Mission Accomplished: International Spy Museum - Tools of the Trade

CIA Issued Lock Pick Set

My morning at the International Spy Museum was going swimmingly.  My cover as Greta Schmidt was intact and the excitement was pulsing through me as I headed into the part of the museum dealing with Tricks of the Trade.  The picture of Maxwell Smart with his infamous shoe phone made me smile--I knew I was in for a good time!   This exhibit detailed not only what the items in the case were but which spy agencies had employed them.  Despite an admonition not to take pictures, I did click a few (with my embarrassingly clumsy camera--the contrast between it and the buttonhole cameras in the exhibit couldn't have been more striking) but my reflection in the pictures shows once again how far I have to go to become an expert spy.   I found the lock pick kit that the CIA had issued in the 1970s particularly fascinating since people in the movies and on TV are always pulling out their handy kits to break into their target's homes.  (At least this happens with great frequency in what I'm watching!)   I was a bit less thrilled to consider the CIA's rectal tool kit that was issued in the 1960s (ouch!)  There was a 1949 German-issued wristwatch camera, a 1978 KGB issued Bulgarian umbrella with a gun and a Stasi cigarette case with a secret camera.

There are many means by which spies can obtain information, including wire taps of all types.  I learned at the museum about the Berlin Tunnel, a joint operation in the 1950s between the CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service.  The idea was to build a tunnel between East and West Germany that would provide access for the Allies to tap into Soviet underground phone cables.  Unfortunately, MI6 agent George Blake, one of the members of the British task force concerning the mission, was a mole working for the Russians and he immediately told the KGB about the plan.  Rather than let Blake's identity be burned, the KGB kept this information to itself and let construction of the Tunnel go forward.  The CIA and British Intelligence tapped into Soviet phone lines for two years before the KGB "inadvertently" found out about the existence of the Tunnel and caused it to be dismantled. 

Communication of the information that a spy obtains is obviously an important part of the game.  The museum has a section dedicated to codes and ciphers that was fascinating.  A code replaces words with substitute words or phrases wherein a cipher replaces letters with other letters or elements.  So for a spy to communicate that "The General is airborne" in code, you might hear "The crow is flying" while in a cipher it might be "zbys...."   Short wave radios (referred to as "pianos") were an important way to communicate information through code.  One of the world's most famous codes was developed by the Navajo Indian Code Talkers during WWII.   The idea to use Navajos as code talkers came from Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary who spoke fluent Navajo.  Realizing how impenetrable the Navajo language was, Johnston came up with the idea of using an encoded version of Navajo as a means of communicating crucial war time information.  In 1942, 29 Navajos were recruited by the Marines and developed a code book of words and phrases.  Their code was never cracked by the Japanese and the Navajo Code Talkers are given a large amount of credit for the capture of Iwo Jima by the Marines.  

Cipher Disk

While coded communications can be sent orally, information in cipher is sent in written form.   (Historically, carrier pigeons were used to deliver messages.  I learned at the museum that these pigeons were often called upon for double duty, carrying cameras as well to provide overhead surveillance of the ground they covered).  The methods of determining how to unlock these codes are varied and include use of a cipher disk.  Leon Batista Alberti is credited with constructing the first cipher disk, which consisted of two concentric circular plates mounted one on top of the other. The larger plate is called the "stationary" and the smaller one the "moveable" since the smaller one could move on top of the "stationary."   To interpret a simple cipher where one letter was substituted for another, the sender and the person receiving the messages would agree on a cipher key setting (e.g., the "G" in the regular alphabet would be positioned next to the "Q" in the cipher alphabet). The entire message would then be encoded according to this key and decoded accordingly.  One example of a cipher being broken with dire consequences for the sender can be found in Mary Queen of Scots.  Mary was jealous of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, and corresponded with Anthony Babington concerning a plot to assassinate her rival.  The correspondence was intercepted by Elizabeth's spies and cracked by Sir Francis Walsingham, her primary code breaker.  Both Mary and Babington were later found guilty of treason and hanged.

