WIN #14-04 dtd 3 May 2004

Weekly Intelligence Notes (WINs) are commentaries on Intelligence and related national security matters, based on open media sources, selected, interpreted, edited and produced by AFIO for non-profit educational uses by AFIO members and WIN subscribers. TO DISCONTINUE RECEIPT OF WINs/EBBNs -- click UNSUBSCRIBE, or send and email to afio@afio.com and supply your name.

AFIO fall symposium/convention set for 29 October. Make your Reservations now to arrive at BWI Airpot. Details in coming months.

International Spy Museum in Washington, DC Opens New Terrorism Exhibit on 5 May

Exhibit features nine major events & periods in US History when we were threatened by enemies within our borders - and depicts how government and the public responded. We observe the evolution of US counterintelligence and homeland security efforts and the complexities of securing the country without compromising civil liberties. Details at www.spymuseum.org

CONTENTS of this WIN

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ARMY INTEL AT HEART OF DISASTER -- The U.S. Army Intelligence Service and the CIA have been placed at the center of a scandal that has severely damaged the standing of the United States in the eyes of Iraqis and the world. Photos and a Pentagon report have provided evidence of the degradation and torture of prisoners held by the Army in Iraq. The report and statements by a reserve general have directly implicated Army intelligence in these abuses. Photos of British troops allegedly abusing an Iraqi suspected thief have brought similar woe to Britain.

President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, as well as top generals in the armies of both countries, have expressed their revulsion at the abuses. On Sunday, CJCS Gen. Richard Myers said there was no evidence of systematic abuse and the actions of just a handful have unfairly tainted all American forces.

A member of the Iraqi Governing Council, Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar, appeared to speak for most Iraqis when he said the perpetrators must be punished as war criminals because the dignity of an Iraqi citizen is no less than the dignity of an American. Al-Yawar is a close relative of Shaykh Mohsen Adil al-Yawar, head of the powerful Shamar tribe which comprises both Sunni and Shii Arabs.

Newspapers across the Muslim world have been running the photographs of U.S. soldiers humiliating hooded, naked detainees. Newspapers in Iraq did not carry the photos but Iraqis could see them on the Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera TV networks. Beyond the Arab world, Islamists in Southeast Asia's two largest Muslim countries, Indonesia and Malaysia, said the abuses showed Western hatred of Muslims and demanded that the coalition leave Iraq immediately

The disaster in public diplomacy began on Wednesday when the CBS program, "60 Minutes," broadcast photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, a site made notorious under the regime of Saddam Husayn. Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, an Army reservist who is a prison guard in civilian life, told "60 Minutes": "I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations. And it just wasn't happening...Military intelligence has encouraged and told us, "great job." We help getting them to talk with the way we handle them...We've had a very high rate with our style of getting them to break. They usually ended up breaking within hours."

In perhaps the most appalling of the photographs, a woman private is shown with a cigarette dangling from her mouth and giving a thumbs-up sign while pointing at the genitals of a naked and hooded young Iraqi who has been ordered to masturbate. In another, she grins, posed behind a pyramid of naked Iraqis.

The pictures from Abu Ghraib came from an outraged military policeman, Specialist Joseph M. Darby, who was given a CD containing pictures of the naked and abused Iraqis by one of the six soldiers now facing criminal prosecutions. Darby sent in an anonymous complaint and attached the CD and later gave evidence against his companions.

On Saturday three more things happened. A London newspaper, The Mirror, published pictures of a hooded Iraqi, allegedly a thief, stripped to his underpants and wearing a T-shirt with an Iraqi flag on it. In one photograph a soldier urinates on his head. In another a kick is aimed at his head, while in a third an assault rifle is jabbed at his genitals. The photos were supplied, according to the Mirror, by two soldiers identified only as A and B who said an officer told them to get rid of the Iraqi who was thrown, severely beaten, from a moving truck. Sunday, the British press reported that the military had cast doubts on the authenticity of the photos, pointing out that weapons and other equipment seen in them, among other questionable details, had not been supplied to the British forces in Iraq.

