AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #05-08 dated 4 February 2008

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CONTENTS

Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Section II - TERRORISM

Section III - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Section IV - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, ANNOUNCEMENTS, RESEARCH REQUESTS, BOOK REVIEWS, JOB OPPORTUNITIES, OBITUARIES AND COMING EVENTS

Letters to the Editor

Announcements

Research Requests

Job Opportunities

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

CIA Sets Changes To IG's Oversight, Adds Ombudsman. The CIA's inspector general has agreed to tighter controls over its investigative procedures, agency officials revealed yesterday, in what appeared to be an attempt to soften resentments among agency officials over the watchdog's aggressive probes into the legality and effectiveness of the CIA's counterterrorism efforts and detention programs.

The revisions, which include the appointment of a special ombudsman to oversee the IG's work, were disclosed by CIA Director Michael V. Hayden in an e-mail sent to employees, announcing the end of an unusual inquiry into the performance of Inspector General John L. Helgerson, a 36-year CIA veteran and the man chiefly responsible for the spy agency's internal oversight.

The inquiry, begun last year, had raised concern among lawmakers who worried that the CIA was seeking to undermine the independence of Helgerson and his staff of auditors and inspectors. Helgerson angered top officials at the agency after leading aggressive investigations into the CIA's performance before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as well as its use of secret prisons and harsh interrogation methods against suspected terrorists.

Hayden, in the note to employees, praised Helgerson and his staff as being "committed to performing investigations . . . of the highest quality, integrity and timeliness," but said the inspector general had agreed on the need for changes.

The changes include measures intended to speed up investigations and require the watchdog to keep CIA employees and managers informed about both the process and results of investigations. In addition to appointing an ombudsman, Helgerson also agreed to name a "quality control officer" who would make sure that reports "include all exculpatory and relevant mitigating information," Hayden said.

The agency did not make Helgerson available for comment, but CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the inspector general had "concurred with the director's statement and was comfortable with the steps agreed upon." [Warrick/WashingtonPost/2February2008] 

Russia Denounces Allegations by Spy Defector in US Book. According to RIA Novosti, the Russian foreign intelligence service (SVR) said on January 28 that allegations by former spy master Sergei Tretyakov recently published in a book in the U.S. were "a PR move glorifying treason." The book is based on a series of interviews with Tretyakov, who was deputy head of intelligence at Russia's UN mission from 1995 to 2000, and defected to the U.S. as a double agent. The book quotes the ex-spy as saying that Moscow is actively involved in "subversive activities" against Washington.

"Leaving the so-called 'revelations' to Tretyakov's conscience, we would like to emphasize that intelligence services in all countries have always condemned propaganda and PR moves based on treason as an abominable act, and treason is considered a crime punished by law," the SVR said in a statement.

Written by former Washington Post journalist Pete Earley, the 352-page book is entitled "Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War," and was released on January 24 by Putnam Publishing Group.

Tretyakov, 51, had never publicly spoken about his spying activities before last week, when he granted interviews to publicize the book. He refused to meet with Russian officials to discuss his allegations.

Tretyakov's defection has been shrouded in secrecy by both Moscow and Washington, although the book claims that the former Russian spy master passed over 5,000 secret documents to his U.S. handlers and has been debriefed by a number of Western intelligence agencies.

"In this respect, the SVR press-service is obliged to inform that Russian citizen Tretyakov decided in October 2000 to stay with his family in the United States and in a written note promised that his defection would not affect Russia's national interests," the SVR statement said. Russian intelligence officials also said that the service will not provide further comments on the issue. [FinChannel/28January2008] 

Turkish Police Reject CIA Request. Turkey has rejected a request by the CIA to attend the interrogation sessions of al-Qaeda suspects detained by Turkish local police. CIA agents [sic] based in Ankara arrived in Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras following major operations in the two provinces. The CIA officers "demanded" that the suspects give their first statements to the CIA, according to the Turkish National Intelligence Agency, but authorities denied that request. [PressTv/28January2008] 

UK Government Issued 250k Phone Tap Licenses in Nine Months. The regulator for Britain's snoopers has released a report covering the last nine months of 2006, painting a Panglossian picture of a period which saw a quarter of a million intercepts.

From 11 April to 31 December 2006 there were 253,557 requests for communication data. In the same period there were only 1,088 errors - mostly due to incorrectly-written phone numbers.

The Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy said he saw no reason to change the current law, and indeed had only met one person while doing his job who has a different opinion. There has been some debate as to if intercepted information should be permitted as court evidence.

Kennedy makes visits to the Security Services, Secret Intelligence Service, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Met, HMRC, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office and Scottish Office among other agencies. He gets a complete list of all requests made by the relevant agency, then picks a random selection of warrants to check they have been properly filed.

He has also informally visited 11 communication and internet service providers. He said ISPs welcome these visits, and that "those... who work in this field have great enthusiasm in their work. They recognise the importance of it in the public interest, and the necessity of doing all their work accurately and efficiently."

Local authorities vary widely in their use of communications data. Some 474 local authorities can get phone tap and other comms data, but in the period only 122 used that power. Those 122 authorities made 1,694 requests to identify rogue traders, fly tippers and housing benefit cheats.

Kennedy said he was impressed by the "striking successes" helped by interception. [Oates/29January2008/TheRegister] 

Growing Pangs of Britain's Spy Agencies. The annual Intelligence and Security Committee report provides one of the few glimpses into the normally secret world of Britain's intelligence agencies. The insights it provides are a mix of the serious, the strange and the more mundane.

Britain's intelligence and security services have been growing fast since 9/11 but that process has not always been straightforward. According to the report, the growth has created concerns "that aspects of key intelligence and security work are suffering as a consequence of the focus on counter-terrorism priorities" and the committee calls for possible separate, additional funding to maintain capabilities in other areas.

MI5 has expanded fast, particularly into the regions. New offices were opened in the South East and Wales in 2006/7 - and by 2008, regional stations will house three times the number of staff originally planned, the report reveals.

The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) - or, to use its more popular name, MI6 - grew at a rate of 3.6% in the last year compared to nearly 30% for MI5, but it has still been undergoing significant changes.

It reprioritised its resources after the London bombings in July 2005 to provide a greater focus on the international dimension of terrorism. This has led to a reduction of work in some fields, the closure of two foreign stations and the transfer of serious organized crime work to the new Serious Organized Crime Agency (Soca), as well as the "suspension of operations directly related to economic well-being", as the report puts it.

In its broadest definition, counter-terrorism now takes up 56% of MI6's work and that figure is rising. A specialist operational team had been created within MI6 to look at the interface between al-Qaeda and radicalised British Muslims and try and 'catch the connection' between the domestic and overseas aspect of the threat.

MI6's greater focus on counter-terrorism has also led to a significant increase in the number of direct "disruption operations" against terrorist targets, the report says. This is where MI6 has produced information which has frustrated terrorist activity at home or abroad. The total number of these operations has increased by almost 50% compared with the previous year, and the number of these operations judged to have caused "significant disruption" to the terrorist targets has almost doubled.

Sir John Scarlett, chief of MI6, expressed his concerns over what growth might mean. He said: "Any growth carries risk... at the end of, let's say [the next] five year period, a substantial proportion of the Service's staff will be quite inexperienced... and there will be a disconnect between that inexperience and then the ability of the more experienced part of the Service to manage that and to control it and to direct it.

The report gives some sense of some of the bureaucratic controls that surround the spending and work of the intelligence services. In some cases, it all sounds very much like any other Whitehall department with talk of spending targets and efficiency reviews.

In other cases, the concerns are rather more unusual and specific to the world of intelligence. For instance there were two cases in which MI6 made errors in paying its agents. The problem was associated with incomplete "contact reports" which should record, amongst other things, any cash or benefits provided to the Service's agents from public funds. [Corera/BBC/29January2008] 

Former Intelligence Officer Testifies Against Accused Informant. A former Iraqi intelligence officer identified documents in federal court Wednesday bearing the name of an Iraqi-born American citizen accused of working in the United States as a paid informant for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Referred to only as "Mr. Sargon" to protect his identity, the witness said he recognized documents belonging to the Iraqi Intelligence Service that were signed by defendant William Shaoul Benjamin, 67, of Los Angeles. The testimony came in Benjamin's trial on charges of conspiracy, failing to register as an agent of a foreign government and making false statements. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. Benjamin isn't accused of espionage.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Heinz said during opening statements that Benjamin was a paid informant for the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence arm of the Iraqi government, after coming to the United States in 1992. Benjamin was to "penetrate and monitor" expatriate Assyrian Christians, a minority group in Iraq, Heinz said.

Among the documents shown in court to "Mr. Sargon" was a receipt of Benjamin receiving $2,000 in 1994 from Iraqi officials and a memo to the accounting department in the Iraqi intelligence division seeking approval to pay Benjamin.

When asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Janet Hudson whose name appeared on the files, the witness responded through an interpreter: "According to the documents I have, Mr. William Shaoul."

In initial testimony Tuesday, "Mr. Sargon" said he had been an intelligence officer in Iraq from July 1979 until April 2003, when Saddam's government was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion. He said Saddam's government had a unit, "M-40," known as the Department of Enemy Activities, that investigated anti-Iraqi groups outside of the country, including Assyrians. Prosecutors have so far relied on Iraqi documents but have not delved into what information, if any, Benjamin provided to Iraq intelligence officers and whether any of it was useful.

"Mr. Sargon" testified that he identified some Iraqi documents that had Benjamin's signature, while others were memos between Iraqi intelligence divisions that referred to Benjamin by his aliases or his code-name "9211."

Benjamin sat stone-faced as the witness went through the documents. The witness said he didn't know Benjamin personally.

