Some unintentionally hilarious bits in an article from the Wall Street Journal, Dec 3 (Eastern edition) called 'In From the Cold: He Was a Communist For Dutch Intelligence' by Andrew Higgins (not available online as far as I know, but I got it from an online discussion group):

As secretary-general of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the Netherlands, Chris Petersen traveled the globe during the Cold War, wowing Communist leaders with his revolutionary zeal and anticapitalist diatribes.

The Chinese Communist Party was so impressed, it regularly gave the ranting Dutchman the full red-carpet treatment in Beijing.

Now, with communism all but dead, the Dutchman has decided to come clean: Both he and his party were a sham. He says he was never a Maoist but an opera-loving math teacher moonlighting for Dutch intelligence.

"Nothing was real," says the ex-Mr. Petersen, who now lives under his real name, Pieter Boeve, here in Zandvoort, a seaside resort town west of Amsterdam. The only genuine part of a revolutionary career that lasted decades, he says, was a fondness for Chinese food: The Chinese Communist Party, Mr. Boeve recalls, had excellent cooks.

The Central Intelligence Agency, which got regular updates on the mock Maoist movement, dubbed it 'Operation Red Herring,' according to Dutch intelligence. (The CIA won't comment.) The Dutch called it 'Project Mongol.'

Mr. Boeve, who appeared on television in a recent documentary about the Dutch secret service while wearing a fake beard and Groucho Marx plastic nose and glasses, says his past exploits provide tips that could help con Islamist extremists, but he doesn't envy anyone who might try: "It's very dangerous," he says.

"I totally wasted 12 years of my life," says Paul Wartena, an ex- MLPN member who was so dedicated to the cause he used to donate 20% of his salary to the fake party. He says he "had some doubts now and then" about the MLPN but stayed loyal because "I was very naive and Mr. Boeve was such a good actor." Now a researcher at a university in Utrecht, Mr. Wartena wants Dutch intelligence to pay him back for all his donations.

Mr. Boeve, now 74, scoffs at his acolyte: "He was an idiot."