Some Questions I'd Like To Pose...

[quantumreality]

Some questions came to mind as I re-watched The Americans last weekend, and having not really come to any good conclusions I'd like to pose them to the community and fandom at large:

1. Where do Phillip and Elizabeth get all those cars? I believe I counted at least three, if not four, they use on a semi-routine basis (even to the point of being able to crash the '77 Olds and not apparently sweat over the cost of repairs if the insurance company denies the claim) and paying for them, putting gas in them, and maintaining them all cost money.

2. Where/how do P & E get their money? Some of it is obviously legitimate - profits from the travel agency, but how much of it is other-source, and how do they manage to hide the fact that they're probably getting money from clandestine sources?

3. Do P & E go to the brazen extent of being authorized agents for Soviet package tours sponsored by Intourist? (Then again, such a feature might have given them ways to find sympathizers who could be tapped as low-level agents from time to time.)

4. Where do the diplomatic and KGB staff live, if not at the Rezidentura? What's their budget like? How much hassle do they deal with in getting hard currency, since they're obviously allowed to purchase petty-cash type items (judging from the apparent routine-ness of Vasili's tea shop visits)?

Any thoughts would be very welcome. :)

(PS. If this is too off topic for the comm, I'll gladly move this all to my personal journal)

Comments

[katiac]

1. I think they either said or implied at one point Gregory's team helped with cars sometimes. Like Curtis (badly) got rid of the one after it was used to transport Amador. Realistically, that probably wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world, and the cars could just be left in a garage somewhere to be switched out as needed.

2. They had a stack of money in the locker behind the circuit breaker box, so I would assume that's straight from the KGB. I'm not sure how much they would have to hide. Spy stuff would obviously need to be handled in cash anyway--like the briefcase Philip took to make the buy in Philly--and although they probably do well enough at the travel agency to appear to live comfortably, it would be easy enough if spying (or whatever) resulted in a situation where the travel agency wasn't enough to pay living bills, to just use cash from their KGB funds for awhile. No one would notice that at the grocery store or gas station. Obviously it would look weird if they made huge bank deposits of cash they couldn't explain or things like that, but I don't think even the kids would care or notice much if they were just paying in cash.

3. Good question!

4. I thought I remember reading somewhere they had a specific building they lived in, but I'm sure someone else has done more research.

[jae]

Re 1. Yeah, my impression is that there must be other KGB agents (not illegals, and probably Americans) who handle things like cars and then they pick them up at designated places.

Re 3. Sounds like a fan story in the making! :)

-J

[quantumreality]

Re #1 - right, I remember Elizabeth sometimes used Gregory's group to get "clean" cars. I guess claiming he had a drug running sideline meant paying cash for cars with no obvious income was probably enough to satisfy his "drug ring"'s curiosity; possibly they also stole cars and "cleaned" them so P & E could legitimately use them.

(see the original Gone in 60 Seconds, 1974, for an abbreviated viewing of how easy it was in those days to sanitize a stolen vehicle as long as nobody looked too closely at the paperwork and serial numbers).

[treonb]

I'm actually wondering how they manage to run the travel agency at all. It's a good front for outsiders, but how is it actually making money? Their spy stuff is a full time job in itself, and private businesses don't run themselves.

Do their employees suspect something? I mean, what happens when there's an emergency at work and they can't handle it?

[sistermagpie]

I think they do basically just run it themselves. We do sometimes hear them talking about the job, Elizabeth goes over the books when she comes back and sees they've genuinely had a good time and Philip agrees, because he actually is running the day to day business. I suppose they might have certain outside help for time-consuming things if they need it, but otherwise it seems like they spend their 9-5 at the agency.

[treonb]

I agree that according to the show they run it themselves, but their spying also seems to take up an awful lot of time.

Elizabeth barely had a moment to breathe before she had to go out on a new mission, and Philip just had a mission that same morning.

[sistermagpie]

I know! It seems like they have like 38 hours in a day to do all the things they do. So I do wind up wondering if they don't have KGB personnel on hand to handle busywork, at least. Because they do have more money than a real small business owner would have, so they're probably able to hire people to do things they might not be able to otherwise.

[jae]

If it's about the show, it's not even the slightest bit off-topic! :)

-J

[apolla_savre]

1. Some of them are probably from groups like Gregory's - they've got to have other connections. They also probably borrow cars from "friends" or coworkers, but that would be few and far between.

