Last week, former Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson interviewed former KGB officer and current Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.  While much of the coverage surrounded the controversy of Tucker himself, we will focus on what we know best: the watches present at the meeting in the Kremlin.  It’s not just W.O.E. who will be analyzing Putin’s watch, members of the American Intelligence Community will be scrutinizing it, too. As we previously discussed in “CIA Analysis of Foreign Leaders’ Timepieces”, CIA Directorate of Analysis (DA) analysts will scrutinize this video frame-by-frame in order to inform policy makers.  Like we aim to do at W.O.E., they too will ignore the noise and rely on ruthless objectivity to produce an actionable product. Putin Takes off the Watch: Minutes into the interview, Putin, dressed in a dark suit and maroon tie, removed his watch (potentially a Blancpain Léman Aqua Lung Grande Date) and placed it on the side table next to him, facing the camera.  At face value, this subtle gesture could have several meanings.  In an interview that lasted over two hours, it was clear that Putin was very generous with his time and it could be a conscious signal that he was in no hurry to end the interview.  Additionally, taking off one's watch and laying it on the table is a clear indication that it’s Putin’s home turf, i.e. the Kremlin.  In general, people only take off watches in their home as the risk of leaving a watch behind is a mistake you only make once.  Putin is in a position of power; he's in control in his home.    Whether this was a calculated move or a subconscious habit, we can only speculate, but these are exactly the type of questions analysts ask.  We have seen Putin take off his watch and place it on the table in the exact same manner as recently as October 2023. Putin Health Issues: After removing the watch, Putin vigorously rubbed his wrist for a few seconds. This could be a regular habit of his, but it could also be a potential indicator of health issues. Rumors have been swirling around concerning President Putin’s health for years.  Many of these rumors have been disproved; they’re either fabricated or amplified as a part of disinformation campaigns by Ukrainian intelligence services, Russian opposition, or other third party actors.  That said, there are some indications of deteriorating health, stiff or painful wrists are among them and could be a symptom of a plethora of medical issues, including carpal tunnel syndrome and Rheumatoid Arthritis.  In a vacuum, the gesture is totally inconclusive, however if paired with other information, it could paint a clearer picture of Putin’s health. Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts. Putin's body double?   Past videos of Putin and his watch have caused some to question whether the Kremlin uses a body double in public appearances.  In one video he appears uncomfortable wearing a watch on his right wrist, and in another video he appears to glance down at his left wrist to check the time, presumably looking at the place the body double normally wears his watch.  While it’s certainly possible, it appears this “body double” theory was likely disinformation from Ukrainian services to create questions about Putin's health and mental fitness.  This narrative has been promoted by those close to Kiev, amplified on social media, and even picked up by some Western news outlets. Of note, several Dictators have used body doubles in the past (including allegedly Iraq’s Saddam Hussein) and it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Putin would use one.  That said, most of the known use cases of body doubles are for security purposes (dummy motorcade) as opposed to recorded interviews that can be heavily scrutinized.  We see no indications that this or any other interview was conducted by a “body double.” A million dollar collection? The “expensive watch collection” owned by Putin that’s often cited in the media is estimated to be valued over $1 million although we can assume this number is low for one of the wealthiest men in the world. Putin appears to favor silver watches on a black strap as seen during the interview.  In recent years Putin has consistently worn a Blancpain Léman Aqua Lung Grande Date but has also been photographed wearing a Russian made, Imperial Peterhof Factory (Raketa) watch.  The one in the interview is potentially the Blancpain given the butterfly clasp.  For a full rundown of Putin’s watch collection see: “Watches of the War in Ukraine.” Tucker and CIA Troll: Another striking W.O.E. moment in the conversation was when Putin seemed to troll Tucker with a backhanded compliment about not being accepted to CIA: “CIA of course, the organization you wanted to join back in the day as I understand. We should thank God they didn’t let you in. Although it is a serious organization I understand.  My former vis-a-vis in the sense that I served in the First Main Directorate, Soviet Union's intelligence service; they have always been our opponents, a job is a job.” According to press reports, Carlson did in fact apply to CIA after graduating from Trinity College.  As an apolitical platform, we are neither pro-nor-against Tucker Carlson, however we will note that not being accepted to CIA is by no means a failure.  While we can only speculate on acceptance rates for CIA officers, the number is minuscule and many have speculated that it is easier to get into Harvard than CIA.  Regardless, the President of Russia’s preplanned troll of the TV personality is on another level, just another example of once a KGB officer, always a KGB officer. During the interview, Tucker wore his “Buckley Dial” Rolex Datejust on a steel and gold Jubilee bracelet.  Tucker appears to be a one-watch-man and the “Buckley dial” is a unique Datejust with printed (not applied) Roman numerals.  The watches were produced in the 1970s and 80s and the name is reportedly linked to John Buckley, a vintage watch dealer. There is no shortage of stories to cover in the Watches of Espionage niche, and this article is an example of that.  At most historic moments, there are watches present and they offer insight into the men and women wearing them. If you enjoyed this article, please consider signing up for our weekly free newsletter for further updates HERE.   --Read Next: The Lasting Legacy of the CIA’s Lockheed A-12 and the Watch That Served It  

The Real Spy (Gadget) Watches of the CIA, Soviet KGB, Turkish MIT and German Intelligence While Hollywood's depiction of lasers, knockout gas, and grappling hooks disguised as Rolex Submariners and Omega Seamasters is entertaining, it’s largely all a fantastical product of a screenwriter's imagination.  In fact, at CIA I was never issued a watch and there were only a handful of times in my career that I used “spy gear;” instead, I regularly relied on low technology solutions to build relationships, recruit spies and steal secrets.  The art of human intelligence (HUMINT) has changed little over thousands of years. That being said, there are several historical examples of intelligence officers leveraging timepieces as tools for concealment, surveillance, and listening devices.  In the hyper-niche genre of watches and espionage, it is important to separate fact from fiction and break down the widespread notion of spies wearing gadget-focused watches. In this dispatch, we’ll get into the rare instances where spies did in fact use these sorts of watch-appearing gadgets.  From the Collection of H. Keith and Karen Melton. We have profiled one instance when CIA Technical Officers modified a digital Seiko to conceal a Tropel T-100 camera inside, however there isn’t any solid evidence that this was actually fielded in clandestine collection.  Since that article, we’ve spoken with several officers knowledgeable on the program and none of them were confident it was ever used in such a capacity.  Many real “spy watches” are on display at the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C, however. And much of their history is documented and proven.  Omega Seamaster 300m with a laser embedded in Goldeneye, 1995. Hanhart Protona: One well known example of “spy gear” embedded in a timepiece is the Protona Minifon, which contained a microphone to surreptitiously record conversations during the Cold War era.  The case was perforated and contained a microphone and a cord ran out of the 9 o’clock up the wearer's arm to the tape recorder. The “watch” itself did not actually keep time and the movement was removed to make space for the microphone. Recent descriptions of these at auction have suggested that they were used by CIA and other intelligence agencies, many pointing to an operation with detained Moscow-based CIA Case Officer Marti Peterson.  The narrative of the “microphone watch” during the detainment of Marti continues today and is repeated in both historical publications and watch media outlets, a myth we debunked in a previous Dispatch (Read Here: Moscow Rules).   But the watch certainly does exist, and was presumably designed and fielded to surreptitiously record conversations.  But was it ever actually used for intelligence collection or was it just a gimmick? The device was designed in the 1950s and produced until Protana closed up shop in 1967.  Numerous online forums claim the watch was issued to “German agents on both sides of the Berlin Wall” and involved in the defection of KGB officer Vladimir Petrov in Canberra, Australia in 1954.  While there does appear to be a recording device in the latter, we have seen no documented evidence of it actually being this specific tool.  In fact, in our conversations with numerous Cold War era CIA Ops and Technical Officers, none of them had heard of Hanhart (including Marti Peterson). In contrast to the CIA modified bespoke Seiko, the Hanhart was a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product, something that intelligence services are often hesitant to use without significant testing, evaluation and modification.  Further, while the device was advanced for its time, the watch was bulky and impractical. Wrist watches on display at "Contact Istanbul" exhibition at Istanbul's Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM) (Photo Credit: Daily Sabah) That said, a recent exhibition from Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) displaying espionage artifacts revealed that MIT indeed used several wristwatches with recording devices for “various operations,” and the watches appear to be Protona Minifon. So we do have some confirmation that this model was used by an intelligence agency, just not the ones that the internet forums would have you believe.  While listening devices and recording conversations are definitely an occurrence in the Intel world, it’s rare at CIA.  I don’t recall ever being trained in surreptitiously recording conversations and the only conversations I recorded were in specialty debriefing rooms for “walk ins”- individuals volunteering information to the US  government, and they were aware they were being recorded.  Steineck ABC Wristwatch Camera: Steineck ABC Wristwatch Camera, From the Collection of H. Keith and Karen Melton at the International Spy Museum. In surveillance operations, photographic evidence of the target can be a valuable piece in the mosaic of intelligence collection and analysis.  In the present day, miniscule digital cameras can be embedded in just about anything and long-range cameras are capable of capturing real-time imagery in poor conditions.  But that wasn’t always the case.  In the early days of the Cold War, capturing photographs of a target required up close surveillance tradecraft.  To fill this gap, West German based Steineck produced the ABC Wrist Watch Camera.   Steineck ABC Wristwatch Camera, From the Collection of H. Keith and Karen Melton at the International Spy Museum. The watch was developed after WWII and produced from 1949 until the late 1950s.  The tool is worn on the wrist as one would a watch, but doesn’t tell time.  In theory, the metallic dial and leather strap would allow it to pass initial scrutiny at a distance or in low light conditions. The watch would likely require significant training and practice to capture an acceptable image while appearing to casually check the time. With a press of a button in the side of the case, the surveillant could photograph clandestine meetings or a target conducting an operational act.  With a fixed exposure and focal length, not to mention a limit of eight images, the watch would likely need to be used only in ideal conditions and lighting. Again, we have no documented evidence of this actually being fielded by an intelligence service, but that does not mean it never was. KGB Pocket Watch - Concealment Device: KGB concealment device pocket watch. From the Collection of H. Keith and Karen Melton at the International Spy Museum. (International Spy Museum) The passage of sensitive information between the asset –“spy”-- and the handling Case Officer is a crucial part of a human intelligence operation.  In the Cold War, tradecraft involving the transfer of film or microdots was common, often through Dead Drops or other impersonal agent handling methods.  A concealment device (CD) with a cavity disguised in a benign item would allow the agent or intelligence officer to securely transfer the information across international borders or to the local Embassy for transmission back to headquarters.  This pocket watch was (reportedly) designed by the Soviet KGB (Комитет государственной безопасности -КГБ) for this purpose.  At first glance, it is a normal pocket watch that would not draw attention or scrutiny when carried by a diplomat or government official in any western capital.  While ostensibly produced in the Soviet Union, the watch contains English writing “TAKE YOUR CHANCE” as it would have been issued to an asset working in an English-speaking country.  But the watch contains a secret cavity to hold and conceal film, microdots or a folded note.  CIA Clock with Concealed Receiver (1970s) for covert signaling.  A Moscow agent could request an unscheduled meeting by activating a transmitter as he drove past the home of his CIA case officer, who kept this clock on his desk. (International Spy Museum) The Apple Watch: While the days of leveraging a traditional timepiece as a piece of spy gear may be obsolete due to technological advancements, the smartwatches, including the Apple Watch, offer endless possibilities for espionage both offensively and defensively.  Leveraging “zero day” exploits, hostile intelligence services can remotely and surreptitiously compromise a smartwatch to activate the microphone, camera or pull locational data in real time.  Given these technological advancements, spies of the future will continue to rely on low-tech solutions for timekeeping. Thank you to the International Spy Museum for the assistance with the background and research for this article.  These and other watches are on display at the museum for your next visit to Washington D.C. -- If you enjoyed this article, please consider signing up for our weekly free newsletter for further updates HERE.   This Dispatch has been reviewed by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information. READ NEXT: Special Boat Service OMEGA Seamaster  

Luxury timepieces are one of the most effective mediums to move illicit funds around the globe and a tool to integrate those ill-gotten gains into the financial system.  Transnational criminal networks, terrorists, narcotraffickers and corrupt politicians have used watches to launder money as a part of global illicit finance. The Weight of a Million Dollars – 22 pounds A million dollars weighs just over 22 lbs.  I learned this during one of my first tours as a CIA Case Officer.  Like any other morning, I mounted my Gary Fisher mountain bike and rode out the gate of our compound for a quick exercise ride in the hills surrounding the African capital where I was working.  This activity was “in pattern,” should I have surveillance, they would note the departure, but it would not warrant further investigation.  A trained eye might have seen that something was different, however. The dead weight of ten thousand $100 bills in my backpack made the bike top-heavy and awkward to ride.  The operation was simple and routine. After a long Surveillance Detection Route (SDR) through the hills and side streets of the third world capital, I worked my way to a predetermined ops site.  The watch on my wrist would have (probably) been a Timex Ironman, my go to Digital Tool Watch (DTW) for exercise over the past two decades.  I would have checked the time before moving into the site, confirming that I would hit the operational window.  In espionage, timing is everything. Right on time. I identified a couple in the alley.  We established bona fides with a verbal parole -- a predetermined phrase and response.  I then handed them the heavy backpack in exchange for a similar one and rode off in the other direction, the entire exchange lasting less than a minute. In tradecraft lingo it was a “BE” (Brief Encounter).  A standard CIA Case Officers EDC, read more HERE Except for the backpack stuffed with cash, it was a routine day for a case officer. Certainly not the stuff of Hollywood but instead a crucial operation for the global network of intelligence collection. Due to compartmentalization, I didn’t know who the individuals were that I handed the backpack to or why they needed the large sum of cash, though I have my suspicions.  They had likely just arrived in the country and could not bring the cash in through customs without drawing scrutiny. Watches as a Currency: One takeaway from this operation is that money is heavy.  It’s inconvenient, bulky and difficult to transport, not to mention having to explain it away if discovered.  This is why many illicit actors, spies and criminal networks rely on expensive but innocuous luxury items to move funds across borders.  Given the significant increase in value of timepieces, watches are a favored currency when it comes to illicit activity.  I easily could have handed off a single watch to transfer that same value to the couple that morning. The value-to-weight ratio of a Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet or other premium brands is exceeded only by precious gems, making it easy to physically transport a watch across international borders. The vast, unregulated, and fragmented gray market makes converting timepieces into cash relatively easy. Unlike vehicles, gold, and diamonds, there is no oversight or registration for timepieces and a million dollar Patek can be worn on your wrist, easily breezing through customs. Lebron James wearing a "Tiffany Blue" Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 5711, a watch that has sold for 100 times its original price at $5,350,000 at auction.  Luxury Watches – Money Laundering: The international financial system is heavily regulated and monitored by law enforcement and intelligence services to identify illicit activity. Transactions over $10,000 are automatically flagged and international border law restricts the amount of cash one can bring in/out of a given country undeclared.  By contrast, watches are a perfect medium for exploitation by bad actors.  They are innocuous and liquid, and pawn shops, auction houses and high-end dealers often turn a blind eye to these activities. Every major auction house has been involved in a controversy where profitability triumphed over ethics at some point. This isn’t to say that they’re willfully supporting money laundering, rather that it is simply a frequent occurrence. Eight days after 9/11, CIA officers pick up $3 million cash in three cardboard boxes. This money would enable the Northern Alliance (NA) commanders to pay their troops and convince other tribes to rally to the NA rather than fight them. (Photo Credit: CIA) Moving Illicit Funds - A Case Study Imagine, you need to move $1 million from the United States to Turkey.  The logical choice is a traditional bank transfer, which would require you to deposit it in a financial institution.  This would alert the authorities who would request an explanation for how you came about the funds, for both tax purposes and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) enforcement. Carrying cash would require a 20 pound duffel bag, making hand-carrying it cumbersome and again would cause scrutiny from customs officials, resulting in questions and import tariffs and complications. Additionally, you introduce a major security risk by carrying that much cash around and potentially becoming a target.  Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officer processes a passenger into the United States at an airport. (DHS Photo by James Tourtellotte) So, what do you do?  You could convert it to diamonds and hide them in a tube of toothpaste (or concealed in your body), but again, if caught, this cannot be explained away.  So, you visit the diamond district in New York, purchase a dozen Rolex and AP watches, each of which could be worth up to $500k per watch.  You use couriers to “smurf” the watches on commercial flights, each one wearing a watch on the wrist and a couple in a carry-on bag.  For the cost of a few round-trip tickets, the watches could be relocated to Istanbul relatively risk-free.  A single (new) Rolex Dayton can have a street value of $30-$50k, vintage significant higher (James Rupley) Once you arrive in Turkey, you find the local watch dealer and offer to sell for cash, or a bank transfer to integrate them into the financial system, the first step of money laundering (placement, layering, integration).  Given the illicit activity, you may lose some money on the sale, but this is simply the cost of integrating illicit funds.  The dealer is happy to purchase them below market value and not ask questions. Well over $100k in Rolex Watches (Photo Credit: Jame Rupley) Hezbollah’s Illicit Finance: In 2015, an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) revealed that Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia terrorist organization, purchased large quantities of watches in Europe, which were then transported by couriers to Lebanon where they were sold for cash.  Hezbollah reportedly purchased €14 million in watches from a single store in Germany, thus evading international monitoring.  (The movement and exchange of expensive goods has long played a role in informal Middle Eastern “Hawala” money transfer networks throughout the globe.) This practice is so common that Dutch law enforcement has urged watch dealers to refrain from cash transactions.  Several high profile arrests of criminal networks in Spain, Netherlands, Romania and Belgium revealed luxury watches as integral to the movement of illegal funds, and closely associated with the recent increase in watch crime in the region. Money Laundering: The 3 Stages of Money Laundering (Image Credit: Alessa) Money Laundering (ML) is the act of integrating illegally acquired cash to legitimate financial institutions with the goal of concealing the illegal origins of those funds.  While this is traditionally associated with criminal networks, in the intelligence world, cash is king and most intelligence services practice some form of benevolent money laundering.  Watches can play a crucial part in each step of the money laundering process. Placement: Step one is introducing illicit gains into the financial system.  In the example above, this can occur with the sale of the watch and the depositing of those funds into a bank account by the purchasing party.  At initial scrutiny, this will appear to be a legitimate transaction. Breaking Bad- money laundering (AMC) Layering:  Step two is the process of moving those same funds through multiple transactions to conceal the origin of the funds.  Once funds are converted, one could use the illicit funds to purchase watches, and then resell them in a manner to distance the original transaction and repeat this process.  The example above of transferring watches overseas could be another example of layering in addition to potential placement.  Integration:  The final last step is returning the funds to the criminal organizations for personal use, thus appearing legitimate.  Embezzlement and Money Laundering- Former Brazilian President Bolsonaro  According to press reporting, in 2022, Former Brazilian President Bolsonaro found himself in hot water for (reportedly) selling a gifted Saudi Rolex and a Patek Philippe watch, netting him $68k.  Bolsonaro used a third party (smurf) to transport the watches to the United States and quickly found a buyer in a relatively obscure Pennsylvania mall. If true, Bolsonaro used the same technique as above to transfer the value from Brazil, convert it into dollars and then (supposedly) repatriate that cash to Brazil.  This is an example of Money Laundering by disguising an unreported diplomatic gift and converting that gift into a usable currency. This is not the first scrutiny of Bolsonaro's gifts from foreign governments, in 2021, a Brazilian government official was reportedly detained at the border with more than $3 million in jewels from Saudi Arabia in a backpack, allegedly gifts for Bolsonaro and his wife.   The world is not all flowers and rainbows and we expect to continue to see the use of luxury timepieces in the global illicit finance network, particularly as prices for these luxury goods remain high. -- If you enjoyed this article, please consider signing up for our weekly free newsletter for further updates HERE.  This Dispatch has been reviewed by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information. READ NEXT: CIA Analysis of Foreign Leaders’ Timepieces