Hudson noted that the witness was captured when Saddam's government was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in April 2003 and has been paid for his testimony.

Benjamin, who wore headphones to listen to an interpreter, was born in Iraq and is Assyrian Christian. Prosecutors portray him in court documents as a traitor to his own community by first working for Iraqi intelligence while in Iraq and then serving as a paid informant between 1993 and 2001.

As compensation, Benjamin received separate payments of $2,000, $2,500 and $4,000 between 1994 and 1996, as well as two bottles of whiskey from Iraqi intelligence officers, court documents show.

Prosecutors also accused Benjamin of failing to provide details about working for Saddam's government when he applied for U.S. citizenship in 2001, and falsely declared that he had renounced allegiance to Iraq.  [Risling/AP/30January2008] 

Ex-Foreign Minister to Become Chief of Intelligence in Georgia. Gela Bezhuashvili, ex-foreign minister, will be appointed head of the intelligence service, lawmakers from the ruling party have confirmed. The proposed appointment comes as a surprise, given PM-nominee Lado Gurgenidze's earlier announcement that Bezhuashvili had decided to quit public life in favour of the private sector. The intelligence department - which is directly subordinated to the president - was previously led by Anna Zhvania. [CivilGe/30January2008] 

Brazil Investigates Environmental and Evangelical Groups. Brazil's intelligence service said that a six-month investigation of environmental and evangelical groups active in the nation's Amazon rain forest found evidence of genetic resources being stolen and of activities that endanger the ethnic identity of Indian communities.

The Brazilian Intelligence Agency monitored the activities of 25 non-governmental organizations during the last six months of 2007, according to a spokesman who declined to be identified because of departmental regulations. The agency said it found evidence that NGOs had transferred indigenous knowledge of plants and animals to pharmaceutical companies and illegally extracted diamonds on indigenous land. The groups involved denied the allegations.

The intelligence agency spokesman described the investigation of the NGOs, most of them Brazilian, "as part of our normal information-gathering activities in areas that are sensitive and of national interest because of the occurrence of biopiracy and other illegal practices." 

Among the groups monitored are the Virginia-based Amazon Conservation Team, or ACT, that authorities say may be involved in biopiracy - the appropriation of the rain forest's biological riches by individuals or groups seeking to patent them. 

The Brazilian Intelligence Agency also said further investigation is warranted into the Brazilian branch of an evangelical group called Youth With a Mission, whose international offices are located in Hawaii. The group allegedly threatens the ethnic identity of the indigenous group it works with, the agency's spokesman said.

Authorities also recommended the investigation of Coordination of Indian Nations, a Brazilian NGO they say is partly funded by the World Wildlife Fund and that is allegedly involved in the illegal extraction of diamonds in the Cinta-Larga Indian reservation in the state of Rondonia. [Lehman/AP/30January2008] 

Top Secret UK Data Network Goes Live Two Years Late. A system to link a secure communications network used by UK intelligence agencies with other government departments and posts overseas has finally swung into operation, two years later than originally expected. The slow progress of the SCOPE project drew a rebuke in the annual Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee report, published on 30 January.

Originally forecast for April 2005, the SCOPE Service Operations Centre (SOC) went operational with links to HMRC, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the Home Office and Department of Trade and Industry in October 2007. The parliamentary committee reports that establishing the secure link has allowed SOCA to drastically reduce the time it takes to "process requests" for information from 12 hours to 15 minutes. Agencies behind the project have maintained their support despite the delays.

By comparison, the UK's government established Government Secure Intranet allows Whitehall departments to exchange less sensitive material than facilitated by SCOPE. However, the Intelligence and Security Committee report reveals that SCOPE has already experienced problems with data loss.

"Earlier this year, the Centre suffered a 'serious process failure' which resulted in the loss of some operational data. Although an independent review was held immediately after the incident and the conclusions of that review are currently being implemented, we remain concerned at the serious implications of such a failure were it to occur again," the committee reports.

What the operational data involved or how it was lost is left unexplained.

The annual Intelligence and Security Committee report provides a rare insight into the normally secret world of Britain's intelligence agencies. Much of the report focuses on problems caused by a lack of manpower.

This has led to a focus on counter-terrorism priorities to the possible detriment of other work. The Scope network is also understaffed. The manpower shortage has led to an influx of IT contractors and project consultants at MI5, something the agency itself is uncomfortable with.

Other strands in the report cover the difficulties faced by signals intelligence agency GCHQ in monitoring IP communications and concerns about the breakdown of the DA-notice system, which is designed to give media outlets voluntary guidance about the national security implications of publishing sensitive stories.

The report also records that UK intelligence agencies remain opposed to the idea of allowing the use of intercept evidence in court, a practice common in other countries but one UK spooks reckon will give the bad guys an advantage in working out the strengths and weaknesses of current techniques. [Leyden/TheRegister/31January2008] 

Groups Seek Rosenberg Grand Jury File. Leading historical groups are seeking the release of grand jury records in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, whose espionage trial for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union became a defining moment in the Cold War.

Fifty-five years after their execution, historians still debate the extent of the espionage and whether the government may have overreached in prosecuting the Rosenbergs, questions that might be addressed with an unsealing of the grand jury record of the investigation.

The National Security Archive at George Washington University and the American Historical Association are among the groups making the request to be filed February 7th in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. Other participants in asking for disclosure include the American Society for Legal History, the Organization of American Historians, the Society of American Archivists and New York Times reporter Sam Roberts.

Grand jury records, which ordinarily remain secret, may reveal the scope of the Rosenberg spy rings, which extended beyond the atomic espionage for which they were executed, Yale University historian John Lewis Gaddis said in court papers accompanying the request.

Accused of relaying to the Soviet Union secrets of the atomic bomb, the couple allegedly recruited Ethel Rosenberg's brother, David Greenglass, who worked at the site of the first atom bomb test in New Mexico. Greenglass became a star witness against the Rosenbergs, testifying that he saw his sister transcribing his spy notes on a typewriter. In recent years, Greenglass has said that he lied about the typewriter - and some other matters - to save himself and his wife.

While decoded Soviet messages released in recent years indicate that Julius Rosenberg was indeed a spy, supporters say nothing he contributed to the Soviets - and certainly nothing his wife did - warranted their execution. [Yost/AP/31January2008] 

Espionage in the Twenty-First Century. On 29 January, Congress heard testimony on enforcement of Federal espionage laws. Former FBI official David G. Major told a House Judiciary Committee panel this week that espionage remains "a very real threat to U.S. national security." He said, ""Since the end of the Cold War, there have been 78 individuals arrested for espionage or espionage-related crimes and since the 21st century began, there have been 37 individuals arrested in the US as agents of foreign powers." 

In his 29 January testimony, Mr. Major, now President of the private Counterintelligence Centre, presented a convenient tabulation of "Agents of Foreign Powers Arrested in the United States in the 21st Century" (available at http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_hr/012908major.pdf). However, his list erroneously includes Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who are charged with unauthorized receipt and disclosure of classified information. They are not accused of espionage, nor does the U.S. Government argue that they are agents of a foreign power. To the contrary, prosecutors acknowledged in a January 30, 2006 court filing that it is a "fact that the defendants were not agents of Israel, or any foreign nation."

Recent espionage cases were also reviewed at the House Committee hearing by J. Patrick Rowan of the Department of Justice and Larry M. Wortzel of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Their prepared statements are here: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_hr/index.html#esp.  [SecrecyNews/29January2008] 

Times Reporter Subpoenaed Over Source for Book. A federal grand jury has issued a subpoena to a reporter of The New York Times, apparently to try to force him to reveal his confidential sources for a 2006 book on the Central Intelligence Agency, according to one of his lawyers. 

The subpoena was delivered last week to the New York law firm that is representing the reporter, James Risen, and ordered him to appear before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 7.

Mr. Risen's lawyer, David N. Kelley, who was the United States attorney in Manhattan early in the Bush administration, said in an interview that the subpoena sought the source of information for a specific chapter of the book "State of War." The chapter asserted that the C.I.A. had unsuccessfully tried, beginning in the Clinton administration, to infiltrate Iran's nuclear program. None of the material in that chapter appeared in The New York Times.

"We intend to fight this subpoena, so we'll likely be engaging in some sort of litigation," Mr. Kelley said. "Jim has adhered to the highest traditions of journalism. He is the highest caliber of reporter that you can find, and he will keep his commitment to the confidentiality of his sources."

Mr. Risen and a colleague at The Times, Eric Lichtblau, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for their disclosure of the administration's program of wiretapping without warrants; Mr. Risen's book expanded on their reporting about the domestic eavesdropping effort.

Mr. Risen, who is based in Washington and specializes in intelligence issues, is the latest of several reporters to face subpoenas in leak investigations overseen by the Justice Department.

The Justice Department would not comment on the work of the grand jury that issued the subpoena to Mr. Risen. "The department does not comment on pending investigations," said Peter Carr, a spokesman. [Shenon/NYTimes/1February2008] 

Tip-Off Thwarted Nuclear Spy Ring Probe. An investigation into the illicit sale of American nuclear secrets was compromised by a senior official in the State Department, a former FBI employee has claimed. The official is said to have tipped off a foreign contact about a bogus CIA company used to investigate the sale of nuclear secrets. The firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was a front for Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent [sic]. Her public outing two years later in 2003 by White House officials became a cause cel�bre.

