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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Open Thread: The Spy Who Loved… the Limelight

Open Thread: The Spy Who Loved… the Limelight

by Anne Laurie|  April 2, 20112:58 pm| 15 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Open Threads

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Fun little example of why I like the Guardian: “Anna Chapman, Agent Provocateur“:

Anna Chapman, the “sultry Russian secret agent” who hit the headlines last year after being exposed as a deep-cover operative in the United States, says she bears no ill will towards the man who betrayed her. And why should she? Since being freed as part of a dramatic spy swap deal in Vienna in July 2010, the flame-haired daughter of a Russian career diplomat has rarely been out of the limelight, taking up a number of lucrative job offers and positioning herself for a move into big-time politics. “It was the start of something great and beautiful,” Chapman gushed on a recent Russian TV show. Or, as she puts it on her newly launched website: “The day I returned to Moscow was my second birthday.”…
__
A month after their deportation, Putin joined up with the failed spies for a karaoke-type evening, where they crooned together the Soviet-era song – and unofficial Russian intelligence service anthem – “From Where the Motherland Begins”. After that cosy night out, things moved fast for Chapman. She was awarded a top state honour by President Dmitry Medvedev, posed for erotic – and lucrative – photos for men’s magazines, and was handed her own primetime TV show. She did, however, turn down a role in a porn film, despite being offered a “substantial” fee by the Vivid Entertainment adult-film company.
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Chapman has also been made the face of the ruling United Russia party’s youth movement and has been tipped to win a seat in parliament in upcoming elections. On top of all this, she has registered her surname as a trademark; has brought out a poker app and a slew of Chapman-own products, including perfume, watches and vodka, is expected to hit the shops soon. The 29-year-old provincial Russian also has a Max Clifford-type agent to handle “commercial projects”, which include highly paid interviews and photo shoots.
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The irony is, of course, that Anna Chapman is being rewarded for doing her job badly…

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Reader Interactions

15Comments

  1. 1.

    MikeJ

    April 2, 2011 at 3:02 pm

    Agente provocatrice.

  2. 2.

    James E Powell

    April 2, 2011 at 3:12 pm

    The irony is, of course, that Anna Chapman is being rewarded for doing her job badly…

    Isn’t that what the Republicans do? Cf. Sarah Palin.

  3. 3.

    Sly

    April 2, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    The irony is, of course, that Anna Chapman is being rewarded for doing her job badly

    I don’t think we should begrudge the Russians for having their very own Nathan Hale.

  4. 4.

    WereBear

    April 2, 2011 at 3:27 pm

    What can I say?

    Were I twenty years younger, and twenty pounds lighter (less the boob implants) I, too could become a Galtian/X Chomosome Mistress of Many Idiots Who Don’t Have the Sense a Higher Power Gave a Goat…

    But if I put those kind of constraints upon it, many many folks could qualify.

    Consumerist society. John Brunner. Koch brothers.

    WereBear +3 (let’s be honest)

  5. 5.

    Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937

    April 2, 2011 at 3:46 pm

    Its nice to know that rewarding incompetence isn’t part of American exceptionalism. At least she didn’t have to do a reality show on a minor league cable channel.

  6. 6.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    April 2, 2011 at 3:47 pm

    I knew it, the minute they shot Beria, the KGB was on the road to hell.

  7. 7.

    Ruckus

    April 2, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    The irony is, of course, that Anna Chapman is being rewarded for doing her job badly…

    They have republicans in Russia?

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 2, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    The irony is, of course, that Anna Chapman is being rewarded for doing her job badly…

    Perhaps she can swap career notes with Marcia Clark…

  9. 9.

    Maude

    April 2, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    And Christopher Darden.
    What a team, huh?
    And I just thought that I hope I have the right Clark and didn’t make a fool of myself.

  10. 10.

    WereBear

    April 2, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    Doing the job badly is part of the job description!

  11. 11.

    pablo

    April 2, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    Anna Chapman is being rewarded for doing her job badly

    Ms. Chapman…Wall Street. Wall Street…Ms. Chapman!

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 2, 2011 at 4:47 pm

    @Maude:

    Maude, yes, they were an epic team. Right up there with E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed…

  13. 13.

    Hawes

    April 2, 2011 at 6:01 pm

    Doing her job badly?

    That’s a Russian tradition!

  14. 14.

    Brachiator

    April 2, 2011 at 6:10 pm

    This is why you like The Guardian? Aside from easy comparisons with Sarah Palin, who has similarly made lemonade out of the lemons of failure, I have no idea of why Chapman and her other spies were here and what they were supposed to have accomplished.

  15. 15.

    Amir_Khalid

    April 2, 2011 at 6:12 pm

    Yeah, Anna Chapman sucked at espionage, but now she has found herself a much better gig. She’s a celebrity now, of the famous-for-being-famous ilk. You don’t have to be good at anything to succeed at that, you just have to be your own adorable self. She’s a new star in the constellation that includes Snooki, the Paris Hilton, Whatsername Osborne, and the Cardassian sisters.

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