SMART MOVES?

Did real spies borrow techno spying ideas from Get Smart, wonders a spy historian as he watches the just-released film

Did real spies borrow techno spying ideas from Get Smart, wonders a spy historian as he watches the just-released film

For me, standing in line to see Steve Carell in the new big-screen version of Get Smart won8217;t be just getting my summer movie fix. It8217;s a professional necessity. I work at the International Spy Museum here, and Maxwell Smart8217;s capers are often the first things visitors want to know about: How real are his shoe phone, the cone of silence and the stereophonic gun, among other gizmos?

The old television show8217;s combination of gags and, faulty gadgetry lampooned the previously no-nonsense spy-film genre. But the Smart message went beyond entertainment. Get Smart creator Mel Brooks once said that the bumbling Agent 86, whose antics aired from 1965 to 1970, spoke to a growing 8220;credibility gap8221; between citizens and administrations that were less than honest about Vietnam.

But how far from that 8220;idiotic enterprise8221; was Hollywood? And what did real spies borrow from TV?

Maxwell Smart8217;s signature gimmick was the shoe phone. Although the contraption wasn8217;t exactly covert, it did reflect the need of real spies in the field to communicate intelligence securely to headquarters. Intelligence agencies did use footwear for espionage purposes in the 1960s. East European services excelled in hiding bugs in the heels of Western diplomats8217; shoes.

Would you believe that the TV spy8217;s reliably malfunctioning 8220;cone of silence8221; triggered alarm bells at the CIA?

According to a former officer, the agency feared that the Get Smart team8217;s imagination ventured too close to reality, in regard to the cone, a device that the CIA had actually created. While the East German embassy in Rome did not have an acrylic cone of silence, its diplomats used a transparent desk made of the same material to ensure that no hidden bugs would record sensitive conversations. The CIA reportedly considered sending Get Smart producers a list of subjects to avoid but decided to refrain, for fear that the show would parody their effort.

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Smart8217;s arch-enemy, Kaos an evil organisation bent on world domination, once commissioned a double-barreled revolver operated by a single trigger. Too bad the manufacturer interpreted the request for a 8220;stereophonic8221; pistol to mean that it should play stereo.

I8217;ve never seen a message get quite so muddled in my study of the actual serious business of covert action, but sometimes Get Smart calibre props do come into play. In 1978, the Bulgarian secret service used a modified umbrella that fired ricin pellets to kill a dissident in London. The CIA considered chemically treating Fidel Castro8217;s cigars to cause his beard to fall out. And the agency8217;s various attempts to kill the dictator with booby-trapped seashells and other gimmicks invariably failed.
-Thomas Boghardt