One last bit of spy craft deserves a word here--the role of the disguise.  The CIA (and, presumably, comparable agencies worldwide) has a Chief of Disguises in its employ.  Antonio Mendez was the Chief of Disguise in the 1970s and is credited with getting six American diplomats out of Iran during the hostage crisis by creating disguises for them as a Canadian film crew.  (As an aside, Mendez is married to Jonna Mendez, another former employee of the CIA in the disguise department.  I bet they're never at a loss for a Halloween costume!)   The museum explained the use of "spirit gum" to adhere components of a disguise such as a moustache or a bald pate.  This portion of the museum contained an interactive opportunity to identify a "spy" after donning her or her disguise.  Once again, my skills of observation were lacking--I was one for two, definitely not good enough for the world of espionage! 

Next stop:  Some tidbits about real life spies. 

Mission Accomplished: The International Spy Museum - The Experience

I've been dying to check out the International Spy Museum (http://www.spymuseum.org/) in Washington, D.C. ever since I heard that it had opened.   I do get to D.C. somewhat frequently to visit my law school friends but, inexplicably, the spy museum isn't high on their list of things to do.   Maybe the fact that there's an $18 admission charge while the Smithsonians and almost all other museums in the city are free has something to do with it.  In any event, when I found myself in D.C. this week with some time on my hands, I had to check it out.

From the moment that I purchased my ticket, I was thrilled.  The first thing they ask is whether you want a regular admission or to go on a covert operation.   What, I asked, is the covert operation?  It's a special one hour tour where you are charged with finding a nuclear trigger and saving the world.  Having watched many episodes of MI-5 recently, I could barely resist, but I decided to stick with the regular tour for my first visit since time was a bit limited.    I then walked through the door to the museum and got another rush.  A guard told me and the other visitors that we had 4 minutes to choose our covers for our visit and intoned that we would be tested.  The stress!   There were 15-20 different cover identities and backgrounds to choose from and I went with Greta Schmidt, 33, astronomer from Bornstedt, Germany who was on business in London for 4 days.    A clock counted down the seconds until it was time for us to move to the briefing room where we watched a short video about the history of spies.  What causes people to choose such a difficult profession?    Greed?  Ego?  Vulnerability to blackmail?  Patriotism?    I was about to learn more about what caused individual spies to pursue their craft and the techniques they employed.

I then moved into the museum proper, which does an incredible job with interactive stations letting its visitors test their own spy capabilities.  The first stop was a test as to whether I remembered the details of the cover I'd chosen.  Whew--I passed and was then given the details of my mission at the Royal Astronomical Society.  Next up was an exhibit called "Observe and Analyze."   There were categories like "signals" and "dead drops" and you were asked to look at a photo and see if you could choose four of each.   You then had the opportunity to press a button to see if you were right.  Notwithstanding all the thriller and espionage books I've read in my lifetime, I was woefully bad at this and skulked away when I didn't recognize that the chalk mark on the mailbox was a sign for a meet.   Other interactive exhibits included a listening post (the museum itself was bugged and you could listen in on others as they went through), a suspicious activities post where you watched a screen and made a choice about what you were seeing (you compete against other visitors in a Jeopardy-like manner), overhead surveillance where you honed in to try and find things like training camps and caves and a duct that you could crawl through that registered red if you made too much noise.   I couldn't resist a single activity and found that "Greta" had an uphill battle if she was going to accomplish her mission. 

Next stop at the Museum:  spy craft in practice.

Gulf Coast Symphony: The Great Gershwin

In case it hasn't become apparent, I am in sampling mode as I settle into our new home in Southwest Florida.   The motto of the Gulf Coast Symphony--which is comprised of volunteer musicians--is "We Play the Music You Want to Hear" and the Gershwin evening filled the bill.