In intelligence operations, time matters.  While our Dispatch articles traditionally focus on watches, today we look at another tool to measure time, the time pencil.  It’s a short time fuze detonator used for explosive charges in covert operations in World War II.  We have profiled watches of the Glorious Amateurs of the Office of Strategic Service (OSS) officers in World War II, this is another time measuring tool they used to accomplish their mission. By JR Seeger  The allied support to resistance operations in Occupied Europe focused on sabotage operations before D-Day and then more aggressive combat operations after the fact.  The challenge for sabotage operations was to conduct said operation but live to fight another day.  Some of the most effective sabotage operations took place inside factories where enslaved workers would periodically insure whatever came off the assembly line was not quite to specifications.  Still, the most dramatic of the resistance operations before D-Day focused on using explosives against roads, bridges, and railways.   In 1939, with the Nazi blitzkrieg closing in on Warsaw, Polish military intelligence officers provided the small British contingent with intelligence and technology to be taken to England. Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service and the military intelligence contingent, including Lieutenant Colonel Colin Gubbins, returned to England with a treasure trove of intelligence including prototypes of a chemical time delay fuze. The prototypes were shared between SIS Section D (D for destruction) and Gubbins unit military intelligence unit focused on resistance operations. In 1940, these two offices were combined to become a new, independent organization, the Special Operations Executive (SOE). British Irregular Warfare:  When the British SOE started their resistance training in England in 1940, explosives training was one of the primary classes.  The SOE training on demolitions in the first years of the war was based entirely on military demolitions techniques including the use of standard military blasting caps and fuzes lighted either by a match or a simple friction plunger system known as a fuze ignitor.  Based on this training, a resistance team had to emplace explosives and remain quite close to the actual blast – certainly no more than a few minutes away depending on the length of fuze used.  While this technique worked well for combat engineers supported by infantry, it was not designed for a resistance group that wished to conduct sabotage and avoid capture.   British scientists were already working on multiple time delay mechanisms, but their work focused on supporting other British irregular forces like the Commandos and other Small Scale Raiding Forces associated with the SOE.  The Polish design was modified to create “time pencils” that used a chemical process as a time delay.  Time pencils were used in the commando raid on the dry docks in St. Nazaire in March 1942.  However, the reality was that British scientists simply did not have the resources to create a standardized time delay device that could be used by resistance forces across Europe. British Commandos, 1942 (Wikipedia Commons) Enter the Americans:  After Pearl Harbor, William Donovan expanded the capabilities of his new office, the Coordinator of Information (COI), to include irregular warfare.  Donovan provided the President with an irregular warfare plan in the summer/fall of 1941, but the US was still neutral, and President Roosevelt was not about to approve Donovan’s plans for special operations.  By mid-December 1941, Roosevelt approved Donovan’s plans and he began to recruit America's counterpart to the SOE.  Sabotage and subversion were central to Donovan’s strategic plan. In the early months of 1942, the COI and its successor in June 1942, Office of Strategic Services (OSS), were criticized at the time by generals at the Pentagon as simply a gathering of Ivy League intellectuals with little or no understanding of modern warfare.  Donovan did gather some of the great minds of the American universities and industry and focused their skills on what he saw as a key part of modern war – irregular or partisan warfare.  One of the key individuals in this new type of warfare was Stanley Lovell.  Lovell was a successful industrial chemist and professor at Harvard when Donovan recruited him to use American technology in support of irregular warfare.  Lovell was the chief of the OSS unit known as Research and Development and R&D designed and produced dozens of special weapons and equipment for the OSS and the SOE.  One of the most useful and probably the smallest of Lovell’s devices was a modification of the British version of the “time pencil.” Lovell’s time pencil was an ingenious blend of chemistry and technology that could be mass produced and shared with resistance groups throughout Europe.  It was a combination of a standard fuze ignitor at one end and a corrosive chemical compound at the other.  When the corrosive compound was crushed inside the tube, it slowly eroded a fuze ignitor.  The amount of the chemical mix allowed for time pencils to be created that delayed ignition from a few minutes to up to 24 hours.  That meant that the saboteur could emplace the demolitions, lay out the camouflaged fuze, mix the chemicals by crushing one end of the time pencil and then leave.  At a precise time, the time pencil would ignite the fuze, and start the explosive chain that would end with an explosion of plastic explosives.  With the delivery of the time pencils, saboteurs and their resistance security partners could be miles away from the site when the explosion occurred and the inevitable Nazi investigation would begin.  They could even conduct multiple operations in the same night. Of course, time pencils were not foolproof, and the chemical reaction would be affected by ambient temperature and other environmental factors.  Still, the use of this new sabotage technique, coupled with an accurate wristwatch for keeping track of the time before the explosion made the resistance more effective.  The time pencil was another example of cooperation between the US and UK teams supporting special operations.  Like the easily ignored watch or the suitcase radio that made air and coastal delivery of resistance men and equipment possible, the time pencil was a small device with a big impact on special operations in World War II.  Magnetic charge with Time Pencil placed on a vehicle (Imperial War Museum) READ NEXT: The Pragmatic Journey of a SEAL Through Watch Collecting  -- J.R. Seeger served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne and as a CIA officer for a total of 27 years of federal service. He served 17 years in multiple field assignments focused on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and irregular warfare.  During his final, 3-year assignment in CIA Headquarters, he first served as a chief of operations for a geographic division in the Directorate of Operations and then served as a deputy director and deputy chief of the CIA Counterterrorism Center.  Seeger led multiple, small unit teams during his service, including leading one of the CIA teams that infiltrated into Afghanistan after 9/11. Since his retirement, J.R. has written articles and book reviews in the CIA professional journal “Studies in Intelligence” and the T.E. Lawrence Society newsletter. His eight-part MIKE4 series is about a family who have served in the special operations and intelligence community from World War II to the present.

Spy Watches, Women and Espionage - At the height of the Cold War, a female CIA officer operated with impunity on the streets of Moscow, free from the ever-present KGB surveillance. But it all changed one warm summer night when she was ambushed while servicing a dead drop for a sensitive asset, TRIGON. The Seiko on her wr

The latest Israel-Hamas war began one month ago with the October 7 terrorist attacks.  It’s another conflict that will have significant impacts on the future of the region and potentially the world.  While the nature of a conflict changes over time, one constant is the presence of timepieces on the wrist of those making decisions.  Our content is often influenced by current events, so today we’re looking at watches of the Middle East. As usual, we take an intelligence officer’s approach–devoid of opinion– as we explore the wrists of decision-makers, past and present, in the Middle East.  Analysis of Foreign Leaders Timepieces As discussed in the previous Dispatch, “CIA Analysis Of Foreign Leaders’ Timepieces,” a foreign leader’s or warfighter's timepiece can tell us a lot about their character, how they perceive themselves, and how they want to be perceived by others.  Analyzing a practitioner's watch can provide unique insight into both their personality and what they are trying to telegraph to their own constituents as well as the larger world, something especially true in today’s information war, which is something both Hamas and the Israelis engage in with varying efficacy. 1 September 2010. During Middle East negotiations, Egyptian President Mubarak and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel check their watches to see if the sun has set; during Ramadan. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons) Watches and the Middle East In the Middle East, watches play a significant role in diplomacy and business.  They are just as much a status symbol as anywhere else; however, in diplomacy and intelligence circles, senior government officials present Swiss watches as gifts to recognize and honor a personal relationship. As a personal touch, many Middle Eastern governments special-order watches with the royal or national military crest on the dial or caseback to present as gifts.  Prior to joining CIA, I was given a Breitling Aerospace from King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and I have since acquired a second Jordanian Breitling Aerospace from Abdullah’s father, his Majesty Hussein bin Talal. Additionally, on one of my first days at CIA as a junior trainee, I was provided $20,000 in cash and sent to an authorized dealer in McLean, Virginia, to purchase a timepiece for the Director of CIA to give as a gift to the visiting head of a Middle Eastern intelligence service.  War: To Study, Not Glorify While we often explore the dark corners of horology, we do not seek to glorify war or take a side on this particular conflict or any other.  Coverage does not signify endorsement; watches are simply our prism for looking at history and current events in the way we know best: analyzing the wrists of those involved. Israel  Israel has a long history with military timepieces.  Everything from Rolex and Omega to Seiko can be seen on the wrists of Generals, spooks and Prime Ministers.  Isser Harel was reportedly awarded this Rolex Submariner ref 5512 at the conclusion of his 11 year tenure as Director of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad in 1963.  The watch was complete with an engraving containing his name and the Mossad insignia on the caseback. Rolex Sub 5512 belonging to former Mossad Director Isser Harel, (Photo Credit: Antiquorum) Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu- Panerai PAM048 Prime Minister Netanyahu regularly wears a Panerai Luminor PAM048, as was seen when he met with Israeli Defense Force (IDF) personnel while planning the response to the 7 October attacks. The PM served five years in a Special Operations unit of the IDF, Sayeret Matkal, with multiple combat deployments including a 1968 operation into Lebanon and the rescue of Sabena Flight 571. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin- Rolex Submariner 1680 Photo Credit: Tiroche Auction House Yitzhak Rabin served as the Israeli Prime Minister from 1974 until 1977 and again from 1992 until his assassination in 1995 by ultranationalist Yigal Amir.  Rabin was a career military officer. He oversaw Israeli operations during the 1967 Six-Day War and ultimately served as Minister of Defense for much of the 1980s. Rabin reportedly purchased this Rolex Submariner 1680 in Washington, D.C. when he became Israeli Ambassador to the US in 1972.  The watch sold at auction for $95,000 in 2021. Former Minister of Defense Benny Gantz - Breitling Aerospace Breitling has long adorned the wrists of military personnel in both Israel and Arab nations.  Pictured below is Former Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister Benny Gantz wearing a Breitling Aerospace. Breitling has also produced several limited editions for Israel, including a Breitling Aerospace featuring the Star of David for the fifty year anniversary of Israel. Photo Credit: AAG Auctioneers Hamas Assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh wearing an intriguing digital Alfajr Islamic watch. While this article was originally published back in November of 2023, in light of the events on July 31st, 2024, we wanted to add a section about the assassination of the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh - Alfajr Islamic Watch The Alfajr Islamic watch worn by Ismail Haniyeh had functions specific to Islam including alarms for prayer times. In recent photographs, before his assassination, which was reportedly carried out by Israeli assets who placed an explosive device in a guesthouse he was supposed to stay in, Haniyeh wore an Alfajr Islamic watch that has several unique features including alarms for worldwide prayer times and a digital compass for Qibla direction. As with all politicians/world leaders, we can assume this watch was also worn to convey a message. Palestine Yasser Arafat- Rolex Datejust Yasser Arafat (kunya- Abu Ammar) was Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from the late 1960s until the early 2000s and wore several watches, including a Rolex Datejust (pictured). A number of profiles have noted his obsession with time, constantly checking his watch. In a 1989 Vanity Fair article, the author mentioned Arafat's lack of personal possessions, except for toiletry items and an expensive watch. When asked about the watch, Arafat replied: “It’s a Rolex, and works well.” Then he laughed and said, “But I don’t want to do propaganda for them.” Jordan King Abdullah II - MTM Black Falcon King Abdullah II of Jordan wearing a tactical MTM Black Falcon, which appears to be his daily wear.  He embodies a "Warrior-King" ethos and judging from my limited personal experience seems to truly live this philosophy.  His Majesty attended Sandhurst (British Royal Military Academy) in the UK and spent a career in the military. In 1994 he assumed command of Jordan's Special Operations Forces and built the Joint Special Operations Command.  He is western-educated, attended Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a course at American Naval Postgraduate School.  He’s also a Black Hawk pilot, as you may recall from a previous Dispatch article on the Jordanian Breitling. King Hussein bin Talal - Breitling Cosmonaute 809 Jordanian King Hussein bin Talal is pictured below wearing a custom Breitling Cosmonaute 809 during a military exercise in 1969.  While we’re not entirely certain, the young boy is likely the current King Abdullah II, as the then-prince would have been seven years old at the time. According to Breitling aficionado Fred Mandelbaum ( @watchfred ), the connection between Breitling and King Hussein bin Talal started in 1965 and 1966, when he ordered several Navitimer 806s and Cosmonaute 809s in steel and had this Special Edition solid gold Cosmonaute 809 made for his personal collection. (Photo Credit: @ watchfred) The "King Hussein" in lustrous 18k gold, manufactured “ex ledger” without serial number and model reference for the private collection of Hussein bin Talal, the King of Jordan, with only his coat of arms on the caseback. Syria Hafiz Al-Assad - Commissioned Rolex “Syrian Submariner” Hafiz Al-Assad served as the President of Syria from 1971 until June 2000.  During his tenure, he commissioned several Rolex pieces, including a “Polar dial” Explorer II (ref. 16550), Sea-Dweller (ref 1665) and this Submariner (Ref. 5513).  Notably, each reference contains Al-Assad’s signature in red Arabic script, which have led some to refer to this as the “Syrian Submariner.” (Photo Credit: Hairspring) (Photo Credit: Hairspring) The below Sea-Dweller was reportedly a personal watch of Assad, and was gifted to his chef in return for a Ramadan meal. (Photo Credit: 10 Past Ten / Eric Ku) Egypt Hosni Mubarak - Rolex GMT Former President and Egyptian Air Force commander, Hosni Mubarak wore a Rolex GMT-Master on a steel and gold Jubilee bracelet during a meeting with Yasser Arafat.  Mubarak reportedly owned several Rolex watches, including another Pepsi GMT and a Rolex Date-Just. Photo Credit: Unknown, sourced from Jake’s Rolex World Major General Abbas Kamel, the Director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (EGID), wearing a not-yet-identified watch during a visit to Gaza.  Palestinian security detail wearing a plethora of Digital Tool Watches.   If you enjoyed this article, please consider signing up for our weekly free newsletter for further updates HERE.   READ NEXT: Tudors of Espionage (T.O.E.s)  

Watches of Espionage was recently profiled by Andrew Harrison for Esquire's "The Big Watch Book." The Mysterious Story Behind 'Watches of Espionage' The Instagram account and website has become a runaway hit by revealing the surprising links between luxury timepieces and spycraft. One detail remains classified. The identity of the former CIA officer who runs it by Andrew Harrison Which watch would you choose to wear on the day you die? It’s not a question that many of us face too often. But then our day’s work seldom involves flying in secret by Black Hawk helicopter from Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan to the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, there to locate and kill Osama bin Laden. Will Chesney was the dog handler with SEAL Team Six, the US special-forces unit selected to carry out “Operation Neptune Spear” in 2011. His chances of being shot down by Pakistan’s air defences en route or killed by an explosion in bin Laden’s compound were, he calculated, high, for Chesney and his dog Cairo were tasked with locating IEDs on the compound perimeter. So for this operation only, Chesney put aside his workaday digital and wore his prized Rolex Submariner instead. It was a special watch, reference 14060, engraved with the SEALs’ “red man” logo. Rolexes and Tudors had been engrained in SEAL culture since Vietnam; Chesney had bought his own watch when he passed the infamously harsh selection process to join Team Six. It was, by certain measures, impractical for the mission. But what exactly, he reasoned, was he saving it for? “I thought it would be fitting to wear the watch on that operation since it was my gift to myself for making it there,” he would say later. “I figured we wouldn’t be making it back so I might as well die with it on.” But they got their man, Chesney didn’t die and neither did Cairo. When Chesney told this story — of how the two would later be presented to President Obama, how Cairo would help him rehabilitate after he was seriously wounded in a grenade attack in Afghanistan in 2013, how Chesney commemorated his canine partner in the book No Ordinary Dog after Cairo died of cancer in 2015 — he told it to Watches Of Espionage. (Read the full post, it’s fascinating.) Launched in February 2021 by a former CIA intelligence operative with an itch for timepieces, the Watches Of Espionage Instagram feed has gained some 130,000 followers and its website has a cult audience unlike anything else in the horological universe. “WoE” readers range from hardcore watch aficionados who want to know exactly why SEALS love Panerai and how Delta Force guys get their custom Breitlings; to fans of the vicarious military experience, from the knowledgeable to what you might call the Gareth-from-The-Office demographic; to another, more select, harder-to-reach group: anonymous men who do anonymous things in the service of their country. They might not be allowed to talk about what they’ve done — many a WoE post ends with the words, “This has been reviewed by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information” — but they want to communicate their watch lore to others in the know, and maybe leak a little to the rest of us. WoE is both their community centre and a window into their world. Continue Reading: The Mysterious Story Behind 'Watches of Espionage'

