New Category: Spies and Saboteurs

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

I am thinking of a new category to cover the sites, graves, and other locations associated with the work or lives of Spies and Saboteurs.

 

This idea is on the very early stages, but it could be a cool category filled with tales of international intrigue, bravery, heroism, and also tragedy, deception, betrayal, and failure.

 

The site must be connected to a particular spy or saboteur, and there must be something at the site discussing the spy or saboteur, or with their name on it (a plaque, a historic marker, a tombstone, etc).

 

Variables:

 

Nationality

 

Working for:

 

Working against:

 

Aim of the espionage or sabotage

 

Type of agent: spy/saboteur

 

Military or civilian

 

Wartime activity Yes/no

 

If yes: Name of conflict

 

Years active

 

Book or website on the person or action

 

Long description would contain a brief description of the spy/saboteur, and their mission or actions. Any historic plaques or markers should be transcribed.

 

Naming convention: Name of Spy/Saboteur - (Place optional), city, state, country

 

Examples:

 

Captain Henry Skillman - Presidio TX USA

Brigadier General Benedict Arnold - St Mary's Church, Battersea, London, UK

Brigadier General Benedict Arnold - West Point, NY USA

Mata Hari - Hotel Elysée Palace, Paris FR

MAJ Francis Gary Powers -- Glienicke Bridge, Berlin, Germany

 

Check out this website: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/famous-spies

 

Thoughts?

[+Manville Possum]

Here is a Virginia Historical Marker for a famous spy.

[+Manville Possum]

Here is a Virginia Historical Marker for a famous spy.

[+elyob]

My two cents worth: I would like to see grave sites allowed even if there is no relevant reference on the monument at the grave site. For example, I can post waymarks for graves of Olympians simply through evidence by my research confirming that the individual participated in the Olympics. In most other Waymarking graves categories however, my post is denied if the Waymarking category requirements are not actually on the monument at the grave.

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

My two cents worth: I would like to see grave sites allowed even if there is no relevant reference on the monument at the grave site. For example, I can post waymarks for graves of Olympians simply through evidence by my research confirming that the individual participated in the Olympics. In most other Waymarking graves categories however, my post is denied if the Waymarking category requirements are not actually on the monument at the grave.

 

Yes of course graves will be allowed if they have the name of the spy on it -- sorry that was not clear

[+Bear and Ragged]

There is Grave of a Famous Person category...

[+Manville Possum]

There is Grave of a Famous Person category...

 

I don't think redundancy is an issue anymore, or if it ever was. I see WM's listed in more than one category all the time.

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

There is Grave of a Famous Person category...

 

I don't think redundancy is an issue anymore, or if it ever was. I see WM's listed in more than one category all the time.

 

Just because a waymark can go into multiple categories does not mean anything is redundant about it.

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

There is Grave of a Famous Person category...

 

Yes, but not all spies are famous, or well-known enough for that category and thos category would take anything tangible related to their exploits or lives as long as the connection to the spy is plain.

 

I hope the community will agree that this category is interesting, informative, global, and not redundant.

 

As I said in another post, just because a waymark can be cross-posted into several appropriate categories, those categories are not redundant with one another, and the waymark itself is not redundant.

 

Example: A statue of Civil War General X could be waymarked in Smithsonian Art Inventories, US Civil War General Statues, Statues of Historical Figures, Specific Veteran Memorials, Equestrian statues (if he's on a horse), US National Register of Historic Places (if its a contributing structure in a US NRHP historic district), as a Civil War Discovery Trail site (if it is listed by the CW Trust), etc with no redundancy problem

[+Manville Possum]

Waymarking to me is if I want to share a picture and some information on something I thought was interesting, and I need a category to list it in, not 10 different categories it will fit in.

 

I don't make any claims that I understand Waymarking, or if I ever did. I find the idea of a new Spy category interesting.

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

Anyone else want to weigh in before I start the process?

[+fi67]

Assassins?

[+Bear and Ragged]

Anyone else want to weigh in before I start the process?

 

Go for it!

 

I like the sound of the category, and wish it well.

[+Alfouine]

Great idea

[+Benchmark Blasterz]

Assassins?

 

oooooooo -- If the assassins are employed by governments or political groups and the target's murder achieved a political or strategic objective, then yes. This would exclude assassins who killed their victims for personal, or delusional, or monetary, or fanatical reasons.

 

If they are just lone-wolf killers of important people, then no, I think.

 

Examples:

 

Lee Harvey Oswald -- lone-wolf killer of JFK, NO

Mark David Chapman -- psychotic killer of John Lennon, NO

John Wilkes Boothe -- Killer of Abraham Lincoln, NO

Sirhan Sirhan - Killer of JFK's brother Robert Kennedy, NO

Al Quaeda -- self-claimed killers of Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto, NO

James Earl Ray -- killer of Martin Luther King, NO

 

Gavrilo Princip -- killer of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, YES

Roman Senators -- killers of Julius Caesar, YES

Kim Jaegyu -- Killer of Korean President Park Chung-hee, YES

Bolshevik soldiers -- Killers of the Russian Royal Romanov family, YES

 

I want to keep the focus on government-employed agents or political operatives, who are given a particular mission by their political group/government employer that advances a government or political agenda. I don't want a chronicle of any lone wolf with a grudge and a gun.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Benchmark Blasterz