Intelligence Report

A spy plane crashing in China. An FBI agent accused of selling secrets to Moscow. Russia and China charging any American who isn’t in a tour group with espionage.

Is this new Cold War way too ‘80s or what? Well, Click can backtrack with the best of them, and we refuse to be out-spooked. So put on the Smiths or Prince or whatever Reagan-era music makes your fingers dance and take a little tour of some not-so-secret spy sites.

The apex for secret acts is, of course, the CIA (https://www.cia.gov/index.html). You can get the 411 on countries in the World Factbook. There’s also information on the intelligence community (we’re not talking MENSA) in the Factbook on Intelligence. Note to the director: It might be time for a chapter on document handling for the FBI.

But the real jewel of the CIA site is the Spy-Fi Archives (https://www.cia.gov/spy_fi/index.html), featuring 40 years of TV and movie spy fiction. There’s Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone from “Get Smart” and Napoleon Solo’s business card from “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Mrs. Peel’s leather pants from “The Avengers” stopped us dead in our tracks.

Hollywood history might be a little fluffy for Click’s serious readership. May we offer the Cold War Museum (https://www.coldwar.org)? Go to the timeline, click on the ‘40s and you’ll get, among much else, articles on the separation of Berlin (1945), the UFO crash in Roswell, N.M., (1947) and the Marshall Plan (1948). Thanks to the WB, we now know that the UFO crash did indeed plant spies. They are covertly operating as overly angst-ridden and preternaturally attractive teenagers in “Roswell.” Very clever to remain at the scene of the crime.

OK, OK, you want something a little more scholarly. Try Spy Letters of the American Revolution (https://www.si.umich.edu/spies). We learn that both British and revolutionary armies used invisible ink that would--get this--reveal itself when the paper was heated. And it’s not like they had vats of lemon juice just lying around either.

More current is the Federation of American Scientists (https://www.fas.org), which has much on intelligence. Duh. Hot documents include the indictment of FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen for espionage. There’s also information on intelligence programs and systems and satellite photos of such things as North Korean missile launch sites.

If you want more choice in spy shots, go to GlobeXplorer (https://www.globexplorer.com/cfviewer/viewer.cfm), which lets you view cities and landmarks. For a subscription fee, you can search by address. Well worth the price to have a screen saver of your roof.

Declassified satellite photos, which probably don’t include your roof unless you’re reading this in North Korea, are at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Eros Data Center (https://edcftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/DCLASS).

For the more active spyette, there’s JournalismNet’s (https://www.journalismnet.com/people/spy.htm) Spy on People, which is a lot more interesting than spying on roofs. The site has tips and mucho links to various Internet resources, some of which are so secret you get “Page Not Found” when you click on them.

There are also a number of stores online that sell spy equipment, including pens that write in invisible ink in case you’re planning a Revolutionary War reenactment. We’re not listing their URLs, though. If you can’t find them, you really don’t deserve the professional spy sunglasses with rearview vision.

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Robert Burns is an assistant Business editor at The Times.