By: Ken Robinson
The phrase “whom shall I send” comes from the Bible verse Isaiah 6:8, where the prophet Isaiah hears the voice of God asking for a messenger. After this divine question, Isaiah responds, “Here am I; send me!”.
This verse is a well-known example of a call to service, where a person volunteers to undertake a divine mission despite any potential fear of death, or inadequacy.
The biblical context: In the vision, God asks for a volunteer to be sent to a people that will not listen. Isaiah’s response demonstrates immediate willingness and readiness to answer God’s call.
Meaning and significance: The verse is often used to emphasize that being willing and ready to serve is more important than one’s own capabilities. It is seen as a powerful statement of faith and a commitment to follow God’s will.
“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” “Here am I; send me.” — Isaiah 6:8
Kings, priests, party secretaries, and presidents have all asked some version of it. Isaiah heard it from God.
What I’ve learned, after half a century:
- Spying really is the world’s second oldest profession.
- The first one sells the body.
- The second one sells the truth—one lie at a time.
And nothing is more circular, more maddening, than listening to spies argue about who is more virtuous when, structurally, we’re all whores. We just charge in different currencies: money, secrets, influence, “national security,” or the quiet thrill of knowing what others don’t.
Spying in the 21st century—where it came from, what it’s become, and why you should never fully trust anyone who tells you they do it “for the good guys” with a straight face.
1. God’s First Tasking Order: Old Testament HUMINT
Long before there was a CIA, before OSS, before KGB and MSS, there was a simple operational problem:
We need to know what’s on the other side of that hill.
The Old Testament is littered with proto–intelligence operations.
Moses sends twelve spies into Canaan to report on the land, its defenses, and the mood of its people. Ten come back terrified, two recommend pressing forward. That’s your first recorded threat assessment with dissenting analytical opinions.
Joshua later dispatches two men to recon Jericho; they’re hidden by Rahab, a local sex worker who becomes both a source and a facilitator. From day one, espionage and prostitution have shared more than a proverb.
And then there’s Isaiah’s vision:
“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
This is the archetype of every recruitment conversation I’ve ever seen. Someone in authority asks for a volunteer to walk into danger on behalf of people who will never know their name. Isaiah answers with pure faith.
Modern officers answer with something messier: a blend of duty, ego, curiosity, trauma, patriotism, and the seductive appeal of living a double life.
The mechanics have evolved. The psychology hasn’t.
2. Calling espionage the second oldest profession is more than a bar joke. The parallels are structural:
- Both sell access: to bodies, to secrets, to forbidden rooms.
- Both rely on performance: you give the client what they need to believe.
- Both demand emotional manipulation as a survival skill.
- Both live in the overlap between intimacy and transaction.
A prostitute sells desire. A spy sells trust. Both are leased by the hour and disavowed before breakfast.
That’s why moral debates inside the intelligence world can feel so ridiculous. It’s like watching two prostitutes argue over who loves their clients more:
“Your lies destabilize regions; mine safeguard democracy.”
Cute.
On paper there’s a difference. On the ground, both of us are recruiting, deceiving, and betraying for a living. The only meaningful distinction is what we serve and who pays the bill when things go wrong.
3. Con Artists and Case Officers: Same Clay, Different Flag
A good con artist and a good clandestine operator are built from disturbingly similar raw material.
The con man learns to read greed. The case officer learns to read MICE:
- Money
- Ideology
- Coercion / Compromise
- Ego
On our best days, we’re not so different from the mortgage fraudster, the Ponzi king, or the art forger:
- They fabricate ownership trails; we fabricate cover legends.
- They forge provenance; We forge backstories, resumes, and relationships.
- They build illusions investors want to believe; We build identities adversaries need to accept.
We operate on the same terrain:
You can con anyone whose hopes exceed their caution.
Con artists call that a mark. We call it a potential asset.
4. A Non-Official Cover (NOC) operator lives deep inside a state-sanctioned con:
- A curated identity with supporting documents, business registrations, and social media.
- “Colleagues” who will answer the phone and swear we’ve worked together for years.
- Photos, conference badges, flight records, invoices—an entire fabricated life, cross-indexed and searchable.
The only difference is that the con artist does it for himself, and the NOC does it under legal authority and operational tasking (Title 50 - USC). He lives inside an operations plan; the grifter lives inside his appetite.
Both must:
- Stay in character at 3 a.m. when woken by armed men.
- Remember who their “uncle” is and which fake university they “attended.”
- Explain why they are in this city, at this time, with these people—and make it boring.
A sloppy con artist gets arrested. A sloppy liar in my world doesn’t get arrested. He disappears.
4. From OSS to Cold War: Industrializing the Legend
World War II turned spying from a gentleman’s side hobby into a full-scale industry.
The OSS and Britain’s SOE learned that a good legend wasn’t just forged papers; it was a fully inhabited life:
- Accent, slang, habits.
- Local gossip memorized like scripture.
- Mundane routines—work, church, market, bar—that made an agent invisible.
