AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes

AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #29-07 dated 30 July 2007

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WIN CREDITS FOR THIS ISSUE: 

The WIN editors thank the following contributors to this issue: lc, pjk, ls, and goh. 
All have contributed one or more stories used in this issue.  

Does NY Times journalist Tim Weiner display an understanding of assignments, anticipated success rate based on mission-scale-and-risk, and the functioning
of CIA -- or any publicly run Intelligence organization -- as described in his book:  Legacy of Ashes?  Share your facts and opinions.

25-27 October 2007 - McLean, VA - AFIO National Intelligence Symposium

CONTENTS

Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE   

Section III - BOOK REVIEWS, INTERESTING WEBSITES, RESEARCH REQUESTS, OBITUARIES, AND COMING EVENTS

Book Reviews

Interesting Websites

Research Requests

Obituaries

Coming Events

Current Calendar Next Two Months ONLY:

  For Additional Events two+ months or more....view our online Calendar of Events  

Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Australia Increases Counter-Espionage Officers. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) has announced that it will increase the number of counter-espionage officers in an effort to combat Russian and Chinese spies. Sources have told The Australian newspaper that Russia and China pose the most serious espionage threat to Australia's national interest since "Cold War days." 

A spokeswoman for federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock confirmed ASIO had recently boosted its resources dedicated to counter-espionage but declined to comment on the nature of the threat or identify countries. "The additional staffing will allow ASIO to broaden the scope and reach of its counter-espionage and foreign interference investigations and to expand its outreach activity to government departments and agencies," the spokeswoman told the newspaper. [TheAge/23July2007]

FBI Goes on Offensive Against China's Tech Spies. The FBI is launching an active outreach program to educate corporate America to the danger of economic espionage. Over the past year, the bureau's 56 field offices each identified the 10 highest-value corporate targets in their areas and spoke with their top executives about the potential threat they confront, mostly from their own employees. Companies such as General Electric, DuPont and Corning, as well as the nation's leading weapons makers, have met with FBI representatives, the bureau says. "Our message is: There's risk here. You could be giving away the future...The threat's in-house," says Thomas Mahlik, an FBI counterintelligence specialist who heads the outreach effort.

As part of its ongoing effort to boost corporate awareness, the FBI is distributing a 12-page "counterintelligence vulnerability assessment" for companies to assess their internal safeguards. The bureau wants businesses to institute counterintelligence programs that go beyond traditional corporate security practices. Companies should identify the proprietary data that would cause the most damage if stolen or compromised, identify the employees with access to that information and designate a senior official with responsibility for countering any effort to recruit an employee as a corporate spy.

The FBI bridge-building to the corporate world already is paying dividends: Tips from executives led the bureau to open 27 cases involving potential theft of trade secrets and related crimes from November 2006 to March. At least one major prosecution has resulted: a 2006 guilty plea by a former DuPont research chemist, who was charged with stealing technical secrets valued at more than $400 million, according to a statement by Colm Connolly, U.S. Attorney for the district of Delaware.

Officials say China represents the most aggressive threat. The Communist leadership is determined to increase the nation's technological sophistication while fiercely competitive Chinese business executives seek to leapfrog Western rivals by marrying their low labor costs with purloined technology. "It's a serious problem to Corporate America and our economic interests," says Rudy Guerin, former head of the FBI's East Asia branch. "And it's going to get worse." The FBI has increased the number of agents assigned to counter alleged Chinese espionage from about 150 in 2001 to more than 350 today, says Bruce Carlson, who leads the bureau's counterintelligence efforts against China.

According to counterintelligence officials, the Chinese reach out to ethnic Chinese scientists and executives in the USA, appealing to any latent affinity for their land of origin. The FBI says up to 3,000 technology brokers facilitate China's access to sensitive commercial secrets, a figure private experts question. James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, a Washington, D.C., think tank, says the idea that China concentrates its recruitment on Chinese-Americans is "heavily overplayed." He questions the practicality of scrutinizing foreign-born employees especially closely. "What they're pushing is completely unrealistic," he says.

The bureau's efforts to protect trade secrets face vexing challenges. Some question whether globalized companies really can regard every foreign-born engineer or executive as a potential spy without running afoul of civil liberties or crippling innovation. 

High-tech companies depend on open information flows and access to the world's best brains to fuel breakout ideas. Treating every scientist without a U.S. passport as a traitor-in-waiting raises questions of racial profiling and is unlikely to be effective, says Michael Gelles, a Deloitte consultant who spent 16 years as chief psychologist for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service working on counterintelligence cases. The FBI insists it doesn't encourage stereotyping and recognizes that spies historically have come from every ethnic background. But "we can only go by what the trends tell us," Mahlik says, referring to several cases in recent years that have involved non-citizens.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, says: "The allegations made by a handful of people in this country that China is engaged in espionage activities in the U.S. are groundless." [Lynch/USAToday/23July2007]  

Israel's Shin Bet Internal Security Agency Arrests Woman Suspected of Aiding Hezbollah. Israel has arrested an Israeli Arab woman suspected of aiding Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, in a rare case of alleged espionage among Israel's large Arab minority. The security agency, known by its Hebrew acronym Shin Bet, said it arrested the woman June 30 at the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and Israel. The woman told interrogators she was recruited by Hezbollah while she was a university student in Jordan, the agency said in a statement. She allegedly confessed to having received a computer memory card to pass to a Hezbollah operative in the West Bank.

