She was a trained "deep cover" operative of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). This made her extremely dangerous, for a variety of different reasons.
A review of some of the news articles, and video interviews about her, from around the world, reveal that she was perhaps the most dangerous Russian spy in the bunch, from a psychological perspective.
Ann Chapman was a "seductress of men" or femme fatale, - quite literally from "Russia with Love".
If you have any doubt about this take a look at some of her very sexy Face book pictures sometime.
She was basically going about her mission to infiltrate influential U.S. Policy Making circles, in a way that was little different from most. And I believe she was willing to use herself and sex as a means if necessary to get the information.
Psychologists tell us sex is a powerful emotion, and drive in human beings.
It can create deep intimacy and emotional bonding between one or both of the parties involved.
Sex also sells in our society.
Indeed sex is everywhere in advertisements and commercials.
It's reflected to us in magazines, pop culture, fashion and sadly enough in the provocative way young girls dress nowadays, with the hair, short - shorts, and make-up.
Sex, or the possibility of sex can also be used as a tool to manipulate people to get what you want. Both men and women use it against each other sometimes.
In Ann Chapman's case that was to get information, which could help her achieve her goal and mission, in getting close to at least one very wealthy New York fiancier associated with the Democratic party.
As a Russian spy Ann Chapman was also an expert in "elicitation". Not many people know this.
Elicitation is the subtle extraction of information that appears to be normal, social or professional conversation and can occur anywhere - in a restaurant, work place, business conference, Facebook.
It is the collection of conversations in such a way as to gain specific information without being too obvious about it.
Elicitation by foreign intelligence officers or terrorists is a commonly used technique and highly effective way of collecting facts and information.
It hard to describe in layman's terms, but your teenage daughter does it all the time on the telephone.
Seemingly innocuous and pointless details can be transferred into intelligence information that can damage friendly plans or intentions.
People call it "paying attention to the details", and the "observables" to deduce critical information about your projects, programs and activities.
These can expose links to critical information and help adversaries summarize the meaning of loose facts they collect.
Why elicitation works is simple. Most people want to be polite and helpful. So we answer questions even from strangers or people we don't know. We are also reluctant to with hold information, lie or be suspicious of others motives, and intentions.
The Russians use this to their advantage, and are experts at HUMINT or "human intelligence", as evidence by their willingness to send people under deep cover assignments to other nations for 20-30 years in some cases. They are very methodical and systematic in their overall approach to intelligence gathering.
It is part of their "tried and true" approach to intelligence gathering, that has succeeded for them time and time again.
Many people in the west don't fully appreciate the Russian method in espionage, until it's too late.
We must be aware of elicitation, and be ready to fully deflect questions that are intrusive and too probing regarding your job.
Robert Tilford
Related posts:
