The MALINDO DEFENCE Daily

Tuesday, March 30, 2010


The History of the Honey Trap

Five lessons for would-be James Bonds and Bond girls -- and the men and women who would resist them.

BY PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY | MARCH 12, 2010

MI5 is worried about sex. In a 14-page document distributed last year to hundreds of British banks, businesses, and financial institutions, titled "The Threat from Chinese Espionage," the famed British security service described a wide-ranging Chinese effort to blackmail Western businesspeople over sexual relationships. The document, as the London Times reported in January, explicitly warns that Chinese intelligence services are trying to cultivate "long-term relationships" and have been known to "exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships ... to pressurise individuals to co-operate with them."
This latest report on Chinese corporate espionage tactics is only the most recent installment in a long and sordid history of spies and sex. For millennia, spymasters of all sorts have trained their spies to use the amorous arts to obtain secret information.
The trade name for this type of spying is the "honey trap." And it turns out that both men and women are equally adept at setting one -- and equally vulnerable to tumbling in. Spies use sex, intelligence, and the thrill of a secret life as bait. Cleverness, training, character, and patriotism are often no defense against a well-set honey trap. And as in normal life, no planning can take into account that a romance begun in deceit might actually turn into a genuine, passionate affair. In fact, when an East German honey trap was exposed in 1997, one of the women involved refused to believe she had been deceived, even when presented with the evidence. "No, that's not true," she insisted. "He really loved me."
Those who aim to perfect the art of the honey trap in the future, as well as those who seek to insulate themselves, would do well to learn from honey trap history. Of course, there are far too many stories -- too many dramas, too many rumpled bedsheets, rattled spouses, purloined letters, and ruined lives -- to do that history justice here. Yet one could begin with five famous stories and the lessons they offer for honey-trappers, and honey-trappees, everywhere.
1. Don't Follow That Girl
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli technician who had worked in Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, went to the British newspapers with his claim that Israel had developed atomic bombs. His statement was starkly at odds with Israel's official policy of nuclear ambiguity -- and he had photos to prove it.
The period of negotiation among the newspapers was tense, and at one point the London Sunday Times was keeping Vanunu hidden in a secret location in suburban London while it attempted to verify his story. But Vanunu got restless. He announced to his minders at the paper that he had met a young woman while visiting tourist attractions in London and that they were planning a romantic weekend in Rome.
The newspaper felt it had no right to prevent Vanunu from leaving. It was a huge mistake: Soon after arriving in Rome with his lady friend, Vanunu was seized by Mossad officers, forcibly drugged, and smuggled out of Italy by ship to Israel, where he was eventually put on trial for treason. Vanunu served 18 years in jail, 11 years of it in solitary confinement. Released in 2004, he is still confined to Israel under tight restrictions, which include not being allowed to meet with foreigners or talk about his experiences. Britain has never held an inquiry into the affair.
The woman who set the honey trap was a Mossad officer, Cheryl Ben Tov, code-named "Cindy." Born in Orlando, Fla., she was married to an officer of the Israeli security service. After the operation, she was given a new identity to prevent reprisals, and eventually she left Israel to return to the United States. But her role in the Vanunu affair was vital. The Mossad could not have risked a diplomatic incident by kidnapping Vanunu from British soil, so he had to be lured abroad -- an audacious undertaking, but in this case a successful one.
2. Take Favors from No One
One of the best-known honey traps in spy history involves Mata Hari, a Dutch woman who had spent some years as an erotic dancer in Java. (Greta Garbo played her in a famous 1931 film.) During World War I, the French arrested her on charges of spying for the Germans, based on their discovery through intercepted telegrams that the German military attaché in Spain was sending her money. The French claimed that the German was her control officer and she was passing French secrets to him, secrets she had obtained by seducing prominent French politicians and officers.
During the trial, Mata Hari defended herself vigorously, claiming that she was the attaché's mistress and he was sending her gifts. But her arguments did not convince her judges. She died by firing squad on Oct. 15, 1917, refusing a blindfold.
After the war, the French admitted that they had no real evidence against her. The conclusion by mostmodern historians has been that she was shot not because she was running a honey trap operation, but to send a powerful message to any women who might be tempted to follow her example. The lesson here, perhaps, is that resembling a honey trap can be as dangerous as actually being one.
3. Beware the Media
Sometimes a country's entire journalism corps can fall into an apparent honey trap. Yevgeny Ivanov was a Soviet attaché in London in the early 1960s. He was a handsome, personable officer and a popular figure on the British diplomatic and social scene, a frequent guest at parties given by society osteopath Stephen Ward.
