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Who is the IMF in Mission Impossible?
Is the Impossible Mission Force a multinational espionage agency?
Is the IMF a spy organization?
Who is the Impossible Mission Force?
Jul 7, 2023 · IMF is known as the government intelligence agency that Ethan Hunt works for in Mission: Impossible, but what does the term actually stand for?
- Charles Papadopoulos
- Senior Staff Writer
- Overview
- Background
- Status
- Select IMF Personnel
The Impossible Mission Force, or IMF for short, is an independent espionage agency commonly employed by the United States government. While the IMF is based in the U.S., as seen in the third film, several of its personnel are from different countries around the world. Thus, the IMF is a multinational espionage agency. As revealed in the seventh film, the IMF exists solely to complete the missions that other organizations, such as the CIA, MI6 or FBI, would find to be either the least of their concerns or too risky to undertake.
The IMF was disbanded and branded as a rogue agency for six months due to its lack of a Secretary in charge, whose death was depicted and the attempts to stop Kurt Hendricks in
Specialty and Methods
Situations that are too politically sensitive or too potentially politically embarrassing, too dangerous for politicians to be trusted and to confront, too absurd or too sensitive for the CIA, or too complex for the FBI are handled by this top-secret organization. The IMF is a specialized group of expert spy agents who remain hidden from the public eye. If the IMF's existence was ever publicly revealed, the United States would be expelled from the United Nations and banned as a "pariah state." For this reason, the IMF trains its field operatives extremely rigorously in the ways of stealth, deception, persuasion and the art of "invisibility." On the other hand, the most successful mission teams usually employ methods drawn from the criminal element of grand-scale confidence games which they can play on specific mission targets. These IMF agents are well-educated, multi-talented and highly trained in a variety of areas including demolition tactics, long-range surveillance, computers and even assassination. As one of the best-funded espionage organizations in the world, the IMF can possess multiple millions of dollars' worth in specialized gadgetry and weapons. IMF missions are secretly delivered to the agents in disguise as normal everyday objects, such as a pair of sunglasses (Mission: Impossible II), a phone booth (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol), or even a copy of Homer's Odyssey (Mission: Impossible – Fallout). These missions always start with a greeting (Good evening, [insert agent name here]) before going into the details of the mission. Towards the end of the message, the message will state the objective of the mission (e.g. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to prevent the Apostles from acquiring plutonium, using any means at your disposal"), before stating what will occur should the mission be failed or an agent be caught by the enemy, before self-destructing in five seconds. In some of the later movies, the agent is required to recite a phrase in order for the message to be delivered to them (e.g. "We live and die in the shadows, for those we hold close, and for those we never meet.")
Personnel and Equipment
Most, but not all, of the IMF agents are on top of the line, and some have been disciplined or expelled from the agency for their unacceptable behavior during missions. The spies expelled from the IMF are the most dangerous individuals to the agency, as they could easily expose secrets about the organization to any number of foreign and rogue governments. Worst of all, as skilled as they are in playing grand-scale confidence games, they could easily entrap the most reliable operatives in such games and thereby compromise them. The only known man to be removed from IMF service was Sean Ambrose. With continued success since the 1940s, the IMF bears the brunt of today's international attacks, now focused on concealed entry and espionage. The missions keep growing harder and harder - but so do the agents. The IMF normally operates primarily by executing confidence tricks on its mission targets, sometimes with the aid of high-tech gadgets. The agents are able to deceive their targets into cooperating with them without detecting a set-up until the mission is accomplished; by that time, the IMF personnel have already vanished from the scene. IMF agents possess next-level technology including contact lenses that can scan and identify faces, exploding gum, sniper rifles disguised as flutes, acidic foam, optical camouflage screens, gloves that can stick to anything, remote controlled vehicles, apps that point agents to the nearest safe house, safe car or safe boat, augmented-reality glasses and next-level radio and comms systems.
Plausible Deniability
In a worst-case scenario during undercover missions in which its presence becomes known, the IMF can become a subject to disavowal under order from the President's fail-safe initiative, "Ghost Protocol". With this initiative in place, the IMF is completely shut down, and any or all agents in the field are hereby unable to access any specific safe houses, receiving support, using satellites or sending extraction to their specific location. Unfortunately, the IMF was later disavowed again, after a disarmed missile took out part of the Transamerica Pyramid at the end of Ghost Protocol. See in Mission: Impossible – Ethan Hunt and his team used the disavowal of the IMF to exercise more restraint in their actions in stopping a nuclear extremist, Kurt Hendricks, than would normally be possible during an official mission given by the mission commanders or by their top agents.
Below is a list of IMF agents next to them will be their status following the mission.
•Caught: The agent was captured by the enemy and tortured but the mission still succeeded.
•Defected: The agent switched sides and is now working for the enemy. IMF has listed them as Disavowed.
•Disavowed: The agent did not complete the mission resulting in them being caught or killed and had an encounter with the Secretary and was disavowed. Agents who were reinstated will be noted.
•Injured: The agent was injured in the line of duty and requires medical attention.
•KIA: The agent was killed and they either completed the mission or was disavowed.
Daniel David "Dan" Briggs' mission team ("The Director's Own")
•Barnard "Barney" Collier •Cinnamon Carter •Rollin Hand •William "Willy" Armitage
James "Jim" Phelps' first mission team ("The Director's Own")
•Barnard "Barney" Collier •Cinnamon Carter •Dana Lambert •Doug Robert •Melany "Mimi" Davis •Rollin Hand •The Great Paris •Tracey •William "Willy" Armitage
Thomas Copperfield's primary mission team
•Casey Randall •Grant Collier •Max Hart •Nicholas Black
Jul 25, 2023 · The Impossible Mission Force or IMF is a multinational espionage organization working adjacent to but independent of the United States government. Its formation is shrouded in mystery, but...
- Senior Contributor
Jun 6, 2023 · The IMF (Impossible Missions Force) is the independent espionage organization responsible for sending Ethan Hunt on his adventures in the Mission Impossible movies. It’s fair to say that the IMF is a complex organization, with Hunt and his superiors frequently finding themselves in tense disagreements.
- Tom Beasley
Jul 13, 2023 · The film reveals how people become IMF agents and how the intelligence community views them. It also shows the team's missions as impossible tasks that the government trusts them to accomplish.
Mission: Impossible is an American multimedia franchise based on a fictional secret espionage agency known as the Impossible Missions Force (IMF). The 1966 TV series ran for seven seasons and was revived in 1988 for two seasons.
Jul 10, 2023 · Tom Cruise and Peter Graves both led Mission: Impossible's covert government operation—but what is the IMF and how does it make impossible missions possible?