2. Probably they only use the money they get illegally to fund their spy stuff. So they don't report it and it's probably laundered somehow (like how Gregory's team thought they were dealing drugs and stuff, they probably are connected to a money laundering team.) There's a whole system in the Middle East called Hawala where it's basically a credit thing. You go to a Hawala dealer, give them the cash and tell them who the recipient is, the dealer makes out a ticket of some sort and has it delivered to the recipient. Then the recipient goes to a local Hawala dealer and swaps the ticket for the cash. Later the local Hawala dealer can visit the dealer who gave the ticket and collect the cash. So they probably have that sort of system set up somewhere (or a similar one.) The Soviets also probably money launder things to them through the travel agency. Don't ask me how money laundering works, I don't get it. The only reason I know about the Hawala thing is that I took a Criminal Justice course on anti terrorism and my prof talked about it a lot.

3. I'm gonna say No. Any place that would offer Soviet tours would probably be rigorously checked out and the FBI would probably have documents on them. That seems like too high of a risk. On one hand, they would be cleared, but given how the FBI agents were able to dig up Robert's information, I don't think they would take that big of a risk. And it might just be a "background check" but given that they arrived in the 60s, so soon after the Red Scare, I would think not. They would also have to have someone there who spoke Russian and could handle the travel details from the Soviet packages. They'd also be getting mail from the USSR, even censored and scanned. I could be wrong, the writers might make them connected, but I would say "too big of a risk".

4. They would live in or around DC. Probably in areas ok'd by the KGB. Their budget would probably be pretty decent, since they'd want to promote the idea that the economy of the USSR was *awesome*, even though it wasn't. I believe foreign posts were also considered "cushy" jobs? They wouldn't have too much trouble getting hard cash since the governments probably have a joint section to oversee it. It would be about as difficult as currency exchange at the US/Canadian boarder, probably. What they bought would be more subject to investigation. Nina had to use the diplomatic pouches to send stuff back. They would be able to send gifts, of course, but those would probably be regulated and would amount to things like deodorant, soaps, candy, and little things like that. (My professor told us that she tried to give deodorant to her friends in the USSR so they would *use* it, but instead they kept it. it was probably the only time I ever heard her sound frustrated about cultural differences.)

[quantumreality]

The thing I'm thinking about the hard currency situation is that the ruble wasn't convertible, so it's not like a diplomat could just fly into D.C. and hit the currency exchange kiosk.

I guess the USSR probably sent money through the diplomatic pouch and as suggested elsewhere, probably procured it from sales of gold or diamonds or even printed their own money.

[lovingboth]

The travel agency has a significant turnover - those flights etc aren't cheap - so adding more is easy.

Hard currency wouldn't be an enormous problem - anyone visiting the Soviet bloc from the West had to change a minimum level of hard currency at an appalling exchange rate. (It was one of the biggest costs involved in visiting East Berlin, for example, especially as you were supposed to spend all of your East German currency before leaving.) The Soviets also doubtless printed US dollars themselves and could launder them.

[quantumreality]

Sorry I'm replying so late but I'm going through old posts and stuff :)

One thing that I found out about is that the KGB took advantage of the increasing deregulation of capital flows and financial markets to make a tidy little profit for themselves (the agency as a whole, and more-or-less corrupt individuals within it) from Soviet hard currency reserves.

Incidentally, there was a kind of 'internal' ruble laundering system that popped up after 1987 when the Law on Enterprises was passed.

Before then, Gosbank could maintain strict segregation between an enterprise's equivalent of the capital and operating accounts in a Western business, because they were the only bank in town, basically - so anyone trying to dip into the till for the "wrong" kind of expense could get caught pretty quickly.

After that law, though, anyone could set up a bank, and as soon as that happened, it was possible to basically take money "off the books" from, say, the operating budget, stick it in your very own personal bank, and re-loan it out to the enterprise for its capital expenses. Or vice versa.

So Gosbank was losing control over the Soviet economy even as Gorbachev's reforms depended on the government being able to firmly control and monitor the pace of said reforms.

(and you can also bet quite a few stickty-fingered folks just plain walked off with quite a few rubles that didn't belong to them...)