The music director and conductor of the Symphony is Andrew M. Kurtz (who received his doctorate at  Peabody Conservatory, which is where Scott is studying the trumpet).  Kurtz formed the Symphony 16 years ago to add to the cultural enrichment of Lee County.  The Symphony performs a range of concerts over each season (some classical, some pops) in a variety of venues, including two free Symphony at Sunset pops concerts.    Kurtz is also the General and Artistic Director of the Center City Opera Theater in Philadelphia.  I am learning that, like representatives in state government, the conductors of local orchestras seem to have multiple jobs--Maestro Wada of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra likewise is conductor of an orchestra in Massachusetts.

The opening number in the concert was Cuban Overture, a piece composed by Gershwin after a trip to Cuba.  The music was very evocative of the Caribbean and was just one example throughout the evening of the way that Gershwin drew from a variety of cultural influences when composing.  The composition required lots of percussion, with my favorite being the wood block.  (If I came back in another life as a musician, I would want to be a percussionist--what fun they must have running from one instrument to the next creating these wonderful sounds!)    It was a composition that most of the audience had not heard before and it was an upbeat way to get into the evening.

The high point of the concert was the performance of Rhapsody in Blue, which premiered in New York in 1924.  Guest pianist David Pasbrig (another Peabody guy) was really terrific and the orchestra supported him wonderfully.

No Gershwin concert would be complete without some of the favorite show tunes being performed.  I have to say that the choice of guest vocalist, Jason Switzer, was one of the disaapointments of the evening.  Switzer is a baritone who has previously performed with the Gulf Coast Symphony (and Kurtz' Central City Opera) and, while he has a beautiful, classically trained voice, I didn't think he was the right choice for Gershwin show tunes like They Can't Take That Away From Me.   Maybe I've spent too much time listening to Ella and Sarah Vaughn sing these numbers to find anyone else particularly satisfying, but Switzer just didn't swing.  His voice was much better suited to the excerpt he did from Porgy and Bess, Gershwin's famous folk opera.  (I can't ever hear a song from Porgy and Bess without remembering the time that Jay more or less forced Scott to watch the PBS telecast of the Lincoln Center performance of the show.   I recall coming into the room and watching the actor who was playing "Porgy" walking around the stage on his knees.  Never having seen the show, this struck me as ludicrous and I fled the room, feeling thankful that I didn't have to stay and watch.  Just a small confession from this music neophyte!) 

Overall, it was an enjoyable evening and a nice introduction to the Gulf Coast Symphony.  While you would never mistake them for the BSO, I applaud this group of amateur musicians for doing something they love and bringing music into the lives of their community.  It would be fun to go to one of the Symphony's outdoor pops concerts--a picnic, some stars, some nice music--it's hard to imagine a nicer way to spend an evening.   Yet one more thing to add to my ever-growing "to do" list!

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees is one of those books that sat on my bedside stand for over a year before I picked it up--and once I did I wanted to read it straight through.   Set in the 1960s on the cusp of the civil rights movement, the story is told from the perspective of Lily, a white girl growing up in Sylvan, South Carolina. Sylvan is a town of "peach stands and Baptists churches, that sums it up."  Lily's life has not been easy.  Her mother died when she was young under devastating circumstances and she lives alone with her father T. Ray, an embittered man who is a disinterested father and a harsh disciplinarian.   When Lily engages in some particularly bad or disobedient behavior, her father's punishment is to make her kneel on "Martha Whites", a brand of grits, leaving thousands of little marks in her knees and a distaste for grits for life.  

Rosaleen is an African American woman who works as a maid for Lily and T. Ray and is the closest thing to a mother--or a friend--that Lily has.   Lily says of Rosaleen, "I used to have daydreams in which she was white and married to T. Ray and became my real mother.  Other times I was a Negro orphan she found in a cornfield and adopted.  Once in a while I had us living in a foreign country like New York, where she could adopt me and we could both stay our natural color."    What a wonderful passage--thought provoking, wistful and funny in one fell swoop.

