It is these very character weaknesses that spy recruiters and handlers count on and exploit. West said recruiters and handlers are “espionage professionals” and described them as “very smart … they know how to get their subject involved just a little bit, doing something that seems harmless” and end up seducing them into taking actions they normally would never consider. In the old “carrot and stick approach,” the carrot could be any number of things the recruited spy desires (mentally or materially) while the stick, wielded on noncompliant agents, is blackmail. The handlers threaten to expose
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