The cultural turn in intelligence studies

[Steve Kinney]

On 8/18/19 8:05 PM, coderman wrote:
> 
>   The cultural turn in intelligence studies
> 
> Simon Willmetts
> Correspondences.d.willmetts at 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