Ward was famous for inviting the pick of London's beautiful young women to his gatherings. One of them was Christine Keeler, a scatterbrained '60s "good-time girl" who supposedly became Ivanov's mistress. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Keeler was the lover of the married British MP and Secretary of State for War John Profumo, who was then working on plans with the United States to station cruise missiles in Germany.
In 1963, Profumo's affair with Keeler was exposed in the press. Britain's famed scandal sheets also blew up the Soviet spy/honey trap angle, for which there was no evidence. Profumo was forced to resign for lying about the affair to the House of Commons. His wife forgave him, but his career was ruined.
Ivanov was recalled to Moscow, where he lived out his days pouring ridicule on the whole story: "It is ludicrous to think that Christine Keeler could have said to John Profumo in bed one night, 'Oh, by the way, darling, when are the cruise missiles going to arrive in Germany?'" He was probably right: When the media gets hold of a potential honey trap, the truth is easily lost.
4. The Deadliest of Honey Traps
Not all honey traps are heterosexual ones. In fact, during less tolerant eras, a homosexual honey trap with a goal of blackmail could be just as effective as using women as bait.
Take the tragic story of Jeremy Wolfenden, the London Daily Telegraph's correspondent in Moscow in the early 1960s. Wolfenden was doubly vulnerable to KGB infiltration: He spoke Russian, and he was gay. Seizing its opportunity, the KGB ordered the Ministry of Foreign Trade's barber to seduce him and put a man with a camera in Wolfenden's closet to take compromising photos. The KGB then blackmailed Wolfenden, threatening to pass on the photographs to his employer if he did not spy on the Western community in Moscow.
Wolfenden reported the incident to his embassy, but the official British reaction was not what he expected. On his next visit to London, he was called to see an officer from the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) who asked him to work as a double agent, leading the KGB along but continuing to report back to SIS.
The stress led Wolfenden into alcoholism. He tried to end his career as a spy, marrying a British woman he had met in Moscow, arranging a transfer from Moscow to the Daily Telegraph's Washington bureau, and telling friends he had put his espionage days behind him.
But the spy life was not so easily left behind. After encountering his old SIS handler at a British Embassy party in Washington in 1965, Wolfenden was again pulled back into the association. His life fell into a blur of drunkenness. On Dec. 28, 1965, when he was 31, he died, apparently from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a fall in the bathroom. His friends believed, no matter what the actual cause of death, that between them, the KGB and the SIS had sapped his will to live.
Ironically, his time as a spy probably produced little useful material for either side. His colleagues weren't giving him any information because they were warned that he was talking to the KGB, and the Soviets weren't likely to give him anything either. In this case, the honey pot proved deadly -- with little purpose for anyone.
5. All the Single Ladies
The broadest honey trap in intelligence history was probably the creation of the notorious East German spymaster, Markus Wolf. In the early 1950s, Wolf recognized that, with marriageable German men killed in large numbers during World War II and more and more German women turning to careers, the higher echelons of German government, commerce, and industry were now stocked with lonely single women, ripe -- in his mind -- for the temptations of a honey trap.
Wolf set up a special department of the Stasi, East Germany's security service, and staffed it with his most handsome, intelligent officers. He called them "Romeo spies." Their assignment was to infiltrate West Germany, seek out powerful, unmarried women, romance them, and squeeze from them all their secrets.
Thanks to the Romeo spies and their honey traps, the Stasi penetrated most levels of the West German government and industry. At one stage, the East Germans even had a spy inside NATO who was able to give information on the West's deployment of nuclear weapons. Another used herconnections to become a secretary in the office of the West German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt.
The scheme lost its usefulness when the West German counterintelligence authorities devised a simple way of identifying the Stasi officers as soon as they arrived in West Germany: They sported distinctly different haircuts -- the practical "short back and sides" variety instead of the fashionable, elaborate West German style. Alerted by train guards, counterintelligence officers would follow the Romeo spies and arrest them at their first wrong move.
Three of the women were caught and tried, but in general the punishment was lenient. One woman who managed to penetrate West German intelligence was sentenced to only six and a half years in prison, probably because ordinary West Germans had some sympathy with the women. Wolf himself faced trial twice after the collapse of communism but received only a two-year suspended sentence, given the confusion of whether an East German citizen could be guilty of treachery to West Germany.
Unlike most spymasters, Wolf preserved his own thoughts on his experience for posterity in his autobiography, Man Without a Face. Wolf denied that he put pressure on his officers to use die Liebe to do their jobs; it was up to the officers themselves: "They were sharp operators who realized that a lot can be done with sex. This is true in business and espionage because it opens up channels of communication more quickly than other approaches."
How about the morality of it all? Wolf replied for all spymasters when he wrote, "As long as there is espionage, there will be Romeos seducing unsuspecting [targets] with access to secrets." Yet he maintains: "I was running an intelligence service, not a lonely-hearts club."



