How to Find a Good Disguise, According to the CIA
Everyone is thinking about Halloween costumes just around the corner, but for some people, dressing up as someone else is a big deal. For spies, it’s a matter of life and death, and they need to get it right.
Jonna Mendes is a former head of the CIA’s Concealment Department, and inan interview with Wired, she explains how the organization approaches hiding someone’s identity. Basically, it takes many small, subtle steps until you achieve the desired effect.
“Disguise is a bow, whether you build it or remove layers,” she begins. “If you have enough of them, you will disappear.” Below we break down the various elements that make up an effective camouflage, depending on the effect you want to achieve:
Easy disguise
A light camouflage is something like a wig, facial hair, or glasses. Mendes says it’s a short meeting, like meeting someone in a cafe to get information with another person. You don’t want someone who knows you as themselves or some other person to come in and recognize you. It doesn’t have to be crazy. Even the little things that look out of the ordinary can make all the difference.
Advanced disguise
Improved disguises are developed when something is needed for meetings that are “close, personal, and over an extended period of time.”
“The goal is that if someone wrote a note describing you, every paragraph on that note would be wrong,” Mendes says.
The CIA has several ways to change someone’s appearance, including the full face masks that Mendes wore herself. But the simpler ways to completely reshape the face are dental facades and pluppers, which mask teeth and even change the shape of the face. They sometimes add artificial palettes to the top of the mouth, which can change the way someone speaks, creating a lisp.
Mendes says it’s much easier to convincingly make a woman look like a man with a prosthesis than the other way around; with men, they tend to age their gray hair and facial hair because older guys are considered less dangerous. Ultimately, the goal of making a good disguise, according to Mendes, is to make you a person who can get in and out of an elevator without anyone remembering you.
Behavior
Disguise is not only about how you look, but how you act. In particular, sending Americans to Europe requires them to get out of certain habits. Small actions betray people – Europeans use a fork in the left hand, but in America we tend to switch back and forth. In Europe, people hold cigarettes between their thumb and forefinger, not between their first two fingers. In the US, when people stand up, they usually put their weight on one leg, but in Europe they stand up straight.
This is common behavior for a large group, but you have your own clues that betray your personality that you may not be aware of. Mendes recommends asking a friend to watch you and tell them who they are — a particular way of sitting or gesturing. Some of these are difficult to deliberately discard, so adding an element to your disguise that forces you to correct this behavior can be helpful. Mendes says she sometimes added gravel to her shoes or bandaged her knee to change her gait.
Rapid change
Sometimes the operative had to secretly change his appearance while walking down the street. These steps were measured and rehearsed, and involved simple things like changing a shirt and putting on a hat on the go.
“The goal is to disappear,” Mendes says, explaining that it shouldn’t feel like a wild escape. “The spy must think they’ve lost you,” she adds.
Few ordinary citizens need this level of skill when it comes to disguise, but Mendes has a suspicious mind. She says Americans overseas are often victims, and an easy way to merge with them is to leave your regular shoes at home, buy clothes from a store in the city you visit, and grab a pack of local brand cigarettes. Most disguises are actually pretty boring, but who knows what kind of intrigue they lead to.