Sleeper agent
Encyclopedia
A sleeper agent is a spy
who is placed in a target country or organization, not to undertake an immediate mission, but rather to act as a potential asset if activated. Sleeper agents are popular plot devices in fiction, in particular espionage
fiction and science fiction
.
, a sleeper agent is one who has infiltrated into the target country and 'gone to sleep', sometimes for many years. That is, he or she does nothing to communicate with his or her sponsor or any existing agents, nor to obtain information beyond that in public sources. They can also be referred to as 'deep cover' agents. They acquire jobs and identities—ideally ones which will prove useful in the future—and attempt to blend into everyday life as normal citizens. Counter-espionage agencies in the target country cannot, in practice, closely watch all of those who might possibly have been recruited some time before.
In a sense, the best sleeper agents are those who do not need to be paid by the sponsor as they are able to earn enough money to finance themselves. This avoids any possibly traceable payments from abroad. In such cases, it is possible that the sleeper agent might be successful enough to become what is sometimes termed an 'agent of influence
'.
Those sleeper agents who have been discovered have often been natives of the target country who moved elsewhere in early life and been co-opted (perhaps for ideological or ethnic reasons) before returning to the target country. This is valuable to the sponsor as the sleeper's language and other skills can be those of a 'native' and thus less likely to trigger suspicion.
Choosing and inserting sleeper agents has often posed difficulties as it is uncertain which target will be appropriate some years in the future. If the sponsor government (or its policies) change after the sleeper has been inserted, the sleeper might be found to have been planted in the wrong target.
techniques, such as drugs
, torture
, psychological conditioning, implanted devices, and even telepathic manipulation who then are either released, or allowed to escape back to friendly territory. These sleeper agents are then used by enemy forces to spy, to conduct sabotage, to assassinate certain targets, or for other operations the enemy has in mind for them. During these outbreaks, the sleeper agent doesn't normally know what he/she is doing.
The substitution sleeper agent was often surgically altered to appear as someone else but more recent versions tend toward androids or clones. Or the agent may have been an infiltrator from the start but brainwashed to believe they are the real thing until activation.
Activation of the second kind of sleeper is, at least in novels and stories, done by approaching the agent and uttering a long ago memorized password
or pass phrase, or by mailing a postcard with a significant picture to the sleeper. Once a sleeper becomes active, counter intelligence agencies can, at least in principle, become aware of the sleeper as intelligence is collected and transmitted, as instructions are passed, and so on.
. Some examples of sleeper agents include:
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
who is placed in a target country or organization, not to undertake an immediate mission, but rather to act as a potential asset if activated. Sleeper agents are popular plot devices in fiction, in particular espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
fiction and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
.
Sleeper agents in espionage
In espionageEspionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
, a sleeper agent is one who has infiltrated into the target country and 'gone to sleep', sometimes for many years. That is, he or she does nothing to communicate with his or her sponsor or any existing agents, nor to obtain information beyond that in public sources. They can also be referred to as 'deep cover' agents. They acquire jobs and identities—ideally ones which will prove useful in the future—and attempt to blend into everyday life as normal citizens. Counter-espionage agencies in the target country cannot, in practice, closely watch all of those who might possibly have been recruited some time before.
In a sense, the best sleeper agents are those who do not need to be paid by the sponsor as they are able to earn enough money to finance themselves. This avoids any possibly traceable payments from abroad. In such cases, it is possible that the sleeper agent might be successful enough to become what is sometimes termed an 'agent of influence
Agent of influence
An agent of influence is a person whose political actions and arguments are alleged to serve the interests of a foreign power, and to be directed or manipulated by the intelligence agency of that power...
'.
Those sleeper agents who have been discovered have often been natives of the target country who moved elsewhere in early life and been co-opted (perhaps for ideological or ethnic reasons) before returning to the target country. This is valuable to the sponsor as the sleeper's language and other skills can be those of a 'native' and thus less likely to trigger suspicion.
Choosing and inserting sleeper agents has often posed difficulties as it is uncertain which target will be appropriate some years in the future. If the sponsor government (or its policies) change after the sleeper has been inserted, the sleeper might be found to have been planted in the wrong target.
Examples
- Otto Kuhn and family were installed in Hawaii by the German AbwehrAbwehrThe Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
before World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It is not quite clear what was intended as Hawaii was hardly at the center of predictable German interests in case of war, and in any case, they were unmistakably German. Regardless, he (and his family) seem to have been used primarily to aid an ally—the Japanese—in the period before the Attack on Pearl HarborAttack on Pearl HarborThe attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. They seem to have been less than useful, even to the Japanese. - Kim PhilbyKim PhilbyHarold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a spy for and later defected to the Soviet Union...
was recruited by the Soviets while at university and may have been a sleeper agent for some years until going to work for the British government. By the end of WWII, he was operating as the liaison between the British Secret Intelligence ServiceSecret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
and several U.S. intelligence operations. He was an agent of influence by then, but had not been a sleeper agent for several years. - The so-called Illegals ProgramIllegals ProgramThe Illegals Program, as it was called by the United States Department of Justice, was a network of Russian sleeper agents under non-official cover whose investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation culminated in the arrest of ten agents and a prisoner swap between Russia and the United...
is an alleged network of sleeper spies planted in the U.S. by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. The ongoing, multi-year investigation culminated in June 2010 with the filing of charges and the arrest of 10 suspects in the U.S. and another in CyprusCyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
.