The claims that a State Department official blew the investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring have been made by Sibel Edmonds, 38, a former Turkish language translator in the FBI's Washington field office. Edmonds had been employed to translate hundreds of hours of intercepted recordings made during a six-year FBI inquiry into the nuclear smuggling ring. She has previously told The Sunday Times she heard evidence that foreign intelligence agents had enlisted US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions. Her latest claims relate to a number of intercepted recordings believed to have been made between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West's nuclear secrets and technology. Among the buyers were Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's intelligence agency, which was working with Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father of the Islamic bomb", who in turn was selling nuclear technology to rogue states such as Libya.

Plame, then 38, was the glamorous wife of a former US ambassador, Joe Wilson. Despite recently giving birth to twins, she traveled widely for her work, often claiming to be an oil consultant. In fact she was a career CIA agent who was part of a small team investigating the same procurement network that the State Department official is alleged to have aided.

Brewster Jennings was one of a number of covert enterprises set up to infiltrate the nuclear ring. It is believed to have been based in Boston and consisted of little more than a name, a telephone number and a post office box address. Plame listed the company as her employer on her 1999 tax forms and used its name when she made a $1,000 contribution to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign.

The FBI was also running an inquiry into the nuclear network. When Edmonds joined the agency after the 9/11 attacks she was given the job of reviewing the evidence. The FBI was monitoring Turkish diplomatic and political figures based in Washington who were allegedly working with the Israelis and using "moles" in military and academic institutions to acquire nuclear secrets. The creation of this nuclear ring had been assisted, Edmonds says, by the senior official in the State Department who she heard in one conversation arranging to pick up a $15,000 bribe.

One group of Turkish agents who had come to America on the pretext of researching alternative energy sources was introduced to Brewster Jennings through the Washington-based American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobby group that aids commercial ties between the countries. Edmonds says the Turks believed Brewster Jennings to be energy consultants and were planning to hire them. But she said: "He [the State Department official] found out about the arrangement . . . and he contacted one of the foreign targets and said . . . you need to stay away from Brewster Jennings because they are a cover for the government. "The target . . . immediately followed up by calling several people to warn them about Brewster Jennings. "At least one of them was at the ATC. This person also called an ISI person to warn them." If the ISI was made aware of the CIA front company, then this would almost certainly have damaged the investigation into the activities of Khan. Plame's cover would also have been compromised, although Edmonds never heard her name mentioned on the intercepts. Shortly afterwards, Plame was moved to a different operation.

The State Department official said on Friday: "It is impossible to find a strong enough way to deny these allegations which are both false and malicious." 

It would be more than two years before Khan was forced to admit he had been selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea. In the meantime, the role of Plame and Brewster Jennings became public knowledge in 2003. Plame's husband, Wilson, wrote a report that undermined claims by President George W. Bush that Saddam Hussein's regime had attempted to buy uranium in Niger - a key justification for the invasion of Iraq. 

The following week Robert Novak, a journalist, revealed that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent. In the scandal that followed, Novak's sources were revealed to be two senior members of the Bush administration. A third, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of obstructing the criminal investigation into the affair.

Phillip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, said: "It's pretty clear Plame was targeting the Turks. If indeed that [State Department] official was working with the Turks to violate US law on nuclear exports, it would have been in his interest to alert them to the fact that this woman's company was affiliated to the CIA. I don't know if that's treason legally but many people would consider it to be."

The FBI denied the existence of a specific case file about any outing of Brewster Jennings by the State Department official, in a response to a freedom of information request. However, last week The Sunday Times obtained a document, signed by an FBI official, showing that the file did exist in 2002. Plame declined to comment, saying that she was unable to discuss her covert work at the CIA. [Gourlay&Calvert&Lauria/Times/28January2008] 

Cuba is Expanding its Intelligence Gathering Operations. Cuba's constant fear of invasion from the United States has resulted in an increase in intelligence collection operations in the Middle East and South Asia, according to Chris Simmons, a former CIA counterintelligence Cuba analyst and founder of the Cuban Intelligence Research Center in Leesburg, Va.

According to Simmons, Cuba not only gathers information on United States military assets, but also shares, for a price, that information with America's enemies.

Since the earthquake in Pakistan, Cuban has increased relations with Musharaf's government, re-opening its embassy in that country, which had been closed for 16 years. Besides improving relations with Pakistan, it has also improved its relations with Iran.

According to Simmons, "Castro's spies have successfully monitored activities at America's domestic air and naval bases, which allowed them to anticipate every major U.S. military deployment, from the 1983 invasion of Grenada to the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003." [Gentile/FoxNews/1February2008] 

Section II - TERRORISM

Thwarting Nuclear Terrorism Using Cell Phone Sensors. Researchers at Purdue University are working with the state of Indiana to develop a system that would use a network of cell phones to detect and track radiation to help prevent terrorist attacks with radiological "dirty bombs" and nuclear weapons.

Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim Fischbach. Fischbach is working with Jere Jenkins, director of Purdue's radiation laboratories within the School of Nuclear Engineering.

The system was developed by Andrew Longman, a consulting instrumentation scientist. Longman developed the software for the system and then worked with Purdue researchers to integrate the software with radiation detectors and cell phones. Cellular data air time was provided by AT&T.

The research has been funded by the Indiana Department of Transportation through the Joint Transportation Research Program and School of Civil Engineering at Purdue.

"The likely targets of a potential terrorist attack would be big cities with concentrated populations, and a system like this would make it very difficult for someone to go undetected with a radiological dirty bomb in such an area," said Longman, who also is a Purdue alumnus. "The more people are walking around with cell phones and PDAs, the easier it would be to detect and catch the perpetrator. We are asking the public to push for this."

Tiny solid-state radiation sensors are commercially available. The detection system would require additional circuitry and would not add significant bulk to portable electronic products, Fischbach said.

The technology is unlike any other system, particularly because the software can work with a variety of sensor types, he said.

The researchers tested the system in November, demonstrating that it is capable of detecting a weak radiation source 15 feet from the sensors.

"We set up a test source on campus, and people randomly walked around carrying these detectors," Jenkins said. "The test was extremely safe because we used a very weak, sealed radiation source, and we went through all of the necessary approval processes required for radiological safety. This was a source much weaker than you would see with a radiological dirty bomb."

Officials from the Indiana Department of Transportation participated in the test.

"The threat from a radiological dirty bomb is significant, especially in metropolitan areas that have dense populations," said Barry Partridge, director of INDOT's Division of Research and Development.

Long before the sensors would detect significant radiation, the system would send data to a receiving center.

"The sensors don't really perform the detection task individually," Fischbach said. "The collective action of the sensors, combined with the software analysis, detects the source. The system would transmit signals to a data center, and the data center would transmit information to authorities without alerting the person carrying the phone. Say a car is transporting radioactive material for a bomb, and that car is driving down Meridian Street in Indianapolis or Fifth Avenue in New York. As the car passes people, their cell phones individually would send signals to a command center, allowing authorities to track the source."

The signal grows weaker with increasing distance from the source, and the software is able to use the data from many cell phones to pinpoint the location of the radiation source.

"So the system would know that you were getting closer or farther from something hot," Jenkins said. "If I had handled radioactive material and you were sitting near me at a restaurant, this system would be sensitive enough to detect the residue. "

The Purdue Research Foundation owns patents associated with the technology licensed through the Office of Technology Commercialization.

In addition to detecting radiological dirty bombs designed to scatter hazardous radioactive materials over an area, the system also could be used to detect nuclear weapons, which create a nuclear chain reaction that causes a powerful explosion. The system also could be used to detect spills of radioactive materials.

The system could be trained to ignore known radiation sources, such as hospitals, and radiation from certain common items, such as bananas, which contain a radioactive isotope of potassium.

"The radiological dirty bomb or a suitcase nuclear weapon is going to give off higher levels of radiation than those background sources," Fischbach said. "The system would be sensitive enough to detect these tiny levels of radiation, but it would be smart enough to discern which sources posed potential threats and which are harmless." [MedicalNewsToday/28January2008] 

Section III - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

The East Berlin Tunnel: Whose Ruse? On a rainy day 52 years ago, the cover was blown on one of the biggest espionage plots of the Cold War. Soviet and East German forces announced that they had found a quarter-mile-long tunnel that the CIA had burrowed into East Berlin as part of a massive wiretapping operation. Though the audacious project had come to a crashing end, news of the discovery generated unrestrained glee across the Atlantic at CIA headquarters. America's spymasters were thrilled by the world's response: admiration for the CIA's daring and technical prowess, and a general assumption that the agency had roundly snookered the Soviets.

"Worldwide reaction was outstandingly favorable in terms of enhancement of U.S. prestige," the CIA wrote in an internal history of the Berlin Tunnel project that was declassified last year and recently made public. Western allies in particular reacted with "unconcealed delight to this indication that the U.S., almost universally regarded as a stumbling neophyte in espionage matters, was capable of a coup against the Soviet Union, which had long been the acknowledged master in such matters."

In terms of telephonic engineering and sheer skullduggery, the CIA's tunnel was a marvelous accomplishment. Begun in August 1954 under a makeshift warehouse in the Rudow sector of West Berlin, near a field of hovels built amid wartime rubble by German refugees, the mole hole was secretly dug over a period of 18 months. It extended 300 yards into the Soviet sector.

Aided by British intelligence, the tunnelers tapped into three large cables that carried most of the telephone and telegraph traffic between East Berlin and points farther afield, including Moscow. For nearly a year, U.S. and British spies recorded the communists' communications, amassing more than 25 tons of magnetic tape that were culled for clues by hundreds of translators and processors in Washington and London.

More than a half-century later, however, scholars and spies are still arguing over which side really succeeded in pulling the wool over the other's eyes. The debate, revived in part by the recent release of the CIA's internal history of the operation, underscores how public perceptions are often more important in espionage than the value of stolen secrets.