Officials said the agency believes the Lebanese-based group has an entire branch dedicated to drafting spies in Israel, particularly among its Arab citizens who make up some 20 percent of the population. However, Shin Bet has arrested fewer than a dozen Israeli Arabs on spy charges. In March, the agency said Hezbollah directly supports 50 groups in the West Bank and 30 in the Gaza Strip, most of them allied with the Palestinian militant factions Fatah or Islamic Jihad. About 35 activists arrested in the West Bank in the first half of 2006 - before Israel's summer war with the Lebanese group - received direct orders from Hezbollah, the agency said. [AP/24July2007]

Double Agent "Sold Names to Russia." Spain's spy agency chief said a suspected double agent had been arrested who revealed the names of Spanish spies and other state secrets to a foreign nation. The suspect, Robert Flores Garcia, was arrested at his home on Tenerife Island in Spain's Canary Islands. He passed secrets in exchange for hefty payments from December 2001 to February 2004, according to Alberto Saiz, head of the National Intelligence Agency (CNI). Saiz refused to publicly identify the recipient country, but Spain's SER Radio, said it was Russia, citing unnamed sources. Flores is suspected of transferring classified material and could face 12 years in prison if convicted, Saiz said.

Flores, a Spanish Civil Guard assigned to spy agency headquarters for internal matters, resigned from his position in January 2004 and had been under surveillance by Spanish intelligence since July 2005, according to Saiz. Saiz insisted that Spain's national security was never threatened, nor was there a threat to NATO or the European Union. The suspect allegedly revealed the names of dozens of Spanish spies, possibly including the seven Spanish spies killed in an ambush south of Baghdad in November 2003, Saiz said. An eighth Spanish intelligence agent traveling with them survived. The eight spies were in Iraq to provide intelligence for Spanish troops who were stationed at the time in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition. The spies were traveling in two vehicles when insurgents launched an ambush with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. [CNN/24July2007] 

Ex-Sailor Faces New Claims. A former Navy sailor charged with supporting terrorism by disclosing secret information about the location of Navy ships and the best ways to attack them also discussed attacking military personnel and recruiting stations, according to prosecutors. Hassan Abujihaad, who worked in a UPS warehouse in Phoenix, is accused in a case that began in Connecticut and followed a suspected terrorist network across the country and into Europe and the Middle East. Prosecutors said it was unclear yet whether Abujihaad would face new charges based on the alleged discussions. 

Abujihaad, 31, of Phoenix, pleaded not guilty in April to charges he provided material support to terrorists with intent to kill U.S. citizens and disclosed classified information relating to the national defense. [AP/24July2007]

CIA Invests in Video Enhancing Company. Startup MotionDSP is hoping an investment from the CIA will be the kind of endorsement it needs to gain a long-sought commercial foothold for its video-enhancement technology, including a new suite of cell phone tools it plans to release this fall.

The company announced this week that the CIA's investment arm, In-Q-Tel, had provided MotionDSP with its first bit of outside funding - an investment of less than a million dollars. The CIA also committed to more than a million dollars in contracts for the firm's technology, which can take grainy or blurry video footage and make it clearer. 

MotionDSP has worked for two years to perfect and commercialize motion enhancement technology it licensed from researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The technology operates on the principle that if you can extract information from different frames of a video and piece it together, you can produce better images. But since launching a commercial product last fall, the company has stalled in attracting video-sharing sites as customers, and it's increasingly courting cell phone carriers and cable operators. [Berzon/RedHerring/25July2007] 

Putin Will Expand Spy Network to Counter 'Imbalances' With U.S. President Vladimir Putin vowed to expand Russia's spy network to counter "imbalances'' with the U.S. that include President George W. Bush's plan to set up a missile defense system in eastern Europe. The SVR, one of the intelligence services that replaced the Soviet Union's KGB, will increase its work, primarily through information gathering and analytical support, Putin told security officials in Moscow yesterday. 

"The international situation and internal political interests require the SVR to increase its capacity,'' Putin said, according to a transcript on the Kremlin Web site. "The growing imbalances aren't limited to conventional arms.'' 

Russia's relations with the U.S. are strained over the plan to base 10 missile interceptors in Poland and radar installations in the Czech Republic. Putin, who rejects Bush's assertion that the system is aimed at defending Europe from a nuclear-armed Iran, earlier this month suspended Russian participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Putin offered Bush the use of a Russian radar base in Azerbaijan as an alternative to the Czech and Polish sites when they met at the Group of Eight summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, last month. Russia threatened to deploy missiles in its western exclave of Kaliningrad on the border with Poland if the U.S. presses ahead with the shield and ignores the proposed Azerbaijan site. 

