Paul Whelan: Not a Spy - Ask John le Carré

From a Google Image Search - ABC News

The story of Paul Whelan, ex-US Marine, now a prisoner in Russia sounds like a story written by the famous spy author John le Carré. The skinny goes that Whelan was released from the Marines for bad behavior, that he used someone else’s social security number and wrote bad checks. This, if this truly was a John le Carré plot, could all be a made-up back story used by the US government when they turned Whelan into a spy. Of course, it is far more likely that this is just me, guilty of reading too many spy thrillers.

After he left the Marines, Paul Whelan became a director of global security for the US-based auto components supplier, Borg Warner, which had no facilities in Russia. Yet Paul Whelan seemed fascinated by Russia. He went there often enough that it was suggested that he would be a good tour guide for groups of tourists unfamiliar with Russia. John le Carré would have created a better back story than this. Created by the skilled mind of le Carre, Whelan would certainly have had a more believable motive for frequent trips to Russia than tourism and affection for the country.

Lending authenticity to the spy story, though, is the fact that Whelan is a citizen of four countries, the US, Canada, the UK, and the Irish Republic. What ordinary America has four citizenships? Probably more than we know about. Still, we picture the duffle bag spilled out on a hotel bed, secret compartment located, and passports fanned out in front of the authorities. John might have written a scene like this, but there is no description of a similar scene playing out in the hotel room of Paul Whelan. There was no gun either.

Whelan was accused of being a spy and someone said they saw a person transfer a flash drive to Whelan which was found on his person. Spy craft used to be conducted on park benches, papers taped to the underside of a target bench and sometime later the pick-up would complete the transaction. The spy who completed the operation would have to be capable of close observation while appearing nonchalant. Flash drives changed the modus operandi of many a classic spy. Much more information could be loaded onto that small device while the delivery methods may have also changed to simply choosing the correct clandestine moment to download the info from the drive to another computer far away. Some might still put the flash drive in an envelope and tape it under a bench. Passing it over physically out in the open seems like a very poor op methodology indeed..

“On 28 December (2018), however, he was arrested by Russia's FSB state security agency, which claimed he had been "caught spying" in Moscow. At the time, there were uncorroborated reports he had been caught receiving a digital storage device containing a list of intelligence officials.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46757119

Receiving from whom, receiving how? Were Whelan’s roles in global security in recent years a reason why he might have been recruited by one of the governments desiring information about Russian cyberactivity? If this were a John le Carré novel that would make for a great recruitment chapter. But this is not a spy thriller. This is the story of a man’s life, a man who was imperfect but moved beyond his one moment of weakness. Reading tradecraft into the Paul Whelan story does indeed turn it into fiction. Although such creative speculation could inspire a writer, there is no proof that this highly dramatic series of events is factual.

Here's what David Whelan, Paul’s brother had to say in the same BBC article:

"I can't imagine how someone with a law enforcement background who is also a former US Marine, and who is now working in corporate security and is also aware of the risks of travel, would have broken any law let alone the law related to espionage," he said.

Speaking in the White House Oval Office as he announced Ms Griner's release, Mr Biden said that "sadly and for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul's case differently than Brittney's".

While David Whelan said the family does not "begrudge Ms Griner her freedom", the family believes it is "clear that the US government needs to be more assertive". 

"If bad actors like Russia are going to grab innocent Americans, the US needs a swifter, more direct response, and to be prepared in advance," he added. "I can't imagine he [Paul] retains any hope that a government will negotiate his freedom at this point. It's clear that the US government has no concessions that the Russian government will take for Paul Whelan. And so Paul will remain a prisoner until that changes."

There is no proof that Paul Whelan is a spy. It is time to send him home, Mr. Putin, and time to stop snatching innocent tourists off the streets of Russia every time you think such a prisoner might be useful. Obviously, spies do not only exist in thrillers; there are real spies. Paul Whelan adamantly insists that he was not one. He tells a different tale, one where evidence was planted on him to justify his arrest. He has been convicted and sentenced to sixteen years in Russian prisons, and now in gulags. Nations use deniability all the time when they engage in nefarious actions on the soil of other states, as in the poisoning of Litvinenko in London in 2006 with radioactive polonium-210 which Russia denies, although obviously they were the only nation with reasons to poison this man Russia called a “traitor”. But, and here I am simply thinking this through, it is unlikely that Whelan would be sent into Russia to get a list of intelligence officials when we probably already knew who was on that list.

Leaving the ridiculous spy story behind, here is a man who went to visit and learn to know a country he admired perhaps because of its history, its art, its architecture, and someone planted a device on him or pretended that a device had been slipped to him and now he is a prisoner brought out and put on show at various times to taunt America. Too bad he doesn’t have a citizenship in Germany. Then Germany might be willing to exchange the desirable Russian they have in prison for Paul Whelan, and he could come home to his family for the beginning of the New Year in 2023.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were no more nation-states that governed by fear.

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