Nice! My "best unknown" in the espionage topic would be Gordon Winter's Inside BOSS[1] which tells of the author's stint in the employ of South African intelli

Nice! My "best unknown" in the espionage topic would be Gordon Winter's Inside BOSS[1] which tells of the author's stint in the employ of South African intelligence during the apartheid era. Sample passage: > I asked [Intel chief] H. J. van den Bergh how on earth British intelligence could obtain all the names of people who voted Communist in British elections. Surely the vote was secret. H J laughed and said any voter attending a polling station automatically had his name checked on the voters’ roll, which naturally gave his residential address. And when he voted he was given a numbered counterfoil. His voters’ roll number was written on the counterfoil stub which bore the same number. > ‘It is therefore possible for the voting slip to be related to the counterfoil stub, which then gives the man’s number on the voters’ roll,’ explained Van Den Bergh. > ‘But all the voting slips are locked in big black metal boxes and locked away after the elections, so how do British intelligence get to them?’ > H. J. van den Bergh shook his head sadly as if he was sorry I was such a simpleton. > ‘That’s the answer the British authorities will always give if anyone claims that ballot papers are secretly scrutinized. But let me ask you some very simple questions. First, you agree that the voting slips are placed in boxes and then filed away in some official building somewhere?’ > ‘Yes,’ I answered. > ‘And presumably those boxes are placed in a room?’ > ‘Yes.’ > ‘Does that room have a door?’ > ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ > ‘Does the door have a lock?’ > ‘I should imagine so.’ > ‘Is there a key to that lock?’ > ‘Yes, there must be.’ > ‘Then,’ said H. J. van den Bergh triumphantly, ‘somebody must look after the key.’ > Only then did I realize what he was getting at. 1: https://archive.org/details/INSIDEBOSS/page/n5 https://archive.org/details/INSIDEBOSS/page/n5