"It was all part of the bigger game between the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War," said Bernd Stoever, a historian at the University of Potsdam who studies the conflict. "Spying was something like a contest, in which they showed each other who was better at playing the game. They were happy to show the public that they were professionals in this secret spy war, in which normally they can't talk about anything."

After exposing the tunnel on April 22, 1956, the Soviets and East Germans immediately tried to squeeze out a propaganda victory. They held a news conference - something the Soviet military almost never did - and invited reporters from both sides of the border to attend. In the ensuing weeks, as Washington remained silent about its complicity, the communist authorities paraded 50,000 East Berliners through the tunnel to give them a firsthand glimpse of the enemy's "filthy trick," as one East German official put it.

At the CIA, however, the spooks were elated that the communists had gone public. Planners had assumed they would find the tunnel eventually but hush it up.

"It was felt that for the Soviets to admit that the U.S. had been reading their high level communications circuits would cause the Soviets to lose face," according to the CIA's internal account of the episode, which was written in 1967 and 1968. "Perhaps fortunately, fate intervened, and as a possible consequence, the Soviet course of action was exactly contrary to expectation."

The truth was much more complicated. Unbeknownst to the CIA, the Soviets had known about the tunnel all along.

Before breaking ground, the CIA had made the mistake of discussing its plans with George Blake, a high-ranking British intelligence official. In 1961, Blake was exposed as a mole for the KGB who had betrayed the identities of hundreds of British agents, as well as plans for the tunnel project.

According to a book co-written by Blake's KGB handler, Sergei A. Kondrashev, Soviet intelligence officials were highly concerned about the risk of exposing their source. They worried that suspicions might be aroused if they "discovered" the tunnel too quickly, so they let the operation proceed unmolested. Heavy rains that damaged one of the cables in the spring of 1956 gave them an excuse to inspect the communications lines and make it appear as if they had stumbled across the tunnel.

So it was the CIA that was snookered: According to an August 1956 internal memo, the CIA concluded that the Soviet detection of the tapping scheme had been "purely fortuitous and was not the result of a penetration of the U.S. or U.K. agencies concerned."

Blake's exposure as a double agent five years later led to a reappraisal of the wiretapping project: Had it generated any real secrets? Or had the Soviets fed disinformation through the cables?

In his book, Kondrashev said the cable traffic was genuine and that the Soviets hadn't dared transmit false material for fear of compromising Blake. But scholars remain uncertain.

"It's going to be hard to know for sure until we have more information on the Soviet side," said Christian F. Ostermann, director of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. "That story is still to be told."

Meanwhile, despite the passage of time, the tunnel keeps turning up.

In 2005, a German construction crew stumbled upon a buried section of the steel-reinforced passageway while building a highway to Berlin's Schoenefeld airport. It was excavated and taken to the Allied Museum in the former West Berlin, where a major exhibit was held a year later on the 50th anniversary of the tunnel's discovery.

Blake, who escaped from a British prison in 1966 and fled to Moscow, is still alive but has never divulged exactly what he told the KGB. In November, in honor of his 85th birthday, he received the Order of Friendship, the highest award that can be given to a noncitizen, from Russian President Vladimir Putin. [Whitlock/WashingtonPost/28January2008] 

Air America's Black Helicopter. Black helicopters are a favorite fantasy when conspiracy theorists and movie directors conjure a government gone bad, but in fact, the last vehicle a secret organization would choose for a stealthy mission is a helicopter. A helicopter is a one-man band, its turbine exhaust blaring a piercing whine, the fuselage ski's vibration rumbling like a drum, the tail rotor rasping like a buzzsaw.

In the last dark nights of the Vietnam War, however, a secret government organization did use a helicopter for a single, sneaky mission. But it was no ordinary aircraft. The helicopter, a limited-edition model from the Aircraft Division of Hughes Tool Company, was modified to be stealthy. It was called the Quiet One-also known as the Hughes 500P, the "P" standing for Penetrator.

Just how quiet was the Quiet One? "It was absolutely amazing just how quiet those copters were," recalls Don Stephens, who managed the Quiet One's secret base in Laos for the CIA. "I'd stand on the [landing pad] and try to figure out the first time I could hear it and which direction it was coming from. I couldn't place it until it was one or two hundred yards away." Says Rod Taylor, who served as project engineer for Hughes, "There is no helicopter today that is as quiet."

The Quiet One grew out of the Hughes 500 helicopter, known to aviators in Vietnam as the OH-6A "Loach," after LOH, an abbreviation for "light observation helicopter." The new version started with a small research-and-development contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1968. The idea of using hushed helicopters in Southeast Asia came from the CIA's Special Operations Division Air Branch, which wanted them to quietly drop off and pick up agents in enemy territory. The CIA bought and then handed over two of the top-secret helicopters to a firm-by all appearances, civilian-called Air America. Formed in 1959 from assets of previous front companies, Air America was throughout its life beholden to the CIA, the Department of State, and the Pentagon.

The Quiet One's single, secret mission, conducted on December 5 and 6, 1972, fell outside Air America's normal operations. The company's public face - what spies might call its "legend" - was that of a plucky charter airline delivering food and supplies to civilians in Laos, and flying occasional combat evacuation missions in Laos and South Vietnam. While it did substantially more than that, and at considerable peril (217 of its employees died in Laos), Air America crews did not make it a practice to fly deep into North Vietnam.

The mission was intended to fill an information gap that had been galling Henry Kissinger, secretary of state under President Richard Nixon. Negotiations to end the 11-year war had begun in March 1972 but stalled in part because South Vietnamese leaders feared that North Vietnam would invade not long after U.S. troops left. A five-month Air Force and Navy bombing campaign called Operation Linebacker had brought the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table in Paris that October, but even that campaign could not force a deal. Kissinger wanted the CIA to find out whether the North Vietnamese were following the peace terms or just using them as a smokescreen for attack plans.

From its intelligence work a year earlier, the CIA knew about a weak point in the North Vietnamese wall of security: a telephone line used by the country's military commanders, located near the industrial city of Vinh. A patrolled bicycle path ran alongside the string of telephone poles, but at one spot, about 15 miles southwest of Vinh and just east of the Cau River, the phone line went straight up a bluff, over a ridge, and down the other side. The terrain was too steep for bikes, so the path followed the river, which flowed around the bluff, rejoining the telephone poles on the bluff's far side. This would be the best place to drop off commandos to place a wiretap.

Because the Vinh tap would be sending its intercepts out of North Vietnam, across Laos, and into Thailand, it would need a solar-powered relay station that could catch and transmit the signal, broadcasting from high ground. The station would be within earshot of enemy patrols, so both the tap and relay would have to be dropped in by helicopter-a very quiet one.

The Hughes Tool Aircraft Division had started working on such a helicopter in 1968; that year an affluent suburb of Los Angeles had bought two piston-powered Hughes 269 helicopters for police patrols. Citizens soon called to complain about the noise of the low-flying patrols, and the city told Hughes to either make them quieter or take them back. An emerging market for police patrols was at stake. Engineers at Hughes identified one of the worst of the noisemakers: the tail rotor. By doubling the number of blades to four, Hughes was able to cut the speed of the rotor in half, which reduced the helicopter's noise.

Coincidentally, the Advanced Research Projects Agency was hunting for contractors who could cut noise from military helicopters of all sizes. After hearing about Hughes' work on the police helicopters, ARPA offered the company $200,000 in 1968 to work similar magic on a Hughes OH-6A light helicopter. Hughes Tool made a short movie about the modifications, which included a new set of gears to slow the tail rotor, and showed it to ARPA. "ARPA came back and offered a blank check to do a Phase Two of the program with no holds barred," recalls Taylor, the project engineer. "Each and every noise source in the helicopter was to be addressed in an attempt to reduce the signature to an absolute minimum." ARPA gave the project the code name Mainstreet. Even before work was fully under way, the CIA ordered two (later registered as N351X and N352X) for use in the field. Test flights began at Culver City, California, in 1971, followed by a brisk training program for the U.S. instructor-pilots who would later train mission pilots.

Flights of the Quiet One included low-level work at the secret Air Force base Area 51 in Nevada and touchdowns on peaks in California to familiarize pilots with close-quarters maneuvering and landing in darkness. Pilots needed at least eight hours to get comfortable with steering by sole reference to the comparatively narrow view of the forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera, which was mounted just above the skids. Says Allen Cates, an Air America pilot who flew one in 1973: "When you saw a person, it was like looking at a photo negative. Or you'd see just the hood of a car, glowing from heat off the engine block.. And when you were landing, a blade of grass looked as big as a tree."

The slapping noise that some helicopters produce, which can be heard two miles away or more, is caused by "blade vortex interaction," in which the tip of each whirling rotor blade makes tiny tornadoes that are then struck by oncoming blades. The Quiet One's modifications included an extra main rotor blade, changes to the tips on the main blades, and engine adjustments that allowed the pilot to slow the main rotor speed, making the blades quieter. The helicopter also had extra fuel tanks in the rear passenger compartment, an alcohol-water injection system to boost the Allison engine's power output for short periods, an engine exhaust muffler, lead-vinyl pads to deaden skin noise, and even a baffle to block noise slipping out the air intake.

The extensive alterations did not blank out all noise, Taylor says. Rather, they damped the kinds of noise that people associate with a helicopter. "Noise is very subjective," he says. "You can reduce the overall noise signature and an observer will still say, 'I can hear it as well as before.' It's related to the human ability to discriminate different sounds. You don't hear the lawnmower next door, but a model airplane is easily heard. It has a higher frequency and seems irritating."

