As taught to drink in the KGB

• How were taught to drink KGB

The number of required qualities scout addition composure, knowledge of languages, ownership must include the ability to drink and getting drunk is not a weapon. After sober spetsagent surely raise suspicions. However, not everyone can boast of such a useful skill.

Do not drink can not be

A conversation of alcohol scout high hopes. And not without reason: such an informal setting allows you to talk with your opponent, to find out from him the necessary information or incite the desired action. It is important that the other person was always drunker agent - role reversal threatens to expose.

But the main thing here, according to scouts with the experience, always comply with the measure. Domestic residents who followed the moderation in drinking usually does an excellent career. It is enough to mention names Leonid Shebarshin and Vyacheslav Trubnikov, who at one time headed respectively Soviet and Russian foreign intelligence. According to investigators, this is also true with respect to the current head of the Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov.

Former resident, retired Colonel Alexei Ivanov claims that nondrinkers scout does not happen in principle, but notes that the good scouts drink only in the case of operational necessity, because any alcohol - a poison.

However, Leonid Shebarshin once cited the example of the Soviet teetotal residents working in Pakistan. Maybe that's why things had gone from bad to worse. Over the entire period of his service to his credit there was no one standing recruitment. "Teetotaler" recalled home, and in his place was sent "drinking". Soon he managed to establish good relations with almost all Pakistani generals. General Shebarshin liked to say that "the position of operative worker residency is time to rename aperitivnogo".

The winners do not have the

And what about the foreign intelligence agencies? They also use alcohol as a means of efficient work. But to compete with the Russian in this component they often did not have the strength. Somewhere in the sunset of the Soviet era the CIA and the FBI developed a Soviet intelligence agent, former professional volleyball player from the masters of sports society "Dynamo". Last at this time, too, I was looking for candidates for recruitment. Their interests coincided in the US state of Washington, in the restaurant on the Potomac River.

Americans have long and unsuccessfully tried to make a drunkard its prey. They drank for a long time, glass after glass (CIA and FBI agents were also trained), but Soviet spy still came out the winner of this confrontation. Pretty moved by US agents at some point crossed the critical line, and one of them started telling seated at adjacent tables the purpose of their mission.

By coincidence (or not) these conversations are heard in the hall of the staff of the Analytical Department of the CIA - the next day management already knew about the incident. Punishment followed immediately: make a slip agent was sent to the back, the residency Georgetown (capital of Guyana). Dismiss it were not for one simple reason: the training of residents is too expensive for the CIA.

And got our operative. At first, the authorities sent him on a business trip to Cuba, citing the need to write a detailed report on the done work for the year. And on Liberty Island, he was arrested for unauthorized contact with the CIA. Espionage in favor of the United States failed to prove, but his organs still fired.

The main thing - technique

It is noteworthy that after the scandal on the Potomac in the bowels of the CIA were developed instructions for the agents, explaining how to correctly make a drunkard colleague from the KGB to find out his secret information. As the main components of success called the ability to say the right toast that Russian intelligence can not support. In this case, the recommendations emphasized that one should not try to out-drink the KGB - is still possible. Main properly distribute the forces.

Similar problems in the 60s there were in Israel's foreign intelligence - Mossad. While in Israel, virtually no culture of alcohol consumption, and for beginners operatives decided to organize a special course of eighteen months. Taught everything: the basics of wine tasting, alcohol compatibility with certain dishes, in what quantities and in what sequence should be used one or another drink. Mossad agents were tested future at a special graduation banquet.

Some tricks of alcohol by foreign intelligence services, by their own admission, assembled in Russia. One of them became legendary KGB pill, preventing rapid intoxication. Today, a similar drug called "RU-21" produces company Spirit Sciences, based in California. The Americans argue that the Russian started its development after the Second World War, but the Russian side their involvement in the drug denies.