How my mind works: Ideas, memories, and experiences float around in my head until they crystallize into a question:
Thinking about our popular “Spy Camp,” contemplating our college’s Strategic Intelligence Program, having recently read a book and watched a movie about the origins of the CIA, having taken my son to D.C.’s Spy Museum, having just read a student paper relating the lessons from Shakespeare to the field of Strategic Intelligence, and having just done some research on Graham Greene (one of many author/spies going all the way back to Christopher Marlowe and Daniel DeFoe), I came across a quotation from super-spy and counter-intelligence czar James Jesus Angleton who said that literature majors make the best spies.
Indeed, during World War II and in the eariy days of the CIA, the recruiters for the new intelligence agencies tapped mostly Ivy League English majors.
What connection do you see between the study of literature and the VOCATION of espionage?
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