How to spot an American [spy] overseas

By their backside in their hosts' faces, apparently:

"As the agency’s leading disguise specialists, the Mendezes spent decades creating false identities for American spies

Often, the biggest challenge facing the Mendezes wasn’t coming up with fake mustaches and plausible covers — it was teaching agents to act less, well, American.

To wit: Europeans stand up straight in elevators, with their weight on both feet. Americans slouch, leaning against walls and railings. In movie theaters, Americans walk though crowded rows facing the screen; by contrast, Europeans face the audience, because they consider sticking their backsides in their fellow patrons’ faces to be rude.

Mrs. Mendez said contemporary American agents have to be taught to smoke. Mr. Mendez added that even the American habit of daily showering can be a giveaway.

“In Moscow, we made sure agents had the right amount of garlic, vodka and plain old B.O."

More: http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/27/behind-the-mask/?page=all

Triumph of money over culture?

It is reported from the United States that the Americans have declared our patents void. That fits their mentality exactly. I have the impression anyway that the Americans participate in a European war every quarter century in order to be able to take for themselves as cheaply and easily as possible whatever cultural work has been done in Europe. The American continent is hardly in a position to bring forth anything of its own in the cultural realm. It is dependent upon imports from Europe, and as the Americans are so crazy about money they naturally like to take possession of the results of our creative and inventive labors as far as possible without paying for them.

Joseph Goebbels, Ph.D., in The Goebbels Diaries, April 23, 1942