The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsFor any intelligence agency fans
There is a great "Joke and Gagger" site out there.
A small sample...
"Sent CIA Recruitment the following draft for a proposed recruiting advertisement this morning.
You Dont Like The CIA. You Dont Want To Work Here.
Are you a US citizen with a degree from an accredited university and a grade point average of 3.0 or higher, between the ages of 21 and 35, capable of passing a comprehensive background investigation, in possession of technical, analytic, language or other skills of interest to the US government, and intrigued by the idea of serving your country through a career with the Central Intelligence Agency? If so, then from now on as far as your friends and relatives are concerned, no you're not (and whatever you do, dont visit our web site to learn more).
Im hoping to receive a $100 cash award for this baby. No, make that $250 and a framed Certificate of Recognition!"
the link - http://www.covertcomic.com/
I have read damn near everything written by Ian Fleming, John LeCarre, (my fave), Robert Ludlum and much, much more. Any other spy thriller fans out there?
unionworks
(3,574 posts)monmouth
(21,078 posts)unionworks
(3,574 posts)...somebody else gets it! I can't wait to see "tinker, tailor, soldier, spy"! Smiley is the guy who is dangerous because he is so ordinary you never see him coming. Do check out "Covert Comic", too. He is a friend of mine.
monmouth
(21,078 posts)long ago I cannot remember. I do remember not being able to put it down..
unionworks
(3,574 posts)But thanks for the tip I will look it up! On "Sons of Guns" on discovery in about 5 minutes you will see the disposable .45 pistol given by the OSS to the French Resistance! Back later!
monmouth
(21,078 posts)unionworks
(3,574 posts)... I will be watching!
monmouth
(21,078 posts)From Google...
John Le Carre
Reviewed by Mark Harris | Jul 09, 1993
EW's GRADE
A
Details Writer: John Le Carre; Genres: Fiction, Mystery and Thriller
A few years ago, when the end of the Cold War was still a headline and phrases like new world order had not yet been flogged into parody by overuse, speculation ran high that literary spymaster John le Carre and other, lesser chroniclers of East-vs.-West intrigue would soon find themselves hunting for a new genre. What use are black and white chess pieces, ran the neowisdom, when the new game board is painted in shades of gray? How naively trendy to imagine that popular fiction would politely waft wherever the prevailing political breeze blew it. And how foolish to forget that Le Carre has always forsaken black and white for a rainbow of grays- mournful, spectral, shadowy, achingly ambivalent. In his superb new novel, The Night Manager (Knopf, $24)-his 11th since he invented the modern espionage story in 1963 with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold-he works familiar territory with the mastery of a brilliant conductor returning to a favorite symphony.
It scarcely matters that the menace in this novel isn't Red, but green: an apolitical multimillionaire who buys and sells both arms and drugs. Le Carre is writing about what he has always written about: the charged internal realm where private and political loyalties do battle, where public passions vie with secret ones, where English Character and personal morality are locked in struggle. And no other writer explores the soul-shredding results of those cold wars with his vision and precision. In The Night Manager, the man in combat with himself is Jonathan Pine, a former undercover soldier in Britain's army whose life was destroyed by his own act of patriotism (or was it treachery?): A woman he loved-the mistress of an international drug dealer-was murdered after Pine gave the secrets she shared with him to British intelligence. Since then, the grief-shattered Pine has taken refuge in neutral Switzerland, where he toils quietly as a Zurich hotelier and wills himself identityless.
Pine's opportunity for redemption comes when British agents offer him a chance to destroy his mistress' murderer. Of course, there will be another woman, and another chance at patriotism and betrayal. And of course, as in other Le Carre novels, some of the nominal good guys-frightfully well- mannered, whey-faced ''espiocrats'' in drab offices-turn out to be as malevolent as any villain. But even admirers of his earlier work may be startled by the wallop of emotion Le Carre packs into The Night Manager. One of the many twists that gives the book its psychological heft is that Pine's expiation can come only if he sins again and again, with his transgressions this time dictated by feuding factions of British and U.S. intelligence. To fulfill his mission, he must orchestrate a new act of betrayal by befriending- then destroying-the millionaire's entourage. Through every page, the almost-numb heart and mind of Le Carre's still- honorable protagonist give this novel a heartbreaking gravity. To spy, Le Carre makes clear, is an act of careful self-destruction: One vacates one's identity to become an empty vessel in the service of God and country. In The Night Manager, the most devastating game of cat and mouse is played between the ''missing person'' Jonathan has become and the self he abandoned long ago. ''I am dead,'' he tells himself, trying to shake off the past, ''and this is my afterlife.'' No such luck. In John le Carre's world, not even ghosts get off that easy. A
unionworks
(3,574 posts)Thanks!
monmouth
(21,078 posts)unionworks
(3,574 posts)The 1918 palm pistol was french, but a much earlier version of the stamped metal disposable issued by the OSS to French Resistance!
Moondog
(4,833 posts)Back in the day, I enjoyed LeCarre. I forget his real name, but he knew whereof he spoke. Ludlum wrote thrillers. Fleming, who, like LeCarre, actually lived the life, wrote semi-comic parodies.
This is a genre that has had its day in the sun; a sun which, thankfully, has set.
Spying,Ha ha ha ha ha...oh God.... ... spying, my fellow D.U.er, is the worlds second oldest profession, and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Moondog
(4,833 posts)Wholeheartedly.
I am talking about the topic's popularity in, well, popular fiction.
unionworks
(3,574 posts)"Tinker, tailor, soldier,spy" this week! Turn on discovery now for a treat!
Moondog
(4,833 posts)unionworks
(3,574 posts)The 1918 palm pistol was a forebear of the stamped steel disposable .45 issued by OSS to French Marquis. You can find this gun with a google search. It was intended to give an agent the chance to escape if stopped.
unionworks
(3,574 posts)Of the owner of Redjacket appears to be of French/Cajun descent. Watching her fire the 1918 palm pistol had me visioning her replete with black beret and sweater. I must admit my heart skipped a beat.
monmouth
(21,078 posts)unionworks
(3,574 posts)Last edited Sat Feb 18, 2012, 09:46 PM - Edit history (1)
...during a search and found out how many brave female resistance fighters were hung and worse by the nazis. A story not for the feint of heart.
t.
Brother Buzz
(36,440 posts)Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had no problem with, get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And, of course, the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin', 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat, the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.
Oh, spy thrillers. While not exactly a spy thriller, I love the Reacher novels by Lee Child.
unionworks
(3,574 posts)Thanks! at age 14 I got lost hitchhiking in Va. And ended up at Ft. Meade Md. I started walking past the fence, got picked upand questioned by security, and driven to the other end. It was 1972.