Lily has a secret cache of her mother's belongings that she found while rummaging around in the attic one day.  The items include a much-treasured picture of her mother, a pair of white cotton gloves and, mysteriously, a small picture of black Mary (as in Mary, the mother of Jesus) that has been pasted on small piece of wood and has the words "Tiburon, S.C." written on the back.   On Lily's 14th birthday, she accompanies Rosaleen into town to register to vote.  A series of unfortunate events find Rosaleen first in jail and then in the hospital.  When Lily and her father get into another big fight, Lily up and liberates Rosaleen from her hospital bed and they hit the road for Tiburon for lack of a better plan. 

Upon their arrival in Tiburon, Lily stops in the general store to buy some provisions when she sees a jar of honey with the same picture of a black Mary on it that is in her mother's things.  She finds out from the storekeeper that the honey is made locally and she and Rosaleen head to the farm, where they are taken in by August, May and June Boatwright, three sisters who keep bees, make honey and live quite an interesting life.   From here on out, the book becomes an amazing story of the friendship, compassion and wisdom of these women.

Monk's writing is so easy to read that you can skim right over her wonderful words without noticing them if you don't pay attention.  At one point, August tells Lily a bit about her life experiences.  Monk writes, "We walked to the woods...with her stories still pulled soft around our shoulders.  I could feel them touching me in places, like an actual shawl."    I also love her treatment of racial issues and the civil rights movement.  The problems are there--and at times they are front and center--but they are woven into the book as one part of Lily's story as she learns a few things about her mother and a lot of things about herself and the importance of friendship.

It's impossible not to compare The Secret Life of Bees with Kathryn Stockett's The Help, which was an amazing book.  Both are stories of the civil rights movement; both are stories of the friendship of women; and both are great reads.   The Help made me think about myself and what type of person I would have been if I had been a young woman in the 1960s.  I didn't picture myself as a character in The Secret Life of Bees, but it did occasionally make me pause and think.   A book group would have a wonderful time reading both books and talking about the two of them head to head.

It's always a bit hard to figure out what to read when you're coming off a book that's so enjoyable and well-written.  I don't think I'll go back and try to finish Tana French's Faithful Place (which I have retitled "Wake Me When It's Over").   Maybe I'll start Dave Eggers' Zietoun, a story of post-hurricane Katrina.  Or maybe I'll roam the stacks at the library and see what jumps out at me.  I can only hope that whatever I end up reading next is half as engaging as The Secret Life of Bees.  

Literacy Volunteers Meet the Charlotte County School System

It looks like the name of my blog might have to change since it appears that I have what I call a "retirement job".  What, you might ask, is a retirement job?  For me, it's a job that I'll be doing for the enjoyment of it, not for the cold hard cash.  Having spent the last 18 months in New Jersey working with Literacy Volunteers of Union County as a tutor and a Board member, I found that I have a passion for the cause of adult literacy.  Here in Charlotte County, Florida, the illiteracy rate is 17.9%, which means that almost one of every five adults does not have the skills that people like us take for granted to negotiate through our daily lives.  So, one of the first things I did when I arrived in Punta Gorda was find a place where I could continue to help adult learners improve their literacy.

The Adult Learning Center in Port Charlotte is a different type of literacy program than what I'm used to working with.  Literacy Volunteers is a volunteer-based program (hence the name).   Tutors meet with their students one on one or in small groups to help them achieve their goals.  These goals can range from learning enough English to read a book to a grandchild to passing the GED.  Needless to say, a one size fits all approach doesn't work for this type of program.    The Adult Learning Center's general approach has been to provide classes for ESOL students and a lab environment for adult basic ed students (people working towards a GED), with assistance from paid instructors. This makes sense since the Center is part of the Charlotte County School System.  (It actually "sits" under the adult vocational tech center on an org chart.)   As the volunteer coordinator at the Adult Learning Center, my challenge is to figure out a way to meld the two programs. 

