During the late Cold War years when I lived there, the thing about residing and working in the District of Columbia was, even if you couldn't watch The Americans for another twenty-five years, you knew that spycraft was going on all around you. You knew because some of that spycraft was obvious and clumsy. I probably would have - and should have - been frightened by the spies I didn't see. (Ref: The Americans) But, I wasn't. Spies were a fact of life. A humorous fact of life.
Everyone knew there was a man sitting in a top-floor window across from the Soviet Embassy. I don't think I am misremembering when I say that he was visible. The way I recall it, he would sit on the window ledge of an open window with a long-lens camera in his hand. I don't think that is accurate except as a visual metaphor - although that technique would certainly have kept spies from going in and out of the embassy’s front door.
What do I mean by clumsy spycraft? My favorite incident involved a laundry truck. One Sunday night I was taking relatives on a tour of DC at an hour when the streets were not usually crowded with laundry trucks. Nonetheless, we seemed to be encountering the same one repeatedly circling Georgetown but never stopping to deliver laundry. At one point, we were behind the van and as it made a left turn at a speed that allowed the curtains on the back windows to swing open. We could see inside easily. What we saw in the well-lit area was not rows of hanging cleaning or stacks of boxed shirts, but a wall of electronic equipment and a team of men monitoring it. Okay, it might have been an American spy vehicle. I hope it wasn't. I would not want my safety to rely on a bureaucracy sophisticated enough to design state-of-art electronics, but too dumb to install a rod at the bottom of the window in order to keep the curtains from falling open.
Of course, it was possible for one's imagination to run amok. After the Russians killed one of their enemies on the streets of London with a poisoned umbrella tip, waiting on the corner for the light to change became a harrowing experience although I knew of no enemy - foreign or domestic - that wanted me dead.
I may have overreacted once on a Sunday stroll through the Kalorama neighborhood, home to many bigwigs and diplomats. As I walked down the street a mailman in uniform came down the path from an impressive house - as I recall the only kind in the area - after making a delivery. He gave me a hello along with a big smile. I returned the greeting and passed as he hopped into his truck. I had not even walked another block before it occurred to me that there was no Sunday mail service. I picked up the pace and headed for home along an illogical route all the while keeping an eye out for the mail truck and its assassin driver. He knew I had seen him. He had no choice. He had to kill me.
When I went to work on Monday, I found out that perhaps I had over-reacted. The Post Office had started Sunday delivery of Express Mail.
Okay, I saw spies where there were none, but I bet I didn't spot spies where they were. I wish I had seen The Americans before I moved to DC. I would have seen spies everywhere.
NOTE TO SELF: You had other brushes with espionage in Monte Carlo, Charlotte and London. They are written up separately.
© 2021 Jane Kelly
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