Putin, a former KGB agent, paid tribute to the work of the foreign intelligence service, saying it "helps the timely identification of external threats to our national security and strengthens the international position of our country.'' He also praised Russia's domestic spy agency, the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the KGB. Putin was director of the service for a brief period in the 1990s under former President Boris Yeltsin. 

Russia last week froze anti-terrorism cooperation with the U.K. after Britain suspended contacts with the Federal Security Service. The move came during tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats from the two countries after Russia refused to extradite former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, who is wanted in the U.K. for the murder of fellow ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko in London. [Heath/Bloomberg/25July2007]

Memorial Unveiled to Courageous Canadian Spy. The remarkable exploits of a little-known Canadian spy from the Second World War - a key player in the French resistance before his capture and execution at a Nazi death camp in 1944 - are being showcased at a new German museum. The museum is at the site where former Montreal schoolteacher Gustave (Guy) Bieler faced months of torture and, finally, a firing squad. On Sunday, along a remnant wall of the cell block where the 40-year-old Canadian and 14 other Allied agents were held before their executions as saboteurs in occupied France, a memorial to their heroics was unveiled. 

Dignitaries watched and tears flowed among the men's relatives - including Bieler's 70-year-old daughter, Jacqueline, from Ottawa. Inside the Flossenburg Concentration Camp Museum, at the site north of Munich where tens of thousands perished during the Nazi regime, there is also a new display dedicated to Bieler's leadership in the French underground and his courage as a prisoner. 

The Canadian's Nazi interrogators were so impressed by his unwillingness to reveal Allied secrets - despite months of beatings and electrical shock torture - they paid tribute to him with an honor guard when he was finally shot to death on Sept. 6, 1944.

"Words cannot describe it," said Col. Tony Battista, defense attach� at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, of Sunday's unveiling ceremony at Flossenburg's execution yard. "It was an incredibly emotional, moving event."

The Swiss-born Bieler was 20 when he emigrated in the early 1920s to Montreal, where he worked as a schoolteacher and later as an insurance company translator. When he enlisted with the Canadian army at the start of the Second World War he was assigned to the British military's Special Operations Executive because of his exemplary discipline and language skills. As an agent with the network, he was assigned to infiltrate Nazi-occupied Europe and conduct sabotage. Bieler was parachuted into northern France in 1942 and, under the code name "Musician," he operated in the region around Saint-Quentin. The classically trained pianist organized one of the French underground's most successful sabotage teams - blowing up German fuel depots and destroying rail lines, bridges and canals. But by the time the Allied liberation forces hit the ground in June 1944, Bieler's own freedom was gone. His sabotage successes had sparked a frenzied Nazi manhunt that finally led in January, 1944, to his arrest at a cafe during a meeting with fellow resistance agent Yolande Beekman, Bieler's radio operator.

"The Germans had found her," said Bailey, "by direction finding - that is, they had picked up her signal and traced it back to its source." Beekman was later executed at the Dachau prison camp. Initially interrogated by the Gestapo in France, Bieler was soon transferred to Flossenburg, where he is known to have steadfastly refused to talk despite repeated bouts of torture. Nine British agents from the SOE, four from France and one American, were also executed at Flossenburg, most of them on one day in 1945. The stone memorial honoring their sacrifice was commissioned by the British embassy in Berlin and supported by several British, French and German veterans organizations, the Imperial War Museum and the German government.

Bieler was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Order and made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. He is remembered in Saint-Quentin's rue Commandant Guy Bieler, and a nursing home in Montreal is named in his honor.  [Boswell/CanWest/25July2007] 

U.S. Intelligence Official Says Most of Al Qaeda's Iraq Affiliates are Home Grown. A top U.S. intelligence official testified that Al Qaeda's organization in Iraq is overwhelmingly composed of fighters from that country, and that the terrorist network's ability to operate in Pakistan poses the greater danger to the United States. The testimony came just one day after President Bush argued that Al Qaeda in Iraq is substantially controlled by foreign operatives, and that most of them would be trying to kill Americans if not for the ongoing war there.

The competing characterizations of Al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq - and the extent to which the issue dominated a congressional hearing Wednesday - again underscored the role of intelligence assessments in shaping the political debate over the war.

Testifying before the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, Edward Gistaro, the nation's top analyst for transnational threats, said the U.S. intelligence community's "primary concern" is Al Qaeda in South Asia, which he said is "organizing its own plots" against the United States. Gistaro, who was the principal author of a recent national intelligence study on threats to America, noted that Al Qaeda in Iraq - or "AQI" as the group is known in U.S. intelligence circles - has "expressed an interest" in launching attacks against the United States. But he said that 90% of its members are Iraqis who joined Al Qaeda's organization there following the U.S. invasion. He estimated the group's strength at "several thousand" members and said "the bulk of AQI's resources are focused on the battle inside of Iraq." 

