Few intelligence officers are flashy, or good looking. You don't look at them on the street and in many ways they are like the string quartet behind the plants at a wedding reception ... they aren't normally seen, and only occasionally heard over the conversation and the servers. This only comes naturally to a very small number of people, Mendez, and KGB LtCol Rudolf Abel (William Fisher). These men were mostly trained in old or a variation of Cold War tradecraft. These men have little in common with most portrayals today.