Hughes shipped the two Quiet Ones to Taiwan in October 1971. Under the CIA's original plans, the Vinh wiretap mission would be flown by pilots from the Taiwanese air force's 34th Squadron. This would offer the United States some deniability, however flimsy, if any of the helicopters were captured. The pilots' U.S. instructors included two veteran helicopter pilots with experience flying low-level missions in Vietnam: Lloyd George Anthony Lamothe Jr. and Daniel H. Smith. The two had joined Air America six months earlier for that purpose.

Meanwhile, Air America's fleet in Thailand accepted delivery of two more Hughes 500 models - standard ones - and used them for air taxi operations. The job of these plain-vanilla Loaches was to distract attention from the Quiet Ones before they even landed in Laos. Loaches were common in Vietnam but not in Laos, so Air America needed to start using them in full view of North Vietnamese sympathizers. That way, if an enemy observer later saw the modified Loaches flitting past on a moonlit night, he might not consider the event worthy of comment.

Initial flight training on the Quiet Ones, conducted in Taiwan, was completed by June 1972. The two helicopters and their gear traveled on a C-130 transport to an isolated airstrip in Thailand called LS-05. Mechanics pulled them out, swung the rotor blades for flight, and filled the tanks, and the two helicopters flew by night to an even more obscure base, a secret one in southwest Laos known to insiders as PS-44. PS stood for "Pakse Site," a reference to the garrison town of Pakse, 18 miles to the southeast. PS-44 had been built to house Laotian commandos and the aircraft that flew them around. Its dirt strip and three tin-roof buildings sat on the edge of a plateau, surrounded on three sides by steep ground that was unusual for its expanses of bright beach-like sand, eroded from nearby cliffs of white sandstone.

It appeared to be far away from everything, but it was not far from the enemy. By late 1972, units of the North Vietnamese army were ensconced 20 miles to the north. To offer some peace of mind, the CIA had Air America keep a turbine transport helicopter, the Sikorsky S-58T "Twin Pack," handy for evacuations. More reassuring, the terrain was so steep and overgrown that the enemy could have stormed it from only one direction: the west.

The base also relied on a perimeter of six guard posts staffed by Laotian soldiers, and reinforcements could have been called in from a base lying southwest, along the Mekong River. 

Cameras were discouraged at PS-44, and photographing the Quiet One was strictly forbidden. Crews already knew the risk of telling tales in the bars and brothels of Southeast Asia, but even inside the base, the code of silence persisted. "You just didn't come up and introduce yourself at PS-44," says Dick Casterlin, an Air America pilot who came to the base often. "Nobody talked about their personal background or where they were from." Men who worked closely for months knew each other only by first names or nicknames. The CIA itself had its own nickname at PS-44: The men called it simply "the Customer."

Casterlin flew an S-58T helicopter during some of the wiretap attempts, accompanying the Quiet One in order to rescue the wiretap teams if that became necessary. Casterlin had a security clearance for special missions, but even he wasn't told where the CIA had hidden the Quiet One.

According to base manager Stephens, the Quiet One was kept out of sight about 600 yards northwest of PS-44's main building, reachable down an unmarked, narrow forest trail. Because of the distance, the forests, and the quieting gear, the helicopter couldn't be heard from the porch of the base's main building unless it was flying overhead. Even then, at night, it sounded like a far-off airplane. The helicopter had its own hangar so Soviet spyplanes and satellites could not get a look at the peculiar profile produced by the extra main rotor blade, a tail rotor with blades in an odd scissored configuration, and big muffler on the rear fuselage.

Between June and September, Lamothe and Smith tried to train the Taiwanese crews to fly the mission, but after months of poor performance by the trainees - including a botched night landing that demolished one of the two Quiet Ones - and bickering over who would be the chief pilot, the CIA managers got fed up and sent the whole contingent home. Lamothe and Smith prepared to fly the mission themselves.

At the same time, the agency placed the project under new management. James Glerum arrived in Pakse to direct operations. Glerum had been the CIA's assistant base chief at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base when the Quiet Ones landed in Laos. The new assignment demonstrated how urgently the state department wanted the wiretapped information, according to Air America chief helicopter pilot Wayne Knight. Glerum, he says, was a CIA "super-grade," outranking many careerists at headquarters. Soon after his arrival, Glerum quizzed Smith and Lamothe on their cover story. When he realized they had none, he provided them with false identities and a story to go with them in case of capture.

More help came from Air America, which was offering up its best aircraft (the term used was "gold-plated") and its most experienced men to support the mission. One was Thomas "Shep" Johnson, a rangy Idahoan with a background in smoke-jumping. Johnson had started with Air America in its first year, 1959, rigging bundles with parachutes and pushing them out of aircraft. A year before, he had been one of only three men to survive a North Vietnamese attack at another Laotian air base. Johnson's main responsibility was to train a squad of eight Laotian commandos for the Vinh wiretap mission. For years, the commandos had been fighting communist forces and had reported on enemy traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos. A group of 100, they lived in a separate part of PS-44 and manned the perimeter.

The CIA had hoped to get the wiretap in place before monsoon season, but a series of mishaps and equipment malfunctions, compounded by the monsoons starting early, delayed the mission. "We had a string of unbelievably bad weather," says Glerum. "Normally, November to January is the rainy season. It had started right as I got there [in October]." Twice Lamothe and Smith took off from PS-44 to fly the wiretap mission, refueling in eastern Thailand and heading into enemy territory, only to turn back after running into clouds in the passes or fog at the wiretap site. "The preparation for the mission was a very hectic time," says Stephens, "but it also seemed like it dragged on forever."

Hughes technicians toiled over the troublesome infrared camera; problems with it had forced cancellation of an October 21 attempt. "The FLIR [forward-looking infrared] required a lot of work," recalls Glerum. Other gadgetry included SU-50 night-vision goggles (their first use in Laos), which worked only when the moon was a quarter to a half full. The helicopter also had a long-range navigation system (LORAN-C).

Any mishap during the night flight into North Vietnam, particularly while the crew maneuvered among trees and telephone poles, would doom the mission and probably its participants. By day Lamothe and Smith studied photos and maps marking the stealthiest route to the target. By night they practiced by using LORAN to navigate from the hangar to a nearby training ground they called the Hole. The topography of the Hole was an "astonishingly accurate duplicate" of the actual wiretap site, according to Glerum. Flying into and out of it was "no problem in the daytime, [but] it could be a bugger at night," recalls Casterlin. Smith and Lamothe dropped the commandos near a simulated telephone pole (a tree stripped of branches and equipped with a cross arm) and flew to a pre-selected tree, where they laid out the radio rig called the spider relay.

The spider relay was to be deployed as the helicopter hovered over a tree. With its solar panels, electronics boxes, and antennas sprung open to a width of almost 10 feet, the relay perched atop the branches with a fishnet-like webbing. It was nearly impossible to see from the ground. The relay could be folded into a compact package that fit between the helicopter skids, but there was so little ground clearance left after it was attached, the pilots could land only on a hard, flat surface. 

When each night's practice was complete, Lamothe and Smith flew back through the darkness to the concrete landing pad, which was shaped like an old-fashioned keyhole. The approach to landing was memorable because the Quiet One used no landing lights; it relied on an infrared floodlight on the nose. The light cast an eerie, ruddy glow.

Some of the biggest threats to mission success came not from North Vietnamese army spies but from plain bad luck. One flight opportunity was lost when a scorpion bit a wiretap team commando, setting off an allergic reaction. On one of the training flights at the Hole, after Lamothe and Smith deployed the spider relay used for practice, it slid off the branches and crashed to the ground, with pieces scattering. Training for the mission could not proceed without the relay, and joyful speculation spread among the ranks: It would be a month or more until a new spider could come from the States, so the men could go on leave.

But no: Stephens flew to the spot by helicopter, slid down a rope, and helped technician Bob Lanning bag up the pieces. Back at camp, Lanning laid them out on a floor and said he could get the relay working if he had some new parts. "Jim Glerum sent a cable," says Stephens, "and in three days we had the parts by courier. Bob worked two and a half days, almost nonstop, and put it back together. So we only lost a few days."

With the moon entering the favorable phase, the rescue crews moved to a forward staging base in eastern Thailand while Lamothe, Smith, and the Quiet One remained at PS-44. An attempt was scheduled for the night of December 5, amid rising doubts among Air America veterans as to whether the scheme would ever work.

That night, the Quiet One flew to a refueling base at the Thai-Laotian border, where it met a de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter with the Laotian commandos. Two commandos with guns and the wiretap equipment climbed aboard the Quiet One, and the rest stayed on the Otter with parachutes and more guns in case they were needed for a rescue. Accompanied by an armed Twin Pack flown by Casterlin and Julian "Scratch" Kanach, the Quiet One set course for the northeast. The Twin Pack broke away at the North Vietnamese border and took up a slow orbit over Laos, out of radar range but on call if needed. Despite the Twin Pack's readiness to play the rescue role, security was as tight as ever. "I did the LORAN navigation, but I didn't have the coordinates of the wiretap location," Casterlin says. "I assumed they'd tell me if I needed to know, or maybe Scratch knew."

Leaving the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and without being targeted by the anti-aircraft defenses along it, Lamothe and Smith climbed to cross the Annamese mountains, then dropped to follow the nap of the earth, following streambeds when possible. When the pilots identified the wiretap spot, they hovered, and the two Laotian commandos jumped a few feet to the ground.

Lamothe and Smith then flew west across the Cau River to a 1,000-foot-high mountain to set the spider relay. Finding the ideal tree for the relay had taken months of intense photo-reconnaissance work. The tree had to be tall, on high ground with a clear view of the western horizon, and flat at the crown. An Otter orbited over a receiver relay, which was already in place atop another mountain halfway into Laos. Inside the Otter, technicians were watching an oscilloscope measure a test signal from the spider relay.