Separately, Army Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, the commander of U.S. troops in the eastern Afghan provinces that border Pakistan, said he had seen signs that Al Qaeda-linked foreign fighters were transferring skills developed in Iraq to the Afghan campaign. Rodriguez, speaking by videoconference to reporters at the Pentagon, added that the number of foreign fighters in eastern Afghanistan had increased 50% to 60% over the last year, which had been accompanied by a doubling of the number of cross-border attacks from Pakistan. [Miller/LATimes/26July2007]

Sudan Accuses CIA of Smuggling Weapons into Darfur. Sudan's interior minister accused Central Intelligence Agency of smuggling weapons into the troubled region of Darfur. Interior Minister Zubair Bashir Taha addressing a crowd consisting of youth organizations said that the CIA is seeking to "disrupt the demographics of Darfur".

The US special envoy to Darfur Andrew Natsios told reporters in Khartoum last week that Arab groups from neighboring countries were resettling in West Darfur and other lands traditionally belonging to local African tribes. Taha accused the US of being responsible for "prolonging the war in Darfur and the death of thousands of people after the Abuja peace agreement just like they did in Iraq".

The Los Angeles Times revealed last month that Sudan has secretly worked with the CIA to spy on the insurgency in Iraq, an example of how the U.S. has continued to cooperate with the Sudanese regime even while condemning its suspected role in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur. The U.S.-Sudan relationship goes beyond Iraq. Sudan has helped the United States track the turmoil in Somalia. Sudanese intelligence service has helped the US to attack the Islamic Courts positions in Somalia and to locate Al Qaeda suspects hiding there.

The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when an ethnic minority rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, which then enlisted the Janjaweed militia group to help crush the rebellion. According to UN estimates, at least 200,000 people have died from the combined effect of war and famine since the conflict started in February 2003. But Khartoum disputes the figures. [SudanTribune/27July2007]  

Ex-CIA Analyst Alleges US-Cuban Military Contacts. US military officials have had contacts with their counterparts in Cuba, a former CIA analyst and Cuba expert told French radio. Brian Latell, who wrote a biography of Cuba's interim leader Raul Castro, told Radio France Internationale he was informed by senior US military sources that they had been in contact with the Cuban military for some time. "If this is confirmed to be true, it would be a very important event," he said. Latell said such contacts "could only have taken place with Raul's blessing, as head of the Cuban armed forces". "Without Raul's consent, it wouldn't have been possible." Raul Castro took over as interim leader of the Americas' only communist country one year ago, when Fidel Castro fell ill and underwent major intestinal surgery. On Thursday, Cuba's national day, he called for the third time for the launch of a dialogue with the United States - an offer swiftly rejected by Washington. [RawStory/27July2007]


Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Perspective on the Jewels From the C.I.A.'s Chief Historian, by David Robarge. For more than 30 years, the Family Jewels have clouded the C.I.A.'s reputation, even though most of their contents have long been known from official reports and ad hoc disclosures. William Colby - who oversaw the compilation of the Jewels while serving as the agency's operations chief and director-designate - is the source of some durable misconceptions about them. In his memoir, Honorable Men (p. 340), Colby says that the Jewels consist of "693 pages of possible violations of, or at least questionable activities in regard to, the C.I.A.'s legislative charter"; that among the contents are "bizarre and tragic cases wherein the Agency experimented with mind-control drugs"; and that accompanying them was "a separate and even more secret annex" that "summarized a 1967 survey of C.I.A.'s involvement in assassination attempts or plans against Castro, Lumumba and Trujillo."

These misstatements were repeated at least in part in several widely read works, including Thomas Powers's The Man Who Kept the Secrets, John Ranelagh's The Agency, G.J.A. O'Toole's Encyclopedia of American Intelligence and Espionage, and Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen's Spy Book. Less informed observers also have suggested that the Jewels include details about political and paramilitary covert actions and definitive proof that the C.I.A.'s controversial counterintelligence chief, James Angleton, was the mastermind behind the domestic spying program called MHCHAOS.

The release of the Jewels should end much of the mythology about them. For starters, the compendium is not a 693-page catalogue of crime and immorality. Repetitive reports, duplicate documents, blank pages, file dividers, cover sheets, distribution lists and news clippings comprise approximately 30 percent of the total. Among the remaining 500 or so pages of substance, except for an account of the use of Mafioso Johnny Roselli in a plot to kill Castro (12-16) - of note is that the director of central intelligence at the time, Allen Dulles, approved it - there are only passing references to already disclosed assassination plots and drug-testing programs and next to nothing of importance about purely foreign operations.

