Think Like a Spook: A Christmas Special

Cultivations usually take months. Years, even. But they can be done in one night. Just ask Ebenezer Scrooge.

We all know the power of three. The Holy Trinity. The three-act structure. Hegel’s dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). The three stages of the agent recruitment cycle that I explain in Think Like a Spy. The three ghosts that visit Scrooge on Christmas Eve.

It is a personal tradition that, in the days before Christmas, I sit down to watch the Brian Desmond Hurst production of Scrooge, released in the US as A Christmas Carol (1951). There is comfort to be found in the repetitive predictability. This year’s viewing was different, though. It was the first during which I realised I was watching the targeting, cultivation and recruitment of the main character.

The broad intelligence requirement (p 3) is to convert the miserly to become embracers of the Christmas spirit: to persuade them to betray their penny-pinching natures in the service of humanity. Jacob Marley (Michael Hordern) is the targeting officer (pp 3 – 29) who selects Scrooge (Alistair Sim) for the attentions of the spooks: the spirits of Christmas Past (Michael Dolan), Present (Francis de Wolf) and Yet to Come (Czeslaw Konarski). He tells Scrooge ‘I come tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring.’ But Scrooge is resistant to the idea of being courted by spooks, telling Marley ‘I think I’d rather not.’ Evidently, the newly acquired target needs cultivating.

So, the spooks set to work, engaging with Scrooge to explore what I describe in Think Like a Spy as ‘three vital matters’ (p 175). That number again. The matters to be explored are access (p 175), suitability (p 176) and motivation (p 177). All three are required for a successful recruitment.

It falls to the Spirit of Christmas Past to assess whether Scrooge has (or retains) access, to a long-suppressed part of his character that empathises with others and shares their joy in life. He does this by revisiting a Christmas party given by ‘old Fezziwig’ (Roddy Hughes), to whom the young Scrooge was apprenticed. The spook notes that the party was not a costly affair, to which Scrooge replies ‘Oh, but it's not that! The happiness he gave us, his clerks and apprentices, and everybody who knew him. It was as great as if it had.. as if it had cost a fortune.’ He hesitates and, asked by the spirit ‘what’s the matter?,’ replies ‘just that I’d like to have a word with my own clerk, Bob Cratchit (Mervyn Johns), just now.’ It is a pivotal moment. Scrooge still has the emotional access the spooks require.

But is he suitable for recruitment? Not by his own account. He laments to the Spirit of Christmas Present that ‘I'm too old! I'm beyond hope! Go and redeem some younger, more promising creature.’ He fears, perhaps, that others will not allow him the time or opportunities he needs to make amends. But the spirit demonstrates that his concerns are unfounded, first with a visit to the Cratchit family on Christmas Day, when Bob raises a toast to Scrooge, ‘the founder of the feast.’ Then with a visit to his nephew on the same day. They watch, unseen, as Fred (Brian Worth) also raises a toast to his uncle, of whom he says ‘I'm sorry for him. I couldn't feel angry with him, if I tried. Who suffers worse from his humours? Himself always.’ Here are key characters who believe that Scrooge could yet redeem himself. He is indeed a suitable candidate for recruitment.

All that remains is to bring his motivations to the forefront of his mind. These are twofold, one outward and one inward facing. First, he is clearly driven to save the life of Tiny Tim (Glyn Dearman). Seeing the child’s unoccupied seat, he pleads with the Spirit of Christmas Present, ‘Oh, no!... No! Kind Spirit, ... say that he will be spared.’ Later, faced with premonitions of others failing to mourn his own death, he asks the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, ‘are these the shadows of things that must be? Or are they only shadows of things that might be? I know that men's deeds foreshadow certain ends, but if the deeds be departed from, surely the ends will change!’ With these words, he reveals his inward facing motivation: to spare himself an unloved future and an ungrieved passing.

Who is to say which is the more powerful driver?

Perhaps it does not matter. A recruitment is a recruitment, whatever underlies it. What really counts is its durability and potential for longevity. As I write in Think Like a Spy, ‘sure, a recruitment is a big deal. But it is only a moment in time, in which a target agrees to become an agent. At any time after this moment, they could change their mind, shift the terms of trade, or betray the spy.’ Scrooge’s successful recruitment is beyond doubt. ‘Believe me, I’m not the man I was,’ he tells the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, ‘I do repent! I’ll make good the wrongs I’ve done my fellow man. And I’ll – I’ll change.’ Stirring words of assent, that every spook longs to hear. The three spirits can justly celebrate their extraordinary achievement, as spooks celebrate extraordinary achievements every day (pp xiii – xvii).

But the proof, as they say, is in the (Christmas) pudding. Have the spirits done enough to win Scrooge’s loyalty to their cause, for the long term? Happily, it appears so, as the closing words in the movie make clear. ‘Scrooge was better than his word,’ we are told. ‘He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city ever knew […] And it was always said that he knew how to keep Christmas well.’

If spooks can pull this off, there are no limits to what they might achieve in the coming year, even as the world faces daunting challenges. Let us hope it is so. In the words of – who else? – Tiny Tim, ‘God bless us … everyone.’

(Numbers in brackets refer to page numbers in Think Like a Spy where I expand on the techniques, themes or events referred to.)