In two other events Saturday, U.S. Army intelligence was named. One was a statement by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, suspended as commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib. She told the New York Times that while the reservists involved in the abuses were bad people who deserved punishment, she suspected that they were acting with the encouragement, if not at the direction, of military intelligence units that ran the special cellblock used for interrogation. CIA operatives, she said, often joined in the interrogations at the prison, although she said she did not know if they had unrestricted access to the cellblock. A special high-security cellblock at Abu Ghraib had been under the direct control of Army intelligence officers, not the reservists under her command, she said. Karpinski said she was speaking out because she believed that military commanders were trying to shift the blame exclusively to her and other reservists and away from intelligence officers still at work in Iraq.

Also on Saturday, the New Yorker magazine released an article by the investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, that appears in its New Yorker issue dated 10 May. Hersh draws on a still classified Army report by Mrj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba that charged that reservist military police at Abu Ghraib were urged by Army officers and C.I.A. agents to impose physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses. Iraqi detainees, the report says, were subjected to "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses." According to the New Yorker, the Army report offered accounts of incidents from October to December 2003 that included the sexual assault of an Iraqi detainee with a chemical light stick or broomstick.

The Taguba report related that witnesses told Army investigators that prisoners were beaten and threatened with rape, electrocution and dog attacks. Much of the abuse was sexual, with prisoners often kept naked and forced to perform simulated and real sex acts, witnesses testified. The report found that two intelligence officers and two civilian contractors were responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

After allegations of abuses began to circulate, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq, ordered inquiries in January and a review of policies and procedures at all of the prisons controlled by occupation forces in Iraq. Six soldiers face criminal prosecution on charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners, maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Hersh reports, has been reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after becoming pregnant.

On Sanchez's orders, six officers and noncommissioned officers have received the most severe level of administrative reprimand in the U.S. military, an anonymous senior military told AP on Monday. A seventh officer was given a more lenient admonishment. The reprimands could spell the end of their careers. AP also the official saying U.S. forces have been given the unenviable task of taking up the abuses with Iraqis. "We've made it very clear to commanders and all the way down to the lowest soldier, 'You've got to get out there and explain what happened here,'" the official said. (DKR)

SADDAM'S INTEL OFFICERS LEADING INSURGENCY -- Following plans laid down before the invasion of Iraq, officers of Saddam Husayn's Mukhabarat (intelligence service) are leading guerrilla insurgency in Iraq, according to un-named DoD officials, citing a Pentagon report.

Both the New York Times and the Associated Press reported officials as saying the Iraqi intelligence officers come from the Mukhabarat's Directorate of Special Operations and Antiterrorism, known as M-14. Officials told AP they think members of the organization are working independently and probably in little communication with one another. The officials cited a recent DIA report. The Pentagon report was said to include findings based on interrogations with high-level M-14 officers and documents discovered and translated by the Iraq Survey Group. Similarities in certain bomb designs found around Iraq also indicated M-14 was involved. M-14 was also believed to be active in Faluja, where an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 insurgents are believed to have gathered, and Ramadi, another town in the Sunni Triangle that has been seen of repeated anti-American attacks.

Military officials said the insurgents used Soviet-style defense-in-depth military tactics, instead of the hit-and-run ambushes favored by Islamic mujahedin who fought in Afghanistan. That suggested leadership by members of Saddam's Soviet-style military, instead of foreigners, officials said. That does not exclude the presence also among the insurgents of Iraqi Islamist militants, foreign jihadis, Ba'ath party officials and common criminals.

The nature and extent of the M-14 officers' connection to other groups in was unclear, but officials said they seemed to specialize in training, funding and planning operations for others to carry out. The seven-page report, titled "Special Analysis," was written under DIA guidance by the Joint Intelligence Task Force, which includes officers and analysts from across the intelligence community. It is not known whether it represents a fully formed consensus or whether there might be dissenting assessments.

As coalition forces moved on Baghdad, the M-14 put into place "The Challenge Project," designed with little central control, so community cells could continue to attack American forces and allies even if Saddam fell and local commanders were captured or killed. This called for intelligence officers scattered around Iraq to lead a guerrilla insurgency and plan bombings and other attacks, the report states. One such attack last April, which killed three Americans, was a suicide bombing that appears to have been carried out by a pregnant woman who was an M-14 colonel.

