On 8/18/19 8:05 PM, coderman wrote:
The cultural turn in intelligence studies
Simon Willmetts Correspondences.d.willmetts@fgga.leidenuniv.nl View further author information Pages 800-817 | Published online: 23 May 2019
My small contribution comes in at only 1400 words: The Prisoner: An Introduction The Prisoner is one of the most iconic and surrealistic, if not psychedelic, products of the 1960s "golden age" of television. An angry secret agent returns home from hand delivering his letter of resignation, when he is immediately gassed by an undertaker in top hat and tails. He regains consciousness in his own bed but when he looks out his window he discovers that he is no longer home at all: He is in The Village, a deceptively idyllic holiday resort that is actually a high tech prison for spies. At once the games begin. In The Village, people are known by numbers, not names. Our abducted protagonist is Number 6. The commander in chief of The Village is Number 2 - a post occupied by a series of individuals, most of whom have one principal job: To psychologically break Number 6, in order learn all he knows beginning with why he resigned - and, if possible, to recruit him into whatever service operates The Village. Who, or in Cold War parlance "which side," runs The Village? What makes Number 6 so important to them? Among the residents of The Village, "Who are the prisoners, and who the warders?" Direct or final answers are rarely found. Since its release in 1967/68 the Prisoner has been addressed in documentaries, books and a large volume of fan literature, examining every aspect of the series in detail. International fan clubs are still active today: Six Of One ("The Prisoner Appreciation Society") hosts an annual convention at Portmeirion, the Welsh resort where the series was filmed. Why do these 17 hours of enigmatic television have such durable appeal? Where does The Prisoner hook into our gut instincts and cultural zeitgeist? The Prisoner is a product of its times: During the Cold War spies, conspiracies and covert operations were among the principal weapons of East and West. Along with the deployment of large clandestine services by the Superpowers, Western popular culture was inundated with spy propaganda in the form of books, movies and TV shows glamorizing spies as real-life superheroes. Ian Fleming, a former OSS officer who worked with the founders of MI-5 and the CIA, led the charge with his best selling James Bond novels. In short order spy fiction became a hugely popular and profitable genre in television and motion pictures. Prior to this media barrage, espionage was generally considered a disreputable trade - a dishonest, dishonorable and even cowardly approach to warfare. The spy fiction of the Cold War era turned the public image of the clandestine services all the way around - no expense was spared in presenting espionage as a daring, heroic and altogether admirable business, and the public responded enthusiastically. This glamorous image lasted into the 1970s, when public disclosure of programs like COINTELPRO, the Phoenix Program and first hand accounts of CIA field work by Phil Agee and others shattered the illusion. The Prisoner has a lesser known back story: In 1960, British TV producer Ralph Smart created a spy series, Danger Man, starring Patrick McGoohan as John Drake. In each half hour episode Drake, a spy of deliberately ambiguous nationality working for NATO, was dispatched on a new international assignment. Drake's doings were much more realistic than Bond's - his assignments included counter-espionage, political interventions in post-colonial nations, and some missions bordering on international law enforcement. He battled no super-villains, seduced no glamorous women, and always preferred strategic deception to ultra-violence: "I never carry a gun. They're noisy and they hurt people. Besides, I do very well without." Only one season of the Danger Man series was produced for the British domestic market. The show did well in the UK and became very popular in the U.S. where it was titled Secret Agent, with Johnny Rivers singing the title theme Secret Agent Man, #3 on the U.S. pop charts. McGoohan became a hot media property: In 1962, he turned down an offer from Eon Productions to star in Dr. No, the first James Bond film; this was Sean Connery's big break. After a two year hiatus, two more seasons of Danger Man were produced for international distribution. The revived series clearly identified Drake as a British intelligence officer working for M6, a fictional British agency. Its one hour format allowed more complex stories and some development of the Drake character, including elements of moral ambiguity and substantial friction and resentment between Drake and his employers. Critics and the public loved it. A 4th series was abandoned after only two episodes were produced, for reasons that remain unclear. McGoohan and Danger Man script editor George Markstein already had a new project in mind: The Prisoner. To avoid licensing issues - and promote the mystique of the new series - McGoohan and the production staff for The Prisoner always pointedly denied that Number 6 was John Drake. But if our Number 6 was anyone else, Drake must have had a twin with identical attitudes, personality and occupational experience. Why did Drake resign from M6, and why was this question the constant theme of attempts by his captors to break him down? If I told you I would have to kill you. We are advised that "questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself." Many viewers were disappointed by The Prisoner's two-part series conclusion, Once Upon A Time and Fall Out: Even compared to the other Prisoner episodes they are rather bizarre. Those who know what the word "allegory" means won't be disappointed, if they are in a mood for a story told in a series of events that point toward psychological, political and perhaps even autobiographical paths to the solution of Drake's enigma. At the end of the final episode, the closing credits show that Number 6 was played by "The Prisoner" rather than Patrick McGoohan. I have my own suspicions about this final touch of quirky humor, but "a still tongue makes a happy life." Both The Prisoner and Danger Man are available as commercial DVD sets and, of course, via covert channels on the usual networks. Be seeing you! A note from your Citizen's Advice Bureau: Unsolved mysteries in The Prisoner include the correct sequence of the episodes: They were produced out of order for logistical reasons, and delays in production interrupted the series' original broadcast run. The first episode and the final two are obviously in their right places, but the rest? Detailed analysis of the content of the episodes themselves provides some clues, and this order from a project published by Six Of One is very satisfactory: 01 - Arrival 02 - Dance Of The Dead 03 - Free For All 04 - The Chimes Of Big Ben 05 - Checkmate 06 - The General 07 - A B & C 08 - The Schizoid Man 09 - Many Happy Returns 10 - Living In Harmony 11 - A Change Of Mind 12 - Hammer Into Anvil 13 - Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling 14 - It's Your Funeral 15 - The Girl Who Was Death 16 - Once Upon A Time 17 - Fallout - Series Finale Prior acquaintance with John Drake enables us to view The Prisoner in its native context. These episodes of Danger Man provide a well rounded introduction to the fictional man behind the famous number: Episode 52 - That's Two Of Us Sorry: Drake investigates a theft of nuclear research secrets that leads him into morally hazardous human terrain. Episode 54 - Whatever Happened to George Foster: Drake catches a respected NGO doing dirty politics in Latin America, leading to a personal war against Establishment adversaries at home. Episode 57 - The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove: Foreshadowing the surrealism of The Prisoner, Drake battles a hostile spy ring's recruitment front while slightly out of his mind. Episode 58 - It's Up To The Lady: A realistic spy story about retrieving a defector by using his wife for leverage, with a too-realistic twist. Episode 70 - The English Lady Takes Lodgers: Sometimes a spy yarn is only a spy yarn, and sometimes Drake's occupation permits him to play the perfect knight. Episode 74, To Our Best Friend: McGoohan directs this episode which pits Drake against his employers from beginning to end. Episode 84 - The Not-So-Jolly Roger: A conventional period spy story in a most unconventional period setting: Filmed on location at Pirate Radio 390, Red Sands Fort. (c) Steve Kinney 2014, published under under Creative Commons By-SA-NC License