The Cold War refined this into an art:
- The Soviets deployed illegals—officers who lived for decades under foreign identities, complete with marriages, kids, mortgages.
- We countered with our own NOCs and networks.
Everyone lied. Everyone seduced. Everyone claimed the moral high ground.
The arguments about “whose side was nobler” were theater. The real question was always:
Whose lies prevented more war—or enabled it?
5. Welcome to the Grey Zone: 5th-Generation Warfare
Fast-forward to the 21st century.
We used to have fronts. Borders. Uniforms. Two colors on the map.
Now we have 5th-generation warfare: a permanent shadow campaign where:
- Narratives trick whole populations.
- Financial structures trick markets.
- Influence operations trick democracies.
- Front companies trick regulators and supply chains.
Russia runs oligarch laundromats and mercenary “security” firms. China runs “cultural centers,” “joint ventures,” and “research partnerships” with MSS strings threaded through them.
Iran hides its reach in religious charities and logistics networks. North Korea finances its regime with cyber-crime and fake companies shipping sanctioned goods.
Everyone insists they’re being “defensive.” Everyone is conning everyone else.
The modern clandestine operator—official cover or non-official cover (NOC)—has to:
- Detect these national-scale cons.
- Map the networks.
- Slip inside them without setting off alarms.
- Recruit the one disillusioned engineer, banker, colonel, or coder who can expose the core.
The street hustler asks, “What does this mark want to believe?” The professional asks, “What does this regime want the world to believe—and where’s the seam we can pry open?”
Same skill set, different altitude.
6. The Digital Legend: Bad Lies Die Faster Now
Once upon a time, a legend was a passport, a story, and some well-worn shoes.
Now it has to survive Google.
A viable 21st-century cover requires:
- Years of social posts that look natural, not curated.
- A LinkedIn history that passes muster with HR and hostile counter-intel.
- Photos whose metadata matches the supposed time and place.
- Travel records, visas, and bank activity that align with the story.
- Domain registrations, email trails, tax filings—all coherent across databases.
Hostile services have:
- Data-lake analytics.
- Telecom intercepts.
- Commercial data brokers.
- Access to government registries.
One inconsistency—one school that doesn’t exist, one employer that never heard of you—and your pleasant little consultancy becomes an object of quiet interest.
The digital age didn’t kill legends. It just made bad ones die faster.
7. Ethics, Oversight, and the Price of the Lie
Comparing con artists and clandestine operators should make you uneasy. It does me.
Because the toolkit overlaps:
- Reading vulnerability.
- Mirroring behavior.
- Manufacturing intimacy.
- Lying without a tremor.
- Weaponizing reputation and paperwork.
Without laws, oversight, and a moral frame, that skill set produces predators with diplomatic passports.
The supposed difference is:
- The con artist exploits for self.
- The NOC deceives in service of preventing war, protecting sources, disrupting terror networks, countering hostile states.
But don’t kid yourself—the psychological cost is real.
Living inside a legend, recruiting people to betray their country or employer, manipulating their fears and grievances—it erodes you, molecule by molecule, unless you’re anchored to something larger than your own ego.
That’s why serious services:
- Screen hard for true psychopaths.
- Drill ethics, legal authorities, and rules of engagement.
- Wrap operations in layers of findings, lawyers, and oversight committees.
It’s not perfect. It leaks. It fails. But it’s an attempt to keep the knife sharp and pointed outward, not inward at our own society.
The tools of the con artist, placed in the hands of a narcissist with a flag, create monsters. Placed in the hands of a disciplined professional with a long view, they quietly prevent wars you’ll never hear about.
8. “Here Am I; Send Me” — in the Age of Industrial-Scale Cons
So here we are.
Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea run industrial-scale cons against the international system.
We counter with our own illusions and penetrations.
Everyone in the shadows is selling something. Everyone claims virtue. Everyone quotes history.
The question is never “Who is pure?” Purity doesn’t live here.
The real questions are:
- Who did their dirt in service of what?
- Whose lies prevented more bodies from hitting the ground?
- Whose operations kept the sky quiet one more day?
When I started, I thought I was Isaiah: some flawed instrument answering a higher call.
Over the years I learned a harsher truth:
Sometimes the voice that whispers, “Whom shall I send?” is a president. Sometimes it’s a bureaucracy. Sometimes it’s just the echo of your younger self, still eager to matter.
You answer anyway.
Because someone has to walk into the grey. Someone has to sit across from the con men, the killers, and the cut-outs, and understand their game better than they do. Someone has to carry the lies that keep other people’s children from ever seeing what a real war looks like.
So when the question comes—spoken or implied—
Whom shall I send?
There are still a few of us who say:
Here am I. Send me!
Not because we are virtuous. Not because we are clean. But because in a world full of cons, somebody has to lie in the right direction. Nations are defended by those willing to become what others condemn.
Hands down, one of the best, most honest, self effacing, truest essays I’ve ever read… On anything. I’m amazed and practically overwhelmed at the decency you have shown even in your business. So many don’t.
May the Good Lord bless you.