That may disappoint some expectant readers but should not be surprising because the whole point of an order by James Schlesinger, a later director of central intelligence, that produced the Jewels was to get information about activities that possibly violated the C.I.A.'s charter. Consequently, the collection is nearly all about activities involving American citizens or occurring inside the United States - most of the latter, as an Agency officer noted, "completely innocent, although subject to misconstrual" in the political atmosphere of 1973 (36) - and includes much about agency contact with the White House "Plumbers," the Watergate break-in perpetrators, and now-obscure characters such as the fugitive financier Robert Vesco. The hypersensitivity about anything that could be interpreted as having domestic political implications - or perhaps simply the bureaucratic instinct for self-protection - may explain the inclusion of the lengthy set of mundane documents about a small C.I.A. expenditure for postal services on behalf of the White House (83-104), and a memo about the Office of Logistics disposing of the National Security Council's classified trash (324).

Although put together haphazardly, the Jewels can be divided into several categories: dealings with Watergate-related figures, liaison with government agencies, administrative and support activities, collection operations, security investigations and counterintelligence programs. Pages 5 to37 probably will attract the most initial attention because they concern a list of activities specifically identified as "Family Jewels," but the unredacted items will be familiar to students of the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee reports. The entry on the K.G.B. defector Yuri Nosenko (23-24) fails to mention that he was treated so harshly because of suspicions that he was hiding Soviet involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the remaining several hundred pages can be found occasional stray new details about well-worn stories.

In the context of Seymour Hersh's famous expos� about the Jewels in The New York Times on Dec. 22, 1974 - in an article headlined "Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years" - the long set of documents about C.I.A.'s involvement with United States Government activities targeting American dissidents suspected of receiving foreign assistance to help them disrupt the presidential nominating conventions in 1972 (549-74) is worth mentioning. Not only is Angleton's hand not prominent, but the extent to which MHCHAOS and related programs concentrated on the foreign angle becomes clear. As the records show, no evidence of anything more than political and moral support was ever found. The C.I.A. History Staff's recently declassified study of Richard Helms as director of central intelligence, available on the agency's public Web site in the F.O.I.A. reading room, has a thorough discussion of MHCHAOS based on materials other than the Jewels.

The Jewels close with two groups of documents that convey the tenor of the times. One series (634-58) deals with a leak about agency technical assistance to a suburban Washington police department. It was a good news story - the C.I.A.-supplied device might have prevented a cop killing - but a revelation of that sort could not be countenanced in 1973, and the incident was reported. Documents 659 to 693 involve an exchange between Colby and the Parade Magazine editor Lloyd Shearer over a charge in Shearer's publication that the agency "uses political assassination as a weapon," citing the Phoenix program in Vietnam. Colby, who managed Phoenix, replied that "C.I.A. has never carried out a political assassination, nor has it induced, employed or suggested one which occurred." Based on what is known about the agency's assassination planning and Phoenix, that carefully crafted answer was not only accurate, but an exemplar of the lawyerly intellect that Colby would put to good use during the Congressional investigations of 1975-76, when his policy of controlled disclosure may have saved the C.I.A. from dissolution. These final records - several of them in Colby's own hand - make an unintentionally fitting conclusion to the Jewels collection, the product of a process he orchestrated as a damage control exercise but which almost proved to be the agency's undoing. [CIA/NYTimes.comBlog/27June2007 

Section III - BOOK REVIEWS, INTERESTING WEBSITES, RESEARCH REQUESTS, OBITUARIES, AND COMING EVENTS

Book Reviews    

Handbook of Intelligence Studies, by Loch Johnson. [Editor's note: The following review is from The Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf, Intelligence in Recent Public Literature, Compiled and Reviewed by Hayden B. Peake. The site is a good resource for publications on intelligence. It is available at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no2/the-intelligence-officers-bookshelf.html]

In the 1970s, despite anti-government student protests, college courses on intelligence gradually gained acceptance for two related reasons. First, the students liked the subject. Second, because the courses were consistently oversubscribed academia tolerated them - they made money. But there were few texts on the subject beyond Professor Harry Howe Ransom's The Central Intelligence Agency (1965) and The Intelligence Establishment (1970). To provide current material, professors assembled readers - collections of articles - and brought in guest speakers. The turning point came in the 1980s, when professor Roy Godson of Georgetown University sponsored conferences on intelligence and published the proceedings, with contributions from academics and retired professionals. By the mid 1980s, a number of texts were available, and the trend has continued. But none of works provided anything like the broad, authoritative coverage of the subject found in The Handbook of Intelligence Studies. 

Handbook editor and contributor Loch Johnson has assembled 26 articles from 27 academics and professionals that discuss aspects of the literature, history, and the intelligence cycle. They address how intelligence organizations function, the roles of counterintelligence, covert action, science and technology, the use of open sources, oversight, judicial intervention, and accountability. These are in-depth, up-to-date treatments that provide, with a couple of exceptions, introductions to the topics they address.