First I'd like to say a bit about becoming an employee of the Charlotte County School System.  The eventual goal is for the volunteer coordinator position to be a paid part-time job within the School District.  There's no money in the budget now to pay me so this is contingent on getting some grant money (and since I have to write the grant, who knows when that will happen!)  Leslie Isley, director of the Center, thought it would be a good idea to get me in the system now since it's a time consuming process, so I put an application in for an ESOL instructor position.  I have to say that I'm finding the diligence of the School District a bit hilarious.  Not only do I need three written references, I also have to submit transcripts from Mount Holyoke and Harvard Law School.  (Do they want to see my grades or just know that I actually graduated? Maybe they're curious about my SAT score!)  Whether they're looking at my transcripts or the completed reference forms (with questions about my non-existent teaching experience), they're not going to see anything that's remotely relevant to what I'll be doing here!   I am just finding this process a bit funny when nothing like this was required when I was being hired to work on multi-million dollar transactions for various financial services companies.  (Maybe that was actually the reason for the problems with the industry--my last job, after all, was with Bear Stearns!)

This is all a bit of a digression from the hard work involved in getting a program up and running.  In addition to writing a couple of grants for funding, I am putting together a small training program for prospective tutors (which will of course have to be marketed), figuring out how to match tutors with students and thinking ahead to keeping the tutors supported as they work with their students.  I commented to someone from another program that getting a program running is a daunting task.  Her response was to laugh and say that keeping it running is just as daunting!   It does make me wonder a bit what I have gotten myself into.  In the meantime, I just received an e-mail from an instructor at the Center saying that she has a new student who is reading at the second grade level who would like to work with a tutor.  When things get a bit overwhelming or frustrating as I move forward with my retirement job, I'll think about what a difference knowing how to read will make in this woman's life.

Charlotte Symphony Orchestra--Power and Passion II--The Music

Last Saturday evening, I was invited to attend the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra's second classical concert of the season.  I was so taken with the CSO's performance of Carmina Burana last fall that I jumped on the invitation, and I'm glad that I did. 

The first piece of the evening was Mahler's Symphony No. 5 - Fourth Movement - Adagietto.  We learned in the pre-concert lecture hosted by Katherine Caldwell that Mahler proposed to his wife by sending her the Adagietto.  Despite this romantic background, the Adagietto is typically associated with death and mourning as it is frequently played at funerals.  In fact, the Adagietto was conducted by Leonard Bernstein at the funeral mass for Bobby Kennedy held in St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1968.  A passionate piece indeed. 

When the orchestra started playing, I immediately noticed that Francis Wada, the CSO's music director and conductor, was not using a baton.  I recently went to a lecture that Francis gave about the history of conducting and learned that conductors use different batons--or no baton at all--for different types of compositions.  The intimate nature of the Adagietto lends itself to softer (albeit energetic) direction from the conductor, and it was a beautiful piece. 

The second piece of the evening was Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33, featuring guest cellist Boris Kogan.  The Rococo consists of a theme, seven variations and two cadenzas, with essentially no break for the cellist.  In the pre-concert interview with Kogan, he shared that his favorite variations are the slower, more expressive ones, saying that "everyone knows that the cello can sing, now it's time to teach it to talk."   I would be hard pressed to say which variation was my favorite. 

The final piece of the evening was Brahms' Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73.  I don't know much about classical music, but I gather from the pre-concert lecture and the chatter among the audience that taking on Brahms is not for the weak of heart.  Again, the CSO rose to the challenge.   I particularly enjoyed the first movement, into which Brahms worked snippets of his famous lullaby.  Even knowing that the lullaby was coming, it still surprised me and made me smile. 

