Direct link to one of the photos: https://www.fieggen.com/Dont_Link/CIALacing1a.jpg
If you see two X's in his lacing, the package is at the alternate drop site.
If he has 3 X patterns, you're burned! Make your way to the safehouse after losing any potential tails.
Glance quickly, agent, and keep moving.
I spent the better part of my teenage years eating raw carrots to be a better Ninja!
There is an old joke. How do you tell an extroverted Estonian from an introverted Estonian? He stares at your shoes, not his own.
There are (at least now) plenty of “extroverted” Estonians, but I’ve heard dozens and dozens of stories of the “don’t make eye contact, just keep walking” variety during the USSR.
Also, staring at either party’s shoes may mean their own smartphone these days...
I don't know if they ever thought the myth would catch on as well as it did, but it's still widely believed today. (Perhaps because there's no downside, eating carrots is still good for you, it just doesn't improve your eyesight.)
> whilst the [British] Air Ministry were happy to go along with the story [of carrot-improved vision], they never set out to use it to fool the Germans.
> The German intelligence service were well aware of our ground-based radar installation and would not be surprised by the existence of radar in aircraft. In fact, the RAF were able to confirm the existence of German airborne radar simply by fitting commercial radios into a bomber and flying over France listening to the various radio frequencies!
Link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-c...
I wasn't however able to find if there is any reason for the british to push such a message if it wasn't to confuse the germans.
Carrot cake also had a surge in popularity at the time (if the great show "Supersizers eat..." is to believed).
> Every Tuesday, shortly after 7:00, a British MI6 officer would take a morning stroll at the Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow. He would pass outside a designated bakery at exactly 7:24 a.m. local time. If he saw Gordievsky standing outside the bakery holding a grocery bag, it meant that the double agent was requesting to be exfiltrated as a matter of urgency. Gordievsky would then have to wait outside the bakery until a second MI6 officer appeared, carrying a bag from the Harrods luxury department store in London. The man would also be carrying a Mars bar (a popular British candy bar) and would bite into it while passing right in front of Gordievsky. That would be a message to him that his request to be exfiltrated had been received.
Could it have had something to do with rationing? Perhaps they were trying to increase carrot consumption.
And if that's not the case, you're probably not looking at other people's shoelaces - which is the entire point.
It can also be that they wanted citizens to cultivate more of it in their home gardens for its nutritional values. But either way, I have no data to confirm it.
If you have a military background it is completely normal. Beyond boot polishing, how one ties one's shoes can identify their nationality, background and even trade. They don't think twice about looking at someone's shoes.
There is an old method for spotting a US marine: Ask them to change their socks. The guy who takes one sock off at a time, changing one sock before even untying the second shoe, that's a probable marine. The guy who doesn't actually tie his laces, that does a strange wrap-around-then-tuck thing... US army. The guy who skips a few holes in the middle: air force.
Think I am exaggerating? search youtube for military shoe tying vids: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=military+shoe+l...
For the reference: https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/aj6MYgw_700b_v1.jpg
https://external-preview.redd.it/UMjBaFaE-dFYMu_VZ8nKO4_tj0E...
http://www.linkbcit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Finland-bu...
There's a great book that covers every single aspect of this escape, "The Spy and the Traitor" by Ben Macintyre. Rest assured that the British embassy had plenty of Mars bars and Harrods bags for this signal!
It reminds me a joke about Soviet spy arriving in Berlin and caughting stares from everyone around. What's wrong with my cover? Is something gives me out? Maybe it is a parachute? Or AK-47? Ah, it should be blue Slavic eyes! And he wears a sunglasses just in case.
I took it to mean that the MI6 agents were under diplomatic cover. It would not be strange for British diplomats to carry or eat British things, right? And it's also a decent defense against an accidental signal, since non-agents would naturally not have Mars bars nor bags from Harrods.
That’s this lacing technique: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/commando-lacing.htm
We met a celebrity once on a ferry. The only reason I even spotted her is because she was wearing a trench coat and ridiculous dark sunglasses like some sort of B movie operative. I happened to glance across the cabin just as she was walking past heading the same direction I was seated. Just a blink in full profile. After a moment of thinking, “no... she doesn’t live around here,” I turned to my wife and said, “was that?” And then looked at the woman across from us who had big eyes. When she passed outside the window it was definitely her. (Turns out her mother lived around there.)
Lady, you gotta work on your disguises. That outfit made you stick out like a sore thumb.
It's also only once a week that the timing is enforced, so they can vary things up throughout the week to hide that pattern in noise.
And the candy bar/Harrod's bag doesn't come into play unless Gordievsky needs an exfiltration. So it's not like they're noticing this weird thing where British diplomats always eat Mars bars every Tuesday. It would only happen once at most.
They know they're being surveilled. They can't change that. So they make their signal as mundane as possible.