Policy makers told the Times the report underscores concerns that a pervasive fear of Saddam continues to deter millions of Iraqis from supporting the occupation. The pacification of Iraq cannot succeed without the consent and participation of a larger number of Iraqis, according to officials on Capitol Hill and within the administration. (DKR)

STATE DEPARTMENT'S INTEL ELITE -- CIA, FBI, DIA, NSA: any regular reader of the news is likely to know what organizations these initials stand for. It's a safe bet that far fewer people know what INR represents. WIN readers, at least, may be expected to know that INR are the initials by which the State department's own intel agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, is known.

`Writing in the Sunday Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius praises the INR, saying that many regard it as having the best track record in the government in assessing intelligence issues for policymakers. Ignatius, who is not unfamiliar with intelligence matters, points out that the INR was the only agency consistently skeptical about Iraq having chemical or biological weapons.

While the CIA Directorate of Intelligence has more than 1,500 members and the DIA about 3,000, the INR has a mere 305 analysts. This small number relative to the big agencies, Ignatius suggests, argues against the view being voiced around Washington that "in the spy world, bigger is better: more people, broader responsibility, greater interagency coordination." The success of the INR, he argues, is that small is sometimes beautiful. "Because it is little, INR tries to maintain an elite reputation. And because it is intimately connected with State Department policymakers, it never loses sight of what the consumers of intelligence actually want: sound judgment."

The average INR analyst has 11 years of experience in his area of expertise, four times as long as the CIA average, according to a State Department official, and many INR veterans have several decades of experience in their areas of specialization. Because the bureau is so small, each analyst has broad responsibility; one person covers all the German-speaking countries while another has responsibility for all the Scandinavian countries.

The reason INR has been so effective, Ignatius reports State Department officials as saying, is that it has maintained a culture that supports dissent -- and demands expertise. As a result, INR provided more accurate bomb damage assessments during the Vietnam War than did the Pentagon; it warned in the late 1970s that if the Carter administration allowed the deposed shah of Iran to enter the United States for medical treatment, there would be trouble in Tehran (in the end the U.S. Embassy was seized). In the Balkans, the bureau correctly cautioned that a bombing campaign would not force Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to leave Kosovo quickly. A year ago INR disputed assertions that Iraq, with Saddam Husayn removed, would be the beginning of a pro-democracy toppling of dominoes in the Arab world. It warned that Turkey would feel threatened enough by the prospect of Kurdish autonomy that it might not allow U.S. troops to transit its borders into Iraq.

A State Department official remembers his early years in the bureau, when reports would be sent back to him full of corrections and notations such as, "Start over" or "You missed it." When that kind of intolerance for mediocrity is shared throughout the intelligence community, Ignatius concludes, "we'll know that reform has really begun." (DKR)

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SHIFTS FROM CRIME TO TERRORISM -- Secret surveillance warrants issued in federal terrorism and espionage cases last year exceeded the total number of wiretaps approved in criminal cases nationwide, the Washington Post reports. Statistics released 30 April by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts provide further evidence of a shift in the Justice Department and FBI from a focus on common criminals to suspected terrorists and their associates.

In 2003, federal and state courts authorized wiretaps and other electronic surveillance in 1,442 criminal cases while the FBI says the number of warrants filed last year with the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington rose to over 1,700. The volume of wiretaps has grown so rapidly over the past two years that the DoJ has fallen behind in processing applications, resulting in serious bottlenecks, according to a recent report by the 9/11 commission. Officials stressed that in urgent cases, Attorney General John Ashcroft may seek emergency authorization for warrants issued under the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Intelligence warrants can include physical searches, but the Post said current and former government officials familiar say that nearly all involve some form of electronic surveillance. Monitoring allowed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act can be more wide-ranging, last longer, has fewer restrictions and may be approved even if law officers do not meet the standards of probable cause required in criminal cases.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to take up legislation next week that would expand the government's power to conduct surveillance.

