A quick Google search came up with 14 Phillip Jennings in my state alone. Wonder if those any of those guys have been the subject of “Americans” related jokery since the show premiered.
I believe the header on the FBI terminal screen was something like “Case Database” (the word “case” was definitely there), which implies it only searches the internal FBI case files (master name index, essentially).
The database scene is another example of how the show speaks to me (and my generation?) in a way most don’t. I took it as a commentary on the surveillance state and massive changes in how police work is done now. At first, such a search turning up nothing seemed hella suspicious, and it took me a while to realize in the late 80’s it was the contrary: “No results found” was a good thing.
Mad Men, set in the 60’s, started out with a lot of potential to make these sorts of commentaries, but somewhere that petered out and it became a soap opera. It’s great The Americans kept a bit of an edge.
What if Renee is Claudia’s daughter? Maybe she’s working for Mom without any association with the KGB or GRU.
It would explain why Gabriel said Renee wasn’t one of theirs.
That’s a really strong fit, whether you’re ultimately right or wrong, good thinking.
That could have been the inspiration for the “second-gen illegals” concept.
How does background screening work in the 1980s? Renee wanted an FBI job, and we have discussed that if she is anything other than U.S.-born, she wouldn’t pass a background check. But then, given Stan’s high level of suspicion, why hasn’t he found anything amiss by checking into Philip & Elizabeth’s past?
In this case, would she still be able to pass a background check? She’d need parents and extended family whose backgrounds wouldn’t start to unravel as soon as they’re investigated.
Even if Stan was looking only at FBI case files, I still find it remarkable there was only *one *person in the data bank who matched the names he was searching for.
It’s possible that one purpose of that scene was to remind the audience that when this show takes place, discovering “illegals” would have been vastly more difficult (than would be the case today), because computer databases were so limited and so disconnected.
Yup, so if the storyline (reflecting the reality of that era) is that Stan can’t easily find the holes in the Jennings’ background, does that remove the objection to Renee also being Russian? Perhaps not, I think the objection is still valid. Although it might not be easy to uncover a well-constructed fake history, applying for an FBI job seems like it would attract a level of scrutiny that would at least risk discovery - it seems reckless.
ETA: although no less reckless than Paige applying to the State Dept.
I imagine that in the case of Paige applying for State, she’d be given a thorough check, but that it would be much more cursory for her parents (presuming that their cover remained intact).
Phillip, I think it was, once mentioned that there was a real Phillip Jennings and the SOP for folks was to find a kid who died young, with no living relatives and assume his (or her) identity. These days death records are cross-referenced so that particular dodge is no longer feasible.
Early in the Obama administration a nest of illegals was uncovered in the U.S. but I’m not sure how they established themselves.
According to the CNN documentary, they first established Canadian identities using the names of dead people, and then moved to the United States and applied for US citizenship. Why it should be (or have been) easier to build a bogus identity in Canada than in the States, I don’t know.
The biochemist who committed suicide was easy enough to nail when Stan et al. started digging into his background. You just need something to point you in the right direction.
I remember a BBC interview with Frederick Forsythe (I think it was) back around 2000, just after his latest novel had come out. In it, a terrorist gets a false British passport using the same scheme as in The Day of the Jackal. Forsythe said he was amazed to have learned through his research that such a thing was just as possible then as it was in 1963.
Of course, with all the advances in computer technology in the last 20 years or so, I doubt that’s the case today.
Because the US identities would be real, not forged. They’d need to forge the Canadian identities well enough to pass the US citizenship process, but once they did that, they’d have genuine records and IDs generated in their name in the US, rather than their faked Canadian credentials. The real US credentials would stand up to scrutiny, and they’d be able to get more forms of ID or other needs (social security card, credit cards, etc) without having to forge those too.
Now that I think about it, it may have been Ken Follett, after ***The Hammer of Eden ***came out. I’d have to dig out my copy to make sure.
In any case, he did reference Forsythe and The Day of the Jackal.
I remember a case like this in an episode of NCIS. The illegal was eventually exposed when they dug into his Canadian background and found his namesake had died in early childhood.
Yes, when he and Elizabeth were telling Paige who they really were. They said they knew the names and birthdates of the people whose identities they had assumed. How much else they knew (if anything) was not revealed.
In the early episode where they first met, they were shown being issued US passports, Social Security cards, a marriage license, the works. I would guess most of these would have to be real (and not forgeries) for them to live under cover in the US for any long period of time.
I worked on budgets for a fighter jet manufacturer in the early 80s when I was in my 20s, and coworkers around me had sensitive files on their desks, so I had to have Secret clearance. I remember having to provide the addresses of every place I had ever lived, including the yearly address changes in college etc. I don’t know how many were checked out, but one landlord (family friend) did contact my parents, alarmed that what he thought were FBI agents had come to question his family about me. I rented from them when I was 19, so they went back almost ten years, to someone in my ‘purported’ home town, who could also give them information on my family.
When I applied to the FBI in the 80s, the application was at least 10 pages! Total history of residences, school, non-family references, I can’t even remember what else. It was way longer than the paperwork to get a security clearance. I don’t know if they actually checked the references in the FBI application, but they do for security clearances.
It’s funny, I never quite got why they wanted all that, until now. Just figured it was typical government information overkill.
Did anyone notice the movie Phillip rented, The Garage? Interesting film - a Soviet comedy that sort of takes on the Soviet system. It was banned under Brezhnev. Interesting choice of film for Phillip. But why did he pick it? It isn’t like he could find someone to ask “what’s a good film for someone that is questioning his belief in the Soviet system?” Did he just get lucky on a random pick?
I still appreciate how well the set designers do in getting the period stuff right. Like the soda fountain in the chicken place. All the choices looked spot on. Who would notice that, except someone like me? How many like me are watching? Yet they did it right.
My wife commented on how DC has brownstones, just like NYC. Thanks to you all here, i told her it was filmed in Brooklyn. 
To one extent or another, pretty much all of Eldar Ryazanov’s comedies satirized the Soviet system. He was a very popular and respected director who won the USSR State Prize in 1977. (He had an office in the building where I used to work. I would often ride the elevator with him up to my floor. Liya Akhedzhakova, the cute little brunette in the clip they showed, was also frequently there. She was part of the stable of actors Ryazanov liked to use in his movies.)
It’s news to me that Garazh was ever banned here. It was and still is an immensely popular movie. (FWIW, it came out in 1980, and Brezhnev died in November 1982. Though I could see where Andropov would not have cared much for it.)
I think the connection was not just Philip feeling homesick and nostalgic (he would not have been in the USSR when the film was released); I think it had more to do with his feelings after having just mutilated Marilyn’s body inside a garage.