Living in DC with a name like “Natalia Antonova” means that self-important men who don’t know any state secrets whatsoever keep suspecting you of trying to “compromise” them.
Yet every once in a while, we do have an actual spy scandal. The latest involves a former Navy nuclear engineer and his wife, who tried to sell state secrets via a peculiar scheme involving a… peanut butter sandwich. It’s so sad and hilarious that Alexander Payne should make a movie about it immediately.
What motivated these people? Was it debt or depression? Boredom? All of the above — or more?
Before the news broke, I had just visited DC’s famous Spy Museum with my son. At first glance, it seems like an amusement park ride that glamorizes the spying profession. When you settle into the environment, however, you begin to realize just how much emphasis there is on spying being an unforgiving and often thankless kind of job — both with the museum’s features on famous (and famously tragic) intelligence failures and on how many impossible decisions and lose-lose scenarios one has to encounter if one works in intelligence. The constant bad press is a particular theme throughout.
We journalists don’t tend to get along with spies much, even those of us who, like me, are forever associated with either the CIA or the FSB or MI6 or whatever the conspiracy theorists are ranting about this week. Our jobs are diametrically opposed to each other.
Some people get a particular thrill at the idea of being in contact with actual spies, however, and it’s not just the thrill of a possible monetary reward. Some people just want to be noticed and to feel special. A lonely, frustrated person with access to even halfway valuable information is a good mark for foreign intelligence.
I remember a British businessman from my Moscow days, who spoke and wrote proudly about the FSB taking an interest in him. A guy from the FSB even invited him out for a coffee! And asked him questions! It’s a bit like throwing money at a stripper and deciding she is “in love” with you, but somehow even sadder, because strippers are much more fun.
The security clearance process, already pretty broken considering the fact that people like Jared Kushner can easily get a clearance (never say we don’t have nepotism in this country), will take things like bad debts and drug problems into account — but what about simple ennui? The kind that doesn’t readily show up in a test?
One of my favorite modern writers, Alma Katsu, spent decades as an analyst for the NSA, the CIA, and so on. Her pitch perfect spy thriller, Red Widow, captures how disillusionment is both a tool of the profession and how it can eat you alive.
Considering how everyone in the United States seems to be banging on about our nation’s “decline,” it’s easy to see how defeatist ideology in itself is a national security risk.
This isn’t to say that we should be in a constant panic about the traitors among us, but maybe explicitly striving for a more emotionally balanced society can help us all. This means that yes, we need to be talking about our collective mental health more often. And prioritizing access to mental healthcare a lot more.
So if you’re reading this column, I’m just going to ask you to do one thing for me: don’t go back to doomscrolling afterwards. Go outside instead, if you can. Put your phone down. Eat a sandwich in the autumn grass, or something. Well, maybe not a peanut butter one…
Image credit: Towfiqu barbhuiya