The Patriot Act and a landmark 2002 decision by a secret appeals court substantially broadened the government's use of electronic surveillance under FISA. The legislation allowed the FBI to seek such warrants not just in cases in which the primary objective is intelligence gathering, but when criminal prosecution is the primary goal. The number of FISA applications has mushroomed as a result. Timothy Edgar, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the increase in secret surveillance warrants shows that "the Bush administration is using spy-hunting tools to sidestep the basic protections that exist in criminal cases." (DKR)

NSA, DHS IN JOINT EFFORT TO PROMOTE CYBERSECURITY -- NSA and the Homeland Security department have formed National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education to promote educational activities that strengthen the United States' computer infrastructure. Source. The new centers stem from NSA's Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education Program, which started in 1998 and recognizes 50 universities in 26 states.

NSA and DHS officials, announcing the centers on 22 April, said that graduates steeped in information assurance education were taking cybersecurity to the very edges of the National Information Infrastructure and the Global Information Grid. The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, launched by the Bush administration in 2002, directs the government to foster training and education programs that support computer security needs and responsibilities, and improve existing information assurance programs. (Newsbits, DKR)

CANADA TO SPEND MILLIONS ON CYBERSECURITY, INTELLIGENCE -- Canada is to spend 690 million Canadian dollars (U.S.$581 million) on repelling cyberattacks, gathering intelligence and other security measures. The funds will be used to implement a national security policy set out by Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan in Ottawa on 27 April. CNEWS. Funds will also be spent on threat assessment, more effective response to health emergencies, and improved marine security. McLellan said the government would also press ahead with efforts to include biometric features in passports and other identity documents, broaden North American border security and help bring stability to struggling nations. The overall policy is designed to protect Canadians, ensure Canada is not a base for terrorist operations and contribute to international security.

The security policy establishes three new panels: a federal-provincial forum on emergencies, a national security advisory council, and a cross-cultural roundtable aimed at engaging Canada's various ethnic and religious communities on security matters. The announcement came just days before Prime Minister Paul Martin and President George Bush held talks in Washington last weekend. Canada is perceived in some U.S. quarters as failing to pull its weight in the fight against terrorism. Martin said the plan would be discussed during his visit. (Newsbits, DKR)

U.S. NAVY CONTACTLESS SMART CARDS PROGRAM MAKES THE FINALS -- A U.S. Navy pilot program for contactless smart cards carrying biometric information was a finalist at the CardTech-SecurTech conference in Washington last week. The cards, used for physical access control at Pacific Fleet headquarters in Hawaii, contain fingerprint and hand geometry data, Government Computer News reports.

DoD is considering including contactless chips and biometric data in its next-generation Common Access Cards. There are currently more than 5 million cards in use making the CAC project by far the government's largest smart-card program. It too was a finalist for the implementation award. But the award, presented on 27 April, went to the government of Hong Kong, which has issued smart identification cards to 7 million residents.

Smart cards have been slow to take off in this country. Up to now they have resembled plastic credit cards, but the development of contactless technology now allows the chips that make the cards smart to be embedded in almost any kind of device, from a key fob to a cell phone.

American Express Co. is testing a system in New York, Phoenix and Singapore that uses a chip in a key chain that piggybacks on merchants' existing point-of-sale technology. A contactless chip reader added to the traditional POS terminal converts the data to a magnetic-stripe format. ExpressPay transactions are processed like credit card purchases, using the same back-end systems. Because there is no card to swipe and no signature required, contactless transactions are quicker than either credit card or cash purchases. (Newsbits, DKR)

REPORTING THE TREES AND MISSING THE FOREST? -- Philip Seib, Beyond the Front Line: How the News Media Cover a World Shaped by War, (Palgrave, 208 pp., $29.95). Using the war in Iraq, Seib takes a close look at the relationship between news media and warfare. Seib takes up the rise of Arab television stations, particularly Al-Jazeera, that command vast publics, especially in the Arab world and that can be downright hostile to the Western presentation of events. He also deals with the growing importance of the Internet as a source of news and commentary and the portable satellite technology that allows direct, real-time reporting.

