LONDON'S SHADOWY CALLING
Must-see exhibit highlights British capital's long history as a hotbed of espionage
Skulking in the shadows may seem an unseemly way to spend precious vacation time in London, where world-leading culture, art, architecture and legendary pubs tempt the most jaded of travellers.
But the British capital is awash these days in another sort of attraction, one that's both under the radar and central to it: the dark arts of espionage and intelligence-gathering.
Thanks to a free exhibition at the Imperial War Museum (IMW) in south London, holidaymakers can turn up their collars and lurk menacingly in laneways — all in the name of research.
Curators of the Spies, Lies & Deception exhibition have masterfully gathered more than 150 objects linked to covert intelligence gathering, from the First World War to the present day.
From decoding machines to reverse overshoes used to throw off pursuers, it's a “must-see exhibition for anyone who is interested in finding out the truth about the use of deception and espionage.”
Among the more James Bondian touches: a fountain pen that can fire tear gas, a lipstick with a hidden camera and dummy parachutists used to fool the Germans on D-day.
Elsewhere, a fascinating collection of private papers sheds light on Operation Mincemeat in which a corpse was floated ashore with fake documents to mislead the Axis powers during the Second World War.
A Canadian visitor's eyes, however, are drawn to a remarkably bland artifact: an Ontario birth certificate. Bearing the name “Gordon Lonsdale” and the birthplace Cobalt, Ont., it is — despite its incongruous appearance — a key piece of evidence in one of Britain's most remarkable espionage tales, the Portland Spy Ring.
Lonsdale was in fact Konon Molody, an “illegal” Soviet KGB agent who used the document to create a false identity as an unassuming small-time Canadian businessman. Canada has an unenviable reputation among the world's spies, gangsters, assassins and fugitives as a convenient source for ersatz travel documents. It got so bad, cartoonists would draw vending machines featuring baddies buying fake passports alongside chocolate bars and soft drinks.
Sadly, Lonsdale wasn't the only concocted Canuck in this 1960 scandal. Helen and Peter Kroger were ostensibly antiquarian book dealers from Canada living a quiet life in suburbia; they were in fact U.s.-born illegals helping Lonsdale ship U.K. naval secrets to Moscow.
The IMW show is a wonderful introduction to London's shadowy past, but there's plenty besides to satisfy cloak-and-dagger enthusiasts.