Intelligence Gathering isn’t just about spying - a.k.a. Russia then and now

St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow - old Soviet days

I guess if we examine what the foreign services departments of countries do, apart from diplomacy and trying to maintain good relations, the logical assumption would be that they try to learn as much as possible about other nations. Of course nowadays, technically, all knowledge is available at the touch of a button on the internet but I reckon foreign intelligence services have a more refined, more focused version.

The first time this was evident to me was on my maiden trip to Russia in 1989. I should say the Soviet Union because that was the name of the country in those days. I was part of an Irish trade delegation, trying to increase business links between Ireland and the then Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev was in power and had introduced sweeping reforms which permitted joint ventures with foreign businesses for the first time. I was accompanied by people from all types of Irish industry and from Government, who were facilitating the trip. There was an atmosphere of hope and an air of expectancy. The Soviet Union was emerging from fifty years of isolation and was beginning to embrace western business values. Ireland, as a neutral state, was ideally placed to take advantage of this. We weren’t the US, we weren’t the British or God forbid the French or the Germans ☺. As it turned out, the trip was quite successful and a number of business deals emerged from it. I was in the fortunate position that my company had already concluded a joint-venture deal and not only was the company was up and running, but it was being heralded by the Russians as an example of how co-operation with foreign firms could work successfully.

But this article is not about business development; we can talk about that another day. This one is really about Sergey and his ilk and what they do and how they form an invaluable fund of knowledge, which may or may not prove useful depending on how relations develop with different nation states. Our delegation arrived on a Monday, so I met Sergey on Tuesday morning. I also met him on the Wednesday, the Thursday and the Friday of that week. He was from the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs; his official card said he was ‘Irish Expert’ and he was obviously chosen to shadow the Irish delegation everywhere we went. But whatever about his instructions or his motives, his business card did not lie. This man was truly an Irish expert. I became quite friendly with him over the course of the week and I tested his knowledge of all things Irish; not once did he miss a beat. There didn’t seem to be anything about Ireland that he didn’t know.

The first time we conversed, we spoke politely about the contrasts between our two countries; Ireland was a small, efficient open economy; the Soviet Union was a very large but sadly inefficient and closed economy. Sergey had no problem admitting this and was obviously allowed to speak openly and be critical of his own country. There may have been an ulterior motive to get me or some of the others to reveal secrets about our country but I very much doubt he scored on that count. We were an open book but anything we knew had already been absorbed by Sergey and his colleagues. The first example was our discussion on cars. He was particularly critical of the Russian car manufacturing business and the products it produced, the infamous Lada bearing the brunt of the criticism. Trying to be empathetic, I remarked that at least the Soviet Union had a car industry whereas Ireland did not. ‘Only partially true,’ said Sergey, ‘because Morgan sports cars are assembled in County Wexford.’ I was shocked. Not only had I never heard of Morgan cars, I had no idea they were assembled in Ireland.

He was quite correct but I hadn’t been aware of this. I was suitably impressed but then he said he might as well come clean. He told me he got both the Irish Times and the Irish Independent every day and read both from cover to cover. His job was to be an ‘Irish’ expert in the Soviet Department of Foreign Affairs.

I am sure most countries have these but at the time I was not familiar with the concept. I decided to dig a little deeper and asked him how far his knowledge was expected to go and as to what subjects were a part of his brief. He answered that all of them were. I asked him what he thought of our Government – at the time, Fianna Fail were in power supported by a number of independents and by the main opposition party, Fine Gael. He felt that we were on the right road even though cutbacks and austerity were the order of the day. We moved on to other topics and his expertise and breadth of knowledge were quite stunning. He knew things about our country that none of us knew.

