The strangeness of secrets

After the #merkelphone Twitter storm, we picked up our obviously unsecured phone and called Old Mustached German (OMG), an acquaintance or friend, for a chat.

Are you surprised?

Not anymore.

OMG did not want to talk current politics but instead pointed out some personal observations on what it means to be a keeper of official secrets. [Our translation]

At best, it is akin to being a priest, a physician, or a lawyer. At worst, you get too much self importance out of it, like the colonel who bid goodbye at the entrance to the inner sanctum of a base. He had been working in the inner sanctum until the day before. Now, he stood there and loudly thanked the private who was checking IDs for taking his job seriously and not letting him, the colonel, enter.

OMG explained that becoming a keeper of secrets took some getting used to. I am not saying everybody experiences this the same way, but it had a certain movie-like quality to it, at least for the first few months. When a stern looking contingent of four military police march along a dim hallway right to your office and pull a document from a locked briefcase, it feels funny. Or when a six foot plus, crew cut driver in an unmarked car pulls into the underground garage to chauffeur you and that manila envelope across town, you may be forgiven if you feel important. Most people get used to it after a while, at least, I think I did, OMG added. In part because it is just work, in part because much of what you read in these different color jacketed documents does not seem to be worth the fuss, and you learn that it is not that difficult to leave out bits and pieces of the day when you talk about work at the dinner table at home.

He continued: I am not sure about the psychological aspects of all of this, but I am, or rather was, sometimes worried that politicians may be more affected, or for longer, by the power trappings, and I'm worried that shutting up becomes a habit so deeply ingrained that you just keep shutting up even when you shouldn't.

As we bid farewell, we asked: have you watched any spy movies lately?

No, just your average TV fare, but I will go and watch Enemy of the State again, followed by the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale, he chuckled.