MY LIFE AS A SPY

[Pages:47]MY LIFE AS A SPY

INVEST IGAT IONS IN A SECRET POL ICE FI LE

Katherine Verdery

MY LIFE AS A SPY

MY LIFE AS A SPY INVESTIGATIONS IN A SECRET POLICE FILE

Katherine Verdery

Duke University Press ? Durham and London ? 2018

? 2018 Duke University Press All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Designed by Heather Hensley

Typeset in Quadraat Pro and Rockwell Std by Westchester Publishing Services

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Verdery, Katherine, [date] author.

Title: My life as a spy : investigations in a secret police le /

Katherine Verdery.

Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2018. | Includes

bibliographical references and index.

Identi ers:

2017047454 (print)

2017052453 (ebook)

9780822371908 (ebook)

9780822370666 (hardcover : alk. paper)

9780822370819 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: : Verdery, Katherine, [date] | Cold War--Personal

narratives. | Romania. Securitatea--History--Sources. | Secret

service--Romania--History--20th century--Sources. | Romania--

Politics and government--20th century--Sources.

Classi cation:

8241.8. 45 (ebook) |

8241.8. 45 47 2018 (print) |

949.803092 [ ]--dc23

record available at

Frontispiece: The anthropologist in the eld, 1993. Author's photo. Cover art: Surveillance photo of " " in her hotel room, 1985. Courtesy of the Archive of the Consiliul Naional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securitii, Fond Informativ.

In memory of four beloved friends and great anthropologists:

Gloria Jean Davis Ernestine Friedl Sidney W. Mintz G. William Skinner

In recent years, Iai has received ever more frequent visits by certain American grantees and doctoral students, for the purpose of specialization and documentation. Under this cover they had the goal of collecting information and data not intended for publicity, or of a secret character, from the socio-political domains of the Romanian S[ocialist] R[epublic]. In their activities they were supported directly by cadres and agents of the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest who function in R.S. Romania under diplomatic cover.

..

Unimaginable! I knew that I was followed on the street, that the telephone was bugged, correspondence opened, any word in public recorded by someone or other, but I did not realize the extent, diversity, complexity, the number of o cers, of informers, of technical means, and the gigantic amount of work performed by this unseen army that worked for 28 years in the underground of conspiracy. Only the hand of a Dostoevsky could describe these subterranean people...moles, hidden in our houses, whom we could hear gnawing on our tranquility but could not see.

CONTENTS

Preface xi A Note on Fonts, Pseudonyms, and Pronunciation xiii

Acknowledgments xv

1

PART I Research under Surveillance

1 The 1970s: "The Folklorist" as Military Spy 33

2 The 1980s: The Enemy's Many Masks 111

Re ections on Reading One's File 181

PART II Inside the Mechanisms of Surveillance

3 Revelations 195

4 Ruminations 277

295

Notes 299 Bibliography 309 Index 315

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