Journalists covering the war in Iraq came under increased pressure to sacrifice accuracy and depth for speed given the insatiable demands of television. Seib finds that American coverage of the war reflected the tension between the role of journalists in bolstering support for the troops and maintaining am independent, critical posture. Seib, who is a professor of journalism, brings to his discussion of these problems, a sharp analysis of embedding journalists, something he argues yields vivid but limited close-ups that risk missing the forest for the trees. Seib fears that the media's growing ability to capture the action is accompanied by a declining practice of in-depth reporting. He may be right as the shadow of "infotainment" appears to grow steadily larger.

FASCISM THEN AND NOW -- Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, (Knopf, 321 pp., $26). President Bush has identified Islamist revolutionaries as the heirs to fascism. "They have the same will to power, the same disdain for the individual, the same mad global ambitions. And they will be dealt with in just the same way. Like all fascists, the terrorists cannot be appeased: they must be defeated.''

Bush has got it right. Islamists seek the recreation of a long-gone, mythical past, an epigone of the totalitarian ideologies that arose in Europe in the last century. In this its nature is reminiscent of the Nazis combination of modern methods of acquiring and keeping power and their cult of a romanticized past; for example, the SS casting itself as a recreation of the medieval Teutonic Order. Ladan and Roya Boroumand, Iranian sisters who are both historians, note that, "The militant Islamists' aestheticization of death, glorification of armed force, worship of martyrdom, and faith in the propaganda of the deed' are all attributes of the Western far Right and some of the far Left in the last century."

Given the shortness of historical memory in America, Robert O. Paxton, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, has rendered us a service, and rendered it well, in providing a thorough history and analysis of the movement (or movements, if you prefer) that the Michel Aflaq drew on in dreaming up the Ba'ath socialist Party that produced the Hafiz regime in Syria and Saddam Husayn in Iraq.

Paxton recounts how the fascist parties were born, take root, come to power, govern and are destroyed. He deals mainly with Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, but also with the lesser specimens of the Fascist disease as manifested in Britain, France, Hungary, Portugal, Spain and elsewhere. He is persuasive in arguing that political instability after the upheaval of World War I and the seizure of power by the expansionist-minded Bosheviks in Russia frightened the conservative European elites invited the fascists into government. Instead of declaring marshal law, King Vittorio Emmanuele III responded to Mussolini's March on Rome (in which Il Duce traveled by train to the capital) by making his prime minister. Hitler became German chancellor because the aristrocratic Franz von Papen, who thought he could control the Austrian upstart, contrived for him to do. It should be noted that the socially and religiously conservative bazaaris, the old commercial elite in Iran, provided vital support for the 1979 Islamic Revolution because they feared being overtaken by the corporate businesses favored by the modernizing Shah.

DAMN YANKEES! -- John Gibson, Hating America:The New World Sport, (ReganBooks, 304pp., $25.95). Fox News Channel's John Gibson goes after what he sees as the many Arabs who have a mindless hatred of the United States, Germans who take an addictive pleasure in anti-Americanism, Brits who hate themselves for not hating Americans enough and French who live in an anti-American nation. His main point is that other countries did not understand American feelings after 9/11 and so did not support the invasion of Iraq. Gibson reduces differences over matters of high policy to intense emotional dislike, springing from fear and envy or to irrational tribal antagonisms that are displayed in sports activities. All in all, a superficial, ranting attempt to deal with real and serious problems. For an enlightening study of European attitudes towards to the United States, Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order may be recommended; for Arab attitudes, Bernard Lewis' What went wrong? (DKR)

WRITER SEEKS HELP ON FALL OF SAIGON -- Mike McLaughlin is a Boston-area writer/historian preparing a feature article for American Heritage magazine about the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, and the evacuation of U.S. and Vietnamese personnel from the Defense Attache Office compound and the U.S. Embassy, from mid-March until April 29-30, 1975. "I'm specifically interested in hearing from staffers who: (1) worked with Vietnamese nationals providing intel for the U.S.; (2) worked with Air America in any capacity (to arrange the evacuation of these people, etc); and/or; (3) took responsibility for effecting the safe transfer out of country of Vietnamese families whose lives were at risk in the face of the imminent Communist take-over. Anyone who worked with the CIA, USIS, USAID or in any other capacity in Saigon, 1975 is welcome to reply. At this time, I have a long list of contacts who effected the military side of the evacuation (Marines and sailors), but none who covered the civilian end. If you can help, please contact me at the address, Mike McLaughlin, mikemac54@excite.com 54 Cutler Street #2; Winthrop, MA 02152; (617) 539-0302"