The first exception is the article on open source intelligence, which makes the bizarre assertion that "the US government is still not serious about open source intelligence." It is true that the profession needs improvements in many areas, but the use of open source material is not one of them. The CIA and its predecessor organizations, with the help of the British, actually set the pace in this field, beginning before World War II, and, with the Foreign Broadcast Information Service - the predecessor to the Director of National Intelligence's Open Source Center - have had an exemplary track record since then. The second exception is the failure to distinguish between counterintelligence and security. One case in point, a case study of the FBI treatment of scientist Linus Pauling, is not about counterintelligence as claimed, but about security practices "run amok." There was no espionage suspected in the case. Executive Order 12333 specifically excludes the topics of physical, document, personnel, and SIGINT security from the definition of counterintelligence.

The Handbook is by no means an uncritical examination of the profession. Failures and weakness are discussed in every article. Perhaps the most pertinent is Professor Johnson's chapter "A Shock Theory of Congressional Accountability for Intelligence." In it he reviews the efforts of Congress to achieve this goal over the past 30 years and makes a strong case for its validity and the need for greater effectiveness, and the risks of failure to achieve it. It is a timely argument.

The book's hefty $170 price tag may limit access to it. I hope a paperback edition will appear so that every student of intelligence can have one as a foundation for further study. [Peake/CIA] 

Hidden Iran - Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, by Ray Takeyh.  "Savvy and accessible...A shrewd, timely guide to Iran's schisms, interests and ambitions." - The Washington Post Book World. In Hidden Iran, leading Middle East expert Ray Takeyh demystifies the Iranian regime and shows how this pivotal country's internal conflicts have produced its belligerent international posture, especially toward the United States. With President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pushing the development of a nuclear program, making a play for regional preeminence, and stirring up anti-Israel sentiment, the consequences of not understanding Iran have never been higher. Takeyh explains why this country continues to confound American expectations and offers a new paradigm for managing our relations with this rising power - at a time when getting Iran right has become increasingly urgent for America.  [HenryHolt&Co./272 pages/Publication Date:  August 2007]

Interesting Websites

GlobalIncidentMap.com.  GlobalIncidentMap.com is a free, public service, dynamic website designed to give the public, law enforcement, military and government officials a new way to visualize and become instantly aware of terrorism and security incidents around the world.  A very cool site - check it out at www.globalincidentmap.com.

Research Requests

[Editors note:  Please remember we do not vet these requests before publication, so please use caution in your responses. As always, please remember to share only unclassified information.]

Review of Legacy of Ashes.  AFIO member John Weisman is reviewing Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes for the book section of a major daily. He would appreciate input from any AFIO members who have read the book and can provide specific information about the accuracy or inaccuracy of Legacy's material. Material from sources known to him but who prefer not to be cited by name in the review will be accepted. Weisman can be reached at blackops@johnweisman.com


Obituaries  

Peter S. Koromilas, CIA Officer. Peter S. Koromilas, 78, a former CIA officer and chief of four stations in Europe and the Middle East, died of cancer June 10 2007 at Manor Care nursing home in Bethesda Maryland. 

Mr. Koromilas worked for the CIA for 37 years, with 29 of those years spent overseas. He spent his first years in Greece, arriving just after the country's civil war, and became one of the agency's foremost experts on Greece. He remained involved in the CIA's work in Greece, both from Athens and from his posts in Washington, DC, through 1973. 

Mr. Koromilas was born in Dover, New Hampshire, and graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts. He did postgraduate work in chemistry at the University of New Hampshire, joining the government in 1951. He retired from the CIA in 1988 and was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit for operational excellence. After he retired, Mr. Koromilas worked about two years for News America Publishing Inc., collecting information for the Daily Intelligence Brief, a faxed publication for businesses. 

Mr. Koromilas was fluent in Greek and had a working knowledge of French, German, Dutch and Arabic. He was a 50-year member of the American Chemical Society, and the Meridian House International, as well as in organizations of former CIA agents. He enjoyed philosophy, art, music, swimming, fishing and hunting, as well as a good game of poker. 

Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Mary-Anne Kuttn Koromilas of Washington [DC]; two children, Paula K. Robyn of Weston, Connecticut, and Spencer P. Koromilas of Montreal [Quebec, Canada]; and five grandchildren. [Sullivan/WashingtonPost/15July2007] 

Coming Events

24 July 2007 - Crystal City, VA - PLA Naval Attach� to give luncheon presentation.  The Naval Attach� for PLA Navy will give a luncheon presentation to the Surface Navy Association Greater Washington Chapter (GWC) on Tuesday 24 July at Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel. See for further details.  

24 July 2007 - Washington, DC - Scott Carmichael to speak at the International Spy Museum Program.  Known to her coworkers as the Queen of Cuba, Ana Montes, the intelligence community's top Cuban analyst, appeared to be a model employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). However, throughout her 16-year career at the DIA, Montes sent Castro some of America's most closely guarded secrets, and used her position to influence what the U.S. thought about the island nation. Join Scott W. Carmichael, the DIA's senior counterintelligence investigator, for this inside account of the effort to bring Montes to justice. Carmichael's new book, True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy , reveals how he grew suspicious of her activities and the long and ultimately successful spy hunt which ended less than 24 hours before Montes would have learned details of the U.S plan to invade Afghanistan post September 11.  Tickets: $20.  Members of The Spy Ring�: $16. 

