Samenvatting

Since intelligence and espionage are so secret by nature, discussing it proves to be rather difficult. Debates about intelligence therefore tend to be fought with metaphors. Using Johnson’s and Lakoff’s idea that metaphors provide conceptual frameworks and thus have real-world effects, as well as Butler’s idea of performative power, this article has explored the most widely used metaphors in Dutch intelligence history. The Dutch security services have been depicted, in a wide variety of images, broadly as remnants of the past (ruins or ‘anachronisms’), as spies on wooden shoes, as a stowaway of democracy, and as a state within the state. Since the civil servants and politicians almost always felt the need to respond to these metaphors, by providing explanation, nuance, and facts – or by introducing a competing metaphor – it is argued that these metaphors have real-world effects, showing how the security service was positioned in politics and society.