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Monday, March 29, 2010

DAP is Racist!




Sunday, 28 March 2010 admin-s
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Please find below a description of the problems I face with DAP that seriously needs to change if it hopes to convince us to take it seriously as a genuine representative for Malaysians of ALL RACES and backgrounds.
By Captain Reinu Balakrishnan
I had previously raised numerous issues to DAP, being administrators of my area which included public works deficiencies as well as local illegal construction but they did not resolve any of those issues. Their explanation was that MBPJ does not listen to them.
Their inaction was so frustrating that the point came when I asked them if their apparent failures were just a ruse but that actually it was due to the fact that the complainant was not a Chinese. They did not deny this. I later went on to ask them if they only catered to Chinese-based issues and only if raised by a Chinese. Amazingly, they never replied or denied this. I had till then since GE12, never received a written reply or phone call of any sort from DAP in response to my complaints and follow up queries.
On 06/03/2010, I received an SMS soliciting support and funds for DAP. In short it stated:
‘DAP Paramount will be having a fund raising dinner on 17 April at 7pm in Sg Way Chinese School Hall. Tickets priced at RM50per pax, RM500per normal table n RM 1000 for VIP r on sale now.’ 
Taking into account my previous issues with DAP and the fact that they don’t reply when it affects the electorate but are fast to communicate when they want something, I took issue with that as well as the following:
a)      That the dinner, by being held at the Chinese school Hall, would give credence to allegations that DAP was only Chinese
b)      That no provisions were being made for Muslims, Hindus and vegetarians, all of whom form a segment in our society and who have special dietary requirements.
c)      That the ticket pricing and recognition was class conscious and as champions of a new Malaysia, we can do away with this classification. I suggested that even if all tickets were priced similarly and the seating ‘classless‘ it would not and should not impede any individual from donating funds of any amount to DAP. DAP not only disagreed with this but the rep decided to go on a personal attack of me which was meant to undermine my race, religion, upbringing and professional status (the text has been retained by me). She even threatened to use force against me. Now this is war.
d)      I wrote to and emailed DAP HQ on 06/03/2010 and phoned them repeatedly over the next few days about this latest development but,
a)      The phones were not answered until auto cut out.
b)      When finally answered, the staff told me that no one knew about my email or fax and then told me that there was no one who reads such emails and faxes and that there was no one to attend to me!!!
c)      When I finally insisted that I speak to someone as high as possible in the HQ, they told me to call a Ms. Foo who was supposed to be the assistant to Lim Guan Eng. However, they did not give me the contact number. After a lengthy debate again, I got the number and contacted the alleged Ms. Foo who first spoke to me in Chinese! When I told her I was not Chinese, she went “OH?“ and asked me why I had called her! Was she saying that only the Chinese should call her? That’s what it sounded like to me as she was not interested in the issue. I told her the issue and she stated that she was unaware of the issue, the staff concerned and  the problem of getting to her. She however denied the existence of anyone named Evelyn who I had claimed solicited funds for a dinner for DAP!!! She assured me that she was free to talk then but when I told her that her denial meant a police report had to be raised, the phone went dead … never to be answered again.
d)      Ms. Foo never got back to me and never answered my calls or sms again.
e)      I called DAP HQ again and was reverted to a Mr. Goh apparently from IT who then claimed that he now had found my email but had no idea of any of my previous communication and had been instructed not to say anything to me regarding the fundraising as well as the threatening and abusive behaviour of the DAP representative soliciting the funds. He said he was just a staff member and following orders.
f)        I demanded action and a written reply to the contents of my email of 06/03/2010 as it raised numerous issues including the fact that DAP was racist and only catered to the Chinese. I clearly stated to him that DAP should deny and prove me wrong if this was untrue and a failure to reply and/or deny would mean that all that I state becomes true at least in law. I told him that I would publish the issue and my accusations of DAP’s racism on the internet and even send it to Malaysia Today whom I regard as the most trustworthy of news providers that I know and I have travelled the world both in real distance and cyberspace (yah, yah think I’m crazy, tell me of another news provider so brave and at tremendous sacrifice, who so willingly posts absolute falsehood and lies that is propagated by the Government and tells you to read it and decide the truth for yourselves).
g)      Mr. Goh told me that he would get back to me immediately, within minutes after conferring with the ‘people he reports to',
h)      He did not get back to me again and 2 days later when I called, he told me that I could do as I wish.
i)        I then sent DAP a letter dated 23/03/2010 as found below which they have given me permission to state, publish and propogate without objection or denial.  In law it is called ‘ estoppel ‘ and I thank them for clarifying their position and informing the electorate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAP Headquarters                                                                                                  23 rd March 2010
No.24 , Jalan 20/9 Paramount Gardens
46300 Petaling Jaya
Selangor                                                                  by email / fax 79575718