As I write this post, the CSO is playing with Barry Manilow during his tour through Southwest Florida.  They are in Tampa tonight, and a bus load of people from Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte took the trip up to see the concert and support their local symphony orchestra.   What a great opportunity for these musicians to try something different and to take their stuff on the road.  It's nice to have the CSO's skills and professionalism recognized by people outside of the community.  But it's even nicer to know that they have a home here.

Charlotte Symphony Orchestra - Power and Passion II - Cellist Boris Kogan

Last Saturday night I found myself waiting for the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra's concert to begin with a bit of trepidation.   What if Carmina Burana was just a fluke and I actually don't enjoy going to the symphony?  Happily, I found that isn't the case. 

My friend Kathy Hollinger and I started the evening by attending the pre-concert lecture on the evening's program.  The lectures are hosted by Katherine Caldwell who, among other things, plays principal oboe with the CSO and writes the program notes for the concerts.  The pre-concert lectures have outgrown the "black box room" so I am obviously not the only person who thinks that it's nice to have a bit of information fed to you about what you're going to be hearing in that evening's performance. 

The highlight of the pre-concert lecture was Kathy's talk with Boris Kogan, guest cellist.  Kogan is the principal cellist with the Thayer Symphony Orchestra in Leominster, Massachusetts (conductor Francis Wada's "other" family) and it was a treat to learn a bit about him and hear him play.  Kogan was born in Leningrad and began playing the cello at age six.  (Why the cello?  Because it was the only instrument that was available!  I started wondering about the relative size of a cello and a six-year old and, through the magic of the internet, learned that a full size cello is 46-48 inches and that smaller versions--as little as 1/8th of the normal size--can be found for children to learn on.  I wish I'd asked about this during the Q&A with Kogan!)

Kogan first played Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33 when he was 18 years old.  Kogan shared with the audience that he had been asked eight days before the performance if he could play this piece for a concert.   (I'm not sure if Kogan was playing with the Leningrad Symphony, the Television and Radio Symphony Orchestra or another orchestra all together at that point--being a child prodigy, he had quite a resume by this time!)   With the audacity of an 18 year old (which you can really only understand once you've heard the piece), he said "of course," even though he'd never played it before!  He had to search two days for the music and then had six days to learn this challenging piece.   The performance with the CSO would be his fifth or sixth time playing the "Rococo," as he affectionately referred to the piece, and it is one of his favorites.

Kogan emigrated to Massachusetts in 1991, the year the Soviet Union dissolved.  When asked by Caldwell why he left Russia, he declined to comment, saying only that it is better here in the United States.  Like many educated emigrants with minimal English language skills, Kogan's employment opportunities in the United States were limited and his first job here was as a dishwasher.   When he introduced Kogan and the "Rococo," Francis shared the story of how he and Kogan met with the audience.  Kogan was at a public library in Massachusetts and was getting frustrated with the librarian who couldn't help him find the music for the "violinist on the top."   A third person overheard this exchange and called Francis, telling him that he needed to get over to meet this person who was looking for music for--you guessed it--Fiddler on the Roof!   Shortly after this meeting, Francis heard Kogan play his cello and invited him to join the Thayer Symphony Orchestra.  As Kogan played the Rococco during the concert, you could see the affection and respect that the two men have developed for one another during their 20 year relationship.

Having the opportunity to be introduced to Kogan--and hearing Francis' story of their meeting--added another layer of enjoyment to the concert.  Our seats were in the front row of the hall, and I had an opportunity to watch Kogan's intricate fingering on the cello as he played the Rococco.  Both the music and being up close and personal with a cello were firsts for me, and both were delightful experiences.  As I sat there, I thought a bit about Kogan, a Russian immigrant, meeting up with Francis, a Japanese immigrant, and how they must have had some language barriers to deal with as they developed their relationship.  Music is truly a universal language, however, and it was clear during Saturday night's performance that the two men have absolutely no trouble communicating.