Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

FBI Agent Dismisses CIA Spy's Claim of Iran Ties to Pan Am 103 Bomb. Retired Special Agent Richard Marquise, who headed the FBI's investigation into the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, says there is no credible evidence for former Iranian double agent Reza Kahlili's claim that Iran downed the plane.

Moreover, Kahlili's claim that his CIA handlers weren't interested in hearing what he knew about it is ridiculous, Marquise said in an interview.

Kahlili (the name is a pseudonym) makes the claims in a memoir, "A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran," which has generated a lot of attention since it was published April 6. Its general theme is that Washington has underestimated the Iranian threat.

"I have read the parts about Lockerbie and did not see anything which was more than pure speculation on his part," says Marquise, who headed the FBI task force on the bombing and later wrote a book about the probe.

"He said his info came from some guy he met in London after the attack. He never mentions anything about having knowledge of the attack before, and no information that would substantiate how it could have happened."

Kahlili's allegations aren't nearly as specific in his book as they are in his interviews promoting it.

One news report summarizes Kahlili saying the CIA "didn't seem interested in [his] information, which included details on the type of radio transmitter used in the bomb and other details not publicly known."

But in the book, Khalili makes no claim of knowing technical details about the bomb, much less that the CIA wasn't interested in what he knew.

In interviews, however, he has expanded on the theme.

"Shortly after the Pan Am incident I was in Europe on a mission and I had met with Iranian agents somewhere in Europe," he told Roger L. Simon, the Hollywood writer and head of the Pajamas Media web site.

"We talked about the incident, they verified that Rafsanjani had ordered the Pan Am bombing and the retaliation for the Iranian airliner incident and they talked about a Palestinian suspect and the transistor - that the bomb was in the transistor radio... In my conversation with them I was convinced that this was an Iranian act. It was delivered, as promised, through their proxies."

Kahlili continues:

"I reported my findings to the CIA, gave the names of the agents. They were traced - their travels were traced; where they were before, what countries they had visited. I told them of their connection to the Iranian hierarchy and so that's where we left it off."

Kahlili said he "expected a follow-up," but "nothing happened."

"The new US administration, President Bush Senior, made an assessment that Hashimi Rafsanjani, the new president, is ready for a change in diplomatic relations...," he writes. George H.W. Bush wanted to move on.

Twenty years later, U.S. intelligence is still covering up the Iranian role in the Pan Am bombing, Kahlili hints darkly.

"In August 2009," he writes in his book, "Scottish authorities freed Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted for downing the plane, just when his legal team was ready to present U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency documents implicating Iran."

It's true that DIA sources did report, soon after the plane went down, that Iran orchestrated the bombing through Syria and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP.

And the FBI's Marquise, now retired, does acknowledge that Iran was first suspected of carrying out the bombing, because U.S. fighters had mistakenly downed an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf five months before.

But investigators eventually discounted the reports for lack of evidence, he said.

Amid the debris, Marquise recounted, an investigator found the main piece of evidence that eventually led to Libya's authorship of the crime: a piece of the circuit board that set off the bomb.

The FBI traced it to the head of a Swiss firm, who told them he had made only "20 or 21" of the type, "all of which were delivered to Libyan officials," Marquise said.

All the physical evidence pointed to Libya.

"Nothing ties Iran to the evidence," he declared. "There is no evidence, nothing that could be used in court, that ties Iran to those timers."

Asked for comment, Kahlili repeated the main points in his book and said, "I think the lack of investigation of Iran's involvement into Pan Am bombing and behind the scene negotiations between Rafsanjani and President Bush were related."

The December 1988 explosion high over Scotland killed all 270 aboard, including 180 Americans.

Last year Al-Megrahi was welcomed home a hero in Tripoli, following his release on medical grounds. Libyan leader Qadaffi also accepted responsibility for the Pan Am 103 bombing, paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the victim's families.

The CIA approved Kahlili's book for publication, but on Monday it had no comment on his PanAm 103 allegations. [Stein/WashingtonPost/12April2010] 

Senate Stalls Cyber Commander to Probe Digital War. When hackers a continent away attack a military computer system, using computers belonging to unsuspecting private citizens or businesses as cover, what are the rules when the U.S. fights back?

As U.S. officials struggle to put together plans to defend government networks, they are faced with questions about the rippling effects of retaliation. Taking action against a hacker could affect foreign countries, private citizens or businesses - ranging from hospitals to power plants - whose computers might get caught up in the electronic battle.