Fictional sleeper agents
In fiction, particularly science fiction, sleeper agents fall into two categories. The first is an extension of the real world sleeper agent where an enemy agent is substituted for a person already in a trusted position. The second and more common category involve people who have been subjected to mind controlMind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
techniques, such as drugs
Psychoactive drug
A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, or psychotropic is a chemical substance that crosses the blood–brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior...
, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, psychological conditioning, implanted devices, and even telepathic manipulation who then are either released, or allowed to escape back to friendly territory. These sleeper agents are then used by enemy forces to spy, to conduct sabotage, to assassinate certain targets, or for other operations the enemy has in mind for them. During these outbreaks, the sleeper agent doesn't normally know what he/she is doing.
The substitution sleeper agent was often surgically altered to appear as someone else but more recent versions tend toward androids or clones. Or the agent may have been an infiltrator from the start but brainwashed to believe they are the real thing until activation.
Activation of the second kind of sleeper is, at least in novels and stories, done by approaching the agent and uttering a long ago memorized password
Password
A password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or gain access to a resource . The password should be kept secret from those not allowed access....
or pass phrase, or by mailing a postcard with a significant picture to the sleeper. Once a sleeper becomes active, counter intelligence agencies can, at least in principle, become aware of the sleeper as intelligence is collected and transmitted, as instructions are passed, and so on.
In popular culture
There are a number of examples of sleeper agents found in science fiction and other forms of entertainment. Many times the unveiling of a sleeper agent is an important part of the plot and acts as surprise element and a plot twistPlot twist
A plot twist is a change in the expected direction or outcome of the plot of a film, television series, video game, novel, comic or other fictional work. It is a common practice in narration used to keep the interest of an audience, usually surprising them with a revelation...
. Some examples of sleeper agents include:
- In the hit show 2424Year 24 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Cethegus and Varro...
, the villain Habib Marwan commands a network of sleeper agents. His heirarchy is complex and secretive, with families only being able to identify the rest of the family (as well as Marwan) as the only members of their "cell." - Both the book and film Eye of the NeedleEye of the Needle (film)Eye of the Needle is a 1981 film directed by Richard Marquand, based on the novel of the same title by Ken Follett, and starring Donald Sutherland...
demonstrate how a sleeper agent has to operate within a host country - in this case, the German agent Henry Faber in World War II Britain. This story portrays points of view of both the agent and the British intelligence services as the hunt for the sleeper spy continues across Great Britain. Faber discovers the true nature of Operation FortitudeOperation FortitudeOperation Fortitude was the codename for a World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy during the build up to the 1944 Normandy Landings...
and tries to get the information to his home country. - One of the earlier uses of the second type of sleeper agents in fiction is in Richard CondonRichard CondonRichard Thomas Condon was a prolific and popular American political novelist whose satiric works were generally presented in the form of thrillers or semi-thrillers...
's 1959 novel, The Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian CandidateThe Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....
, which has twice been adapted to film. Both the original and the remake is about a group of people 'programmed' to be sleeper agents. One of the sleeper agents is part of a Presidential election campaign, which if won will produce a Vice President controlled by sinister forces. One of his fellows would then be ordered to assassinate the President, allowing these forces to control the Executive Branch of Government. - The BBC mini series SleepersSleepers (TV series)Sleepers is a 1991 comedy-drama produced by Cinema Verity for the BBC, set around the period of Glasnost in the Soviet Union.-Plot summary:...
centered around two Russian sleeper agents who had so fully integrated in British society that they were keen to avoid being brought back to the Soviet Union. - In the Battlestar Galactica TV miniseriesBattlestar Galactica (TV miniseries)Battlestar Galactica is a three-hour miniseries written and produced by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Michael Rymer. It was the first part of the Battlestar Galactica reimagining based on the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series, and served as a backdoor pilot for the 2004 television series...
(2004), Raptor pilot Sharon ValeriiSharon ValeriiNumber Eight is a female humanoid Cylon model on the television series Battlestar Galactica, a reimagining of the classic show of the same name. She is portrayed by Grace Park...
is a sleeper Cylon. She is unaware of her true identity until activated. - The 1987 movie No Way OutNo Way Out (1987 film)No Way Out is a 1987 thriller film about a U.S. Naval officer investigating a Washington, D.C. murder. It stars Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman and Sean Young...
stars Kevin Costner as a U.S. Naval Officer. At the end of the movie we learn that Costner's character, U.S. Naval Lieutenant Commander Tom Farrell, is in fact a KGBKGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
sleeper agent named "Yuri". Yuri/Farrell was planted in the U.S. as a young man, attended college there, and received an officer's commission as a U.S. Naval officer. - Martin ScorseseMartin ScorseseMartin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's 2010 movie Shutter Island involved an imaginary plot to create sleeper agents at a Mental Institution. - In the 2010 film Salt, Evelyn Salt was exposed as a sleeper agent but after finding out her husband was killed by the hands of her own people, she decides to annihilate the missions she was supposed to execute.
- In the 2010 game Call of Duty Black Ops, the main character Alex Mason is turned into a Russian sleeper agent while being captured as a P.O.W.Prisoner of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
at the real-life gulag Vorkuta in the northern Soviet Union so that the Soviet Union can attack the United States with other sleeper agents, including Mason with the fictional Nova 6 nerve agent. - Garage-rock band Sleeper AgentSleeper Agent (band)Sleeper Agent is an American band that formed in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Their debut album, Celabrasion, will be released on September 27, 2011, following the digital release of the album in August...
derives its name from CylonCylon-Places:United States*Cylon, Wisconsin, a town in St. Croix County, Wisconsin*Cylon , Wisconsin, an unincorporated community in St Croix County, Wisconsin-Science fiction:...
sleeper agents in the show Battlestar Galactica