This spy came in
from the cold

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Tom Murphy has never been wounded in a gunfight. In fact, he’s never even been shot at — not by the enemy, at least.
Likewise, Murphy has never been beaten to a pulp by a steel-toothed giant or found himself in the sack with a couple of Russian supermodels moments after escaping his own execution.
No, the Northeast Philadelphia native is not James Bond.
Yet, in a previous stage of his life, he was every bit an international spy. He was an authentic one, serving the Central Intelligence Agency for a quarter of a century as a case officer on Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc nations at a time when few Americans saw the backside of the Iron Curtain and fewer still survived to tell about it. He spent 14 of those years overseas.
Now retired from the agency, Murphy finally can talk about the world of espionage and has done it in his recently released Cold War spy novel Edge of Allegiance.
Naturally, the book is a work of pure fiction. Even today, Murphy is sworn to secrecy about his overseas intelligence operations. In fact, as part of a secrecy agreement he signed, the CIA had to approve all of the content to ensure that the book didn’t reveal any national secrets.
However, unlike the popular Bond novels and films, Edge of Allegiance as a fictional work is based on total reality.
"I think Ian Fleming intended (Bond) as a spoof, and people took it as reality," Murphy said. "It’s really the farthest thing from reality."
By contrast, Murphy’s story "could have happened," he insists.
The plot follows a young CIA agent drafted to recruit a Soviet diplomat as an American spy. The agent travels to three continents and develops an affection for a voluptuous, slightly older female agent along the way.
It’s 325 pages are filled with solid imagery and character development, a healthy dose of mystery and, perhaps above all, consistently colorful dialogue that offers the reader a rare glimpse into how real agents navigate their own professional and personal worlds.
"The book is very close to the way we ran recruiting operations when we started out," Murphy said.
But the art was of equal importance to the author as the feasibility of the story.
"I tried to make it a true novel, not just a work of genre fiction," he said. "I need a very strong plot. (It had to be) action-driven, not character-driven. The details had to be consistent."
After graduating from La Salle High School, Murphy majored in languages — primarily French — at La Salle College and learned Russian in the military. Yet, nothing in his formal education taught him how to write a work of prose. When asked what gave him the idea that he could do it, Murphy leaned back and laughed.
"You don’t know many case officers," he said still smiling. "You have to have a certain amount of self-confidence. I did it because I enjoy the writing. I really had no idea if it would succeed."
He adopted a career in the CIA with much the same approach. He spent the first eight years of his life in Tacony, then moved with his mother and older sister to Mayfair in 1947. Today, his four half-siblings own and operate the famous Mayfair Diner.
"It never occurred to me that I’d become a spy," Murphy said. "I actually thought I’d become a teacher, but there was no money in it."
He didn’t take a conventional route through college. His nine-year journey included multiple stints overseas where he studied in Paris and Switzerland; a U.S. Army hitch, when he spent time in Germany and Turkey; as well as a tenure as a ski bum in New Hampshire.
His former jobs include newspaper carrier (for the old Mayfair Times, the predecessor to the Northeast Times), busboy at the former Smylie’s Restaurant at Rhawn Street and Roosevelt Boulevard, country club attendant, Gimbel’s clerk, a machinist apprentice and a television repair man.
The worst physical beating of his professional life occurred not at the hands of an angry Communist agent, but rather while he was driving a cab in Philadelphia.
He was shot at once, too. A careless fellow soldier accidentally pointed a rifle his way. The slug missed Murphy.
A colleague first suggested that Murphy apply for the CIA after he completed a language program in Switzerland. Murphy turned down the idea. Later, after returning to La Salle to complete his degree, a professor recommended the same thing.
Murphy filled out the paperwork and took a job in an IBM accounts receivable office while undergoing a lengthy background check and waiting for an interview. They offered him a job in January 1967. What job was still a question.
"I had very little idea what I’d actually be doing when I joined the agency," he said.
"(Early on) the one thing I learned was that I wanted to be involved in operations on the street level, but also that I eventually wanted to run them."
He did and ended his career as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service. In military terms, that status is equivalent to that of a brigadier or major general.
"I had a number of permanent status long-term assignments and many temporary assignments that took me all around the world," Murphy said.
His time in Soviet Bloc countries was both thrilling and mentally taxing as he essentially was "on-duty" 24/7.
"It was called a Cold War. What we were there to do was prevent a hot war, which nobody would have won," he said.
Some agents worked undercover as diplomats, but there were many different covers.
"You lived reasonably well, but you were always followed. Your phone was always tapped," Murphy said. "It was very stressful."
Naturally, the agents devised covert ways to communicate with their foreign contacts, other agents and home base.
Murphy, who now lives near Washington, D.C., retired in 1992 as the nature of international politics and his professional demands were taking a dramatic swing.
"I could have continued, but the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. The handwriting was on the wall," he said.
At the time, some in the CIA feared that their usefulness would diminish without the threat of a hostile Superpower. But it didn’t take long for a new threat to emerge.
The first attack on the World Trade Center occurred in 1993, just one year after his retirement and eight years before the destructive 9/11 attack.
"I think we failed as a nation — in terms of not recognizing a threat," Murphy said.
The CIA has a lead role in combating future attacks.
"Obviously, the overriding issue now is counter-terrorism," Murphy said.
The core qualities of a successful agent remain essentially the same as when he was active, however.
"A lot of it boils down to concentration and street smarts. It’s a combination of Plato’s Philosopher King and a used-car salesman," he said.
"You have to deal with people of all levels, and you have to have a pretty good sense of what people are about, whether the person sitting across from you is trustworthy, if they have an agenda and if they’ll back you in a tough situation." ••
Thomas F. Murphy’s Cold War spy novel ‘Edge of Allegiance’ is available at a discount from the $17.95 cover price via amazon.com. Signed discounted copies are sold at the Mayfair Diner, 7373 Frankford Ave.
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com