Hush Hush
From Aspen Hill, Maryland, USA
Contents |
Antecedents
During the Cold War and beyond, Aspen Hill was and probably is a favored operational venue for international espionage elements, primarily because of the presence of Vitro, but without a doubt a lot of government employees and military personnel commuted to their jobs from their Aspen Hill homes.
In most parts of the country, very few school children could truthfully say "my dad works for the CIA" or "my dad's an FBI agent" or "I can't tell you what my mom does because she won't tell us". In Aspen Hill in the timeframe of about 1965 to 1985 or so, lots of the school children could truthfully say that their parents had this job or that job or worked for this or that agency. Some of the kids could even tell you how many -- and which -- of the other kids had parents working for this or that specific agency. Frequently their parents trained them to remember that sort of thing.
As teens, some of us might say "hey, let's go over to your house, Bubba" and Bubba would say "nah, my dad's friends from work are over and talking spy stuff and kicked me out for the evening". You remember that sort of thing. And 40 years later, people who don't know Bubba might take a look at Bubba and think that Bubba is a slack-jawed yokel. Those who do know Bubba will remember that Bubba does not work for, but was indeed raised in, the intelligence community.
Bubba isn't Bubba's real name, of course, and nobody anywhere attaches any significance to Bubba's real name if they do know it... unless they too were raised in the intelligence community and have heard all of the old war stories. They might not much respect Bubba or Bubba's name, but they would not dare to fail to respect some of Bubba's relatives, deceased or living.
History
There are some things you just can't discuss on a wiki.
Present Day
Due to the clandestine nature of such operations, it can be difficult to sort out various classes of people who are up to spooky business. Undercover cops dress like bikers and live the lives of bikers and their kids think they're bikers and they all ride motorcycles, and none of those rice-burner junk bikes either. The bikers, of course, look, act, dress, and carry on exactly as do the undercover cops that are posing as bikers. As long as both groups are carrying on as you'd expect from bikers, the two groups are effectively indistinguishable. The intelligence community is like that, the only thing that distinguishes them from anyone else is their hidden agenda. You can't see a hidden agenda, unless perhaps it's looking at you over the barrel of a gun or backing a car over your head. You can, however, infer a hidden agenda.
Inscrutability
Inscrutable \In*scru"ta*ble\, a. [L. inscrutabilis : cf. F.
inscrutable. See In- not, and Scrutiny.]
Unsearchable; incapable of being searched into and understood
by inquiry or study; impossible or difficult to be explained
or accounted for satisfactorily; obscure; incomprehensible;
as, an inscrutable design or event.
Nothing human is utterly inscrutable.
Most people don't even really try.
Perhaps you'd like to read the series of Wikipedia articles on Tradecraft.
Then perhaps you'd like spend the rest of your life on the lookout for signs of it... in Aspen Hill.