Mr.Lim Guan Eng
c/o  No.14 Jalan Talipon
10400 Pulau Pinang                                                 by email / fax 604-2288514

Dear sirs,                     
                                   DAP ADMITS IT IS RACIST
I refer you to my email of 06/ 03/ 2010 and the complaints therein and my specific request for a reply / response. I also refer you to the numerous phone calls made by me in an attempt to get you to reply to my complaints and the conversations between myself and your racist Ms.Foo ( hp 012-3725852 ) and one Mr.Goh allegedly of  IT HQ and the conduct of your staff at the DAP HQ in response to communication.
As I have been very clear with my requests and queries and was assured of a prompt reply by your staff above and you have failed to reply and have not denied my statements and since more than sufficient time has lapsed , you have by at least this failure to address the issues therein and refusal to deny them , agreed to my contention.
 I would like to thank you for making this declaration to the electorate, to clarify any doubts they might have had and to contradict any previous statements that were made in the alternative from what DAP is stating below. This will certainly assist the electorate in it’s decision making process in preparation of the next General Election
I thank you for Confirming and agreeing that DAP under the full instructions of it’s leadership and working within it’s established policies, are a Political Party that
1)       lies , lies repeatedly and are happy to do so.
2)      is Racist and class conscious in it’s activities and it’s representatives are free to abuse, insult and humiliate the electorate
3)      does not wish to reply to phone calls, letters and  emails in relation to queries and complaints, especially if it originates from non-Chinese as I have made many over the years and none have received a response. When I raised this issue of racism, it has never been denied.
4)      does not attend to complaints of serious problems of failures , damage and maintenance of public property within it’s administrative boundaries and has additionally provided proof of  poor and corrupt public property maintenance in at least my area.
5)      unlawfully solicits monies from unsuspecting members of the public for activities that are racist and class conscious. DAP are unwilling to reveal how this solicitation took place and as to how the contact was enabled. When challenged, the DAP representative soliciting the funds ( Evelyn 0162675006 ) threatened to use force tantamount to ‘ criminal intimidation ‘ to silence the complainant .  
6)      is a Chinese chauvinistic mirror image of the criminal Barisan Nasional.
7)      does not deny the issues stated above as raised by me to them in the past.
I am sure that you agree that it is my duty to inform the public of your brave admission and declaration and will also assist in the propagation of you kind declaration to the electorate by posting this on the internet. I also thank you for the kind permission you have given me to do so.

Yours faithfully
Captain Reinu Balakrishnan

Copied to
1)      MT
2)      www

And fax.nos.  
  • 603-7983 7576
  • 603-78738017
  • 604-2613003
  • 605-2417402
  • 603-79837576
  • 603-77260443
  • 603-33243096


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