Difficult questions about how and when the U.S. military conducts electronic warfare have stalled the creation of the Pentagon's Cyber Command for months as senators dig into such scenarios involving the rules of the digital battlefield, according to congressional officials.

Government leaders have grown increasingly alarmed as U.S. computer networks face constant attacks, including complex criminal schemes and suspected cyber espionage by other nations, such as China. But the nation's ability to protect its networks and respond to attacks are largely kept secret because of national security concerns and the government's slowly evolving cyber security plans.

Electronic warfare by U.S. forces is not new. For example, in the Iraq war, U.S. forces jammed cellular phone networks in Fallujah in 2004 to disrupt communications between enemy insurgents, and interrupted radio signals designed to trigger roadside bombs.

But U.S. officials refuse to discuss any current offensive cyber operations or monitoring, particularly anything that involves other countries or terror organization.

The nomination of Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander to head Cyber Command has given senators leverage to delve into the complex world of cyber warfare. Later this week, a Senate committee will face off with Alexander during a hearing on his nomination.

The Cyber Command would oversee military networks and take on what U.S. authorities see as a growing national security threat - cyber terrorists looking to steal sensitive technologies, disrupt critical services, or infiltrate classified networks.

In recent months, according to several congressional officials, senators have called in defense officials for meetings, gathered for a Cyber 101 session with a top general, and put together dozens of pages of questions for the Pentagon and Alexander, digging into the military's rule book on electronic warfare.

In response, the Pentagon drafted carefully worded responses, walking a delicate line between satisfying the Senate's concerns while closely guarding the high-tech secrets of its digital weaponry, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

One concern involves Alexander's position as head of the National Security Agency, which oversees electronic intelligence-gathering. Lawmakers and others question whether the secretive spy agency should have control over cyber issues.

"We are obviously concerned about the nomination of Lt. Gen. Alexander," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "The NSA has broad authority to conduct electronic surveillance against U.S. citizens and the oversight system simply does not work."

Another issue, Rotenberg said, is that the NSA is seeking to expand its ability to monitor domestic communications through the development of Einstein 3, a government network monitoring system currently being tested. The program would both detect and take action against cyber attacks on federal systems.

Homeland Security Department officials began the Einstein 3 trial program late last summer, and started testing it on one federal agency's network traffic a couple weeks ago. Officials have not identified which agency is being used for the test, but have stressed all along that extensive privacy protections are in place.

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert and senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, downplayed the privacy concerns. The main issues, he said, involve who can authorize an offensive cyber strike, what are the command's legal authorities, and how will it interact with the NSA and DHS when other government or critical networks are attacked.

Lewis said Cyber Command, which will report to U.S. Strategic Command based in Omaha, Neb., would likely support the other agencies, much like the North American Aerospace Defense Command supports the Federal Aviation Administration. NORAD often launches fighters during aviation incidents - such as the bomb scare triggered by a Qatari diplomat earlier this week when the man reportedly slipped into the bathroom for a smoke and joked about trying to set his shoes on fire.

Several congressional officials said there is no strong opposition to Alexander taking on the dual NSA and Cyber Command posts. Still, senators have many questions. [AP/13April2010] 

FBI Invites Academics to Confer on Security. The Federal Bureau of Investigation will co-host a conference this month "to promote positive continuous dialogue between the U.S. Intelligence Community and the academic community." The conference will be held at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on April 29.

Topics of discussion will include the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which "has been an invaluable tool in providing advice to the FBI on the culture of higher education, including the traditions of openness, academic freedom, and international collaboration, while serving as a forum for discussion of national security issues."

In 2008, authors from the FBI and the Federation of American Scientists jointly reported on a survey of attitudes among scientists concerning interactions with the FBI. "The attitudes of scientists toward law enforcement personnel are not vastly different from those of the general public. However, a larger percentage of scientists indicated cooler feelings towards the FBI than the general public, suggesting that these reservations are particular to the scientific community and require specific solutions with the scientific community in mind," the survey found. "[S]cientists are suspicious of the FBI and feel that they do not work well with the scientific community."

"By taking steps to address suspicions early in any interaction and by treating scientists respectfully and professionally, law enforcement representatives are more likely to build a foundation of respect with their interaction and displace existing hostility," the authors suggested.  [SecrecyNews/13April2010]

Opening Statements Begin in Hawaii Spy Trial. Federal prosecutors accused a former B-2 stealth bomber engineer of betraying the U.S. by selling military secrets to China, but his defense countered that the information he passed on was "obvious" and "well-known."

