Want to Spy on the KGB? : Covert Bookstore Keeps Secrets

Psst! Tucked away on the sixth floor of a downtown Washington office building is a bookstore for spies, where you can learn how to change your identity, determine if your telephone is bugged, look inside the KGB or get some self-help guidance on becoming an agent.

But you almost have to engage in espionage to find the National Intelligence Book Center, which specializes in books, magazines, computer software and tapes on spies, cryptography, surveillance, the CIA, the KGB and spooks of all kinds.

It is one of Washington’s secrets, this whispery one-room shop. Once you find it, there are plenty of clues that this is not your run-of-the-mill bookstore.

Access Tightly Controlled

Access is controlled by a high-tech security door. Callers on hold are treated to tape-recorded readings from famous spy tales. The store is open to the public only three days a week, and visitors must check packages in lockers before entering.

There is no telling who you’ll bump into among the clientele.

Elizabeth Bancroft, the store’s founder and director, refuses to name her customers. They prefer to remain covert. But patrons include famous authors, literary editors, doctors, lawyers and, of course, government officials from the United States and abroad.

One customer of Bancroft’s mail-order service was said to be the late William J. Casey, former director of the CIA and author of “The Secret War Against Hitler,” posthumously published memoirs of his service in the CIA’s World War II forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services. Norman Mailer and Jacqueline Onassis reportedly have contacted the store.

“It’s a crossroads for people in the intelligence community,” writer Jim Hougan says. “I consider myself knowledgeable in this area, but some of the stuff in her store is really astonishing.”

Limits His Visits

Joseph Goulden, another writer hooked on true spy tales, limits himself to about one visit a month. “If I went too often, I’d be broke. I could easily spend $2,000 in there.”

Browsers--there are about 30 or 40 a day--often spend several hours at the center. Bancroft said she finally had to remove chairs from the room to prevent patrons from parking themselves all day.

Bancroft, a crisp, black-haired woman who turned her fascination with the netherworld of spying into her life’s work, prides herself on the range of books she has compiled.

Most of the 1,400 titles are nonfiction, but the center stocks a smattering of spy fiction, such as the works of John Le Carre and Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories.

The store carries everything from the Soviet-inspired “Devil and His Dart: How the CIA Is Plotting in the Third World” to “The Whole Spy Catalogue: an Espionage Lovers’ Guide” and David Kahn’s seminal volume on cryptography, “The Code Breakers.” Foreign language books are also displayed, mainly Russian and French.

Even Coffee Mugs

On the lighter side, there are coffee mugs displaying KGB and CIA emblems, government maps, “James Bond’s Bedside Companion,” the “Comic Book of MI5” and a how-to book on passing the FBI’s entrance exam. The shop doesn’t stock material on explosives or silencers.

The most popular books, Bancroft says, are from obscure publishers: “How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found” and “How to Create a New Identity.” The latter, written by “Anonymous,” outlines step-by-step ways to get a new driver’s license, credit cards, birth certificate and other documents.

Among the duds: anything to do with the Iran-Contra affair.

“I had to give some Ollie North books away because no one was buying them,” Bancroft says. North, a former Marine lieutenant colonel, has been indicted for his role in selling weapons to Iran and diverting the profits to the Nicaraguan Contras.

Bancroft, a Harvard-educated New Yorker who had worked as a professional fund-raiser before she plunged into the book business, started the center as a mail-order operation in her home about two years ago. She specialized in finding obscure books on intelligence gathering.

Success Breeds Success

So successful was the operation--people routinely showed up at her doorstep--that she sold her house, moved into an apartment and stocked a rented office with books. She expanded into new quarters in the same building a few months ago.

Until just recently, Bancroft didn’t advertise. The shop depended on whisper-of-mouth for customers to learn of its existence.

Although she has received strong moral support from well-known ex-CIA officials, Bancroft says financing for the store comes from private investors and loans.

“We have had people invest who are interested in the subject matter, but no one I know of is being funded by an intelligence group,” she says.

With only one assistant, Bancroft often works 18-hour days, answering questions from customers, ordering books and wrapping packages at the store, which started to turn a profit recently.

Bancroft has no plans to expand to a regular, street-level operation.

“People like the idea that we are hidden away,” she says. Besides, she adds: “I am not big on dealing with the public.”