I tried to do some research because I'm fairly clueless too and what I found is that it comes from a Dutch translation of the word 'spectre,' hence the use of the word spooky around halloween, and was later used as a slur against black people circa WWII. Not sure about when it started to be used for spies, but my assumption is that would've happened either around WWII or later because intelligence agencies didn't exist until about that time. Still not sure about the history of how it would've jumped from racial slur to term used for spies though so if someone could fill that piece in that would be cool.
According to the link below, the first known written use to refer to spies is from 1942. The CIA had not been formed at the time, but its predecessor (the OSS) was around.
It’s funny because my first guess was that it was a reference to the original ‘ghost’ meaning of the word because of the nature of the work a spy would be doing
I tried to do some research because I'm fairly clueless too and what I found is that it comes from a Dutch translation of the word 'spectre,' hence the use of the word spooky around halloween, and was later used as a slur against black people circa WWII. Not sure about when it started to be used for spies, but my assumption is that would've happened either around WWII or later because intelligence agencies didn't exist until about that time. Still not sure about the history of how it would've jumped from racial slur to term used for spies though so if someone could fill that piece in that would be cool.
According to the link below, the first known written use to refer to spies is from 1942. The CIA had not been formed at the time, but its predecessor (the OSS) was around.
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It’s funny because my first guess was that it was a reference to the original ‘ghost’ meaning of the word because of the nature of the work a spy would be doing
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