By Toby Harnden The announcement in July 2018 of a successful “special Mossad operation” to recover a watch came more than 53 years after its owner had been publicly hanged in Damascus, Syria.  The Eterna-Matic Centenaire 61 had been purchased in Geneva in 1961 by a Syrian called Kamel Amin Thaabet, who would wear the timepiece for almost four years. But Thaabet was a fiction. In fact, he was a Mossad officer called Eli Cohen, an Egyptian-born Jew who became Israel’s most legendary spy. Cohen has been depicted in numerous books and screen treatments, including by Sacha Baron Cohen in Netflix's The Spy in 2019. The Centenaire 61, then marketed as “thin…elegant…new…time and date at a glance, automatically” and retailed at $135 ($1,389 today) was a finishing touch to his cover. It seemed to befit his identity as Thaabet, a wealthy, flamboyant businessman bound for Buenos Aires. To this day, the remains of Cohen, who operated in Damascus for three years until his capture in January 1965, have never been recovered. His watch was returned to his wife Nadia in Israel. Like the family of CIA contract pilot Norman Schwartz, killed in Manchuria in 1952, who received a Rolex Oyster Datejust from the U.S government in 2019, the Cohens have no body to bury and only a timepiece from his final mission. The lengths to which Mossad went to locate the Centenaire and the simmering national anger over the failure by an Arab enemy to return his body speaks to the centrality of espionage and enduring enmities in the psyche of the Jewish state. (Photo Credit: NetFlix) With Mossad facing criticism for the intelligence lapses that led to the surprise, barbaric attacks of October 7th by Iran-backed Hamas, Israeli leaders will doubtless consider stories of bravery and sacrifice in the wars against Arabs by the likes of Cohen to be as important and potent as ever. "We remember Eli Cohen and do not forget,” Yossi Cohen, then Mossad chief—and born in the year the executed spy bought the Centenaire—said in a statement when the watch was found. “His heritage, of dedication, determination, courage and love of the homeland, is our heritage. We remember and have maintained a close connection over the years with his family, Nadia and the children. “This year, at the conclusion of an operational effort, we succeeded in locating and bringing to Israel the wristwatch that Eli Cohen wore in Syria until the day he was captured. The watch was part of Eli Cohen's operational image and part of his fabricated Arab identity." (Photo Credit: Eli Cohen Museum) Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister—a position he now occupies once again—added: “I commend the fighters of the Mossad for the determined and courageous operation, the sole objective of which was to return to Israel a memento from a great fighter who greatly contributed to the security of the state." Thaabet, as created by Mossad, had been born to parents who were of Syrian origin but had immigrated to Lebanon. After his parents had died, he went to Argentina to work with his uncle, who had emigrated there in 1946. Eli Cohen, a devout Jew born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1924. His father had moved to Egypt from Aleppo in 1914. His parents and brothers had moved to Israel in 1949. Cohen remained to carry out underground Zionist operations and followed later. Cohen in Damascus, Syria (Photo Credit: Eli Cohen Museum) Cohen had initially been rejected as too arrogant for undercover work but was recruited to Unit 188, a military intelligence unit dedicated to operations outside Israel, at the end of 1959. Mossad trained him to speak Arabic with a Syrian dialect as part of his cover story as Thaabet. Cohen landed in the Argentine capital in February 1961 and began learning Spanish with a private teacher, reaching a proficiency that would convince Syrians he had been living in Argentina for 16 years. On January 10, 1962, Cohen, as Thaabet, boarded a tourist ship that set out from Genoa, Italy, on a passage to Beirut. From Lebanon, he was helped by Majeed Sheikh al-Ard, a CIA asset from 1951 to 1959, to enter Syria. Sacha Baron Cohen plays Eli Cohen in The Spy (Photo Credit: Netflix) Cohen did not try to hide or operate in the shadows. His role was to insinuate himself into the high society of Damascus, renting a luxury villa near the Syrian army headquarters and the diplomatic district.  Soon, he was throwing parties attended by generals and politicians. Cohen had a remarkable memory and he was skilled at pretending he was drunk while keeping a mental note of everything that was being said. Although there were prostitutes and alcohol at his parties, Israeli sources insist that Cohen cover did not extend to having sexual relationships with Syrian women or taking a girlfriend, as was depicted by Sacha Baron Cohen in The Spy. Each morning, Cohen radioed out back to Mossad, his transmissions covered by those from the nearby Syrian army base. He dispatched backgammon pieces, modified to contain microfilms of documents he had copied, to “friends” in Argentina.  His intelligence reports tracked the rising influence of the Ba’ath party, which came to power in a coup in March 1963. Amin al Hafiz, who Cohen had befriended when Hafiz was military attache in Buenos Aires, became defense minister. Mossad now had access to the heart of the Syrian government.   Cohen reported details of the Syrian order of battle and border defenses. He was said to have learned about the Jordan River engineering works—designed to divert water from Israel—from Mohammed bin Laden, a Saudi engineer who had won the contract. One of Bin Laden’s sons, Osama, later became the leader of al-Qaeda.   When Israel was able to capture the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967, credit was given to Cohen’s reporting. Cohen (in the middle) at the Golan Heights (Eli Cohen Museum) According to his daughter Sophie Ben-Dor, Cohen was the ideal Israeli spy. “He was a conservative person,” she said in a 2020 documentary. He was very Zionist, very loyal and very honest. “He was very brave and sociable, but he also really liked his own company. He was very thorough. He knew more than just Arabic. He knew a number of languages to a very high level. He was very intelligent and trustworthy.” Controversy still rages over how Cohen was caught. Some charge that his Mossad handlers pushed him to produce more, others that Cohen was reckless in transmitting for longer than the two minutes—easily timed by glancing at his Centenaire—he had been told was his limit of safety. Mossad has accepted a degree of responsibility in recent years. In 2015, then Mossad chief Tamir Pardo said: “In retrospect, it’s clear that his last return to Syria was a mistake. In the profession of secret warfare, we know that from the first moment of an operation, we’re in a countdown to its end.” (Photo Credit: Eli Cohen Museum) On January 24, 1965, Syrian troops stormed into Cohen’s apartment while he was transmitting. The Syrians forced him to send bogus messages back to Israel but Cohen was able to indicate he was being coerced. Mossad finally realized the game was up when they received a final message addressed to the Israeli prime minister: “Kamal and friends are our guests for three years. Calm down about the fate of what is to come. Military organization of Syria.” Cohen, like any intelligence officer behind enemy lines, especially one operating under non-official cover, had already sacrificed an immense amount. Ben-Dor described in the documentary his arrival at the airport in Israel during one of her father’s last visits home. “I saw him from a distance, wearing a suit and a coat,” she said. “He was nervous. He took my hand and squeezed it. He hardly recognized me. He was so nervous that he hurt my hand but I was too embarrassed to tell him. He was always a stranger to me.” Eli Cohen executed by hanging in Damascus, Syria- May 1965 He almost certainly endured torture at the hands of the Syrians, who forced him to submit to a show trial and then hanged him before a baying crowd in Marjeh Square. A parchment filled with anti-Zionist slogans was attached to his body, which was left swaying from the rope for six hours. The Centenaire is said to have been recovered as part of a new push to locate his remains that began in 2004, according to former Mossad chief Meir Dagan. While the Israeli government hinted in 2018 that the watch was found during a daring undercover mission in Damascus, the Cohen family has suggested that it was bought from a Syrian seeking to profit from its provenance. Eterna Centenaire 61 (Photo Credit: Invaluable) Mossad is believed to have kept documentation of the purchase of the Centenaire—perhaps connecting a serial number—that confirmed Cohen purchased it in Switzerland when his cover as Thaabet was being established. Eterna is a Swiss brand that was founded in Grenchen, Switzerland in 1856 and initially called Dr. Girard & Schild. It gained a reputation for producing high-quality and reliable watches and in 1948 Eterna introduced a revolutionary innovation—the Eterna-Matic automatic movement, featuring a ball-bearing rotor system, which improved accuracy and reliability. In the 1960s, Eterna became a leader in developing diving watches, introducing the KonTiki line, named after the explorer Thor Heyerdahl's famous raft expedition across the Pacific.  The brand would later provide watches to the Israeli Navy, most notably the Shayetet 13, a maritime commando unit to the IDF. Nadia, widow of Israeli spy Eli Cohen, shows a photograph of herself with her late husband, during an interview with Reuters in Herzliya, Israel October 6, 2019. Picture taken October 6, 2019. (Photo Credit: REUTERS/Amir Cohen) The Centenaire has been added to the Eli Cohen legend. In 2019, one television reviewer used it to describe the limits of Sasha Baron Cohen’s Netflix portrayal: “Like the watch, the show is durable, handsome, expertly engineered, but predictable in its movements.” It has, however, provided the Cohen family with a degree of comfort, if not closure. Cohen’s wife Nadia, now 87, described in 2018 being told that the Centenaire, now on display in a new Eli Cohen museum at Herzliya, had been found. “The moment that they informed me, my mouth went dry and I got the chills. At that moment I felt that I could feel his hand, I felt that part of him was with us.”   READ NEXT: Jordanian Breitling: The Gift From A King That Spawned A CIA Case Officer's Love Of Timepieces   About the author: Toby Harnden is the author of First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11. He is currently working on a new book about courage and the CIA, due to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2025. He can be followed on X at @tobyharnden and on Instagram at @tobyharnden1 and @espionage_bookshelf.

How Has DARPA Imagined the Future of Wristwatches? The unquantifiable nature of watches is that these little mechanical objects can be imbued with stories of service, sacrifice, and relationships. When W.O.E. covers watches, we often shy away from product reviews and instead look at the human element that makes watches meaningful. But to DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a watch certainly isn’t a vessel for men and women who have served the nation to mark their achievements or service. It isn’t actually about the stories. A watch can only play one role: to provide the United States with a technological advantage against adversaries. DARPA’s mission is simple: To make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security. When it comes to modifying and creating watches for the purpose of gathering intelligence and performing counterintelligence operations, the Agency’s in-house Directorate of Science & Technology (DS&T) is responsible. More on that HERE. (The name of the Center/Directorate has changed over the years, but the mission remains the same). DARPA’s scope is much different. It spans the entire Department of Defense, meaning the projects they lead have a much broader national security application beyond intelligence collection. As an Agency solely dedicated to Defense, the mission of the organization is not linked to a single operational capability, instead it serves as a “technological engine” that supplies the entire DoD with advanced solutions to maintain US technological superiority. The lead picture of this article is RoboSimian during a DARPA robotics challenge, designed to advance the use of robots in disaster situations. In Hollywood, DARPA is often depicted as the secret underground laboratory that’s reverse engineering alien spacecraft or working on time travel machines. This isn’t an accurate portrayal, instead DARPA is headquartered in the DC burbs and works on sometimes-mundane projects that serve the entire DoD, not just the stuff having to do with propulsion systems borrowed from little green men and global weather modification platforms.  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Headquarters  Arlington, Virginia, United States DARPA is credited with playing a pivotal role in creating the internet, providing the world with GPS technology, and even HAARP, a research station in Alaska that gathers data about the ionosphere. It’s also a popular subject of conspiracy theories, even more so today in the age of podcasts and social media. If there’s a piece of equipment the military uses, DARPA looks to optimize it and provide the United States with a competitive advantage when it comes to national security and defense, and that even means the humble wristwatch has been scrutinized by DARPA to maximize its role on the battlefield. The Atomic Clock–From Laboratory to Soldiers’ Wrists Patek Philippe & Hewlett Packard Atomic Clock (circa 1960s) (Image Credit: M.S. Rau Antiques  / @DrGarcia) Neophytes in the watch world often use accuracy and precision interchangeably. Accuracy in timekeeping is how close a clock or watch can come to a constant true and accepted value. Precision, on the other hand, is how much variance there is in measuring said time. Here’s where it gets interesting–both the most accurate and most precise clock is the atomic clock. An atomic clock works by taking cooling down cesium-133 atoms and then measuring the oscillations at the atomic level with specialized lasers. Cesium-133 “vibrates” at 9,192,631,770 times a second, providing a standardized unit to measure time. This produces the most accurate–and most precise clock in the world. A number of universities and research labs maintain atomic clocks around the world, like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Colorado and Maryland; and the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom. Of course, Switzerland is home to one as well, at The Time and Frequency Laboratory at the University of Neuchâtel. NIST physicist Judah Levine with the NIST time scale that maintains official U.S. civilian time. NIST atomic clocks are used to calibrate the time scale. (Photo Credit: NIST) These laboratories occupy entire wings of campus buildings and research centers, but DARPA has the vision of using Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology to shrink down the system and install it on a single chip. A chip-scale atomic clock would benefit DoD by not only creating a near-perfect time reference across all military forces, but greatly reducing the footprint increases the mobility of military communication systems. Additionally, it’s impervious to jamming. The first time this technology was mentioned was in a 2004 fiscal report prepared for the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, House Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives.  DARPA’s Projected Future Wristwatch Applications This chip-scale atomic clock technology most recently became part of a larger DARPA initiative called Robust Optical Clock Network (ROCkN) in 2022. But instead of a theoretical study, the objectives are clearly defined: The clock was to be used aboard fighter jets, Navy ships, satellites, and eventually a wristwatch.  Modern GPS systems, communication systems, and even the internet, operate down to nanoseconds, and this is exactly why synchronization is still important. Timing matters here because packets of data need to be exactly where they need to be, when they need to be there. If it’s even slightly off the packets get scrambled or lost. Add in the threat of cyberwarfare and timing becomes even more important. Most atomic clocks have a +1/-1 variance over a time span of 31.71 million years. The idea with ROCkN is to get them down to an accuracy of a trillionth of a second. And every single device would be on one network, running at this level of accuracy. This is exactly the kind of moonshot idea the DARPA specializes in. As with most of their projects, this technology exists in the future.  After all, we’ve come a long way in 2023 from DARPA’s initial early-’90s vision for the wristwatch. Before the miniaturized atomic clock, DARPA conceptualized what would eventually become something functionally similar to the smart watch of today.  Patent document for wearable computer packaging device Celebration and Skepticism Around Wrist-Computing In 1998, Military+Aerospace Electronics magazine ran a piece titled DARPA Describes Vision of Wearable Computing. In it, author Chris Chinnock describes a DARPA-led program about a decade earlier, that allowed soldiers of the future to utilize “wearables”, like a wristwatch, to plug into a MIL-STD 1553 bus interface and run tests to determine feasibility of repair and maintenance in the field. The idea was that “Interactive electronic technical manuals would be on the wearable computer, and wireless communications would enable the operator to order replacement parts via the World Wide Web.” Wearables are still being researched and developed, during the Covid-19 pandemic, DARPA has invested in an early-detection projection leveraging the Oura Ring.  Air Force 18th Component Maintenance Squadron wearing a Garmin watch and an Oura ring as part of a 2021 study(Photo Credit:/ U.S. Air Force) Beyond interacting with machinery on the battlefield, DARPA’s vision carried over to large-scale communication, much like the 1940s Dick Tracey model of using your wristwatch like a two-way radio and tracking device. DARPA-backed ViA Inc. of Northfield, Minnesota came close to developing a wristwatch that doubles as a folding computer, much like a laptop. The user would raise their wrist, flip open the screen, and type messages and commands with the other hand in addition to using voice commands. But the idea wasn’t widely adopted. Wearing technology on your body–or wrist–took some getting used to, the story states: People felt uncomfortable talking to the computer," says Dick Urban, deputy director of the electronic technology office at DARPA…There was a cultural barrier that was inhibiting the use of such a novel computing platform. Those early users were certainly on to something. Not only is interacting with an inanimate object inherently difficult, it also introduces a security threat. In 2017, More than 3 trillion data points were compromised and used to reveal the location of sensitive military locations in Syria, Niger, and Afghanistan. Open-source data from Strava, an app designed for the Apple Watch, was used to pinpoint these locations. Now it’s second nature to interact casually with a so-called smart watch, and one day DARPA’s atomic wristwatch will adorn the wrist of service members. But for now, the military will have to make do with G-shocks, Tudors, and Marathons. And that’s just fine with us here at W.O.E.    READ NEXT: Trading a Rolex to Get out of a Sticky Situation - Myth or Reality?  