Meanwhile, the Laotian commandos at the wiretap site found that the poles were concrete rather than wood, so they couldn't use their pole-climbing boots to get up them or a stapler to attach the antenna. The men shinnied up instead. After splicing into the phone wires, they put the tap in place; it was concealed in a glass insulator of the same color used on the French-built line. The commandos began taping up the short-range antenna and installing narrow solar panels atop the pole's cross-arm. This would power the tap's transmitter.

When Lamothe and Smith heard from the Otter that the Thai oscilloscope was getting a clear signal from the spider relay's transmitter, they threw a switch that released the last cables connecting the spider relay to the helicopter and flew the Quiet One to a streambed to wait for the commandos to finish attaching the solar panels. At the scheduled time, Smith restarted the helicopter's turbine; he picked up the commandos at the wiretap site and the team returned to Laos without incident. Those listening to progress reports at PS-44, Udorn, and the Lima 40A refueling site were pleasantly startled to hear that the crew was on its way back and the tap was in place without a firefight, recalls Wayne Knight.

Lamothe and Smith left the Quiet One at PS-44 and flew to the CIA's regional office at Udorn by conventional aircraft. Much celebration at ensued there - perhaps too much. During the subsequent R&R, someone at the Wolverine Night Club in town bit off part of Smith's ear. If a reprimand for attracting attention was ever entered in Smith's secret personnel file, it didn't matter: The CIA had no plans to send the Quiet One up again, and within a week all the Americans connected with the mission and their equipment were on their way out of Laos.

Recollections differ on how long the Vinh tap worked - perhaps one to three months - and why it went silent. But allegedly it yielded enough inside information from the North Vietnamese high command to help nudge all parties to sign a peace pact in late January 1973. Exactly what Kissinger eavesdropped on remains classified.

The one flyable Quiet One relocated to California. Air America pilots Allen Cates and Robert Mehaffey trained on it at Edwards Air Force Base, achieving proficiency in early 1973. Then, before any special-mission training began, and with no explanation, Cates and Mehaffey were sent back to their old piloting jobs at Air America. Mechanics pulled most of the special features out of the Quiet One, and its trail of insurance and registration papers ends in 1973, after it was transferred to Pacific Corporation of Washington, D.C., a holding company used as a screen for CIA-backed companies and assets.

But according to the participants, no more were built. It's puzzling why the CIA did not keep a stable of Quiet Ones, at least while the technology remained under wraps. And it remained a secret for more than two decades, until Ken Conboy and James Morrison told the story in their 1995 book Shadow War.

But there were valid reasons for dropping the Quiet One from the spymasters' catalog. "In the long run, the 500P was not the best for setting wiretaps," says Casterlin. "It was not good for high-altitude work." It was a light helicopter and had to be loaded with gear that cut into its payload capability and operating altitude. The Twin Pack was much louder but also simpler to run and more powerful, so Air America used it for later wiretap missions in North Vietnam. At least one tap, placed on the night of March 12-13, 1973, was successful.

Some of the Quiet One's innovations did show up on later helicopters, including the Hughes AH-64 Apache, which has a scissor-style tail rotor. And Hughes engineers' interest in modifying the tips of the main rotor blades to cut the slapping noise caused by blade vortices has been taken up by other experts. Aerospace engineer Gordon Leishman and his team at the University of Maryland, for example, are developing a blade with curved tubes at the tip to divert the air, thereby countering vortex formation. But, thanks to its many unusual modifications, the 500P still holds the title that Hughes gave it in April 1971: "the world's quietest helicopter." [Chiles/AirSpaceMag/Jan2008] 

Section IV -  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, ANNOUNCEMENTS, RESEARCH REQUESTS, BOOK REVIEWS, JOB OPPORTUNITIES, OBITUARIES AND COMING EVENTS

Letters to the Editor

Competent Rifleman Could Have Handled Rifle.  In reference to the article, Anatomy of a Cover-Up: Notes on the Assassination of JFK: Working the bolt on the rifle is entirely credible. Virtually every Marine on completion of Boot Camp could easily work the bolt and reload a similar rifle in the same manner and at the same speed that Oswald could have done. Whoever was the "expert" who claimed otherwise is not familiar with the capabilities of competent riflemen using bolt action rifles.  James Smith

Terrorism Directly Linked to Islam. Unless his purpose is blind political correctness, I am not exactly certain what point Graham Fuller attempts to make with his hypothetical suggestion that, even without Islam, terror would still have arisen from the Middle East. I wonder if he extends his reasoning to: without Fascism, Germany would still have embraced imperial ambitions in the mid-twentieth century; and that Russia, had there been no Communism, would nevertheless have precipitated a half-century Cold War. And if so, so what? The non-hypothetical fact is that the Germans were Nazis, the Soviets were Communists and the terrorists, every last one of them, are Muslims. 

One can only wonder and marvel at Fuller's omission of Japan from the nations that "visited their world wars...upon the rest of the world." Perhaps Japan does not fit the template as it is a non-European power, but who knows? 

Fuller also conveniently ignores the devastations wrought by the Ottoman Empire as it spread far into Europe, probably because, in his reasoning, this would have occurred had they not been Muslims. One can only hope that the "top U.S. government officials" Fuller advised received better analysis than this.  whn

AFIO Publications Reflect Extremist Viewpoints. It seems to me that the newsletter, like the Intelligencer, has recently been in steadily deterioration from its previous function as a posterboard of balanced assessments of developments in the intelligence community to a kind of self-appointed pleader for the most reactionary standpoints on every current subject. The latest - January 29 - issue is a case in point. First, there is a meandering and largely unsubstantiated effort to undermine the recent NIE on Iran - perhaps the most responsible and historically important move by the intelligence community in many years. Then there is the commentary on Anatomy of a Cover-up (a book? an essay?) by Peter B. Martin. While opening up the overdue possibility that Oswald was not indeed the sole shooter in Dallas, Martin, like your brain-dead reviewers largely unacquainted with the current research on the subject, is in a hurry to blame the KGB, a popular fall guy over the decades with everybody from Johnny Rosselli to the John Birch Society. Apart from the damage done throughout the entire Nosenko fiasco, the publication of KGB files from the period - start with Mitrokin's revelations in The Sword and the Shield - would suggest that the Soviets were busy at the time trying to finger the likes of Daddy Hunt. Oswald himself was demonstrably on both FBI and CIA payrolls during the last year of his life, no matter how frantically these toothless old bulldogs of yours attempt to dance around this well-documented fact. By permitting your publications to reflect the Russ Limbaugh version of intelligence affairs - bad information, a lot of apoplectic intensity - you are destroying your own reputation and that of AFIO. Balance things out, at least! Burton Hersh
AFIO members....care to share your views on the above letter.....? Replies to afio@afio.com

Announcements

Assistance for Chapter Websites. Simone Lopes of the Arizona Chapter has offered other AFIO chapters: For a reasonable fee, she is willing to assist other chapters with the creation of a new chapter website. Once designed, she hands the "keys" for updating and full control to the chapter. Her offer is for design and set up, only. For those chapters already with members who have website skills, Simone invites them to feel free to copy the features and design elements of the Arizona Chapter, whose website she recently created. That website can be viewed at: www.afioaz.org. 

Simone Lopes can be reached at: Simone Lopes [sl@4smartphone.net].  

Research Requests

OSS/Italian Resistance Movement:  Request for Research Help.  My name is Linda Millis and I am a senior at Kenyon College and doing a study about the relationship between the Office of Strategic Services and the Italian resistance movement between 1943 and 1945. I would be very interested in speaking or corresponding with any former OSS or military intelligence personnel who served in Italy during this period or are familiar with the subject. My email address is: peckhamm@kenyon.edu. Thank you.

The Media and Intelligence: Research Request for AFIO. It has long been taken for granted that foreign journalists have frequently acted on behalf of intelligence services or been full-fledged members of the services themselves. Intelligence officers like Richard Sorge, Kim Philby, Oleg Kalugin, and more recently, Pham Xuan An were renowned for using the guise of reporter in their intelligence work. It is less appreciated that American journalists, publishers, and broadcasters have also played intelligence roles in virtually every major foreign conflict in American history, particularly during the Cold War. Ties borne of cooperation between American media and intelligence professionals during the fight against fascism carried over to the struggle against global communism until growing rifts between the two communities finally resulted in its exposure in the media and its official discontinuance by intelligence community leadership. 

My master's thesis was on the subject and I have dedicated an additional year and a half to do more research for a book. Despite a significant amount of material I have found in presidential libraries, historical societies and the National Archives, I have conducted few interviews with those who were directly involved in media-intelligence cooperation. Because the heyday of these cooperative relationships was half a century ago, these stories are disappearing. I want to record these stories before it is too late. I would appreciate on-the-record interviews, but I am willing to be flexible. 

For questions, please contact Clayton Farrington, (757) 848-8927 or mc_farrington@verizon.net. 

Job Opportunities

Position Title: Project Manager / DEA Liaison
Location: Los Angeles, CA with travel to Washington, D.C.
Salary: Open, DOE

Client: Our client is a global outsourcing company that specializes in linguistics and translation in twenty-five (25) countries.

Position Description: 
Work with internal and external clients to manage the timely flow of Federal business project actions from initiation to delivery. 
Ensure that projects meet quality, efficiency, and budget expectations. 
Oversee and grow all Federal business within the DEA. 
Report directly to the Director of Civil Business for the Federal Unit. 