THE EDITOR: TORTURE, AN UGLY, PERENNIAL QUESTION -- In 2001, an 83-year old retired French army officer, Gen. Paul Aussaresses, created a scandal by publishing a book* in which he admitted to having tortured people during the Algerian war of independence that ended in 1962. Worse, he defended the practice and said he had no qualms about it. Worse yet, he said the French Government was regularly informed about, and tolerated, the use of torture, summary executions and forced displacements of people.

"It's efficient, torture," Aussaresses told the daily Le Monde, "The majority of people crack and talk...Did this pose problems of conscience? I have to say, no. I was used to those things." The French public was swept by shock and revulsion. President Jacques Chirac said he was horrified and called for disciplinary action against the general.

Had Ausssaresses been a servant of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or any number of Third World tyrannies, the revulsion would have been much the same, but the shock would have been less. The world has a double standard by which it judges such abuses and the countries of the West are held to a higher standard than others. U.S. Army commanders in Iraq talk about the Iraqi's 'man on the moon' complaint when there are delays in the delivery of American goods and services. The Iraqis complain that if the United States can put a man on the moon, why can't it provide electricity? Iraqis and others in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world are now asking an analogous moral question: If the United States can respect human rights at home and advocate them abroad, why can't it respect them in Iraq?

There is an honest answer, the answer Aussaresses gave: Torture works. But it is unacceptable in a society committed to respect for human dignity, a value our society honors. However, there are dark corners in all societies, even the most liberal, humane Western societies respectful of the laws under which they live. The use of torture, physical and psychological, is one of those corners and exists because there is a tragic conflict between the principles by which we wish to live together, "with liberty and justice for all," and the duty and conscience of those who bear a responsibility for protecting the lives of others. Extracting information from the enemy is vital to the fulfillment of that responsibility and torture and degradation can deliver it.

The price that has to be paid is terrible, for the abused person, the society in turn abused by what is done to him, and for the torturer who risks not the least the calloused conscience displayed by Aussaresses. Such is the nature of conflict between opposing human forces that there have always been and probably always will be people willing to pay that price. That is why torture is an ugly and perennial question, and a tragedy in the fullest meaning of the word.

* Paul Aussaresses, Services spéciaux Algérie 1955-1957 : Mon témoignage sur la torture, Eds. Perrin, 2001, pp. 197, translated as The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria 1955-1957, Enigma Books, 2002, 185 pp.

Born Kanatjan Alibekov in Kazakhstan, Ken Alibek developed biological weapons for the former Soviet Union for nearly two decades. He was considered an expert in turning anthrax and a dozen other killer germs into invisible missiles. In 1992, he defected to America, changed his name, and became a U.S. citizen. Today, Alibek is a Distinguished Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and Executive Director for Education at the National Center for Biodefense at George Mason University in Virginia. Alibek, author of "Biohazard" (1999), has discussed with audiences the horrors of biological weapons; the danger of smallpox falling into the hands of terrorists; Iraqi efforts to develop biological weapons; and the threat of a North Korean biological weapons program.

19 MAY -- INSIDE THE MIND OF A TERRORIST AT THE SPY MUSEUM -- Dr. Jerrold M. Post is a specialist in the psyche of terrorists. He has studied and tested terrorists across the globe and explored the role of extremism, fundamentalism and culture in the creation of the modern day terrorist. Post, founding director of the CIA Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, will discuss the mind of the terrorist and answer questions from the audience at the International Spy Museum, 800 F Street N.W., Washington, D.C. on 19 May at 7 p.m. Admission is $20; for members of The Spy Ring and the OSS Society, $16. Space is limited and advance registration is required. To register, visit www.spymuseum.org or call Ticketmaster at 202- 432-SEAT, 410-481-SEAT, or 703-573-SEAT; or 202.393.7798 (202.EYE.SPY.U)