The connection between watches and the military, the dangers of commercial espionage and the influence of firearms manufacturing on the watch industry. by Aaron Stark In December 2022 I published Disrupting Time: Industrial combat, espionage, and the downfall of a great American company. I got started on this mission of exploration after inheriting a pocket watch from my great grandfather and wanting to learn more about it and the Waltham Watch Co. 1903 Waltham Watch, which I inherited from my great grandfather - author’s photo On the surface it tells the never-told story of two Swiss spies who came to America in 1876 and stole the secrets of the American watch industry, used it to transform the Swiss to mechanized watch production, and how the recovering Swiss watch industry overwhelmed their main target – the Waltham Watch Co of Waltham, Massachusetts. However, the story runs much deeper, touching on the dangers of insider threats and espionage to corporations, the role of timekeeping in the development of modern society, and the impacts of strategic choices made by companies and entire industries that impact their survival or failure. Accordingly, the book has found a wide and diverse audience including historians, business professionals, intelligence professionals, watch enthusiasts, and those who follow the impact of industrial espionage in current events.  Despite the many themes explored in the book, three stand out most saliently to me. These are covered in the book, but the nice thing about writing articles like this is that there are so many more anecdotes that you come across in researching for which there is not room in the book. You can also check out my website to see additional photos and read some of the historical sources I mention.  Waltham Watch dial from an Ellery watch – author’s photo The dangers of industrial espionage One must only read the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times for a week or two before they will see some reference to industrial espionage and its impact, typically related to technology related companies. The concept of stealing technology is well known in history. Some of the most famous targets of industrial espionage were porcelain, silk, and textile manufacturing. The Lowell Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts resulted from Francis Cabot Lowell stealing trade secrets from the English. However, the term industrial espionage is relatively new – it began appearing in historical documents in the early twentieth century and became a mainstream term in the second half of the twentieth century.  In many respects, our view of it has been shaped by the passage of the 1996 Industrial Espionage Act, though many laws touched on the concept, dating back to the 1700s in England. Regardless of the technical legal definitions, there is no doubt that industrial espionage plays a role in economic development and the success of companies. A 2016 economic study found significant evidence of the effects of industrial espionage between East and West Germany. The authors concluded that East Germany would not have been able to maintain its economic near-parity with West Germany had it not been so successful in stealing trade secrets. Thus, the authors conclude: “Our results provide evidence of significant economic returns to industrial espionage.”  Disrupting Time tells one of the most well-documented and illuminated stories of industrial espionage from pre-World War I. While a new story to most – Disrupting Time was the first published research to tell the story –the spies documented their work in copious detail. Jacques David was the main spy, accompanied by his partner Theo Gribi, a watchmaker. David was an engineer and watchmaker who had a strong understanding of emerging mechanized industries. These two men were dispatched by the Society of Jura Industries (SIIJ), a trade association representing the businesses and industries of western Switzerland. They were in America for approximately three months, using this time to sneak into America’s technology leader – the Waltham Watch Co, and also recruiting company insiders and acquiring company documents.  Gribi – left, from “Horology,” June 1937 During their time in America, they wrote letters back to Switzerland giving insight into the mind and method of 19th century industrial spies. They concluded their mission by writing a 130-page report. Their report would remain secret until 1992 but became more widely known when it was translated to English in 2003. From David and Gribi’s 130-page report, it was obvious they had abnormal access to detailed financial information about Waltham, but I couldn’t figure out how, and skeptics kept telling me that maybe Waltham naively shared this information with the Swiss.  The story of their work as spies did not come together until the report could be combined with a key letter they wrote. In David’s letter back to Switzerland from September 1876, he wrote “I sped through [the Waltham factory] quickly and incognito and saw the poor arrangements that I already knew about.” He also wrote about an inside source he recruited: “we tried to work out [Waltham’s] outgoings without reaching a precise result. Mr W, the former director on the mechanical side who is helping us in this respect…” (see page 113 of Disrupting Time). This letter connected many dots that were missing between David’s report just being an interesting document, to identifying it as a product of espionage. Mr W referred to Ambrose Webster, Waltham’s former assistant superintendent and one of the early Waltham godfathers who invented much of the company’s automated production.  Ambrose Webster - The Keystone, December 1892, public domain Knowing of the Webster connection led to a second historical mystery to explore – Webster’s financial gain. When David published his report in 1877, he recommended Webster as the best maker of tools for watchmaking and suggested the Swiss purchase from him. Accordingly, Webster, who retired from Waltham in the summer of 1876, quickly invested heavily in a venture that would produce watchmaking equipment. It is no surprise that during the fall of 1876, in David’s letter back to the SIIJ, he noted: “I cannot recommend wholeheartedly that W. [Webster] be engaged by a group of manufacturers or by one company, but I still believe this man will be a great help in any reorganization measures that we decide to implement.”  While Webster was providing sensitive information to David, David was securing Webster’s long-term involvement in the Swiss transformation through business opportunities. Webster’s involvement remained a secret until 2022. In many pocket watch and Waltham history circles, Webster is considered one of the founding fathers who is revered, thus his involvement with the Swiss is stunning to many Waltham historians. Waltham would not have existed without Webster, but his defection through a probable quid-pro-quo arrangement with the Swiss resulted in Waltham’s eventual downfall. Connection of watches and the military As a veteran of the Army, I especially connected with the heritage of watches and the military, and their resulting impact on society. The Waltham Watch Company gained much of its early fame for its production of the Ellery model, which quickly became known as the Soldier’s Watch during the American Civil War. It cost about two months wages for a private in the Union Army, yet there is much evidence to indicate that soldiers bought them anyway. Their ubiquity in the Army during the Civil War had much to do with an increased emphasis on synchronization during warfare, combined with the fact that there were few clocks in the field. If a soldier wanted to keep track of the time, they needed a watch.  My own timekeeping in combat - an Omega Speedmaster X-33. I could easily relate to the Civil War soldier’s desire to know the time - and spending more than necessary to do it - author’s photo As I was putting together my book, one anonymous reviewer questioned the idea that soldiers would pay two months salary for a watch – it seemed like too much money for an unnecessary item. When I read that comment, I knew this reviewer had never served in the military! Even now, soldiers spend disproportionate amounts on watches whether they be a nice G-Shock, Rolex, or Breitling. I often attribute this military connection to watches to be much more than a need to know the time; rather it is the one item that a soldier can take with them, it reflects their identity, and it is a valuable tool. These were all attributes expressed by Civil War soldiers as well. Much of the research I came across felt like a multi-century connection between soldiers and their love of watches.  A Massachusetts's 13th Infantry Regiment Soldier from the Civil War, showing off his watch. Provided courtesy of Clint Geller, author of The Appreciation and Authentication of Civil War Time Pieces. (Liljenquist Family Collection, Library of Congress Archives).  The connection of soldiers to their reliable-but-affordable Waltham Watches during the Civil War began a societal transformation. As millions of soldiers left the service, they took their watches and concept of time-consciousness with them. The year for which Disrupting Time is centered – 1876, Americans and the world were experiencing a revolution in timekeeping making the watch industry central to society and the tech industry of its day. By 1880, it was said that people were now expected to be someplace on time, whether that be work or the theater. In 1870, about 1-in-20 American adults owned a watch. By 1900, this per-capita ownership would quadruple to 1-in-5.   Connection of firearms to watches Springfield Model 1873 Trapdoor Rifle (from Gromitsonabarth, Wikimedia,  CC-BY-SA-4.0) In an earlier section, I mentioned Ambrose Webster, an American inventor who became a recruited agent for the Swiss watch industry. Webster actually got his start at the Springfield Armory where firearms were being mass produced by the 1850s. Webster left the armory and joined Waltham shortly after its founding as a chief mechanic. Webster began to reorient the entire factory at Waltham to be more than just a collection of highly-skilled watchmakers operating in the same building. He introduced early automation that allowed Waltham to hire semi-skilled workers who knew little to nothing about watchmaking. He became the principal inventor of many machines, allowing Waltham to quickly scale its production. In 1857, it took Waltham twice as long as the Swiss to produce a watch. Within a few short years, Waltham produced watches in half the time that it took the skilled Swiss watchmakers.  Inside the Waltham Watch Co around the time David and Gribi targeted the company – W.A. Webster, public domain Webster’s ability to bring the concept of firearms mass production to watches completely revolutionized the watch industry. It was also what alarmed and motivated the Swiss when they saw these novel systems in 1876. Waltham’s systems continued to become more automated as they invested heavily in invention and capital. By 1890, Waltham’s systems would be near-fully automated with handling systems. It was probably around this time that Henry Ford would visit the factory and get the idea for the assembly line for automobiles. Ford’s grandson, Henry Ford II said “I think - I always understood...[Henry Ford] got the idea from the Waltham Watch Company originally by seeing watches going down on an assembly line and he felt that [technique] could be applied to the manufacture of automobiles. There are some other stories prevalent, but that is the one I always heard. So that is the one I believe to be the truth.” (source: “Sidelights of the Day: Show the Boss the Ad,” New York Times, May 9, 1953, 253). In conclusion Disrupting Time is a book that weaves together many themes. This era was truly one of revolutionary change in society. As one reviewer noted, the espionage discussed in the book occurred because watches and timekeeping were so central to the economy of that time. If you find any of the topics discussed in this article to be of interest, I encourage you to check out the book, either on Amazon, Audible, or iTunes. It tells the story of cutthroat competition, industrial espionage, societal development, and a great world’s fair. The competition in this era was so intense it was even referred to as “combat of industry” by one contemporary observer.  The Swiss watchmakers and Waltham viewed their situation through such a lens, using similar bellicose imagery. David would refer to the American watch companies as “a courageous and well armed adversary.”  Meanwhile, Waltham’s chief executive also viewed the situation as a protracted war: “if we can't live in peace we must live on a war-footing…I propose to make the fighting as effective as possible.” You can find more information about Disrupting Time on Aaron’s website, aaronstarkbooks.com. He enjoys hearing from readers and talking with groups about the book. You can contact him through the website.  Aaron Stark is the author of Disrupting Time: industrial combat, espionage, and the downfall of a great American company. He is a former assistant professor of economics at West Point and a veteran of the US Army. READ NEXT: Jordanian Breitling: The Gift From A King That Spawned A CIA Case Officer's Love Of Timepieces

Mercenaries, Presidents, Generals, and Oligarchs - a conflict of timepieces We are now in the second year of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, a conflict that will go down as one of the most significant geopolitical developments of the 21st century.  In the age of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, watching the conflict in real time and attempting to understand its complexities can be overwhelming.  Through writing this piece, we seek to take a step back and look at some of the men involved in the conflict through the lens of their timepieces.  As discussed in the previous Dispatch, “CIA Analysis Of Foreign Leaders’ Timepieces,” a foreign leader’s timepiece can tell us a lot about their character, how they perceive themselves, and how they want to be perceived by others.  Analyzing a practitioner's watch can provide unique insight into both their personality and what they are trying to telegraph to their own constituents as well as the larger world, something especially true in today’s information war. In war, a simple wristwatch is a crucial piece of kit. The watch has remained a seminal tool on the battlefield despite the huge technological advancements in military equipment and weapons. It’s no surprise that several notable timepieces adorn the wrists of those leading the various parties involved in this conflict.  Really? Watches of the Ukraine War? Looking at something so complex as the Ukraine War through the lens of wristwatches–what essentially amounts to a hobby, might seem diminishing at first. What do watches have to do with the war in Ukraine? As it turns out, a lot.   At the onset of the conflict, notoriously neutral Swiss brands including Rolex, Swatch Group, LVMH (particularly the Swiss-based watch division) and Richemont suspended exports to Russia. In response, the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, reportedly seized millions of dollars of Audemars Piguet (AP) watches from a Moscow affiliate of AP. Meanwhile, Russian citizens purchased large quantities of Swiss timepieces as a measure to store value as sanctions took hold and devalued the ruble.  It is logical to conclude many of these have left the country with the mass migration out of Russia as a form of money laundering and wealth transfer.  Further, watches reportedly liberated from Russian military personnel have found their way to Ebay for purchase. Battle field pick up?  A watch reportedly worn by a Russian solider, now for sale on Ebay. To be clear, we do not intend to glorify war.  I have seen the ill effects of war and there is absolutely nothing glorious about it.  At W.O.E., we cover all types of people and stories, many of whom could be described as “evil.”  Coverage does not signify endorsement, this is simply our prism for looking at history and current events in the way we know best, through the timepieces on the wrists of those involved. Wagner Group: Yevgeny Prigozhin -Ulysse Nardin Michelangelo $3,000-$4,000 Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, formerly known as "Putin's Chef," regularly wears a Ulysse Nardin Michelangelo. This piece has been seen on Prigozhin’s wrist at black tie dinners in Moscow and on the battlefield worn with fatigues, including during the June 2023 attempted mutiny.  Prigozhin began his career in Leningrad/Saint Petersburg in organized crime before moving into the catering business (as one does) which gave him the nickname "Putin's Chef." He quickly branched out to more lucrative (and questionable) ways of making money- running the world's most notorious mercenary force. Prigozhin’s forces have been leveraged globally in Syria, Ukraine, Madagascar, Venezuela, and the Central African Republic.  Prigozhin also recently admitted to founding the Internet Research Agency, which was leveraged by Russian Intelligence services to influence the 2016 US Presidential Election. Prigozhin was allegedly sent into exile in Belarus after an aborted march towards Moscow in June. (Although press reporting indicates he is potentially still in Russia at time of publication.) President Volodymyr Zelensky - TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre HEUER 01 Chronograph $3,000-$5,000 It’s been one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.  Few could have predicted the course this conflict has taken and the strong resistance put forth by the Ukrainian people and President Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky is pictured here (pre-conflict) wearing a TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre HEUER 01 Chronograph.  Zelensky was reportedly a Ukrainian brand ambassador for the TAG prior to the conflict. According to financial disclosures, Zelensky also has a Rolex, Breguet and a Bovet Château de Môtiers. Despite his extensive collection, a watch is noticeably absent from his wrist since the onset of the conflict. In addition to the kinetic war, this is an information war.  Ukraine has been masterful in this area. Zelensky’s appearance, actions, and demeanor are a key strategic part of this information war. Zelensky has consciously dressed down in a military green t-shirt. We can assume that this is no accident. Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin - Blancpain Léman Aqua Lung Grande Date approx. $10,500 Analysts assess Russian President Vladimir Putin is one of the wealthiest men in the world, with shaky estimations putting his net worth in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Putin has been photographed wearing numerous expensive watches, including a 18k yellow gold Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar Moon Phase and a platinum A. Lange & Sohne – watches fitting for a man of his supposed fortune. But in recent years, Putin has appeared to favor a more modest limited edition Blancpain Léman Aqua Lung Grande Date and a IWC Mark XVII.  Putin has also been known to give away watches to Russian citizens, including a Blancpain to a factory worker in 2009. Casual wrist shot from the lucky factory worker. Putin’s expensive watch collection is estimated to be valued over $1 million dollars, which is hard to explain given the Kremlin's claimed salary of $140k per year, something that Putin has drawn significant criticism for in recent years. By flying in the face of norms and wearing a flashy watch in public, Putin might have been demonstrating that he believed he would not be held accountable for past corruption. Similarly, Putin’s more recent outings wearing a modest and explainable timepiece may indicate he has concerns for the criticism and his domestic image. President Putin wearing F.P. Journe Chronometre Bleu (Photo Credit: Kremlin) Commemorative Watches:   The presentation of watches as commemorative gifts has a long history in intelligence, diplomacy, and military circles.  This tradition extends to the present conflict, with both Ukrainian and Russian officials presenting watches to their forces and partners. Ukraine: Photo Credit: Ukrainian President’s Office In June 2021, Zelensky visited the frontline troops on Ukraine's Armed Forces Day and presented soldiers with Ukrainian-produced Kleynold KFS-820s ($220).  Zelensky has also given watches to sailors that were returned from Russian captivity. Russian Forces: Denis Vladimirovich Pushilin, the head of the disputed “Donetsk People's Republic” (DPR), recently presented Wagner mercenary forces with watches in response to their actions in the conflict.   The watches and values are unknown, although it is reasonable to assume they may be of Russian origin, although they do not appear to be Vostok or Raketa, common Russian brands.  Pushilin remarked about Wagner forces: “By your actions, by your deeds, you show what the Russian spirit is, what the strength of Russian weapons is, which is why now you, your units are setting an example for many in the area entrusted to you, freeing the Russian land.” Ukrainian Colonel Oleksandr “Grey Wolf” Oksanchenko - Kleynod "Independence Insignia" edition $390 Ukrainian fighter pilot Colonel Oleksandr “Grey Wolf” Oksanchenko was killed when his aircraft was shot down during the Battle for Kyiv in late February 2022. President Volodymyr Zelensky posthumously awarded him with the Order of the Gold Star. The Grey Wolf is pictured here wearing a Ukrainian made watch, a Kleynod "Independence Insignia" edition which was developed on the 15th anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence. Oksanchenko was a legendary Ukrainian Su-27 Flanker pilot who retired in 2018, but like many Ukrainians, returned to service to defend his nation when the conflict kicked off. He was reportedly shot down by a Russian S-400 air defense system, although some reports suggest it may have been a friendly fire incident.  In the information war, it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction. Dmitry Peskov - limited edition Richard Mille 52-01, approx. $600,000 Putin aide, advisor, and Russian press secretary Dmitry Sergeyevich Peskov has been photographed wearing a Limited Edition Richard Mille, most notably during his wedding where he claimed the watch was a gift from his wife, former Olympic figure-skating champion Tatiana Navka. With an eye watering estimated value of $600k+, the value of this watch likely exceeds the cumulative value of the salary he has drawn throughout his entire career as a civil servant. Minister of Defence Sergey Kuzhugetovich Shoigu, Porsche Design Black Dashboard Chronograph P6612 approx. $8,000 Minister of Defence, Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu wears a Porsche Design titanium Black Dashboard Chronograph P6612.  Shoigu is largely responsible for overseeing the conflict in Ukraine, which has come under direct criticism from Wagner boss Prigozhin. After Prighozin’s failed mutiny attempt, Shoigu was filmed at a high level Russian Ministry of Defence meeting; however, the watch itself was blurred out, potentially meant to conceal the time and date of the meeting. Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox church, Breguet approx. $30,000 Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox church, was sanctioned by the US and NATO partners and described by the EU as “one of the most prominent supporters of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine.” In 2012, an official church picture appeared to show the reflection of a $30,000+ gold Breguet watch on the polished table, the only problem was that the watch itself was photoshopped off the wrist of Kirill. The original photo was later released depicting the watch.  Kirill described Putin’s fraudulent election in 2012 as a “miracle of God” and was recently referred to by the Pope as “Putin’s altar boy.” For authoritarian governments, harnessing support from the religious elite is crucial.  The Breguet was supposedly a gift from a wealthy member of the church. Kirill has also been photographed wearing a Ulysse Nardin Dual Time, which appears to be a favorite of Russian elites. Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich, Polar M61, Sub-$100 Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich is known for wearing a modest sub-$100 Polar M61 watch, which is notable given his estimated net worth of $7-15 billion. An interesting note about Abramovich: In 2010 he commissioned 50 Breitling SuperOcean automatics with "Eclipse" on the dial, the name of one of his 533 ft super yachts. Sketchy dudes wear Breitling . . .  (Photo Credit: Chiswick Auctions) The Eclipse cost an estimated $700 million and is one of two of Abramovich's superyachts. READ NEXT: Third Option Foundation Fundraise - GBRS AOR-1 Watch Pouch And Challenge Coin This article has been reviewed by the CIA's Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information.