Responsibilities: (NOTE: All boldfaced requirements are critical)

Required Skills/Background (NOTE: All boldfaced requirements are critical)

Education/Certification Required:
BS or BA with major area of study foreign language from an English-speaking college or university, or equivalent work experience. 

For immediate and confidential consideration, please submit resume to cz@defenserecruiters.com with the job title in the subject line.

DOD-Connected Consultant - REQUIREMENTS
ECHO4 Inc. is seeking an experienced, motivated, and well-connected consultant to develop and foster inroads with senior decision-makers within DoD, and in particular, military intelligence leaders with software procurement authority.
THE COMPANY
• We are a security software solutions provider to the defense and security sector.
• We are veteran-owned and absolutely committed to serving soldiers first.
• We are privately backed, fully funded, and well positioned to take on large unit sales.
• Our product has withstood rigorous Quality Assurance (QA) testing to ensure full compliance to allied certification and accreditation standards.
• We are First To Market. There is a vast and lucrative untapped worldwide market for our solution.
THE MISSION
• Identify those within DoD with responsibility for the acquisition of security software for both classified and unclassified networks (SIPRNet & NIPRNet) as well as military intelligence specific systems (CHATS/CHASIS).
• Introduce our solution to principal decision makers along with government approvals, recommendations and third party support to generate sales.
• Deliver the company to the stage where we will achieve sales to DoD.
REQUIREMENTS: IDEAL BACKGROUND
• A retired flag/general officer or very senior operations officer with extensive background in Military Intelligence.
• Maintains a current personal rolodex of DoD decision-makers with procurement authority in software acquisition.
• Software sales experiences, with a proven track record in identifying, qualifying, presenting, negotiating and closing deals in excess of $100K USD for software seat licenses to DoD.
• Has an understanding of common software protocols and functionalities.
• Understands DISA certification processes and ideally has participated in same with experience in placing products on recommended user/buyer lists post-certification.
• Understands and is comfortable promoting/marketing an early stage software.
REQUIREMENTS: THE WORK
• Be the public face of the company when dealing with DoD.
• Believe in our product's ability to save lives and enhance operations.
REQUIREMENTS: OTHER
• 5+ years demonstrable track record selling software to DoD.
• Comfortable interfacing at command level.
• Extensive knowledge of DoD procurement process and life cycle.
• Excellent with sales basics: knowing customers, their needs, their environments, how to get on approved lists, how to close, etc.
• Experience working third party partners to gain exposure, presence and acceptance in the DoD space.
• Traits: Leader, Persuasive, Driven, and Personable.
• Skills: Negotiation, Problem Solving, Verbal and Written Communication.
• Education: BA or higher.
REPLIES TO: Tom Robertson at robertson@echo4.ca or call T: 416.216.5435

Coming Events

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

5 - 6 February 2008 - San Diego, CA - 9am-4pm - WEST 2008 - www.TechExpoUSA.com

Tuesday, 5 February 2008, 6:30 pm – Washington, DC – “Mata Hari and Houdini: Entertaining Spies”– authors Pat Shipman and William Kalush at the Spy Museum. Were they or weren’t they? Mata Hari’s reputation as a seductive beauty who used her wiles to gather intelligence is well-known. But history reveals a different story. Meanwhile, Harry Houdini, the “World’s Greatest Escape Artist,” is known for his magical feats and his pursuit of fake spiritualists. But was he also a covert operative? In this demystifying evening, Pat Shipman, author of Femme Fatale: Love, Lies and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari, and William Kalush, co-author of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero, lift the veil of time from these two legends. Was the infamous dancer executed for espionage or for shameless behavior? Did Houdini use his theatrical tours as a cover for collecting intelligence for the U.S. or perhaps the British? Tickets: $20. Visit http://www.spymuseum.org for tickets.

Wednesday, 6 February 2008, 6 pm - Las Vegas, NV - The AFIO LV Chapter to discuss "Implications of Intelligence Scotomas in Latin America" with John Alexander, Ph.D. The Chapter holds their evening event at Nellis Air Force Base Officers' Club (Submit guest names by January 31st). Join them at 5 pm in the "Check Six" bar area for Fellowship, beverages and snacks/dinner. Their featured speaker for the evening will be: JOHN B. ALEXANDER, PH.D., discussing "Implications of Intelligence Scotomas in Latin America." His presentation addresses the major conflicts that are emerging throughout Central and South America, yet go nearly unnoticed by U.S. policy makers and the public. It can be argued that one or more wars are being ignored, and at our peril. There are also established terrorists networks that run from the Middle East through Latin America and into the U.S. In fact, our drug policies have destabilized countries, regions, and possible the hemisphere. RSVP no later than Thursday, January 31st for entrance to the Base.
Send email to Eppley, Christine J. at eppley@nv.doe.gov or call her at 702-295-0073. They look forward to seeing you!

8 February 2008 – San Francisco, CA – The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts William Overholt, Director of Asia Policy Division, RAND Corporation. Dr. William Overholt has a long history of analyzing Asia in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, he conducted research on financial reform in Asia as a joint senior fellow with the Center for Business and Government and the Asia Center at Harvard University. He is the author of five books including The Rise of China, winner of the Mainichi News/Asian Affairs Research Center Special Book Prize. He has spent 21 years managing research units for investment banks, mostly based in Hong Kong: he was a managing director and head of Asia Research for Bankers Trust and spent three years as chief of Asia strategist and economist for the largest Japanese investment bank, Nomura. Prior to that, he spent eight years at Hudson Institute managing studies for the NSC, DoD, Department of State, ACDA, NASA, and various corporations. Dr. Overholt will speak on economic developments and intelligence in China. Mr. Overholt’s presentation will cover such topics as Asian geopolitics transformed, China and India: which will be more important and what everyone needs to know about China.
The meeting will be held at United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94116 (between Sloat and Wawona). 11:30 AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation; $35 non-member rate or at door. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate meat or fish) no later than 5PM 1/30/08: mariko@cataphora.com or mail check made out to "AFIO" to Peter Bresler, 1255 Post Street, Suite 427, San Francisco, CA 94109. Call Roger Dong (650) 339-0010 for any questions.

Sunday, 10 February 2008 1030 – 1330 - Beachwood, OH - AFIO Northern Ohio Chapter hosts Timothy R. Walton, author, CIA and Navy Veteran on "24 Years with the CIA." Timothy R. Walton has a B.A. in philosophy from the College of William and Mary, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia. While in graduate school he had a Fulbright scholarship to do research at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris, France.
From 1970 to 1976, he served in the U.S.Navy on ships and bases in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
For 24 years, he was an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency, during which he worked with personnel from law enforcement, the military, and foreign liaison services.
He has had a variety of experience teaching analysis, including:• Classes at the CIA's Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis.• Mercyhurst College's program in the Washington D.C. area.• The Director of National Intelligence's "Analysis 101," which is offered to new analysts in all of the components of the US Intelligence Community.• A graduate-level class in competitive intelligence for the Johns Hopkins University business school.
He is also the author of The Spanish Treasure Fleets, the story of the centuries-long maritime struggle to control the flow of precious metals from Spain's colonies in Latin America.
Location: Hilton Cleveland East /Beachwood (Location not yet confirmed), 3663 Park East Drive, Beachwood, Ohio 44122, Tel: 1-216-464-5950 Fax: 1-216-464-6539
Cost: $24.00 per person
RSVP: Veronica Flint, (440) 338-4720 or at vbf@windstream.net

16 February 08 - Kennebunk, ME - The Maine Chapter of AFIO will hear Brian Featheringham from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division of the Department of Homeland Security.  Featheringham is responsible for the six southern counties of the State of Maine. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held at the Kennebunk Free Library, corner of Rt. 1 and Rt. 35 in Kennebunk at 2:00 p.m.  For information call 207-364-8964 or 207-985-2392

Thursday, 21 February 2008, 12 noon – 1 pm – Washington, DC – author debriefing and book signing – Pete Earley author of Comrade J, at the Spy Museum. From 1997 to 2000, a man known as Comrade J was working in the U.S. as the highest-ranking operative in the SVR – a successor agency to the KGB. He directed all Russian spy action in New York City, and personally oversaw every covert operation against the U.S. and its allies in the UN. Comrade J recruited spies, planted agents, manipulated intelligence, and influenced American policy – all under the direct leadership of Boris Yeltsin followed by that of Vladimir Putin. He was a legend in the SVR: known as the man who kept the secrets. Then in 2000 he defected and turned the tables on Mother Russia – for two years he had acted as a double agent for the FBI. In Comrade J, Earley gives an account of this extraordinary spy. Free, no registration required.

