The frightening thing about an intelligence officer pitching you is the moment that it happens and feelings of fear, being overwhelmed (Is this really happening

The frightening thing about an intelligence officer pitching you is the moment that it happens and feelings of fear, being overwhelmed (Is this really happening? Who are they? Where are they from? I thought they were X but really they are Y? Why me? Why now? What do they want? Will they hurt me or my loved ones if I don't agree? Are they recording this? Who else can I not trust? What do they know about me? How much do they know about me? How did they find out about XYZ? Do they know about my other thing? How can I stop this? Do I want to stop this? Can I trust them? Etc etc etc) If the person being pitched can compose themselves and buy time to think there is nearly always a way out. Despite what people think intelligence pitching usually has an element of bluff. A handler making a pitch deep down knows this. If the person being leveraged can find a way to call the bluff (and fight the fear of blackmail) usually the handler will back off - despite what they may say they might do ("We will expose you"). It's generally too risky for the handler to get involved in games and threats of exposing the blackmail evidence. Afterall, they want to continue in their job and aren't gonna risk damaging their own cover, career etc by trying to burn a source who rejected them. Most pitches fail. Plus a person willing to fight their fear and run the risk of the blackmail compromise being exposed isn't likely to be someone who you are going to easily be able to control. The KGB trying to blackmail the Indonesian President over sex tapes comes to mind...the perfect response: Given Sukarno’s boasts, the KGB shouldn’t have been too surprised that its efforts to blackmail him went astray. “When the Russians later confronted him with a film of the lurid encounter, Sukarno was apparently delighted,” Lister wrote. “Legend has it he even asked for extra copies.” https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-cia-and-kgb-tried-to-blackmail-this-world-leader-with-sex-tapes-927fc7ddbd48 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-cia-and-kgb-tried-to-bl... Of course it is worth pointing out that blackmail isn't usually a very good method of pitching someone and turning them into a source. It comes with too many problems. Smart and more effective pitches tilt towards cooperation not coercion.