Special Agent Mel Harrison served in the US State Department for twenty-eight years, mostly as a Regional Security Officer in the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). The role of a DSS Agent overseas is to advise the U.S. Ambassador on all security matters and to protect U.S. personnel, facilities, and information.  One common theme throughout Mel’s career was the presence of a situationally correct timepiece on his wrist. The relationship between Diplomatic Security's Regional Security Officer (RSO) and the CIA Station is vital to keeping Americans safe abroad. The RSO has the benefit of the US Marines and contract guard force under his command, but with vital intelligence assessments from the CIA Chief of Station, the RSO is able to assess the severity of the threat and can credibly request specific host government assets to protect the Embassy and its personnel congruent to the threat level.  Mel at Handy Side Gate, Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan wearing Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date 1500, circa 1988 Watches of Diplomatic Security When I joined the old Office of Security in 1971, watches held no fascination for me. Serving in Saigon and Quito from 1973-76, I owned an ordinary and inexpensive Seiko, and later added my first automatic Seiko Diver’s watch with both day and date. My watch addiction began to grow when I returned for a DC assignment and purchased a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date 1500 and a Hamilton manual-wind military-style watch. The Rolex served me well in the office, and the Seiko and Hamilton were perfect while assigned to VIP protective details where punctuality was vital, and events might get rough and tumble. I was satisfied with this trio until assigned to the NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy in 1982. I noticed a Canadian Air Force pilot and fellow student who wore a wristwatch with luminescent hands and indices, but there was no brand name on the dial. The watch was issued to him by the Canadian government and it was the first time I became aware of military issued watches. My onward assignment was to London, where I discovered a large number of books on historical military watches, and antique markets filled with actual service watches. In my view, above all else, watches are tools. Whether one values accuracy, toughness, functionality, dependability, or just plain looks, the choices should match the needs of the job, the work environment, and do so without breaking the bank. Before arriving for a three year assignment in Islamabad, Pakistan in 1987, I added an Omega Speedmaster to my small collection. It was amazingly accurate and legible. But without a date function, I wore it somewhat less than I would have liked. I eventually sold it in London. Mel in Darra Adam Khel weapons bazar, Pakistan circa 1988. My Seiko divers watch on a rubber strap became my favorite in Pakistan. I was wearing it in February 1989 when a mob of 8,000 rioters attacked the American Center in Islamabad, where I was leading a small staff in its defense. The police tried their best to keep the rioters out of the Cultural Center, but they were overwhelmed and we were forced to do some hand-to-hand fighting to keep the mob from coming through the broken windows. US Embassy attack Islamabad, 1979 The toughness and dependability of a watch are important for me, whether protecting visiting congressional VIPs in the Northwest Frontier province in Pakistan, or running twice weekly drills with the Embassy Marines, which can get physical, depending on the type of drill. The job of a Regional Security Officer is to prepare the embassy to handle mob violence, terrorist attacks and bombings, among other duties. It’s fair to say these are “come as you are parties.” No RSO can call a timeout while they change their dress watch to a more rugged model. You go with what you are wearing. Years later from 1996-99, I was assigned for the second time to London, this time as the senior Regional Security Officer. From the US Navy PX in London, I bought a rugged and gorgeous Rolex Submariner, which I wore on and off for the next twenty years. However, during that time I took several vacation trips to India, Kenya, and other third world places. There was no way I would wear my valuable Submariner and risk being robbed. Because I had sold my original Seiko diver’s watch a few years before, I bought a new one (model SKX031K2) with the day and date, and wore it when I traveled. I still have it today.  I liked to explore the London antique markets looking at classic old watches. One day, with the dollar to British pound exchange rate reasonably strong in my favor, I purchased a handsome mid-1960s Omega Seamaster with date from the Grays Antique market. Because of the era in which it was manufactured, it was more a dress watch than the modern rugged model. I’ve had it serviced once and still frequently wear it. I mentioned earlier that watches should blend in with the needs of the job and the environment. During my London tour, I noticed that my contacts in Scotland Yard, whether they were senior officers or patrolmen, usually wore “non-macho man” watches. The same applied to officials in the Foreign Office and Home Office. Their culture meant most wore plain no-fuss watches on leather straps, and definitely avoided large, bulky watches. After-all, who needs a dive watch in central London? So, despite owning several military related watches, I adapted by often wearing either my original Rolex 1500 on a black leather strap or the old Omega Seamaster, also on a black leather strap. I felt it more important for my contacts to focus on what I was saying than to stare at my watch. With my watch addiction still not satiated, I obtained two British military watches. The first was the CWC diver’s watch used by the Royal Marines and the second was the CWC model G-10, used throughout the British military. Unfortunately, they were both battery powered, and while the original batteries lasted many years, that wasn’t good enough. As I said earlier, dependability is a vital quality for a tool watch. So, I eventually parted ways with those two models. U.S. Embassy London Retirement beckoned. I eagerly embraced the private sector. At the same time Casio was making solar-powered watches. I had avoided battery powered watches for decades (other than the CWC) because I didn’t want to be in a remote part of the world when my battery died. Now I could buy a Casio that never died. It had alarms, a back light, separate time zones, stopwatch and countdown functions, and oh, yes, it told the time. I bought the Casio G-Shock model 5600 and wore it in Sanaa, Yemen for four months when I was working as a contractor, and wore it again in Karachi, Pakistan, and Jidda, Saudi Arabia while serving on the State Department Accountability Review Boards. I also used it on business trips in the South American countries of Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. Having multiple alarms on the watch was invaluable for meetings and getting out of bed on time. Having world time zones is helpful, but most people can calculate the difference between home time and where they are located abroad. I now carry this watch on vacation trips abroad. (Read: The History Of Casio G-Shocks And The US Military) Casio G-Shock 5600 A few years ago I sold my Rolex Submariner because after twenty years the luminosity on the hands and indices was fading. Although perhaps, it was my eyes that were getting old. I traded it in for a new Rolex Explorer II. It is a great looking watch with excellent legibility. But, the Explorer II was slightly bigger and heavier than the Submariner. Several years before, I had hurt my wrist and I found out that if I wore the Explorer full-time for a week or two my wrist got sore. Rather than leaving it in the drawer, I sold it for what I paid. Mel with his wife, Irene in Yemen wearing a Casio G-Shock, 2001. For those interested in reading Mel Harrison's five thrillers with RSO Alex Boyd as his protagonist, I suggest beginning with Mel's last book, Spies Among Us. It is set in London and shows the close relationship of the RSO to the CIA station. In Mel's books, Alex Boyd is wearing either a Seiko Diver day/date model or a Casio G-Shock. Read Next: Forget Bond, A Real CIA Spy Watch The author of this article, Mel Harrison, served in the US State Department for twenty-eight years, mostly as a Special Agent/Regional Security Officer in the Diplomatic Security Service (originally called the Office of Security). His overseas assignments were Saigon, Quito, Rome, London (twice), Islamabad, and Seoul. Temporary postings included Beirut, Caracas, Lima, and Bogota. Washington tours of duty included Regional Director for the Middle East and South Asia, and the Director of the Anti-terrorism Assistance Program. In retirement, he traveled on business to Sanaa, Baghdad, Cairo, and elsewhere. During his assignment to Islamabad, Pakistan, he received the State Department’s Award for Valor and the worldwide Security Officer of the Year award. For the last few years, Mel has written and published five fictional thrillers set in embassies around the world.

Counterintelligence Risks of Smart Watches “Apple watches are for nerds.”   Though we don’t actually think this, it’s easy to understand how one could come to that conclusion. The Apple Watch of today could be seen as the “calculator watch” of the ‘90s–in other words, a product with a nerdy association. One thing we can say is that smart watches are NOT/NOT for intelligence officers.  Smart watches, like the Apple Watch, offer significant lifestyle benefits: fitness tracking, optimizing communication, and sleep monitoring.  However, for CIA Human Intelligence (HUMINT) collectors who rely on anonymity to securely conduct clandestine operations, the networked device is a counterintelligence (CI) vulnerability and potential opportunity for exploitation. For every benefit the Apple Watch provides, it also comes with a threat.  In general, we are not against smart watches at W.O.E. In my post-CIA life I have worked in emerging technology and the benefits of “wearables”, including smart watches, are limitless.  Even though their high-tech functionality runs counter to much of the analog-inspired stories that we put out at W.O.E., smart watches are great tools. They provide immediate and actionable data to increase one’s health, productivity, and situational awareness.  To effectively provide this resource, the watch constantly collects data on one’s location, surroundings, vitals, and movement.  That data is held on the device or sent to a cloud for storage and analysis.  Depending on the applications on the device, much of this data is packaged and sold to third parties for targeted advertisement. Strava Fitness App: In late 2017, open-source fitness tracker data from Strava, an application that allows users to track their fitness activity, was used to reveal the location of sensitive military locations in countries including Syria, Niger, and Afghanistan.  More than 3 trillion data points were available for analysis, posing a potential vulnerability for operational security (OPSEC), revealing sensitive government locations of importance to the US Government’s operations in the area. It’s important to note that this data was relatively rudimentary, simple GPS data points with map overlay– a fraction of the data collected by smart watches today. Even so, researchers from Bellingcat were able to manipulate and combine the information with other datasets to reportedly reveal the identities of British Special Air Service (SAS) personnel, proving that “anonymized” data often isn't. Strava heat map showing sensitive government location. (Strava Data) Clandestine Operations: A CIA Case Officer’s core competency is to recruit and securely handle “agents” for strategic intelligence collection.  This activity ideally occurs in face-to-face clandestine meetings with the foreign government penetration or non-state actors in back alleys, parks, seedy hotel rooms and safe houses.  To securely collect human intelligence, the Case Officer must be “black” –free from hostile surveillance–to protect the identity of the asset.  Traditionally, this requires a multi-hour Surveillance Detection Route (SDR) to determine one’s status.  The rise of networked devices and “smart cities” with facial recognition and ubiquitous surveillance make the Case Officer's job more difficult than ever before. In these so-called “smart cities” movements are easier to track.  Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance (UTS): The Internet of Things has permeated our everyday lives.  Everything from your car to your toaster and baby monitor constantly collect data in order to provide a better user experience through the “smart” network.   Graphic Credit: Ridgeline International A smart watch is just one vector in what has become known as “Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance (UTS).”  According to defense contractor Ridgeline International:  UTS refers to the collection and long-term storage of data in order to analyze and connect individuals with other people, activities, and organizations. Because our data is stored indefinitely, these records are always accessible. In the case of Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance, this data can be used to forensically reconstruct events, no matter how long ago they occurred. Most of this data is collected for commercial purposes, either to make the product more effective for the customer or to be packaged and sold for advertising.  “Data is the new oil”. Collecting, storing, and processing data has never been easier or cheaper, and this ubiquitous network of technical surveillance can be exploited and analyzed in real time or after the fact, potentially revealing the time, location, and identities of those involved in a clandestine act.   CI Risk: Counterintelligence, or “CI”, is any potential risk to an intelligence officer, asset or operational activity.  For Case Officers, this boils down to revealing the identity, location or tradecraft of an officer, Agent or clandestine act.  The rise of technology has increased the potential points of collection (threat vectors) and exploitation, making secure agent handling more difficult.  Not long ago, a hostile intelligence service would have to surreptitiously implant a listening device in an office or a beacon on a vehicle.  Today, vehicles are integrated into a smart network with constant telemetric collection and everything from TVs to toasters and your watch now has a microphone that can be remotely activated known as “hot mic.” When Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by the Saudi government in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, initial reporting suggested his murder was recorded by his Apple Watch, something technically possible given the microphone and record feature.  While it turned out this was disinformation (REDACTED), this is something that is technically possible and may potentially become more common in the future. Jamal Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul 2 October 2018 The Future is Now: Not long ago, an intelligence officer could simply leave his or her phone (or smart watch) at home while operational; however, today even this lack of activity is an indicator.  How often is your phone or smart watch sitting idle while you are at home for hours at a time? The lack of movement is just as telling as movement itself.  When it comes to wearables, if an intelligence officer wore a smart watch 24-7, but removed it when operational, this could clearly be analyzed as an anomaly to identify suspected periods of operational activity.  Should a pattern emerge, a hostile intelligence service may allocate physical (or technical) resources to further monitor that individual during a given time, hoping to exploit a vulnerability. Pattern of Life Analysis: Understanding a target’s “Pattern of Life” (POL) is crucial for intelligence collection and a smart watch is the ideal tool to collect POL data.  A Russian intelligence officer’s regular visits to a casino, brothel or liquor store may indicate vulnerabilities for exploitation.  Knowledge of regular visits to a gym or park for exercise presents an opportunity for a Case Officer to facilitate a seemingly innocuous encounter.  For non-state actors and terrorists, patterns provide an opportunity for a capture-or-kill operation. Smart watches and other wearables present an opportunity for unprecedented “Pattern of Life” collection in real time but at an even deeper level of analysis including heart rate, sleep patterns and other physiological responses.  Further, if the device is compromised, the microphone and camera can be activated, providing insight into that individual's home life, relationships and mental state. Traditionally, this type of compromised technical system was limited to capabilities by advanced state actors, specifically hackers known as “APTs” (Advanced Persistent Threats).  However, with the growing private sector intelligence industry, these capabilities are now available to companies, governments and non-state actors.  Notably, Israeli firms including NSO Group have developed and commercialized these capabilities.  NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware can be covertly installed on an individual’s Apple IOS software, exploiting previously unknown “zero-day” vulnerabilities in the software. The US government openly acknowledges the risk of smart watches and prohibits the wearing of any Bluetooth, wireless or WIFI-enabled device in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), a secure government facility where classified government information can be discussed and transmitted.  For intelligence officers who spend much of their time working in a SCIF, they are not permitted to bring their cellphones or any device that receives or transmits a signal, including smart watches. Counterintelligence Risk = Collection Opportunity: While smart watches present a vulnerability for CIA Case Officers, they present an equally interesting opportunity for the US Intelligence Community’s computer exploitation “hackers” to target foreign entities for intelligence collection.  Exploiting a foreign intelligence officer’s smart watch could facilitate his or her pattern of life, allowing a CIA Case Officer to “bump” the foreign official to strike up a conversation in hopes of recruiting that individual as a penetration.  Remotely activating the camera and microphone on a foreign President’s staffer could result in collection of Foreign Intelligence (FI) or valuable assessment data on that individual. Despite the CI risks, foreign politicians including Former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev have been photographed wearing Apple and other smart watches.  U.S. elected officials are not immune from this type of analysis by foreign intelligence organizations.  Interestingly, current President Joe Biden was the first U.S. President to wear an Apple Watch in the Oval Office while President Obama reportedly chose the Fitbit for security reasons–it was a less “smart”, smart watch.  For Biden, a certified watch nerd with a collection of Seiko, Rolex and Omega, this was no accident.  It is possible that this was a signal from Biden that he is “hip” and focused on modernity.  For a President criticized for his age, it would be a logical message to send.  US Senators and Congressmen have been observed wearing smart watches in sensitive meetings where cell phones were prohibited.  We can assume this is something that foreign intelligence services are watching closely. President Joe Biden wearing Apple Watch in Oval Office (White House) The Future: In 2022, Apple sold approximately 50 million smart watches, and we can expect this number to increase as the adoption of the Apple Watch becomes more widespread.  That said, Case Officers will likely continue to rely on simple quartz and automatic timepieces to conduct an operational act (agent meeting) at the exact time and place without leaving behind a digital footprint that can be pieced together by a competent hostile intelligence service. Sometimes it’s best to do things the old-fashioned way. This newsletter has been reviewed by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information. READ NEXT: Casio F-91W, The Preferred Watch Of Terrorists   Submissions from the W.O.E. community:  Jason Heaton testing the limits of the Apple Watch Ultra @chando_bear

We asked former senior Case Officer, J.R. Seeger to write a piece on advice for a young Case Officer/Intelligence Officer for shopping for a watch.  Spoiler alert: it is not a Rolex. CIA Case Officer: The Ideal Timepiece by J.R. Seeger When I joined the CIA in the 1980s, my supervisors all served in Southeast Asia during the ‘60s and ’70s. Almost all men and they wore what might have been considered a “headquarters uniform:” short sleeved white or blue oxford shirts, ties always loose at the throat, and khaki pants.  On one wrist was a gold chain known as a baht chain because each link was of a certain value in the Thai currency.  On the other wrist was a Rolex watch.  Usually, the watches were Rolex GMT Masters or Rolex Datejust watches. No Rolex or other Mil-Spec watches for them. They did not need to pretend to be commandos. They were commandos.  Vintage Rolex sign, Tawila District in Aden, Yemen (Photo Credit: Unknown) I had just left the Army and had a Bulova watch given to me by my mother when I graduated from high school over a dozen years earlier.  By the early 1980s, a Rolex – any Rolex – was more than a two month’s salary and I wasn’t about to spend that sort of money on a tool when my Bulova still worked well and my backup watch, a Casio digital watch, was under $50. The Swiss tool watch train had left the station and I was still on the platform. I have previously written about my experience with watches as tools in the Afghan war-zone. Black acrylic watches, accurate quartz watches, were my choice. Twenty years later, when we talk about watches for the field, we are looking at a world where Case Officers (C/Os) are less likely to be in forward operating bases in warzones. They are more likely to work in traditional postings in major cities around the world. It is a different environment and it calls for a different sort of kit. When we are talking about “watches for the field,” we are not using the term in the same way that most watch companies might. After all, the CIA Case Officer in the field is going to face challenges that are not consistent with a mountain climber, a yacht racer, a member of the armed forces, or a first responder (i.e. police officer, fire fighter, or EMT). That doesn’t mean that a “field watch” used by one of these avocations and professions won’t work with Case Officer tradecraft.  It just means that there are other, different requirements.   Seeger and General Dostum on the night of insertion in Afghanistan, 16 October 2001, Casio F-91W on Seeger’s wrist. (Photo Credit: Seeger) So, what are the basic requirements for a CIA field watch?   The watch must be reliable.  That means it must work all the time, every time; The watch must be easy to read at a glance; The watch must be readable in the dark either through luminous hands or a LED backlight; The watch must be rugged enough to withstand dust, water, and shock. Arabic Seiko (Photo Credit: James Rupley) Here is where the requirements shift when shopping for a C/O: The watch must be low profile. A C/O walking on the streets with an expensive Swiss or Japanese watch is a target for criminals and, just as important, easy to spot by surveillance. Expensive and/or out of place items – sports cars, watches, shoes, clothes, a bag – make it easy for surveillance to spot their target and keep on their target.  On the street, a C/O must disappear into the crowd.  Just as a fine European sports car is not appropriate for a C/O in the field, a large, polished dive watch on a steel bracelet stands out and gives surveillance another point of reference when they are tracking a C/O; As a corollary to the above point, the watch must be consistent with the C/O’s cover. A C/O must be able to transition quickly from cover duty to clandestine work. While there may be time to go home and change, it isn’t as if the C/O on the street can assume an entirely different persona (an outfit more suited to a Special Operations night raid for example). Therefore, a large PVD or black acrylic watch that can withstand over 20 ATMs underwater and has tritium luminous markers is unlikely to be a good choice unless the C/O’s cover supports that sort of watch; The watch must not be a “connected” watch. If your watch helps you connect to the outside world through Bluetooth or directly through a wireless signal of any sort, it also means your watch can be used by an adversary to track you.  A few years ago, US military force protection studies demonstrated that fitness tracker smart watches could be used by an adversary to determine precisely where an individual serviceman was and, then by extension, where his unit was in the field. Smart watches are off limits to case officers because case officers never want to help adversaries track them. A map of activity in Djibouti.  “A map of fitness-tracker data may have compromised top-secret US military bases around the world” (Source: Business Insider) What are the options for a C/O who doesn’t have a large, personal budget but needs a watch that fits in all the parts of his/her life? Among my colleagues, I am a notorious cheapskate, so I’m offering the following choices for under $1000.  Please note:  We have experience with most if not all of these watches, but none of the companies involved have any commercial links to W.O.E.  At the lowest end of the spectrum are Casio, Timex and Seiko watches. These companies all make inexpensive, rugged watches. Some of the higher end Casio G-shocks and Timex Ironman watches are monsters on the wrist and probably not ideal for a C/O.  That said, a 5610 Solar G-shock, a Timex Expedition or even the smaller Ironman watches, or any selection from the Seiko 5 collection are all good choices for well under $200.  There may have been a time when a black acrylic watch was not acceptable for daily business wear.  That time is long passed; (Photo Credit: James Rupley) At the mid-range ($200-600), the choices expand exponentially. There are American Assembled watches, European and Japanese models that all work in this category.  Most are “dress tool” watches that have over 10ATM or more of water resistance, sapphire crystals and reliable movements.  At this price point, it is possible to find US firms such as Vaer, Shinola, Sangin or Cincinnati Watch company, Japanese firms Seiko, Orient, Citizen or Bulova, and Swiss firms like Davosa and Tissot.  Other European watch companies including the French firm Wolbrook and the German firm LACO also make watches that fit the requirements. All pass the C/O test of looking like a watch a “normal” person might wear but still provide reliability, ruggedness and good visibility during night work; Sangin Overlord and W.O.E. numbered coin (J.R. Seeger) When you approach $1000, the c/o crosses the threshold from tool to luxury tool watch. Formerly a US company and now part of the Swatch Group, Hamilton Khaki line– especially when paired with a leather strap or steel bracelet are hard to beat for the blend of day work wear and night street operations.  Seiko has their own options with the Seiko Alpinist and other sport watches in the Prospex line.  And, once again Tissot watches at this price range answer all of the requirements. Seiko Alpinist (Seiko) Conclusion:  There are dozens of other watches out there that a C/O can use in the field. Most Case Officers answer direct questions with two words: It depends. That is because every human is different and what is ideal for one person is useless for another. Some will want quartz watches for the “set it and forget it” nature of the watch.  Others will want a mechanical watch that requires slightly more care in setting the time but does not rely on a battery. C/O work is not about gunfights, explosions, or car chases (leave that image for our favorite thrillers), but that doesn’t mean a case officer’s watch isn’t an essential piece of kit. Time is everything for a Case Officer and a watch is what keeps a C/O on time. Read Next: Ask Watches Of Espionage Anything  J.R. Seeger's personal watch collection and memorabilia. J.R. Seeger served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne and as a CIA officer for a total of 27 years of federal service. He served 17 years in multiple field assignments focused on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and irregular warfare.  During his final, 3-year assignment in CIA Headquarters, he first served as a chief of operations for a geographic division in the Directorate of Operations and then served as a deputy director and deputy chief of the CIA Counterterrorism Center.  Seeger led multiple, small unit teams during his service, including leading one of the CIA teams that infiltrated into Afghanistan after 9/11. Since his retirement, J.R. has written articles and book reviews in the CIA professional journal “Studies in Intelligence” and the T.E. Lawrence Society newsletter. His seven-part MIKE4 series is about a family who have served in the special operations and intelligence community from World War II to the present. This newsletter has been reviewed by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information.