4 August 2007 - Melbourne, FL - AFIO Florida Satellite Chapter meets at the Indian River Colony Club  The Chapter August luncheon will be held at the Indian River Colony Club (IRCC). A cash bar will open at 1130 hours and lunch will begin at 1230 hours. Speaker details and reservation information is forthcoming. For additional information please contact George Stephenson, Chapter Vice President at gstephenson@cfl.rr.com and title your email: AFIO August Meeting  

13-14 August 2007 - El Paso, Texas - Border Conference on Security & Intelligence.  The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is pleased to invite you to attend the Border Security Conference: Securing and Managing Our Nation's Borders, which will be held on August 13-14 on the UTEP campus. Now in its fourth year, this annual conference is hosted by UTEP in conjunction with the Office of Congressman Silvestre Reyes.  The Border Security Conference brings together leaders from the public and private sectors in both the United States and Mexico to explore how best to safeguard our common borders, while simultaneously fostering the continued human and economic development of our two nations.  This year's conference will focus on key issues such as emerging border security strategies at the local, national and binational levels; next-generation border security technologies; and strengthening intelligence through diversity and binational cooperation.  For more information and registration (no cost to attend).

 23 - 25 Aug 2007 - Las Vegas, NV - Know Your Enemy - Seminar 2 - Islam, Jihad, and Terrorism by the Center for Strategic Analysis (CSA). The seminar will be conducted by Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from U.S. intelligence agencies, counter-terrorism experts, specialists from academia, and individuals with a unique understanding of the �Terrorist mindset� and why they hate us. Registration is $495.
For security reasons the exact location will only be shared with attendees who are fully paid and agree not to share the location information with non-attendees. Once attendees have been given details of the seminar there will be no refund for any reason.
If you have any questions, and to register, email pboylan@centerforstrategicanalysis.org or call Patrick Boylan, Executive Director of CSA, at 702.866.6466

25 August 2007 - Seattle, WA - AFIO Pacific Northwest Chapter Meeting.  25 August 2007 - Seattle, WA - AFIO Pacific Northwest Chapter Meeting featuring Capt Cannady, LTC Woodard, and Maj. Krueger. An outstanding program is planned with speakers from McChord AFB and the Washington National Guard. Captain Matthew Cannady is the Intelligence Officer assigned to the Western Air Defense Sector (WADS) at McChord. He will provide an in-depth briefing on the workings of the Air Defense system on the West Coast. Lt. Colonel Timothy Woodard the J2 of the Washington National Guard and Major Bill Krueger will provide a detailed briefing on the recently created 194th Intelligence Squadron. The cost of the meeting will be $25 which includes a breakfast buffet. Time: 09:30am - 1:30pm. Where: South View Lounge at the Museum of Flight. The meeting is open to anyone interested in national intelligence whether they are a member or not. The chapter welcomes family, friends and associates to attend. SPECIAL OFFER: A gracious corporate donor has agreed to pay $5 for each of the first 10 people who send their CHECKs to arrive with Fran Dyer prior to July 16. The first 10 people who meet these conditions will receive a $5 refund at the meeting. Please mail your checks, payable to AFIO PNW Chapter, to: AFIO PNW Chapter, 4616 25th Ave NE Suite 495, Seattle, WA 98105. Please RSVP Fran Dyer at: FD@CromwellGroup.us.

27 - 29 August 2007 - New Orleans, LA - SYNERGY '07 - Conference and Expo - Advancing an Integrated Defense Intelligence Enterprise. Co-sponsored by: The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD/I). The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, (USD/I), headed by Lt Gen James R. Clapper, Jr.,, USAF(Ret) is co-sponsoring with Government Emerging Technology Alliance (GETA) this Synergy �07 New Orleans, LA. Synergy '07 will strive to bring DoD Operations and Intelligence Community representatives together for open dialog with the objective of fostering better collaboration between decision makers and members of the war-fighting, requirements, collections, analytics and vendor communities. The conference, chaired by Brigadier General Billy J. Bingham (USAF, ret), a former Assistant Deputy Director for Operations and Deputy Chief, Central Security Service at Fort George G. Meade, and Director of Intelligence (J2) U.S. Pacific Command, will focus on past operational successes as a means of addressing the impediments and challenges that the various components face in providing quality support to U.S. warfighters during peace, crisis and wartime. "What we are hoping to do is build a confederation of communities, including, to the extent possible, our coalition partners that will increase the effectiveness of DoD operations and provide upgraded support from the ISR community to our boots on the ground warfighters," said Jim Riggins, NCSI's Executive Director of Intelligence Community Programs and Initiatives. More about the conference can be found at  http://www.ncsi.com/synergy07/index.shtml

6 September 2007 - Front Royal, VA - Tony Sesow Golf Classic.  The Naval Intelligence Foundation hosts its annual "Tony Sesow Golf Classic" fund-raising tournament at the Shenandoah Valley Golf Course. The tournament starts at 0800 with registration, followed by a light breakfast and concludes with lunch and refreshments. Lucky draw and all skill prizes will be awarded. The cost is $80.00 for an individual, $300.00 for a team and sponsorship is available for $400.00 (team included). Each Closest-to-the Pin winner will automatically be entered into the Jetblue shoot-out for $50,000 which will take place directly after the tournament. For sponsorship and additional information, please contact Peter Buchan at (540) 671-4435 or pibuchan@comcast.net.

