Okay. I’m not saying directly that I am a spy, but I might be a spy.
You see, there are a bunch of spies in the United States. So, the next time someone tries to pick you up at some seedy bar and says they are a spy, it just might be true.
If you don’t believe me, ask John Negroponte, the former director of national intelligence. He says that the U.S. global “spying apparatus” contains nearly 100,000 people working at this very minute as spies. They have been hired to steal secrets and analyze information to help protect national security. Give or take a few thousand, here or there.
They probably look a lot like you and me. Maybe it IS you or me. But, for several decades, the number of spy personnel has been a big guarded secret. Those sneaky folks report to the 16 intelligence agencies and departments across the United States. All of this had been an effort by the U.S.government to mask the size of its spying operations.
All of this came out a few years back and was revealed after another secret came to light — the budget for U.S. Intelligence. It is more than $60 billion each year.
But that only tells the story about the people on our side. How many spies are currently living in the United States from foreign countries? The ones who are keeping their eyes on us?
Nobody knows for sure, and most government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, have declined to hazard a guess. In fact, they won’t comment at all. If we consider that there are about 168 foreign embassies and 731 consulates in the United States, the spy numbers start to add up. Even the smallest embassy has spies working on our soil.
I’m thinking about this because the Confederate spy Belle Boyd was captured on this date, July 29, 1862.
Her full name, Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd, was arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. It was the first time they nabbed her. But, there would be two more arrests during the war. I guess it was kind of like fishing with her. Catch her. Throw her back. Catch her, throw her back.
Regardless, she was a skilled spy who provided crucial information to the Confederates during the war.
Belle Boyd was born in Virginia and was only 17 when the war began. She came from a prominent slaveholding family. Wouldn’t you know?
In 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, she shot and killed a Union soldier. Apparently, he threatened them and wanted to search their house. And soon after that day, Boyd began spying for the Confederacy.
She charmed the pants right off of them. Maybe literally. She used her flirtatious ways to lure Union soldiers and officers into conversations and acquire information about military affairs.
Boyd was adept. She delivered crucial information to General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, allowing the Confederates to defeat Union troops at the Battle of Winchester. She also turned over many Union soldiers during her work, sending them to prison camps.
Typically, whenever she was arrested, the Union guys took it easy on her. She was given many special considerations. During one incarceration, she became engaged to a fellow prisoner.
Many more incidents occurred along her way, and she was widowed with one child by the end of things. She was only 21 years old at that point. She wrote a book about her spying experiences called “Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison.”
She died of a heart attack in Wisconsin in 1900, at age 56. For years, her grave simply read:
BELLE BOYD
CONFEDERATE SPY
BORN IN VIRGINIA
DIED IN WISCONSIN
ERECTED BY A COMRADE
And so we have it.
The spies among us.
Then, and now.
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“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack
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“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”
― André Malraux
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“The cause is hidden. The effect is visible to all.”
― Ovid
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I spy. You never know. I could be.
