I know a (real) former spy. He was my Literature Prof. at the U of Oregon

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In his upper-division Hemingway, Faulkner, class back in the early 1970s, none of us knew that he was a veteran of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), which became the CIA in 1947 shortly after WW II. George Wickes is his name and, if you watched the Ken Burns Vietnam War Documentary, you saw a fascinating interview with George, now 94 years old. We buy our wine at the same shop and George and his wife shop the Farmers' Market each week as do we. He is still tall and very verbal and alert. His role began when he was drafted into the Army in 1943 while a student at the University of Toronto, then was selected for a special course in cryptography. The OSS recruited him due to that and his fluency in French. He served in India and Burma and then met 28 year old Lt. Col Peter Dewey, age 28 who was leading a seven man post- war mission to Vietnam (then still under French rule). Dewey later became the first American killed in Vietnam, in 1945; his vehicle was machine-gunned at a blockade manned my Viet-Minh rebels who mistook him for a French officer (A three hour fire fight ensued, but the Americans survived) . So George, age 22, soon found himself interviewing Ho Chi Minh. The US government wanted to know if Ho was really a communist and what was happening in North Vietnam. Ho had actually visited the US and admired the founders of the US. George helped found Harvey Mudd College and taught at the University of Oregon for nearly 60 years.