Noshir Gowadia, 66, disclosed "vulnerabilities of our nation's most important strategic assets" and helped design a stealth cruise missile for China that would evade infrared sensors and defeat U.S. heat-seeking missiles, assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson told jurors during opening statements.

The India-born naturalized U.S. citizen did so - and also marketed his services to Switzerland, Israel and Germany - in part because he desperately needed more money to pay the mortgage on his mansion-like home overlooking Maui's North Shore, Sorenson said.

Gowadia has pleaded not guilty to 17 counts, including conspiracy, violating the arms export control act and money laundering. He has been held in federal detention since his October 2005 arrest because a judge decided he was a flight risk.

Gowadia's trial date has been repeatedly delayed over the past 4 1/2 years in part because lawyers on both sides needed time to review large volumes of classified evidence.

Defense attorney David Klein told jurors that the information his client passed to others wasn't classified, while the cruise-missile exhaust nozzle design that the engineer sold to China used obvious, well-known information.

But the prosecution quoted from a statement Gowadia gave to investigators in 2005, shortly before he was arrested, in which he allegedly acknowledged wrongdoing.

Klein told jurors Gowadia made that and other statements to federal investigators under severe pressure, noting agents ransacked Gowadia's home and interrogated him for nine days before his arrest.

"Gowadia decided he would tell investigators what they wanted to hear," Klein said. "He was scared for himself, his wife, his children."

Klein acknowledged his client exchanged e-mails with Chinese officials that included claims about the powerful capabilities of the exhaust nozzle. But Klein said a close examination of Gowadia's design showed it wouldn't perform as claimed.

"If the Chinese thought they were getting more than they were, he was OK with that," he said. "Because he knew the Chinese were getting nothing."

Both sides told jurors that from 1968 to 1986, Gowadia worked at Northrop Corp., now Northrop Grumman Corp., and that he helped design the propulsion system for the B-2 stealth bomber.

Sorenson said Gowadia first relayed classified information to China about the B-2 bomber to establish his bona fides. Gowadia later relayed more classified information by designing a low-observable exhaust nozzle for a Chinese cruise missile, he said.

The prosecutor outlined six trips Gowadia made to China between 2003 and 2005. The first trip was to establish contacts there and be vetted by the Chinese government, and then later to explain and test his cruise missile designs, he said.

Gowadia approached China because he wanted to sell military secrets - not the other way around, Sorenson said.

"He was a walk-in. He walked in to the Chinese. He wanted to sell himself, and the Chinese were more than happy to deal with him," Sorenson said.

The trial is expected to last into July. [ABCNews/14April2010] 

A U.S. General Revises Assessment of Afghan War. Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the top military intelligence official who only four months ago warned that "time is running out" in Afghanistan, offered a sharply different, upbeat picture of the war during an unheralded recent visit to a Kabul think tank.

"Peace in Afghanistan [is] so close," Flynn reportedly said at the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies, a pro-government think tank which conducts research on the war effort and the Taliban insurgency.

Flynn also recommended the power of positive thinking as a key solution to ending the war successfully, according the center's account, which received virtually no attention here.

"General Flynn described Afghanistan as a human body that required positive messages to stay healthy," according to the center, which is headed by Hekmat Karzai, a relative of the Afghan president who has degrees from the University of Maryland and American University.

Flynn maintained the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force "had learned from its past mistakes and that it was now time to be proactive with a new message."

"To do this effectively," Flynn added, "Afghans must be that messenger."

But at a recent international conference on Afghanistan, the general said, he was disappointed "that not a single Afghan perspective was present at the conference."

It was not clear what conference Flynn was citing. He could not be reached to verify his remarks.

In late December, Flynn offered a decidedly pessimistic prognosis on the war, warning that "the Afghan insurgency can sustain itself indefinitely."

"Regional instability is rapidly increasing and getting worse," he said in his report, "The State of the Insurgency: Trends, Intentions and Objectives."

"Flynn's presentation.... may be the gloomiest public assessment of the war yet," Wired magazine's Noah Shachtman wrote.

Days later Flynn released a blistering report on U.S. intelligence efforts in Afghanistan, writing that, "Our senior leaders - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, Congress, the President of the United States - are not getting the right information to make decisions with...The media is driving the issues."

