign for lying about the affair to the House of Commons. His wife forgave him, but his career was ruined.

This is the problem with honey traps in the modern world. Sexual relationships are relatively free, and the issue really is not so much about being trapped, which can happen to the most discreet person, but whether or not you then do the bidding of the foreign power.

It is obvious that if you are a diplomat, intelligence officer or a military officer you are a prime target in a foreign country. You must employ your commonsense when entering into relationships. It is not all that difficult.

Indian diplomats are no exception to falling to honey traps and the story goes back to the days of Jawahar Lal Nehru, first prime minister of independent India.

But Madhuri Gupta, 53, posted as the second secretary (press and information) at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, crossed the thin line. She was arrested on April 22, 2010 by the special cell of Delhi Police for passing on sensitive information to ISI agents, she had befriended. The case is still under trial.

RAW officer K.V. Unnikrishnan was another Indian officer convicted and punished for falling prey to the charms of a suspected agent in the disguise of a Pan Am air hostess. Unnikrishnan was then posted at the RAW office in Chennai and was dealing with the LTTE. INAV

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