Dominic Flandry helps to enrich gang boss Leon Ammon on the frontier planet of Irumclaw because a wealthier Ammon will be better equipped to lobby Imperial officials to continue defending that part of the frontier. Flandry is canny enough to work part-time for Ammon as a private operation but might his Service get the same idea, to defend the Empire by enriching local gang bosses?
James Bond cooperates with a major smuggler of cigarettes, gold, diamonds, people etc against an even less scrupulous smuggler of heroin, opium etc. The CIA and MI6 buy intelligence from SPECTRE and the French Deuxieme Bureau pays them to assassinate a defector. Bond works with the Union Corse, the French equivalent of the Unione Siciliano or Mafia, against SPECTRE and even marries the daughter of the Capu of the Union Corse.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I can see even reasonably respectable Intelligence services sometimes working with underworld gang bosses, because it would further their goal of defending and maintaining the states they served. And not because they had any illusions about those gang bosses!*
I would HOPE Naval Intelligence would show some of the imagination shown by Flandry on Irumclaw. But I fear that would not often be the case in his time, as this bit from Chapter XI of A CIRCUS OF HELLS, as the captive Flandry was approaching Talwin: "The value of Talwin was obvious. Besides surveillance [of the Terrans], it allowed closer contact with spies than would otherwise be possible. Flandry wondered if his own corps ran an analogous operation out Roidhunate way. Probably not. The Merseians were too vigilant, the human government too inert, its wealthier citizens too opposed to pungling up the cost of positive action." A situation all too reminiscent of OUR time!
Ad astra! Sean
*Flandry, for example, considered Leon Ammon an evil and contemptible person. But, if enriching him would prevent the Empire from abandoning the crucial anchor post of Irumclaw, Flndry would work with him.
In the real world(tm) the Kenpeitai, the Japanese pre-1945 secret police/intelligence/counterintelligence operation, cooperated closely with secret nationalist organizations like the Red Dragon Society, which in turn had working arrangements with the Yakuza.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
So I was right! And it makes me wonder if the US FBI and CIA (or analogous UK agencies) had at least occasional similar dealings with organized crime.
And I can't even always oppose that! Because there might be times when you HAVE to deal with distasteful people.
Ad astra! Sean
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