The Exploding Envelope Series: Agents vs Spies

Image courtesy of seanmciny.

Leading up to the release of Take the Bai Road, and the re-release of Bai Tide, I’ve started a blog series about various espionage terms. Today’s installment? Discussing the difference between an agent and a spy.

This post is near and dear to me because this is one aspect of the spy world that almost everyone gets wrong. Laypeople, movies, TV shows, books, etc. all make this same mistake, and I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the definitions of these words is changed to accommodate the popular understanding of them, but still. For now, y’all are wrong but if you keep reading, you’ll soon be right.

You’ve all heard the term “Secret Agent,” correct? James Bond is a secret agent, Austin Powers is a secret agent, Jason Bourne is a secret agent, right? WRONG.

In espionage, an agent is actually a source of information! So yes, there really are secret agents, but they’re not who you think they are. They’re the informants, not the rakish spies in tuxes. Don’t believe me? Check it out:

The International Spy Museum has a really cool list of spy terminology and defines agent as, “A person unofficially employed by an intelligence service, often as a source of information.”

So what do we call those roguishly charming operatives who steal secrets and woo vulnerable and lonely people of importance? A case officer. A case officer is the trained operative who’s out in the field cultivating and managing agents, running operations, and reporting everything back to their station chief.

Granted, agent sounds a lot cooler than case officer. When you’re talking espionage, though, the devil is in the details (sometimes literally) and it’s important to get it right.

Fun fact: There are agents working for America, in the FBI, ATF, DEA, Homeland Security, etc. So we do have agents, just not collecting information for the CIA.

For an example, in Blood Money (remember my first book from waaaaaaay back in 2013?) CIA case officer Bai Hsu was stationed at the American Embassy in London under diplomatic cover. He was the case officer, and his job was to manage CIA agent Azzam Abdullah, who was informing on his boss, the terrorism financier. Make sense?

Now that you know, you can’t not see this error crop up all over popular media. You’re welcome?

Bonus fun fact #2: When my brother and I were little, we LOVED watching Austin Powers movies. For the longest time, my brother thought the “Secret Agent Man” song was, “Secret Asian Man.” Maybe that’s why my main hero is Chinese-American. Discuss.

Did you enjoy this post? If so, be sure to order a copy of one of my books for more in-depth looks at the fascinating world of espionage!