Our Post colleague Tom Ricks, writing at Foreign Policy.com, called it "one of the most informative documents I've ever read on contemporary intelligence issues. I think you should stop reading this blog and read it now!" [Stein/WashingtonPost/14April2010] 

US Halts Aid to Tainted Colombian Spy Agency. The United States has suspended aid to Colombia's DAS intelligence agency, whose agents are accused of illegally wiretapping President Alvaro Uribe's opponents, journalists and top court magistrates.

The scandal is the latest to blemish the Colombian government under Uribe, a U.S. ally who must step down this year after two terms during which he took a tough stand against leftist rebels and cocaine traffickers.

Uribe's former defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, is the favorite to succeed him in a May vote, but he now faces a growing challenge from independent candidate Antanas Mockus, a former Bogota mayor who promises more clean government.

The U.S. ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield, said cooperation aid to the Administrative Security Department, or DAS, would be transferred to the national police and the attorney general's office's CIT investigative unit.

"What the U.S. government has done is transfer the collaboration we had with the DAS to other institutions, primarily the national police and the CIT," Brownfield said in remarks broadcast on local radio on Wednesday.

The U.S. Embassy did not provide details of the amount of aid given the DAS. But officials say U.S. cooperation with the DAS covered joint and regional counter-drug operations, including providing equipment.

Scores of high-ranking DAS agents were fired after the telephone bugging scandal broke in 2009 and at least seven intelligence agents have been charged in the case by the attorney general's office.

The government denies any of its officials ordered DAS agents to spy on opposition leaders, journalists and judges, and it says those responsible should be jailed. Uribe has ordered the DAS dismantled and a new intelligence body created.

The DAS works has been plagued by a series of scandals and ties to drug traffickers.

Washington has provided Colombia with more than $5 billion in mostly anti-narcotics and military aid since 2000 to help fight drug smugglers and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC.

Violence, kidnapping and bombings from the long war have ebbed. But Colombia still remains the world's top cocaine exporter and state security officials, police and soldiers are occasionally caught up in drug-trafficking corruption.

The popular Uribe has managed to brush off other scandals while in office, and Santos leads in the polls for the May 30 election. But analysts say such scandals may benefit the campaign of Mockus, who has recently jumped to second place ahead of Conservative Party candidate Noemi Sanin.

Colombia is also pressing for a free trade agreement with the United States, but U.S. Democrats, who control Congress, say they want the Andean country to do more to crack down on rights abuses by the armed forces and improve protection of labor organizers.  [Markey/Alternet/14April2010] 

CIA Names New Deputy as Veteran Steps Down. The Central Intelligence Agency's second in command, who played a key role in stabilizing the agency but also had a hand in the agency's controversial counterterrorism programs, is set to retire next month.

The move may be followed by additional departures, agency veterans said.

Stephen Kappes, the deputy director of the CIA, stayed on into the Obama administration at the request of the president and Director Leon Panetta. He had planned to retire at the end of the Bush administration, but the Obama team prevailed on him to stay into 2010, officials said.

The head of the agency's Intelligence Directorate, Michael Morell, will succeed Mr. Kappes. That move will maintain continuity in running CIA. Messrs. Kappes and Morell were part of the leadership team Mr. Panetta's predecessor recruited in 2006 when he sought to stabilize the beleaguered agency.

A retired Marine, Mr. Kappes has cut a larger than life figure at the agency and was often more feared than liked, colleagues said. He's been a key interlocutor with leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya and had been favored by the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee to run the agency under President Barack Obama.

Among his more significant achievements was the key role he played in securing a 2003 agreement with Libya to abandon its nuclear-weapons program.

Mr. Kappes quit the agency in 2004 after an angry clash with aides to then-CIA director Porter Goss over the dismissal of a close colleague and was coaxed back by then-director Michael Hayden, when he took the reins from Mr. Goss in 2006.

"He's the one who has held everything together in very difficult times," a former colleague said.

He stayed on as deputy director under Mr. Panetta to provide continuity in the new administration, and Mr. Panetta has relied heavily on his knowledge of the agency and its operations, agency veterans said. "He has helped me tremendously in guiding this great organization," Mr. Panetta wrote in a memo to agency employees Wednesday. He'll leave next month.

The appointment of Mr. Morell, a 30-year veteran of the agency, will maintain continuity in CIA leadership. "He's the obvious choice," Mr. Hayden said in an interview Wednesday.