Chris Costa is the Executive Director of the International Spy Museum and a 34-year veteran intelligence officer, with extensive experience working in counterintelligence, human intelligence and with special operations forces (SOF).  Chris has worked in numerous operational positions throughout the globe and was the first civilian squadron Deputy Director at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, and the Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.  The one common thread throughout his career is the presence of a Rolex Submariner on his wrist. A Tale of Two Watches  By Christopher P. Costa I came from humble roots.  My mother raised me and my two siblings alone as a single parent after my dad passed away far too young. I was always into watches, but it was my younger brother who caringly kept my father’s watches and much later in life gave them to my two sons at special milestones in their lives; he continued this tradition by gifting watches to our grandsons.  The idea of me or my siblings having a Rolex of our own was far-fetched until much later in our lives. I spent most of my career as a U.S. Army intelligence officer.  After the Panama invasion and then the first Gulf War, I thought maybe I could afford to buy a Rolex Submariner; I wanted something meaningful to leave for one of my boys.  Like many soldiers, I saw early on in my army career the untimely service-related deaths of troops, way more often than I like to talk about.  In one of my first assignments, I dealt with the tragic aftermath of the Gander, Newfoundland plane crash that killed 248 soldiers.  Two of the fallen troops who perished in the crash were from my rifle platoon as part of the 101st Airborne Division.  This disaster was an early reminder in my career that life was precious and fleeting.  December 12, 1985, Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashed during take-off in Gander, Newfoundland. The chartered flight was transporting 248 soldiers from the 101st Airborne back to their base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, ending a six-month peace-keeping mission in Sinai, Egypt. (Photo Credit: DOD) After returning home from the first Gulf War, my wife ended up getting me the Rolex Submariner that I had always wanted, and I wore it for the rest of my intelligence career, ever-mindful of its deeper meaning.  I wore it for decades– during training to be a Case Officer; during hurried meetings in cars with sources; in remote villages, cities, and safehouses.  I wore it during surveillance and countersurveillance.  I wore it in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Horn of Africa.  I even wore that Rolex when I briefed the President on terrorism and hostages at the White House.  I often quipped to my sons that if my Rolex Submariner could talk, many of the stories it could tell would be classified.  It was a critical piece of my gear and part of my clandestine work.  Costa (L) serving as Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. (Photo Credit: White House) Case Officers carefully, even obsessively, focus on their operational time windows for meetings with their sources.  Precision is important in both clandestine work and in special operations.  So is operational adaptation, when necessary. I sheepishly smile when I think of an improvisation featuring that Rolex Submariner during an important meeting that I had with an influential Afghan tribal leader.  The ambassador, a general officer, senior intelligence officers – and even the president of that country – were all anxious to hear the results of that particular meeting, which was very much choreographed to achieve our objectives, namely to change the malign behavior of a tribe and its fighters.  I was frustrated and weary of the lengthy, lecturing tone of the tribal chieftain during my excruciating meeting with him, so along with a little unrehearsed drama, I tersely cut the chieftain off in mid-sentence.  I told him that I will see him thirty days from that very moment, and, somewhat theatrically, I tapped my Rolex and told him the exact time I expected him back to see me.  He protested that al-Qaeda would kill him if he came back.  I told him that was not my problem.  No one aware of that meeting believed this warlord would be back thirty days from the moment that I registered the time out loud by glancing at my Rolex.  Surprisingly, the tribal chief came back thirty days later at the exact time I had directed, then he returned again – and again. During another combat deployment, I woke up in the middle of the night with pangs of anxiousness, something I suspect is universal among people operating in combat zones.  I worried that an improvised roadside explosive and a fiery ambush would destroy my watch and my son would never get it.  In the aftermath of a particularly tough night in a combat zone, where a lethal ambush had taken place, I contemplated taking the watch off and leaving it behind at a forward operating base. I was going out again to the same village where the attack had taken place the night before, and I thought it was prudent to leave the watch behind, having a premonition of bad things ahead.  In the end, I just decided to wear the watch anyway.  I was once again fortunate and incredibly grateful to get through another deployment.  After all those years, that Rolex made it, and in good time, it will be passed on to my oldest son with a few tales attached to it. As it turned out, my younger brother turned his passion for watches into a successful professional career at Tourneau Watch Company and Rolex. He traveled across the United States as well as internationally to Switzerland, at the request of manufacturers looking to expand their market share, and was a brand ambassador for Breitling.  My brother loved watches – and people – and his unflinching optimism for life is more a parable of his character perhaps, rather than a tale about a second Rolex. Coming up on my 60th birthday I really wanted another watch, albeit I was self-conscious that perhaps one Rolex was enough for me.  But I really wanted a second watch so that I could leave it to my youngest son someday.  My brother – always selfless – engineered a conspiracy with my wife and his watch store colleagues for a 60th birthday surprise.  So, my wife bought me a Rolex GMT-Master II, and my whole family chipped in to get me a very nice watch winder.  I was serenely at peace knowing that I could someday leave a Rolex for each of my sons.    Still, I was a little regretful that the GMT-Master would not be on my wrist during any clandestine meetings, in combat zones, nor with any tribal leaders.  My GMT-Master would never have the history of that first watch.  Or so I thought. Just about a year to the day that my brother and wife arranged to get me that Rolex GMT-Master, fulfilling my plan of being able to pass the watch on to my second son, my brother died unexpectedly. Through my personal grieving, I realized yet another gift my brother gave me.  The GMT-Master does not need to be on my wrist for clandestine work; this second watch is my brother’s legacy, it’s part of our family story now – our lore – that will get told and passed on.  My brother never had his own Rolex, or his own children; he was simply a loving brother, son, friend, uncle and a treasured colleague for those loyal co-workers that sold watches alongside him in Boston.  He was satisfied with being happy for others.  So, every morning that I put on that watch, it’s a treasured reminder of my brother’s selflessness and the precious time he shared with us.    READ NEXT: CIA Analysis Of Foreign Leaders’ Timepieces Colonel Costa is the Executive Director of the International Spy Museum, and a 34-year veteran of the Department of Defense. Previously, he served 25 years in the United States Army working in counterintelligence, human intelligence and with special operations forces (SOF) in Central America, Europe, and throughout the Middle East. He ran a wide range of intelligence and special operations in Panama, Bosnia, the first and second Iraq wars, and Afghanistan. Costa earned two Bronze stars for sensitive human intelligence work in Afghanistan. Later assigned to the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, he served as the first civilian squadron Deputy Director. In 2013, Costa was inducted into the United States Special Operations Commando Hall of Honor for lifetime service to US Special Operations. Most recently, he served as the Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.  

The "Escape and Evasion" Rolex The final requirement to be certified as a CIA Case Officer (C/O) is to pass the certification course at a classified government training center commonly referred to as “the Farm.”  Students learn the tradecraft to clandestinely recruit and handle assets.  The entire learning process is a surreal experience, and the atmosphere at “the Farm” is somewhere between a college campus with a constant stream of students riding by on cruiser bikes (IYKYK), a covert paramilitary base with state-of-the-art tactical facilities, and Hogwarts, a place where you learn the dark arts they don’t teach in regular school. Like most government training programs, the curriculum is divided between classroom lecture and discussion sessions combined with significant role-playing and practical applications. The third, and largely unofficial, pillar of the training is informal mentoring from the instructors and Independent Contractors, all of whom are former Case Officers with significant real world experience.  True to the stereotype, much of these conversations happen over beers at the facility’s notorious watering hole after long days of training. (Photo Credit: James Rupley) One night after a Surveillance Detection evolution, our small group was sitting in that dimly-lit bar, nursing our drinks as we listened to grizzled old Africa Division C/O regale stories of his decades “on the continent” during the Cold War. It was late, the evening was wrapping up, and the bartender rang the bell for last call. Suddenly the instructor stood up and tapped a Rolex GMT-Master on his wrist, “I will leave you with one point: always wear a Rolex. A fellow Case Officer traded his for the last seat on a plane out of (REDACTED) during the (REDACTED) Civil War in the 70s, and that watch saved his life.  A story for another time.” The moment quickly passed, like many others during that six month period that I have long forgotten.  I never heard the full story, I still don’t know if it was true or just typical bravado from a crusty old C/O who never let the truth get in the way of a good story. (Rolex Coke 16710 on W.O.E. DNC Strap, Photo Credit: James Rupley) Rolex as an Escape and Evasion Tool: Visit any internet watch forum or social media page on military watches and you are bound to see someone claim they know someone who was an “operator” who wore a Rolex to barter their way out of a bad situation.  But have watches ever really been used for this purpose?  Or are these only tall tales told over beers?  I know many people (myself included) who wore a luxury timepiece while operational at CIA and in the Special Operations community.  We have documented many of them on Watches of Espionage in the past.  While the main purpose of the watch was not for Escape and Evasion (E&E), that was always an option and a contingency plan if needed. (Photo Credit: James Rupley) The concept is simple: Should you find yourself in need of immediate help, the watch can be utilized as a form of currency that can be traded for a few hours of shelter in a basement, a ride to the nearest international border, or a seat on the next plane out of a war-torn nation. A Rolex is easier to carry and less likely to be misplaced than ounces of gold or stacks of hundred dollar bills. The brand has a perceived inherent value and is immediately recognizable throughout the world.  CIA finance officers will not reimburse a personal watch if used for this purpose, but ultimately it was a financial risk I was willing to take in my overseas operations. Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF), we have never heard a confirmed story of a CIA officer using a timepiece in this manner. But that’s not to say it’s a total fallacy, there are indeed some historical examples of timepieces being used, or at least intended, for this very purpose.  Let’s explore: WWII Life Barter Kit:   (Photo Credit: Naval History and Heritage Command) Starting in World War II, the US Navy issued pilots Escape and Evasion (E&E) Barter Kits. This one, likely from the late 1950s or 1960s, was a sealed black rubber kit containing two gold rings, a gold chain and pendant, and of course a Milus Snow Star watch on a cloth strap. The watch boasted a 21 jewel movement with a date function.  The general idea was that if an aircraft was downed in enemy (or even friendly) territory, the items could be traded with locals to aid in an escape.  They were mostly issued in the Pacific theaters of WWII, Vietnam and the Korean War, although it is unclear whether they were actually leveraged for their intended purpose. Special Forces and the Vietnam War:   Navy SEALS wearing Tudor Submariners in Vietnam (Photo Credit: Unknown) There is significant documentation that Special Forces, Navy SEALs, and CIA officers wore Rolex, Tudors and other timepieces throughout the conflict in Southeast Asia.  While some of these watches were issued for their primary purpose- to tell time - they could also be purchased tax-free at the Post Exchange (PX) for a “months salary” - anywhere from $150-$250, which is a couple of thousand in today’s dollars.  While former MACV-SOG legend John Stryker Meyer, or “Tilt” to those that know him, told W.O.E. that many of his comrades purchased Rolex watches that were to be used as a potential bartering tool during escape and evasion, we have not yet seen documented examples of watches actually used for this purpose.  U-2 Incident-Cold War:   USAF pilot Gary Powers holds a model of the U-2, a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.  On May 1st, 1960, USAF pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet airspace, causing the infamous 1960 U-2 incident that had significant diplomatic implications during the height of the Cold War. Powers carried an E&E kit containing maps, a compass, gold coins, Soviet Rubles, and four gold watches. Of course, Powers was immediately apprehended and was unable to utilize the watches for their intended purpose. He spent 1 year, 9 months, and 10 days as a prisoner of the USSR. Gary Power’s E&E Kit on display in Moscow (Photo Credit: Unknown) Behind Enemy Lines- Bosnia:  O’Grady hugs his wife after rescue, a "Pepsi" Rolex GMT-Master visible on his wrist. (Photo Credit: Getty Images) In June 1995, Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady’s F-16 was shot down by a Serb-controlled 2K12 Kub mobile surface-to-air missile while flying a routine combat air patrol. In one of the few modern documented examples of E&E in hostile territory, O’Grady spent six days evading capture before his rescue by US Marines. Like many pilots, O’Grady wore a “Pepsi” Rolex GMT-Master on his wrist, a gift from his father. However, O’Grady did not view the watch as a tool for escape, but as a motivation to push him to return home.  O’Grady would later recall, “I knew what would happen if I was captured. The Rolex would be gone in a wink . . .  a nice little war souvenir for somebody.  I was determined that would never happen.  Nobody was going to capture me.” Breitling for a Toyota- Ukraine:  Andrew Smeaton, Breitling not pictured, (Photo Credit: toggle magazine) During the chaotic days following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Andrew Smeaton, the CISO of DataRobot, reportedly traveled to Ukraine to assist with the evacuation of one of his employees.  When he arrived in Poland, he found it was difficult to rent a car to drive into Ukraine.  So, he reportedly traded his Breitling for a “15-year-old Toyota that was low on oil and needed duct tape to keep the hood in place.”  The rest is history, Smeaton was able to drive the car into the warzone and make contact with his employee for a safe return.  Smeaton would later recall, "It's never like the movies, right? There's no James Bond. There's no Aston Martin."  (Photo Credit: James Rupley) The Verdict: So what's the verdict?  Has a timepiece been used to barter for one's escape from a warzone or bad situation?  Unfortunately, I’ve lost contact with that crusty old Case Officer, and despite my years serving “on the continent,” I was never able to confirm the story as fact or myth.  Like many great espionage stories, we must leave this question unanswered–for now. As we discussed in a previous Dispatch, "Timepiece Crime And Traveling With Watches," things have changed and today the risk of traveling with a Rolex may outweigh the potential benefits.  At a certain point the watch may be more likely to get you in a bad situation than out of one.  It is a liability, not an asset.  Our exploration of “Watches of Espionage” is still in its infancy, and we would not be surprised to learn of a story where a Rolex or other high-end timepiece was used by a Case Officer or SpecOps operator to get out of a jam. If you have, drop us a line–you won’t have to trade your watch for the opportunity to tell the story.    Read Next: Criminal Rolex Gangs And Traveling With Watches, Part I This article has been reviewed by the CIA's Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information.

Readers of thrillers set in World War II and even some non-fiction histories of the OSS and SOE could easily assume the kit of these “special forces” operators was highly specialized and the result of great care and curation in OSS and SOE headquarters. The reality was that early in the war, this kit was as much ad hoc as it was highly curated.

A foreign leader's timepiece can play a part in informing the profile and psychological assessment of the given leader, and when it comes to analysis, just having a piece of the puzzle helps – a watch might be significant or might not be.

