Not Bond or Smiley: MI6 busts spy myths
Kung Fu Panda
Intelligence work, or spying, is not about fast cars, consorting with beautiful women and frequent globetrotting, warns MI6, Britain’s intelligence service closely linked with glamorous fictional spy James Bond.
The success of Skyfall, the latest film in the James Bond franchise, has led the MI6 to counter the notion that spying involves “high-speed chases” and “shoot-outs in casinos” by issuing advertisements on the “qualities of a good spy.” The first thing to know about MI6, says the agency, is that nothing’s obvious. “If the qualities that make a good spy were obvious, they wouldn’t make a very good spy,” MI6 advises in the full-page advertisements in newapapers.
The success of espionage films, especially the James Bond series, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, based on John le Carre’s book of the same name, has not helped the British secret services. A lot of thrill seekers and fantasists turn up for recruitment as spies. The Secret Intelligence Service, which only got its website in 2005, is running a national campaign for recruitment of spies, or intelligence officers.
Having set up a fast-track programme of recruitment of outstating candidates, MI6 is looking for people with interest in global affairs. Unlike Bond, MI6 wants to recruit more ordinary people.
“So while it’s true that the work is often challenging and even exciting, the qualities we look for are more ordinary than you would imagine. And more subtle,” MI6 reveals.
Spying for MI6 isn’t covert surveillance, or globetrotting to exotic locations, it is more like getting along with people from different cultures and backgrounds, having the drive and imagination to link up pieces of data to reveal opportunities others may have missed. Unlike Smiley, the taciturn MI6 spy in John le Carre’s books, the SIS describes “to talk and to listen,” as the best attributes of a good intelligence officer.
The old Tinker tailor Soldier Spy image of the hyper-intelligent, slightly dysfunctional oddball is also not what MI6 spies are like, according to the SIS. “In fact, you will find that we value both emotional intelligence and academic achievement.” If there are any geniuses with bad temperaments, they need not apply, according to the MI6.
Spies are not loners, who will be expected to fend for themselves, even in dangerous situations. Rather, it is a team game.
The intelligence agencies in Britain, which used to recruit mostly from old-boy networks and universities, have become more open, innovative and varied in their recruitment processes. MI6 also addresses the “stereotype” of white male spies. “We don’t care what you are or where you are from, as long as you are a British national.”
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