In the evening, when we were having dinner, I decided I would really put him to the test and I said, in a jovial manner, ‘well Sergey, politics is all very well, but sport is probably my primary interest – tell me, what do you think of Kilkenny’s prospects in the championship this summer?’ Without missing a beat, he replied: ‘I’d say they’ll come out of Leinster but I’d say this will finally be Tipperary’s year.’ To say we were all gobsmacked is probably an understatement. We went on to have a long detailed conversation about hurling and the man really knew his stuff. Incredibly, he had never even been to Ireland. He had, of course, seen video tapes of every aspect of Irish life but still… to make matters better (or worse, from a Kilkenny point of view), he was right or half right anyway. Tipperary won the championship for the first time in eighteen years after going close in the previous two. Kilkenny, alas, did not get out of Leinster but perhaps my friend was just being polite.

While it was Sergey’s job to acquaint himself with every aspect of Irish culture, he would not be alone in his interest. I have written before about the Russian quest for knowledge, particularly about foreigners and other nations. More and more Russians are traveling abroad nowadays and even many of those who cannot afford this luxury still look outward. I suppose it is still a novelty for many Russians to meet an Irish person but I nevertheless never fail to be impressed at the type of questions I am asked when introduced as an Irish person to someone I haven’t met before. Whereas in most countries when you say you are Irish, people will make some vague reference to Guinness or Jameson or Baileys or Leprechauns or Conor McGregor or even worse, Russians will be far more discerning. You are likely to be asked the sort of questions that Sergey asked me all those years ago:

Is your country peaceful now and what do you know about or think of the conflict that was prevalent until relatively recently in the Northern part of the country?

Is Ireland a very prosperous country now or has the recent financial crisis been a setback?

Has Ireland’s decision to join the E.U. been beneficial?

What is your total population and how is it spread?

Would you like your country to be reunited?

Is it true that you always have mild weather?

They will go on in this vein for some time and then will start to ask you about Russia:

What do you think of Russia?

What do you think of Russian people?

Is it easy to do business here?

Has Russia made progress?

How do we compare with your country?

Do you think Russia will ever develop to the same level as the west?

While I was always careful to be polite, there was no point being economical with the truth as they would see through it in an instant. I would always point out the positives about the country but still stress that, no more than many nations; they had a long way to go. Potential is a word I tend to use a lot. Many of the ideas and theories presented in this article and others have been inspired by conversations with people like Sergey and my natural curiosity to follow up and discover for myself. Unfortunately, were I to be asked those questions today, my answers would be vastly different. Russia, in my view, has badly lost its way and is sacrificing hundreds of thousands of its young people in a pointless, senseless war against its own Slavic brothers and sisters. The consequences of this conflict will be felt for generations. Some of the brightest people with whom I worked have already fled the country.

In the 1990’s and 2000’s, perhaps the tendency to look outward was a result of the restrictions on foreign travel in Soviet times. From speaking to people though, it appears that there was always plenty of information available on foreign lands. The system of education seemed to give everyone a keen sense of geography and an awareness of life externally and created a culture where, unlike other nations, who may have been wary and distrustful of foreigners, Russians tended to embrace and seek to learn from them. Sadly, that whole scenario has now changed to one of distrust, hostility and in extreme cases, hatred of all things western. The ironic thing is that most Russian people still crave all western goods, particularly luxury items. The ruling class, who have acquired vast wealth, are the foremost examples of this. While Putin claims to despise the west and everything it stands for, he always speaks to the media while wearing a very expensive Swiss watch and a Savile Row suit.

But I digress, as this article is about intelligence gathering. I read somewhere that 99% of the information provided by so called ‘spies’ to foreign powers over the years could be found by reading newspapers or visiting libraries in the countries whose ‘secrets’ were being betrayed. I’m sure there were small amounts of classified information transferred also but the majority of the work was done by quiet, anonymous people like my friend Sergey. I have no doubt that this work continues to this day and that large powers such as the USA, Russia, China etc all have people who are schooled in every aspect of every country on earth.

You see, intelligence in the sense of information is freely available. It is all around us. We just need to know where to look.