In this edition of the Dispatch, we address some common questions we get about W.O.E with an in-depth response. Many of these responses can even serve as standalone stories– and probably will at some point, but for now, here’s some additional insight on Watches of Espionage.  READ PART II HERE What’s a good entry-level watch? What’s a good watch under $1,000? This is the most common question we get, and we love this question because it suggests that the W.O.E. platform is opening up people to the world of mechanical watches, something that we are clearly passionate about. If your takeaway from W.O.E. is that you need a Rolex to be a cool guy, you’re missing the point. We believe the man makes the watch, not the other way around.  A badass wearing a Hublot is still a badass, just as a dweeb wearing a Rolex MilSub is still just a dweeb. It’s about who you are, not the watch you’re wearing.  Read: Best Watches Under $1,000 - Ask The Experts (Photo Credit: James Rupley) There are plenty of great watches under $1,000 and other publications have compiled lists that feature both established manufacturers and micro-brands alike that offer serious value.  That said, our answer to this question is simple: Seiko. If you like “Watches of Espionage” then you will love this brand. When it comes to tools actually used in the field, you’re likely to find a Seiko on a professional’s wrist. Seiko, after all, is the “Toyota of watches”– they’re cheap and reliable utilitarian tools. For the same reasons Toyotas are a common sight in modern conflict zones, Seikos have adorned the wrists of hard men in hard places for decades. If you’re looking at dipping your toe in the proverbial pool of mechanical watches, this is a great place to start, and even end. Arabic Dial Seiko (Photo Credit: James Rupley) The follow-up question is always, "which model?" We hesitate to provide an answer to this because it’s a deeply personal choice.  You can scroll through our collection and others and see where we have landed, but it’s best to take some time and look through the website to see what speaks to you and what’s within your budget. The best way to land on the right reference is to find a Seiko dealer near you, try some on, and ask questions. You can get an entry-level Seiko for well under $300 and I cherish mine just as much as I do my most expensive Rolex. Unfortunately, one of the downsides to Seiko is that the bracelets are the weak point. They have a specific “jangle” and can feel like they’re of much lesser quality than that watch they’re attached to.  So use some of that leftover coin to buy a few straps and change them out frequently to figure out what you like.  All the W.O.E. products are designed to be worn/used with a Seiko or a Rolex. We will do a follow-on Dispatch at some point with some tips on buying watches with value in mind. What advice do you have for someone looking to join the CIA? The second most common question we get is, "How do I join the CIA?" While the purpose of this platform isn’t to inspire the next generation of public servants, we are quickly learning this is a byproduct of W.O.E., which is great. If you want to join the CIA, don't message someone anonymously claiming to be former CIA.  Keep this goal private and practice discretion. The Agency values discretion, hence the label of a quiet professional. Here are a few pieces of advice for those interested in the operational side of the house. Become a master of a trade. CIA hires former teachers, investment bankers, plumbers, businessmen, SpecOps, doctors, lawyers, and even professional athletes. Become unique and accomplished. Have a compelling story that will interest the CIA recruiter.  You can apply right out of college, but your chances of being accepted and thriving at the Agency will greatly increase if you have unique work/life experience. Travel. Live, work and study abroad. The one common trait of 99% of CIA Case Officers is that they have significant prior overseas experience. Your job is to understand geopolitics and empathize with individuals different from you.  This can only truly be learned and demonstrated through experience. Even if you aren't interested in joining the CIA, we still think we would all be better off if we travel and experience different cultures. Learn a language. Any language is advantageous, but the harder the better. Russian, Mandarin, Persian/Farsi, Korean etc. Turn on the news and see where the current/future conflicts are. The languages spoken in that area are generally of high interest and will make a CIA recruiter happy. Keep your nose clean. You don't have to be a saint (I saw the inside of a jail cell a couple times growing up and made more than a few bad decisions). But if you do drugs, stop. Don't drink and drive. Pay your taxes. Don't commit felonies. This is all good advice for joining the CIA, but even better advice for life. READ. This one is important. Read every book/article on the intelligence business you can find. This will help you figure out if it is right for you and where your interests are aligned. The current generation has a wealth of information at their fingertips on the Intelligence Community, including on the CIA’s own website.  Take advantage of this information and do your research. If you are a foreigner, find an unattributable internet portal and google  "CIA walk in." Lastly, a career as a Case Officer is more than just a job, it’s a calling and a way of life.  You have to be all in and cannot treat it like a 9-to-5. CIA is not perfect, but I loved my time working in the building and in the field.  It is not always an easy lifestyle and comes with unique challenges, but it is a great opportunity to serve your country, see the world and live a life worth living.  Happy hunting. What watch did you wear most operationally? In my initial Hodinkee article, “The Connection Between Watches and Espionage,” which was in many ways W.O.E.’s debut to the larger watch community, I wrote about wearing my titanium Panerai Luminor Marina 8 Day during a military coup in Africa. The opening story was a relatively mundane night, no heroic activities, just a standard night as a Case Officer operating in Africa. The only reason I even remember that watch that night was that it was relatively new, and the luminous numbers stuck out. In fact, I could have written that story about countless nights wearing several watches. W.O.E.’s personal IWC Mark XVII and Africa Division challenge coin. (Photo Credit: James Rupley) But, looking back at pictures of the years I was at CIA, the most common watch on my wrist appeared to be an IWC Mark XVII.  It is a great and versatile watch that can fit in with a suit and tie at a diplomatic function in Europe or jeans and a dirty t-shirt in the African bush.  It is also not overly flashy and would not draw undue attention.  W.O.E.'s IWC with W.O.E. DNC strap prototype (Photo Credit: Michael Shaffer / @capitolsunset) Truth is, I did not put much thought into my watch while overseas; it was a tool I used regularly.  This IWC has three letters engraved on the back, only one of which is one of my initials. The engraving caused some problems during a training exercise and then when I was (REDACTED) pulled into secondary for additional “screening” (interrogation).  Fortunately, I had come up with a cover story for the three letters as the initials of a fictitious father prior to the training exercise and it was not a significant issue.  It was a good lesson and reminder that the smallest details matter in the world of espionage. W.O.E.'s Breitling Aerospace (Photo Credit: Tom Brenner) A close second was the Breitling Aerospace that I received as a gift from King Abdullah of Jordan.  This is an entirely practical watch given the digital feature set.  The digital timer was particularly useful and was used to log activities during surveillance operations in African capitals, time debriefings of ISIS members, and to record legs of Surveillance Detection Runs. How do Case Officers, Special Operations personnel, etc. afford a Rolex? First, not every HUMINT collector or military “operator” wears a mechanical timepiece, let alone a luxury watch like Rolex, Breitling or Tudor.  It is easy to get this impression given the content at W.O.E., as there is a clear selection bias for the stories we tell.  While this was largely true in the mid-20th century when many of these watches were issued and/or easily purchased at the local PX, today the vast majority of "operators” rely on cheap and effective digital tool watches.  That said, there is a strong watch culture in both the military and intelligence circles, and the percentage of individuals that have mechanical and even luxury “tool watches” likely exceeds that of the civilian counterparts of the same socioeconomic status.  The reason for this is just as much (if not more) culture than anything else. (Photo Credit: James Rupley) Second, not all mechanical or even luxury timepieces cost $10,000.  As discussed above, quality Seiko tool watches can be purchased for well under $1,000 and brands like Breitling, Panerai, IWC, Tudor and many others can be acquired second-hand for a fraction of the inflated prices of Rolex. So how do we afford them? The short answer is, the same as everyone else.  Contrary to many Hollywood representations of CIA officers, the majority of Case Officers I worked with did not come from elite Ivy League backgrounds or wealthy families.  They work hard and save up.  If you have spent the last 10-20 years in an operational capacity, you have likely spent several years deployed to a conflict or other hardship post and the government has compensated you (relatively) appropriately.  While you will not become rich from this calling, you will likely have earned enough disposable income and it can be used at your discretion to fund your hobbies and interests. Many choose to use some of the funds to purchase a watch. (Photo Credit: James Rupley) One example of this is the “war zone watch.” While a government salary does not support an extensive watch collection, when officers deploy to war zones for an extended period, their pay can almost double while their personal expenses are minimized. After returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, or one of the undeclared expeditionary locations, many officers take a portion of their savings and purchase a watch to discreetly commemorate the accomplishment. Further, as much as we all can’t stand the black box of who gets priority on the Authorized Dealers (AD) “waiting list”, the stores and sometimes even individual sales associates have significant leeway with whom they prioritize as customers.  Some ADs in Northern Virginia and metropolitan areas near large military bases prioritize clientele from military and government agencies. Why are you anonymous? I get the impression that a lot of people think the main reason behind W.O.E. being anonymous is because of OPSEC (operational security).  In reality, when I left CIA, I requested that my association with the Agency be declassified.  This was approved with certain stipulations/restrictions. W.O.E.’s hands busy influencing. (Photo Credit: James Rupley) The real reason “W.O.E.” is anonymous is twofold.  First, “Watches of Espionage” is not about one person, it’s about our entire community.  “W.O.E.” is the curator or the “guide” on this journey, but it’s not just about me.  I insert some of my own experiences and stories for context or to demonstrate a point but that’s it–it’s strictly to add additional information.  In fact, if you read the articles where my personal experiences are mentioned, I am not the hero; they’re relatively mundane experiences of a CIA Case Officer.  Secondly, I value my privacy.  I don’t want to be famous or an internet celebrity in either the watch or tactical community. That’s just not for me.  Additionally, being anonymous ironically allows me to be more authentic in my presentation of my watch collection and love of timepieces.  Posting expensive watches on social media can often accurately be interpreted as a “flex” or show-off and can quickly fall into “cringe” territory. Being anonymous allows me to show whatever I want without any of the added recognition.  What watch would you recommend for a woman in the field? “W.O.E. Mansplains What Watches Women Should Wear” is what I would call this article. Truth is, I am not qualified to really comment on this topic.  Check out Brynn Wallner who runs a platform called Dimepiece Co. if you are a woman interested in getting into watches.  She does a great job curating content specifically for women and is a disruptor in this industry. Homeland, not an accurate portrayal of female Case Officers (Photo Credit: HBO, Homeland) Traditionally there have been men’s and women's watches.  To simplify a complicated topic, men’s watches are generally larger and women’s smaller.  Recently there has been a movement to remove gender from watches and make them all unisex.  While we won’t take a position on this hyper-sensitive debate, we will say that there is no reason a woman couldn’t and shouldn’t wear a traditional men’s timepiece.  Mrs. W.O.E.'s current go-to timepiece is a Tudor Black Bay 58, one that many may say is a traditional men’s watch.  Likewise, some men appreciate and even prefer smaller timepieces that some may perceive as women’s watches.  More power to you. Wear whatever you want.  What is your grail watch? A “grail watch” is the ultimate watch for a collector, something that they would never sell if they were able to acquire it.  Like the “holy grail”, this watch is often unattainable, or incredibly unlikely to obtain. It is more of a fantasy than a realistic goal. Photo Credit: Tudor Collector, Ross Povey W.O.E.’s grail is a military-issued Tudor Submariner, specifically a South African military-issued Tudor Sub from the 1970s.  While I have no affinity for the South African Defence Force (especially from that time frame), I have spent much of my life living and working on the continent and would find the connection meaningful.  Pictured above is one of the few known watches, a 1974 South African Navy Issued Black Tudor Submariner 7016.  I want to do a full deep dive Dispatch article on this, if nothing else to build my knowledge base. Why do you not have a G-Shock in your collection? The Casio G-Shock is a great watch and if you are in a tactical or operational position, it’s hard to beat as a tool watch.  For deployed paramilitary officers or uniformed military personnel conducting direct action and kicking in doors it is a fantastic tool.  The same for Garmin, Suunto, Timex and the plethora of other digital pieces. There are some downsides, most notably the requirement for a battery, but they are cheap and relatively indestructible. Additionally, G-Shocks also have a cult following in the watch community and there are many collectible references and collaborations.  So why doesn’t W.O.E. have one in the toolbox? While it is ideal for military personnel, the Casio G-Shock is a clear “tell” for Americans to wear overseas.  For Case Officers, who mostly operate in capital cities while under cover (i.e. posing as something they aren’t) this watch can make one stick out as much as a gold Rolex Daytona. A decade ago I was posted overseas in a major African capital.  The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were dying down, but the “Global War on Terror” was still in full swing and a priority for the USG.  Department of Defense personnel had flooded into Africa to conduct overt military assistance to host country nations.  One night I was out for drinks with an early local contact at a high-end hotel when a group of civilian-clothed USMIL personnel walked in. Tactical? (Photo Credit: Casio) My contact, who was not yet aware of my Agency affiliation, eyed the group as they took their seats at the bar and proudly said, “There are some of your spies, you can always spot American spies, they have beards and wear large plastic watches on the inside of their wrists.”  I don’t remember what watch I was wearing that night, but I do know it wasn’t a large black tactical watch.  It would have been something that supported my cover as an American (REDACTED). Navy SEALs conducting VBSS while wearing G-Shock, likely DW-6600 (Photo Credit: US Navy) We have detailed the role digital watches play in espionage and regardless of one’s horological interests or occupation, a cheap and reliable digital timepiece is a must in any collection.  My go-to is a Timex Ironman, which I use for PT and other water activities when I want to record specific times. Would you wear another unit’s unit watch? Does this qualify as stolen Valor? We have written extensively about unit watches and there are some cool references like the SAS Explorer II that sometimes show up for sale or auction.  While it is unfortunate that some operators choose to part with these meaningful timepieces, we also understand that life circumstances change, and the astronomical secondary market can become irresistible. Special Air Service Rolex Explorer II Ref. 216570 (Photo Credit: Sotheby’s) Short answer is yes, I would wear another unit’s watch and I do not view this as stolen valor.  For example, if someone gave me the SAS Rolex Explorer II (I couldn’t afford or want to spend the asking price), I would wear it.  In fact, the watch ending up with a true collector who appreciates the history and meaning behind a unit watch is probably a good thing.  The caveat to all of this is that it all comes down to intention: if someone uses the watch to attempt to convince someone that they served in a specific unit when they did not, of course that is taboo.  But there are far easier and more effective forms of stolen valor than spending a small fortune on a collectable timepiece.  What are your opinions on smart watches? This is a fascinating topic and something I will dive into deeper in a future Dispatch, a lot to unpack here.  First, in general we are not against smart watches, in my post-government life I have worked in emerging technology and the benefits of “wearables” including smart watches are immense.  Even though they are contrary to much of what we put out at W.O.E., smart watches are great tools, providing immediate and actionable data to increase your health, productivity, and situational awareness. Apple Watch (Photo Credit: Apple) That said, for people in the business of espionage, smart watches and the internet of things (IoT) have profound counterintelligence implications and are not ideal.  For one, wireless devices are not permitted in SCIFs (sensitive compartmented information facility) so they are not even an option for most while at work.  Secondly, as previously documented, smart devices are certainly not a spy’s best friend. When wading through a Middle Eastern souk trying to detect and avoid hostile intelligence services, wearing a beacon with a microphone that tracks your every move, on your wrist or in your pocket, simply is not acceptable. Secret Australian government installation on the Strava heat map showing routes of staff movements logged in the app. (Photo Credit: Daily Mail / Strava) In late-2017, open-source fitness tracker data was used to reveal the location of sensitive military locations in countries including Syria, Niger, and Afghanistan. A reliable timepiece is a necessity to ensure you conduct your operational act (agent meeting) at the exact time and place without leaving behind a digital footprint that can be pieced together by a competent hostile intelligence service. Sometimes it’s best to do things the old-fashioned way. Again, this is a great topic and something we will flesh this out in more detail in a future Dispatch. Read More: CIA Officers And Apple Watches What is a modern MACV-SOG Seiko? As documented in the Dispatch: Vietnam MACV-SOG Seikos: Setting The Record Straight, “SOG Seikos” are one of the greatest historical examples of “Watches of Espionage.”  They are procured using black budget funds and issued to SOG operators as sterile and untraceable equipment. Seiko’s cult-like following combined with military historians’ fascination with SOG has made the MACV-SOG Seikos incredibly collectable (i.e. expensive).   While the prices of the MACV-SOG Seikos have recently skyrocketed to well over $1,000 if you can even find them, for those interested in purchasing a modern version, the SNK381K1 is as close as it gets. At 37mm, it is smaller than most modern watches, but throw it on a green nylon strap, add a tactical compass, and you can play the part. W.O.E.’s personal modern MACV-SOG, Seiko SNK381K1 If you really want to signal to others that you are a tactical watch bro, wear it on the inside of your wrist like John Stryker Meyer did in Vietnam. Like most Seikos, it is relatively affordable and you should be sub-$200 all in. Pretty cool watch.  Do you plan to restock straps, cases etc? Yes, all of our products are hand made in the US/UK so they take time and cannot be mass produced. We are working on some unique and innovative things for 2023 and will announce them in the newsletter.  We should have a large release of W.O.E. Travel Pouches in late January/early February and we are really excited about the leather straps later in February.  The next release of the W.O.E. Z.A. Straps is TBD.  Sign up for “Notify Me When Available” for anything that interests you. (HINT-HINT)  More to come! Thanks for the support. Read Next: The Connection Between Watches And Espionage This Dispatch has been reviewed by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information.

In 1957 Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, the leader of aircraft manufacturer Lockheed’s Advanced Development program dubbed Skunk Works, knew satellites would make reconnaissance aircraft obsolete in the near future. It was determined that the U-2 spy plane, which Johnson had worked on, had a radar cross section that was simply too large to operate completely undetected. Three years later one flown by pilot Gary Powers would be shot down in Soviet Airspace and he would be captured and charged with espionage. The price of human life was simply too high to pay, and with the Cold War in full swing, US intelligence-gathering operations were necessary to keep an edge over the nuclear-capable Soviets. This meant that significant investments were being made in satellite technology to solve these problems, but the technology wasn’t quite where it needed to be just yet. That day would come, but the impending obsolescence of aircraft built for reconnaissance didn’t stop Johnson from spearheading one last effort: Project Oxcart.  Richard Bissell was the CIA officer responsible for facilitating the successor to the U-2. He oversaw Project Gusto, which was a committee set up to explore all possible solutions to the dynamic need for a next-generation aerial reconnaissance platform. Lockheed’s submission won out over Convair’s designs derived from the B-58 Hustler, and the A-12 project was funded and kicked off.  The A-12 had its maiden flight on April 25th, 1962, and subsequently carried out 2,850 test flights before its first official mission on May 31st, 1967. Ironically, the A-12 never carried out any overflights of the Soviet Union or Cuba, which is exactly what it was intended for. The CIA found another use for the plane: to spy on North Vietnam. Departing from Kadena Air Base in Japan, the A-12 performed 22 sorties gathering intelligence on the movements of North Vietnamese forces. The project wasn’t all for naught, however. The development of the A-12 led to the creation of the SR-71, the often-celebrated and easily recognizable icon that’s wrongly dubbed “the fastest airplane ever to have graced our skies” even though that honor officially belongs to the A-12 at just over Mach 3.3. While the A-12 was born and died in secrecy being owned and operated by the CIA, the SR-71 was the product of the USAF. Both carried out surveillance overflights, but the SR-71 was fit for a wider range of missions, not to mention a two-seat configuration for a reconnaissance officer. The plane featured a modular system in the nose-mounted equipment bay that allowed for ELINT and SLR data to be collected. ELINT is electronic intelligence, while SLR is side-looking radar, and the added benefit of gathering additional intelligence meant that the SR-71 had a much longer service life and participated in just about every single conflict up until 1989, until they were retired.  The A-12 on display at CIA Headquarters — number eight in production of the 15 A-12s built — was the first of the operational fleet to be certified for Mach 3. No piloted operational jet aircraft has ever flown faster or higher. (Photo Credit: CIA) And that’s why it has become perhaps the most prominent military aircraft ever produced. It’s become a symbol for superlative, next-generation technology and a very specific can-do attitude of the mid-century era that simply doesn’t exist anymore. Budgets be damned, the Blackbird was going to be the most capable airplane ever. And it was. It’s a flying superlative.  However, the watch that’s most typically associated with the A-12 is anything but iconic, instead it’s been relegated to enjoyment by a very niche community of die-hards. Although what it lacks in popularity it more than makes up for in technical prowess. The Bulova Astronaut was a perfect horological fit for the A-12; both platforms were so far ahead of their time that neither of the core technologies they introduced stuck around long after they were gone. The Astronaut used the Accutron tuning fork movement, which predated quartz and proved to be accurate to one second a month. It didn’t have a balance assembly (or mainspring), instead it used a tuning fork oscillator that vibrated at 360hz. If we think in terms of a “propulsion system,” the tuning fork movement was congruent to the SR-71’s J58 engine that pioneered a system that essentially turned it from a standard jet engine at lower speed to a ramjet engine above Mach 2.  Bulova Accutron Astronaut, late 1960s (W.O.E.s Personal Collection) Both the tuning fork mechanism and the J58 were engineering marvels that excelled at capturing and controlling energy and bending it to humankind’s will. The Bulova Accutron Astronaut even emits a high-pitch whine that’s straight out of a sci-fi movie.  The advantage of the tuning fork movement for an A-12 pilot is that there isn’t a balance spring that G forces would be able to affect, and in an airplane that can go over Mach 3, G forces are a crucial concern for a mechanical watch. Accutron movements proved effective and reliable for most of NASA’s cockpit instrumentation in the Gemini rockets, and later, the Apollo program. The CIA supplied the A-12 pilots with the Bulova and when the program ended, the watches stayed with the pilots. Vintage Watch Advertisement, 1969 (W.O.E.s Personal Collection) In typical CIA fashion, the Agency cared nothing about the absolute technical and engineering achievement of both the A-12 and the Bulova Astronaut. They were tools to get the mission done. If there was a cheaper or more effective tool available to execute the mission, those would be chosen, and eventually, they were. Quartz watches replaced the tuning fork movement, and more conventional propulsion systems were favored over the complex retracting inlet cone system that allowed Mach 3+ flight on the Blackbird.  The existence and disappearance of both these technical marvels serves as a reminder that no matter how much we romanticize or idolize incredible technology, it’s all in service of a larger mission: Giving America a competitive advantage when it comes to national security. The rest is just an added bonus. Read Next: Man O'War And The Horological Symbols That Inspire Us

