Holy cow. A Russian spy ring busted by the FBI—a “sleeper network” planted 20 years ago, consisting of 11 undercover agents posing as regular Americans, suddenly outed. There they were, the whole time—regular Americans with marriages and kids, and with names like “Cynthia” and “Richard.” Living in the suburbs, they were holding down good jobs, buying homes, and tending to their gardens. These arrests come as a real jolt. Now that the Cold War is a thing of the past, we aren’t used to Russian spy rings. Even the words sound old-fashioned. The story also evokes spy novels, of course—John Le Carré, or Tom Clancy, or with Anna Chapman, one of the alleged spies, Ian Fleming. Chapman looks like a pretty hot item—the kind of woman who’s seen some serious cuddling with James Bond.
My husband, who’s read every spy novel ever written, appears oddly uninterested in these latest real-world spies. I’ve prodded him to get worked up about them, but all he does is shrug. I can tell that he’s disappointed by this crew. They’re too boring for him, or perhaps too bungling. The FBI has been watching their every move for many years, and they apparently never got around to doing very much—which of course makes their moves (encoded web messages, invisible ink messages, trips to train stations) appear rather ridiculous. Certainly they’re no match, either in soul or smarts, for George Smiley (aside: Le Carré said Alec Guinness stole the character from him–meaning once Guinness played the role, Le Carré could think of Smiley only as Alec Guinness) or Karla. In my husband’s mind, a spy is always a tragic figure, full of the particular sorrows that come from double and triple duplicities, not to mention distant, long-forgotten ideals. Spies aren’t supposed to be duds whining about their laptops, and they’re certainly not supposed to let themselves be followed by the FBI for years on end.
Unlike my husband, however, I can’t stop thinking about these people—especially the Montclair, New Jersey couple, Cynthia and Richard Murphy. These two perfect Americans, the one supposedly from New York, the other supposedly from Philadelphia, lived on a perfect, tree-lined street in a perfect $400K-plus home with their perfect little girls. Their neighbors thought Richard a “regular guy.” Think of it! Your next-door-neighbors who seem like they’re the quintessential Americans turn out to be Russian spies!
There are plenty of examples of Americans on the “Most Wanted” list living in plain sight for months and even years on end. Remember Patty Hearst, living in Jeffersonville, NY, or Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, living right in Chicago, using aliases? Yet spies are something else—especially spies like these, who are accused of being deeply embedded “illegals”—(the “proper” spy term for people who are trained to pretend they’re people they are not and then shipped off to live in another country for years on end). This kind of spying represents the highest, most sophisticated and most complicated level of social masquerading and deceit there is.
The cold war may be over, but this spy business sure isn’t. A nation’s interests will never match up perfectly with other nations’ interests, even if they’re the best of allies. Canada probably has a couple of spies rattling around the Frances Perkins Building in Washington, D.C., even as I type this, and we probably have a few making dead drops in bus stations in Ottawa. As we wag our fingers and express outrage about this particular batch of Russian spies, you can be sure we have our own swarm living as ordinary Russians in and around Moscow. And if we don’t, something’s gone terribly wrong.
