344: Jonna Mendez | The Moscow Rules

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways The CIA had to develop special techniques to help agents survive in the USSR“They were following us every minute or they were watching us or they were listening to us in our apartments or they were sitting next to us in the American embassy in the shape of a foreign national…they were everywhere around us.” – Jonna MendezSince Russian intelligence officers were constantly monitoring Americans, for 10 years no US agent met with their Russian informant. Instead, they used dead drops–placing information in fake rocks, crushed soda cans, milk cartons with fake vomit on the outside or other concealment devices and giving the other person some kind of signal (like a chalk mark on a mailbox) to go get the information from the concealment device.The CIA drew inspiration from Hollywood make-up artists to create masks for their agents“They were animated, life-like masks and we could recreate any kind of character over your face. We would fit it to your face. We could also make your face for another person.” – Jonna MendezEvery year the CIA looks at countries that pose a threat to the US, brainstorms the possible intentions of those countries’ leaders, and then tries to recruit people who have access to information about those plans“Let’s go recruit them, let’s go get them on our side” – Jonna MendezMost of the intelligence research isn’t done by US spies, but rather it’s done by the native people in that country that the CIA recruits Adolf Tolkachev is known as the billion-dollar spy because his information was worth literally billions of dollarsHe provided key information to the CIA about Russia’s radar technology 10 years before it was built“Enough time for the Pentagon to build the countermeasures, so that by the time it came out we already could defeat it” – Jonna Mendez

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Jonna Mendez is a former chief of disguise in the CIA's Office of Technical Service, and co-author of The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics That Helped America Win the Cold War.

What was it like to work as a heavily surveilled CIA operative in the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War?
Why did the United States have to rebuild its embassy in Moscow from the ground up in the early '90s?
How aspiring artists like Jonna and her late husband Antonio (played by Ben Affleck in Argo) got involved in working for the CIA.
How the CIA recruits brilliant scientific minds to develop cutting-edge solutions when it can only offer a fraction of compensation offered by the private sector.
The evolution of how disguise has come to be used in the intelligence community since the '70s, and the role Jonna has taken in its progress.
And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/344

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