Antonio J. Mendez - The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics That Helped America Win the Cold War

Murphy is right.

Never go against your gut.

Always listen to your gut; it is your operational antenna.

Everyone is potentially under opposition control.

Dont look back; you are never completely alone. Use your gut.

Go with the flow; use the terrain.

Take the natural break of traffic.

Maintain a natural pace.

Establish a distinctive and dynamic profile and pattern.

Stay consistent over time.

Vary your pattern, and stay within your profile.

Be nonthreatening; keep them relaxed. Mesmerize!

Lull them into a sense of complacency.

Know the opposition and their terrain intimately.

Build in opportunity, but use it sparingly.

Dont harass the opposition.

Make sure they can anticipate your destination.

Pick the time and the place for action.

Any operation can be aborted; if it feels wrong, then it is wrong.

Keep your options open.

If your gut says to act, overwhelm their senses.

Use misdirection, illusion, and deception.

Hide small operative motions in larger nonthreatening motions.

Float like a butterfly; sting like a bee.

When free, in obscura (IO), immediately change direction and leave the area.

Break your trail, and blend into the local scene.

Execute a surveillance-detection run designed to draw them out over time.

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but three times is an enemy action.

Avoid static lookouts; stay away from choke points where they can reacquire you.

Select an IO or meeting site so you can overlook the scene.

Keep any asset separated from you by time and distance until it is time.

If the asset has surveillance, then the operation has gone bad.

Only approach the site when you are sure it is clean.

After the IO meeting or act is done, close the loop at a logical cover destination.

Be aware of surveillances time tolerance so they arent forced to raise an alert.

If an alert is issued, they must pay a price, and so must you.

Let them believe they lost you; act innocent.

There is no limit to a human beings ability to rationalize the truth.

Technology will always let you down.

Never fall in love with your agent.

Betrayal may come from within.

T his book contains stories from two overlapping careers in the CIA that, combined, spanned fifty-two years. For reasons of clarity, weve chosen to write most of our stories from Tonys perspective, but we have also included some narratives that can only be told from Jonnas point of view. In those cases, weve told those stories, her stories, in third person. Throughout the book, first-person pronouns such as I and me refer to Tony.