DC -- International Spy Museum -- 2. Covers & Legends:
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 3.144.116.159 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
|
[1]
 SPYCOV_141026_03.JPG
|
[2]
SPYCOV_141026_06.JPG
|
[3]
SPYCOV_141026_12.JPG
|
[4] SPYCOV_141026_21.JPG
|
[5]
SPYCOV_141026_24.JPG
|
[6]
SPYCOV_141026_28.JPG
|
- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- SPYCOV_141026_03.JPG: Cover or Legend:
A spy's false identify can take years to build and seconds to destroy. The importance, danger and duration of the mission determine how much care is invested in the creation of an identity.
A "cover" is usually part of a quick disguise. It can be as simple as a false name. A "legend" is a carefully developed artificial life history and background requiring painstaking attention to detail. A spy may live a false identify for years, establishing the legend in preparation for an operation.
- SPYCOV_141026_06.JPG: Living Your Cover:
The first thing you must do is give up your identity. You will be given a new one -- your cover. Think of it as a new persona, one that guards and conceals the real you underneath, so you can carry out your secret mission with no one suspecting who you really are. Your cover story is tailored to you and to your mission. It must fit both, like a glove.
Just like an actor on a stage, you must live your cover and maintain the fiction of your new identity for as long as you are on a mission -- from a few days to several years. You must become your cover, your legend, and remember every detail, so that even under hostile interrogation, you will stay in character. Your mission, and your very life, depends on convincing people that this fiction is fact.
- SPYCOV_141026_12.JPG: Admiral Stansfield Turner, then Director of Central Intelligence, presented the Intelligence Star for Valor to Antonio Mendez for his role in rescuing the diplomats.
- SPYCOV_141026_24.JPG: Canadian Caper:
While radical followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini held other Americans hostage for over a year at the US Embassy in Teheran, CIA disguise expert Antonio Mendez facilitated the escape of six diplomats who had managed to seek refuge at the homes of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor and Canadian consular officer John Sheardown.
Mendez evaluated a number of possible cover situations. What was believable and possible? A movie production company scouting locations for a new film fit the needs. Creating scripts, Hollywood offices, and announcements in Hollywood Reporter and Variety, Mendez's production company appeared authentic. The "film crew" would include the six American diplomats.
- SPYCOV_141026_28.JPG: Kevin Harkins carried the "Argo" script with him, as well as trade publications that such a professional would be likely to have.
- AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].