23 May -- KIDSPY SCHOOL: SPY GADGETRY WORKSHOP AT THE INTERNATIONAL SPY MUSEUM -- 800 F Street N.W., Washington, D.C. on Sunday, 23 May from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm. From cameras that shoot through a button-hole to a secret listening device in the heel of a shoe --spies have always used the slickest tools in town. Here's the chance for KidSpies to invent their own way-cool spy gadgetry for a top secret agent on a mission! At our Invention Lab, ideas are encouraged, prototypes made, and concepts tested. Will your spy-idea work "in the field?" You could be the "Q" of the future! Ages 11-15; No Grown Ups Allowed! Tickets: $25 per KidSpy Members of The Spy Ring (Join Today!): $22 per person. Space is limited – advance registration required! To register, visit spymuseum.org or call Ticketmaster at 202- 432-SEAT, 410-481-SEAT, or 703-573-SEAT; or 202.393.7798 (202.EYE.SPY.U)

29 MAY - THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES SOCIETY -- forerunner to CIA -- will holds its 62nd anniversary reunion dinner on May 29, 2004 at the luxurious Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. Several hundred OSS veterans, their families, and distinguished guests are expected to attend the banquet -- part of a weekend celebration -- that will observe the founding of OSS in June 1942. During the weekend, guests will also attend the dedication of the National World War II Memorial. AFIO members are invited to attend the "business-attire-or-better" banquet and celebration at an all inclusive cost of $150/person. Contact OSS Society President Charles Pinck at 202-207-2915 or via email at osssociety@aol.com.

Thomas Corbally -- who has died aged 83, played a key role in the Profumo-Keeler affair that rocked the government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963 and paved the way for the electoral defeat of the Tory government in the following elections.

John Profumo, Secretary of State for War, saw his promising political career ended when it came out that he had lied to the House of Commons by denyng having an affair with a party girl, Christine Keeler. Stephen Ward, a society osteopath and artist, committed suicide after being exposed as the man who introduced Keeler to both Profumo and Yevgeny Ivanov, the Soviet naval attaché and prosecuted for living on immoral earnings.

Corbally, born in Newark, New Jersey, was handsome and charming. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force a few months before Pearl Harbor, then served in the U.S. Army. In post-war Germany, he checked on people traveling in and out of the U.S. occupation zone, the beginning of an aura he created of being part of the intelligence world that later made some people believe he worked free-lance for the CIA.

After working in advertising in New York and being married for a few months in 1956 to the tennis star Gussie Moran, he moved to London where he lived in fashionable Mayfair. He was reported to organize orgies, a world of sexual libertinage in which Ward also participated. The two became friends and Ward introduced Keeler and her friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, both of whom attended parties given by Corbally.

Macmillan heard rumors about Profumo and Keeler and asked the American ambassador, David Bruce, to make discreet inquiries about Profumo and Keeler. Bruce turned to Corbally who arranged a luncheon with Bruce's secretary, Alfred Wills, and Ward, who talked freely. Corbally and Wells reported to Bruce about Ward introducing Keeler to both Profumo and Ivanov and Bruce passed the report on to Macmillan.

In March 1963, Profumo told the Commons there was no impropriety in his acquaintance with Keeler. Three months later Profumo was shown to have lied and resigned. It was the end of a career that many thought would see Profumo become prime minister.

Corbally's role in the affair emerged in 1986 when the FBI released documents on its own Profumo investigation. Starting in 1980, Corbally worked for 20 years as a consultant for Kroll Associates, specialists in corporate investigations. He continued to live a jet-set life style and frequent high social circles.

In 1999 he was involved with Martin Frankel, a fugitive fund manager who has been convicted of stealing $200 million from insurance companies. Corbally maintained that he had been duped, but was himself under investigation at the time of his death on 15 April. He is survived by his wife Renée, whom he married in 1982. (Cameron L.C., Daily Telegraph 28 April, DKR)

LITHUANIAN, NOT LATVIAN -- In WIN #13-04 dtd 26 April 2004, RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT EXPELLED FOR EXCESSIVE INTEREST IN NATO, the paragraph beginning. "Not all Latvians..." should read, "Not all Balts are all that anti-Russian. Earlier in April, the Lithuanian parliament..."

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