22-23 February 2008 - Baltimore, MD - 3rd International Conference on "Ethics in the Intelligence Community", Sponsored by: International Intelligence Ethics Association and Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Division of Public Safety Leadership. Intelligence ethics is an emerging field without established principles for resolving the ethical problems confronting the intelligence community. Intelligence work has no theory analogous to "just war" theory in military ethics. Consequently, a focus of this conference is to provide a forum in which the application of ethical theories to intelligence problems can be discussed and a theory of “just intelligence” developed. This conference is co-sponsored by The International Intelligence Ethics Association and Johns Hopkins University, School of Education, Division of Public Leadership.
The conference will be held at The Johns Hopkins University-Mt. Washington Conference Center, in Baltimore, Maryland. The conference is open to all relevant disciplines, including political science, history, law enforcement, philosophy, international relations, theology, and to representatives of all legitimate stake-holders in intelligence ethics, including government, the press, and non-governmental organizations.
The 2-day conference begins on Friday morning, February 22nd and ends on Saturday afternoon, February 23, 2008. Attendees will be provided all meals during this time. The conference will consist of academic papers and panels, in a traditional lecture format with audience discussion. Privacy Policy: All presentations and discussions are on a “not for attribution” basis. No recording devices (cameras, audio recorders, etc.) that can capture images and sound are permitted.
A sample of the topics at the conference include:
• Torture & Ticking Time-Bombs: Empirical Research Regarding Moral Judgments
• Can Just War Theory Contribute to a Normative Framework for Intelligence Ethics? National Security vs. Social Security
• The Utility And Practicality Of A Code Of Ethics Specifically Addressing The Officer-Agent Relationship (i.e., HUMINT) And Could Such A Code Be Meaningful Or Useful In Real Operational Settings?
• A Professional Ethics Review Board for the Intelligence Community: Is it possible?
• Accountability vs. Politicalization: An Ethical Difference - With Case Studies
• Developing a Moral Framework for Making Complex Ethical Judgments For the Intelligence Professional
• Individual Rights vs. Collective Rights: A Moral Dilemma In Intelligence During National Emergency Situations?
Conference Location: Mt. Washington Conference Center, 5801 Smith Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21209; Information/Directions: http://www.mtwashconfctr.com/home.html
Registration till December 31, 2007 - Registration fee covers 3 meals on Friday and 2 meals on Saturday
$ 370 Conference Registration. Late Registration after January 1, 2008 Registration fee covers 3 meals on Friday and 2 meals on Saturday $ 395 Conference Registration
A limited number of suites are available at the conference center Suites, $150.00 a day [check in is Thursday, Tax and gratuities included] Mail To: International Intelligence Ethics Association (IIEA), P.O. Box 23053, Washington, D.C. 20026. Further information available from: conference2008@intelligence-ethics.org

Saturday 23 February 2008, 11:30 am - Seattle, WA - The AFIO Pacific Northwest Chapter hosts a meeting at the Museum of Flight. The cost for the meeting will be $15 which will cover tea, juice and coffee.
The meeting will be offered in three parts:
Part 1: Welcome and Socializing – Starting at 11:30pm
Part 2: Starting at 12:30pm
Our AFIO guest speaker is retired USAF Major Loody Christofero.
Major Christofero has a fascinating history having flown in WW2 in the China, Burma, India theatre of operations. He has a wealth of exciting stories having flown 73 missions in a C46 Commando across “The Hump” the Himalayan mountains. It was the only way to get supplies into China to support the Chinese troops fighting the Japanese. Major Christofero was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, two Air Force medals and a Presidential Citation.
Part 3: At 2:00pm
At 2 pm we have arranged for our members and guests to adjourn to the to the main theatre to hear a presentation:
Vietnam Panel: “The Tet Offensive 40 Years Later”
On the Vietnamese Lunar New Year of 1968, the North Vietnamese forces launched a country-wide offensive known as the “Tet Offensive.” While it was a military disaster for the communists, news of the offensive led to widespread disaffection with the war among the American public. Forty years after this historical turning point, meet several of the men who served in uniform during this controversial conflict, both on the ground and in the air. The panel will include Colonel James Carlton who flew B-52s and then OV-10s over South Vietnam, Capt. Jonathan Hayes who flew F-4s over North Vietnam, and noted author Kregg Jorgenson who volunteered as a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) with H Company – 75th Airborne Rangers.
Again, the cost for the meeting will be $15 which will cover tea and coffee, payable in advance, which covers all of the above.
All ROTC friends are also asked to join for this event. The cost for ROTC members will be $5 payable at the door.
Please let me know as soon as possible if you will be attending and with how many quests.
fd@cromwellgroup.us or 206 729 9700

10 -11 March 2008 - Laurel, Maryland - 2008 Unrestricted Warfare Symposium at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) is jointly sponsored by JHU/APL and the University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). It is also co-sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy), the Department of State, and the National Intelligence Council. For 2008, the theme of integrating strategy, analysis, and technology to counter adversaries utilizing unrestricted warfare approaches. The focus will be on the DoD Campaign Plan for the War on Terrorism: Integrating Strategy, Analysis, and Technology in Support of the U.S. War on Terror Campaign. I am thrilled that Admiral Eric Olson, USSOCOM, has agreed to give the keynote address. Over the two days we will have four other featured speakers [Dr. Thomas Mahnken, ODUSD(Policy); Prof. Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown University; Dr. Stephen Flynn, Council on Foreign Relations; and Prof. Peter Feaver, Duke University], five roundtable panels, and a panel of senior-level government representatives responsible for various aspects of the War on Terror Campaign.
2008 registration details can be found at the symposium website: http://www.jhuapl.edu/urw_symposium/.

Thursday, 13 March 2008, 3:00 PM - Reston, VA - The Washington Area Chapter of the International Association for Intelligence Education hosts a speaker on Intelligence Analysis. This first in a series of interviews by this group will be with Robert Clark (author of “Intelligence Analysis: A Target-Centric Approach”) interviewed by Marilyn B. Peterson. Location: The Forum, 1892 Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 20191. To register: Bill Spracher at 202-231-4193 or William.Spracher@dia.mil. Non-members are welcome and refreshments will be provided by i2, Inc.

Thursday, 20 March 2008, 6:30 pm – Washington, DC -“The Bomber Behind the Veil: Muslim Women and Violent Jihad”– Farhana Ali, Rand Corp. policy analyst, at the Spy Museum. Beware the mujahidaat. Farhana Ali, an international policy analyst with the Rand Corporation, is one of the few researchers focused on these Muslin female fighters. She has charted an increase in suicide attacks by Muslim women since at least 2000, in new theaters of operation, including Uzbekistan, Egypt, and Iraq. These attacks are arguably more deadly than those conducted by male jihadists, in part due to the perception that women are unlikely to commit such acts of horror, and when they do, the shock or “CNN factor” of their attacks draws far greater media attention. She discusses their place in Islamic history, their psychological profile, and the likely shelf-life of this disturbing trend. Tickets: $20. Visit http://www.spymuseum.org for tickets.

26-28 March 2008 - Raleigh, NC - The Fifth Raleigh Spy Conference at the NC Museum of History - Not to miss. Topic: CIA’s Unsolved Mysteries: The NOSENKO Case, Double Agents and Angleton’s Wilderness of Mirrors features top experts in counterintelligence to discuss unresolved issues from the Cold War:  Tennent "Pete" Bagley-- will discuss his book on KGB defector Yuri Nosenko, with its mysterious connections to Lee Harvey Oswald and John F. Kennedy that kicked off 40 years of unresolved internal strife  
Dave Robarge, Chief Historian for CIA and expert on infamous counterintelligence chief James Angleton, will discuss the controversy created by the former chief of counterintelligence for the Agency by his obsessive hunt for a Soviet mole. 
Brian Kelley, the wrong man in the Robert Hanssen spy case - and former counterintelligence officer for CIA, will use examples of defectors and double agents he uses as case models for courses he teaches to train espionage agents. 
Jerry Schecter, former correspondent for Time magazine in Moscow during the Cold War, and respected expert and author of books on Cold War espionage, was on hand to witness for the press the important cases of defectors and double agents in the heat of the Cold War. 
David Ignatius, former foreign editor - now columnist for the Washington Post - and author of espionage fiction, is respected in the "community" for his insights on the impact of defectors and double agents on the craft of espionage. 
Conference Costs: General Public: $250.00 Seniors: $175.00
AFIO Members, Teachers, Intelligence, Students, Military only $145.00!
Early registration available: Contact Jennifer Hadra at 919-831-0999 or jennifer@metromagazine.net. More information and frequent updates at: http://www.raleighspyconference.com/home/

Friday 4 April 2008, 5:30 PM - AFIO Metro New York Chapter Spring meeting features exclusive report by Lt. General Robert J. Elder, Jr. Commanding General of the 8th Air Force, the U. S. Cyber Command on "What we're doing about these cyber attacks on our country – Defending the nation TODAY."
In May 2001, Chinese hackers took down the White House Web Site for almost three hours. According to AIR FORCE Magazine, since then, the attacks originating from servers in China have grown in sophistication and intensity.
Just a year ago, the Naval Network Warfare Command acknowledged that Chinese attacks had reached the level of a campaign-style force-on-force engagement.
Last April 26th came the first full-blown cyber assault resembling an act of war. A controversy over moving a bronze statue of a Russian soldier from the center of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, ended with a massive, coordinated assault on Estonia's cyber institutions. Many commercial and government web sites were shut down.
On Friday, April 4th, General Elder will reveal the remarkable story of how the newly-established U.S. 8th Air Force is using the electromagnetic spectrum first, as cyber defense, then to conduct cyber missions such as defeating remotely triggered IED's in Iraq, conducting electronic warfare, halting terrorist use of the Global Positioning System and satellite communications and preventing jamming.
Location: The University Club, Fifth Ave at 54th St. Reservations are required and are limited by available space. They will be accepted in the order they are received until room capacity is reached. Admission is $45 to cover meeting costs. Meeting begins at 6:00 PM
TO RESERVE: Jerry Goodwin, 646-696-1828 or by email: afiometro@yahoo.com

17-19 April 2008 - London, UK - The German Historical Institute in London hosts "Keeping Secrets" conference. The German Historical Institute in London is hosting a conference entitled "Keeping Secrets:  How Important was intelligence to the conduct of international relations from 1914 to 1939." Among the scholars expected to speak are Zara Steiner, General William Odom, Christopher Andrew, Ernest May, Paul Kennedy, Gerhard Weinberg, Mark Lowenthal, Richard Aldrich, Georges-Henri Soutou, and David Kahn. The conference will take place at the institute in central London from 17 to 19 April. For further information write Karina Kurbach at <kurbach@ghil.ac.uk>

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

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