Introduction

Agent Work Files document how agents executed their missions, but they reveal precious little about the agents themselves. When properly maintained, they indicate neither an agent’s real name nor any biographical information about the person behind the code designation. No pre-recruitment profiling data of the kind called for in , for example, is included in the Agent Work File, nor is any information on the agent’s post-recruitment circumstances, such as what kind of life he or she led when not performing agent duties. The retired Swedish security-agency chief who boasted of his nationwide Cold War ‘web of agents’ said it had included, in addition to ‘pillars of society’, men like the ‘local convenience store manager [ ICA-handlaren ], bank clerk, or factory employee and active member of the village bandy team’.