9-14 September 2007 - Oxford, United Kingdom - Christ Church Conflict Conference 2007 "The Nature of War"  The object of the 2007 Conflict conference is to study War in its various manifestations, its apparent �permanence as a feature of the human condition� (Clausewitz), and the successes and failures of attempts to control it. The program looks first of the basic steps on the road to war, not least an examination of alternatives to armed conflict. Next, the different types of war: civil wars that engulfed the English-speaking world in the 17th and 19th centuries, or Bosnia in 1990; conventional warfare between nation states: the 20th century and its two world wars, guerilla wars and the conflicts of decolonization - and the uniqueness of the Falklands War of 1982. All these will come under scrutiny. The pervading granular warfare that engages us all today with the threat of terrorism, focused closely on the present Iraqi conflict. Finally there will be an examination of the outcomes of war and the inevitable social change that comes in its wake. Christ Church welcomes speakers of the highest distinction and scholarship. Speakers at the Nature of War conference are drawn from amongst political and military experts as well as the media. Amongst those participating are Professor Kenneth Hagan of the US Naval War College; Larry Hollingworth, with personal experience of the Iraqi conflict and a veteran of Afghanistan, Chechnya and East Timor; and Major-General Julian Thompson, military commander in the Falklands War. The program will be administered by Alex Webb, and her Christ Church conference team. Further information will be shortly published on the Christ Church website and an illustrated prospectus will be available. Contact Nature of War, The Steward's Office, Christ Church, Oxford, OX1 1DP, U.K. or email conflict@chch.ox.ac.uk, telephone +44 (0) 1865 286848.

20 September 2007 - Colorado Springs, CO - AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter features speaker Craig B. Chellis on "Adapting the Intelligence Process to Monitoring Natural Disasters". Craig is a former staffer of both NRO and CIA.. The lunch meeting is at the Falcon Room of the Officers Club, Air Force Academy. The cost is $10.00 and the lunch starts at 11:30 am. Contact Richard (Dick) Durham at 719-488-2884 or by e-mail riverwear53@aol.com. Reservations must be made to Durham not later than September 17,2007

20 September 2007, 6 pm - 10 pm - Tysons Corner, VA - The OSS Society hosts the William J. Donovan Award Dinner  The dinner will honor MG John K. Singlaub USA(Ret), the current Chairman of The Society, who will be the Award's 2007 recipient. The event will include The Society's own celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of CIA, formed after the OSS disbanded. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been invited to present a keynote address, and other military leaders are invited. Further details can be found by writing them at osssociety@aol.com

26 - 27 September 2007 - The Hague, Netherlands - Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association (NISA) CONFERENCE 2008  The Netherlands Defence College (IDL), The Hague, Netherlands is the location for 'Intelligence Failures and Cultural Misperceptions: Asia, 1945 till the present' The NISA would like to invite both academic and (former) practitioners of intelligence to submit proposals for papers that entail a theoretical approach to the intelligence failures and cultural misperceptions against the backdrop of the situation in Asia since 1945. The intention of the conference organizers is to develop a more analytical perspective on the above mentioned events, rather than adding to existing descriptive narratives. Submitters are requested to send in proposals of approximately 400 words pertaining to the following subjects : The Cold War in Asia Economic espionage in and from Asia Intelligence cultures UKUSA cooperation in Asia The 'war on terror' Proposals should be submitted no later than 1 May, 2007 and can be sent to: Beatrice.deGraaf@let.uu.nl or write to bobdegraaff@yahoo.com

28 September 2007 - Tysons Corner, VA - AFIO National Summer Luncheon  Hold date on your calendars. Event to be held at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Tysons Corner/Vienna, VA. Details to follow. afio@afio.com 

and for your October planning.....  

25-27 October 2007 - McLean, VA - AFIO National Intelligence Symposium.  The AFIO National Intelligence Symposium runs Thursday, October 25 through Saturday, October 27, in Tysons Corner, VA. Hotel details to be provided this week. Using a different format, it will feature presentations on a special, controversial topic: the view of intelligence agencies and other public institutions in terms of missions assigned and from where, performance, assessment of results, and where to place blame for current and historic unwanted outcomes. Will include presentations by the National Counterterrorism Executive, NSA, FBI, DHS, and other speakers.

For Additional Events two+ months or greater....view our online Calendar of Events

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