by J.R. Seeger For this week’s Dispatch, former senior CIA Case Officer J.R. Seeger writes about the role his watches played in the early days of the conflict in Afghanistan. As Seeger outlines, watches are tools, and one should choose the best tool for the job. In the world of espionage, the tool is not always a Rolex. We often worry that W.O.E. gives the perception that every Case Officer, Navy SEAL or Special Forces operator is running around the world with a luxury timepiece on their wrist.  While that is largely the focus of this platform, the truth is many of the best practitioners rely on digital tools to accomplish their task. Sometimes cheap, reliable digital watches are the best tools for espionage. Digital Watches of Espionage - The Role Watches Played in the Early Days of the CIA’s War in Afghanistan October 2001: I was the team leader on one of the first CIA teams into Afghanistan. Other, more articulate writers have related the story of our team and work with US Special Forces. 12 Strong by Doug Stanton and First Casualty by Toby Harnden are detailed accounts of the Fall of 2001. Instead, this is a short essay about the watches I wore during that deployment behind the Taliban lines in the Fall of 2001. For most of my deployments in the 1990s, I wore either a Timex Ironman or a Casio G-shock. My watch choice was based on two requirements: accurate timekeeping and low cost.  During travels in the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia, the idea of wearing something other than an expendable watch was out of the question.  Plus, my only “good” watch, a 1971 Bulova Deep Sea Chronograph, was engraved with my initials, not always something you want on your wrist when you might be someone else. CIA’s Team Alpha Prior to Insertion into Afghanistan. Seeger Back Row, Third From Left As the team headed to our intermediate stop in Uzbekistan, our level of kit was minimal. I often say our team picture (above) looks like eight bikers with Kalashnikovs. Jeans, work shirts, boots and fleece jackets, weapons, radios and money. Everything you would need for a successful trip into a war-zone. During my pack-out, I didn’t pay any attention to the watch on my wrist. Of course, I should have realized that I was probably pushing the envelope on the battery in my Timex, but I had a couple of other things to worry about as we designed a campaign plan for five provinces in Afghanistan. As we completed our final briefings in isolation at Karshi Khanabad Airbase (aka KKUZ), I realized my watch had quit. No warning. Just a blank screen. Less than ideal when precision is required. Casio F-91W, w/ AKS-74U (Photo Credit James Rupley) One of my teammates laughed and said, “Boss, you forgot that two is one and one is none.” He reached into his ruck and pulled out a Casio F-91W.  Probably the least expensive piece of kit in all our inventory. He tossed it to me, and it went on my wrist.  A cheap watch is better than no watch at all! We loaded into MH-60 helicopters in the early morning of 16 October for our insertion.  That’s a story that has nothing to do with watches. Lessons: - two is one and one is none- you may never know when a piece of kit is going to be essential Tool Watches as Operational Gifts to Afghan Warlords In November 2001, we were in a consolidation phase of the effort to defeat the Taliban. By this time, we had consolidated the two teams, Alpha and Bravo and had a full complement of eleven to handle the region. We often split into buddy teams to travel with our Afghan and Army Special Forces colleagues, hunting Taliban and building tribal alliances.  Early in November, in one of our parachute resupplies, I received a Suunto watch - an early version of the Suunto tool watch series.  Someone on the team decided I needed a better watch and put in the request. The early Suunto watches were large plastic timepieces that served as a compass, thermometer, and barometer as well as the standard multiple time zones display, timers and alarms.  It was a bit more of a commando watch than I thought I needed, but I was certainly ready to use it.  It was big and regularly got caught on rucksack straps as we loaded on horseback and/or trucks.  Still, it was light and had a large display.  At 47 with already aging eyesight, I was ready to enjoy a larger screen. “Suunto on my wrist in the Darya Suf Valley”, J.R. Seeger pictured left, (Photo Credit: Toby Harnden/Unknown) In mid-November, two of us went with Afghan warlord and then CIA partner - Abdul Rashid Dostum on a tour of the Uzbek region of Northwestern Afghanistan.  More than anything else, it was a “victory lap” for our Uzbek ally and that meant traveling miles on dirt roads between Sheberghan and cities and towns in northwest Afghanistan. A Toyota Land Cruiser for us, two Toyota Hi-Lux pickups for the security detachment.  Washboard roads punctuated by public events made for a very long ride. At the end of the day, Dostam decided to take a shortcut by traveling on what he said was an old smugglers’ trail running through the desert and ending back in Sheberghan.  We were all tired and dozed off as the headlights of the Toyotas cut through the dust raised by our vehicles. I don’t know exactly what woke me from my dozing, but when I finally cleared my head, it seemed like I recognized the terrain.  Of course, desert terrain is not all that distinctive, so I would have been willing to accept the fact that it was a trick of memory and fatigue. Still, I used the Suunto compass feature to check our heading. After twenty minutes, I realized we were slowly circling a prominent hill.  The drivers were following a track that circled the hill.  The compass showed our heading.  Sheberghan was east.  We were going north, then west then south…. Well, that was enough to convince me we were lost. Seeger Center, Dostum looking at him, Casio F-91W (Photo Credit Unknown / Toby Harnden) I woke up Dostum.  He was incredulous.  There was no way we could be lost on his turf.  I took off the watch, showed him the compass readings.  He was furious.  This was smugglers’ country.  Wandering about might not get us in a battle with remnants of the Taliban, but it certainly could get us in a firefight with smugglers.  Dostum put the watch on his wrist, dope slapped his driver, and took charge of the navigation. Dostum wore the Suunto for the rest of our time in Afghanistan. I wore the F-91W for another two years and then switched to a G-shock.  At the end of the day, a good tool watch is important.  What you need depends on where you are.  Today, I have far more watches than I need.    Most of which are inexpensive mechanical tool watches and I enjoy wearing them. I recently had the 1971 Bulova serviced, and it will remain a cherished possession. But, I still have an F-91W in the inventory – just in case. Seeger and Dostum on the night of insertion, 16 October 2001, Casio F-91W on J.R. Seeger’s wrist. (Photo Credit: Unknown Toby Harnden) J.R. Seeger served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne and as a CIA officer for a total of 27 years of federal service. He served 17 years in multiple field assignments focused on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and irregular warfare.  During his final, 3-year assignment in CIA Headquarters, he first served as a chief of operations for a geographic division in the Directorate of Operations and then served as a deputy director and deputy chief of the CIA Counterterrorism Center.  Seeger led multiple, small unit teams during his service, including leading one of the CIA teams that infiltrated into Afghanistan after 9/11. Since his retirement, J.R. has written articles and book reviews in the CIA professional journal “Studies in Intelligence” and the T.E. Lawrence Society newsletter. His seven-part MIKE4 series is about a family who have served in the special operations and intelligence community from World War II to the present. This newsletter has been reviewed by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information. Further Reading:CIA’s JAWBREAKER Team And A Rolex Submariner

By Cole Pennington I spent four years writing about watches professionally as an editor at Hodinkee, the leading publication in the world of horology. I focused my writing mainly on tool watches, meaning watches that were engineered and used for a specific function, oftentimes by members of the military, scientists, explorers, or other professionals that didn’t treat their watch as a decorative piece of jewelry.  The stories that kept me up for days at a time researching and writing focused on watches that played a small but important role in shaping history. For example, the Rolex Oyster Datejust that Civil Air Transport pilot Norman Schwartz was wearing when his C-47 was shot down during a 1952 CIA covert operation in Jilin Province, China. Or the WWII-era Active Service watch that Lt. Alex C. Jones wore aboard the HMCS Oakville that eventually returned home to a museum in Canada, over half a century later.  I was lucky to explore stories like these, any many more. But there were so many stories that I didn’t have the opportunity to dig into, simply because of the fact that their very nature was deemed far too controversial for mainstream consumption. I had to turn down dozens of pitches and kill my own ideas that I thought were fascinating, but were unfit for the larger world of watch enthusiasm.  These stories never found a place to land – until now. (Photo Credit: Cole Pennington/Hodinkee) I connected with Watches of Espionage a year and a half ago over a shared appreciation for watches that had fascinating stories to tell, long before it grew into a well-known platform in both the world of watch nerdery and intelligence/Special Operations. It’s been a long time in the making, but I’ve finally found a space to tell those stories, right here at W.O.E.  What’s the story behind the Omega Constellation that North Korean founder Kim Il-sung commissioned for his most senior officials? What happened to the infamous Rolex GMT-Master once worn by Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara? Or Fidel Castro’s Rolex collection? What does the “Blackwater Breitling” represent? “Blackwater Breitling” - W.O.E. Personal Collection (Photo Credit: James Rupley) As the Dispatch takes on a life of its own, we’ll answer those questions. But first, it’s important to turn the lens on ourselves, the readership of this newsletter, and look at how we can best approach controversial watches and the stories connected to them. Mainstream watch media often shies away from controversial watches because undoubtedly someone will be offended by the discussion of the watch in question. But by doing that we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to educate ourselves. When it comes to war, conflict, espionage, and geopolitical affairs, it’s always murky. Sometimes there isn’t an obvious “right” answer immediately. We’re very quick to judge without knowing all the facts. There’s a haze of mystery around watches connected to this world. But through scholarship and a nuanced approach, we can cut through that haze and get to the truth. That’s part of the mission of WOE.  Sometimes history, and further, horological history, is ugly. A number of respected Swiss (and German) watch brands produced watches for the Nazi forces during the dark days of WWII. There’s nothing glorious about watches serving as a cog in a war machine meant to obliterate the societal ideals we hold dear.   But some watches take some time to work through; it’s important to understand the context surrounding them. For example, the series of Elgin watches ordered by The Russian War Relief in 1941 and delivered to Soviet troops to aid in the fight against the Nazi forces. From the story I wrote in 2019: The watches are inscribed with an encouraging note to Soviet soldiers: "To the Heroic People of the USSR – Russian War Relief USA,” with the latter half of the inscription being a transliteration into Cyrillic characters from English.  There was a healthy amount of skepticism from the Western Allies towards the Stalin-led Soviet Union at the time, but the need to work together became obvious as Hitler’s Germany grew more powerful. American policymakers handled Soviet cooperation with a sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach. It wasn’t necessarily an alliance formed from shared values, brotherhood, or kinship, but rather it was an alliance born out of sheer necessity. The only way to stop Germany was to band together. Winston Churchill shared the sentiment with typical English wit: "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."  The war ended with the defeat of the Nazis, and the Russian War Relief dissolved as America entered peacetime. Pins, posters, and records at the New York Public Library are all that's left of the organization, but every now and then a confusing watch pops up from an American watchmaker with Cyrillic writing on the back. The relationship that developed between Russia and America in the post-war years is another chapter in history entirely, but the watch serves as a reminder of the time our nations came together to fight a greater evil.  The Russian War Relief gave the Soviet soldiers a vital timekeeping tool for warfare; the Soviet soldiers gave all they could in the fight against the Nazis. Right now Russian forces are carrying out a hostile and bloody invasion on neighboring Ukraine under the autocratic Putin regime, flying in the face of international diplomacy and leaving thousands dead and a number of cities in ruins. Even Switzerland, with its age-old neutrality, was challenged by these actions. With the war in Ukraine raging, the Elgin I wrote about in 2019 can be seen in a different light – but it shouldn't. Context is important when we think through watches with a contentious past. We must set aside our biases and look at watches through the lens of history.  Looking at watches with a complicated history requires ruthless objectivity, that’s the only way to cut through the discomfort of looking at topics and periods of history which don’t represent humanity at its best. By doing this, it allows us to produce scholarship around watches that we would normally write off as simply unacceptable. Che Guevara smoking a cigar with his infamous Rolex GMT Master Ref. 1675 (Photo Credit: Unknown) At W.O.E., we don’t shy away from hard truths. Many see watches in the context of a modern luxury status symbol, but watches can also serve as historical objects that challenge social narratives. As an editor at Hodinkee, when I first contacted W.O.E. to write about the role of the wristwatch in the world of intelligence, he debunked a lot of the common notions created by the likes of James Bond and instead revealed that watches are often used as gifts to build relationships in the modern world of intelligence operations. As early as WWI “trench watches” were used as a bargaining chip for a soldier's release. Some even had a gold insert set into the caseback that could be removed and traded for freedom. These watches are fascinating. I’ve written about their unlikely beauty at length.  WWI Era “Trench Watches” (Photo Credit: Cole Pennington/Hodinkee) But the timepieces were made for a singular purpose, to provide Allied soldiers with an advantage on the battlefield. They increased their lethal capabilities. And that’s why it’s important to consider context when looking at watches. They can teach us about design, history, and most importantly, ourselves.  Read Next: Man O'War And The Horological Symbols That Inspire Us

At the entrance of the CIA's Counterterrorism Mission Center (CTMC, formerly CTC) is a sign that reads, “Every day is September 12, 2001.” While most of the country moved on from the horrific days immediately following September 11th, the men and women of CTMC continue to live this motto, serving quietly in the shadows to prevent another mass casualty event. One of these men was Gary Schroen, a legendary CIA Case Officer who led the initial Northern Alliance Liaison Team –codenamed JAWBREAKER– into Afghanistan in late 2001. When he returned from that historic assignment, he commemorated the accomplishment by purchasing a two tone Rolex Submariner with a brilliant blue dial. Schroen passed away in August at the age of 80, after a career at the CIA lasting five decades. Schroen’s widow, Anne McFadden, recalls that the Submariner was a constant presence on Schroen’s wrist, and now she keeps the watch on the dresser in her bedroom next to a picture of Schroen as a memento of her late husband. Rolex Submariner visible during Schroen’s 2005 appearance on NBCs Meet the Press. (Photo credit: NBC) After the attacks of September 11th 2001, Schroen, then 59 years-old, delayed his retirement to lead the team of CIA officers who were among the first on the ground in Afghanistan. Within 15 days of the attacks, Schroen and six other CIA officers linked up with the Northern Alliance in the Panjshir Valley. The JAWBREAKER team would establish the foundation for the swift defeat of the Taliban and deal a significant blow to al-Qaeda. As publicly documented by CIA, “by early December 2001–in less than three months–the Taliban regime had been overthrown, a significant number of the al-Qa’ida leadership had been killed or captured, and a major terrorist safe haven had been eliminated.” This was made possible by the heroic actions of Schroen and his team, and the decades of work in preparation for that pivotal moment. Schroen, realizing the historical significance of the operation, documented his experiences in the 2005 book, First In. According to a recent Washington Post article, Schroen also commemorated his successful mission against the Taliban by purchasing a Rolex Submariner. At the time, Schroen reportedly said, “I’ve always wanted a Rolex and I survived Afghanistan and I am buying one.” And so he did. Schroen’s widow, Anne McFadden, holding her husband's Rolex Submariner 16613. (Photo credit: Bill O’Leary, Washington Post) The watch is a Rolex Submariner 16613, nicknamed the “Bluesy” for the unique sunburst dial. Produced from 1988-2009, the reference showcases a striking blue dial and two-tone “Rolesor” bezel and bracelet. (Rolesor is Rolex’s term for two-tone gold and stainless steel.) The drilled lug holes match the purchase date of the early 2000s as Rolex phased out drilled lugs shortly after. Despite the Hollywood depiction, even legendary CIA officers are normal people. Like the real estate agent who commemorates his accomplishment as “salesman of the year” with a new watch, CIA officers are no different. In fact, at CIA, there is even an informal name for this, the so-called “war zone watch.” W.O.E. wrote about this in a Hodinkee article, after returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, or one of the undeclared expeditionary locations, many officers take a portion of their savings and purchase a watch to discreetly commemorate the accomplishment. The Submariner reference 16613 with the blue dial is an interesting choice by Schroen; I've generally viewed this reference as flashier than the subtle black Submariner. Having crossed paths with Gary several times throughout my career, he was a humble guy. He could easily be mistaken for an accountant, small business owner or stay-at-home dad if you met him at a neighborhood bar-b-que. He was not flashy, and this watch appears at odds with his more traditional demeanor and quiet professional ethos. But as true watch connoisseurs know, a watch is (or should be) a deeply personal choice. It is something one buys for oneself and not for others. We can only speculate on his reasons for purchasing that specific reference, but something about the gold and blue dial clearly spoke to Schroen. This story underscores the notion that seemingly insignificant tools are a part of our identity when we are alive and our legacy when we pass. Sure, It is easy to say, “it's just a watch,” but to McFadden, it’s so much more. Like Todd Beamer’s Rolex found in the rubble of Flight 93, the Submariner is a permanent piece of her husband, a memento she will cherish and a symbol of both his service and the CIA’s response to 9/11. CIA Medals earned by Gary Schroen. (Photo credit: Bill O’Leary, Washington Post) In a rare statement by CIA Director William J. Burns, the CIA honored Schroen’s service to the nation, calling him “a legend and inspiration to every Agency officer. . . . Gary embodied the very best of our organization. We will never forget his unwavering dedication, loyalty, and perseverance to protect and defend our country.” In fact, Gary was one of the few officers I am aware of that was able to write a book and still maintain his credibility within the CIA. In our world, that’s a rare occurrence. Gary, thank you for everything you have done for our nation, you have made your mark on the history of the United States and we are forever in your debt. Read Next: The Lasting Legacy Of The CIA’s Lockheed A-12 And The Watch That Served It This newsletter has been reviewed by the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board to prevent the disclosure of classified information.   Bonus: Mi-17 Helicopter Clock, used to insert the initial 7 member CIA Team in Afghanistan. Currently at the CIA museum in Langley, VA. CIA Museum Poster commemorating Jawbreaker Team. “Because of the relationship the CIA had developed with the Northern Alliance in the years leading up to the September attacks, the Agency was in a strong position to be first on the ground in Afghanistan. The CIA proposed a plan to send seven highly trained officers into the field to renew relationships with Afghan partners and collect real-time, actionable intelligence. By Sept. 26, 2001, just 15 days after the attacks on U.S. soil, the Northern Alliance Liaison Team-codenamed "JAWBREAKER"-was on the ground and operating in Afghanistan.”

A Former CIA Case Officer Reveals The Surprising Connection Between Watches and Espionage Luxury timepieces play a significant role in the murky world of spycraft – just not the way they're portrayed in Hollywood. (Originally featured in Hodinkee.)