But Mr. Morell, a longtime analyst who was the lead officer for the president's daily brief early in the Bush administration, brings to the job a very different skill set. He's more liked than feared, former colleagues said.

Mr. Morell will handle managerial decisions, former colleagues said, but some of the operational decisions that Mr. Kappes handled will likely fall to the head of agency operations, Michael Sulick.

However, Mr. Sulick, who quit along with Mr. Kappes in 2004 and returned in 2006, may also be making plans to retire, agency veterans said. [Gorman/WSJ/14April2010] 

Canada's Spy Service Increasingly Follows Money Down Terror Trail. Canada's spy agency says it increasingly follows the money in the fight against terrorism.

In its annual public report released Wednesday, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says piecing together the financial trail has become an essential step in tackling extremism. CSIS notes certain terrorist networks manage their financial operations much like multinational corporations, complete with bank accounts in different countries.

Some make global investments to launder illicit funds.

The spy service says most terrorist networks commit traditional crimes including theft, forgery and kidnapping to fund their agendas.

CSIS works with the federal anti-money laundering agency, the Canada Revenue Agency, the RCMP and international partners to try to trace funds.

"Financial intelligence is growing in importance as an element of all these investigations as a number of countries attempt to piece together the fragments of terrorism's elusive trail," CSIS director Dick Fadden says in the report - his first as chief.

CSIS's foreign role has continued to grow, including support of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan and work to help locate and free Canadians kidnapped abroad by terrorist groups, the report adds.

The greatest international terrorist threat to Canada and its interests in 2008-09 continued to emanate from al-Qaida and its affiliates in places like North Africa, CSIS says. [AP/14April2010] 

Ex-NSA Worker Charged in Classified Leak Case. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency was charged with lying and obstruction of justice in an investigation of leaks of classified information to a newspaper.

Federal prosecutors said Thomas Drake, 52, served as a source for many articles about the NSA in an unidentified newspaper, including articles that contained classified information.

A federal indictment filed in Maryland charges that Drake used a non-government e-mail account to transmit classified and unclassified information. Authorities also charge that Drake lied to federal agents about what he'd done.

The indictment does not identify the reporter, the newspaper, or the subject matter of the stories. It says the stories were published between February 2006 and November 2007.

"Our national security demands that the sort of conduct alleged here - violating the government's trust by illegally retaining and disclosing classified information - be prosecuted and prosecuted vigorously," said the Justice Department's assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer.

Drake faces five counts of willfully retaining documents related to national defense. He is also charged with obstruction of justice and four counts of making false statements to the FBI.

The most serious charge in the 10-count indictment carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Drake exchanged hundreds of e-mails with the reporter, researched stories for the reporter by asking other NSA employees questions and accessing classified documents, and sent the reporter copies of classified and unclassified documents. [AP/15April2010] 

Former MI6 Man Sent for Old Bailey Trial. A former MI6 officer has been sent for trial at the Old Bailey, accused of attempting to sell secret intelligence files.

Daniel Houghton, 25, of Hoxton, north London, was arrested in March in an undercover operation.

He is charged with stealing and disclosing classified files containing intelligence-gathering techniques used by MI5, the domestic security service.

He allegedly stole the files between September 2007 and May 2009.

Mr. Houghton is alleged to have taken them while working for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service.

It is alleged he tried to sell the files but was caught in an undercover operation involving intelligence services and Scotland Yard police at a London hotel on 1 March.

He was remanded in custody by City of Westminster magistrates and will appear at the Old Bailey on 29 April. [BBC/16April2010] 

CIA To Release Documents of 1968 Invasion. The CIA is scheduled to release some previously classified intelligence documents showing how the United States was watching the buildup to the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The release of hundreds of pages will be part of a symposium at the Lyndon Baines Johnson presidential library in Austin.

They include an Aug. 2 warning that Moscow had built a large invasion force in about two weeks. Eighteen days later, troops started rolling into Czechoslovakia to crush liberal political, economic and social reforms. [DallasNews/16April2010]

South Afghan Attacks Show Need for Intelligence. An Afghan official called for better intelligence on insurgent activities to help prevent attacks like the dual bombings in the southern city of Kandahar that killed at least three people.

Thursday's attacks on a hotel and compound housing foreign companies showed how vulnerable targets remain in the city where NATO forces are gearing up for a major operation to drive out the Taliban. The Kandahar region is the hard-line Islamist movement's spiritual homeland and remains one of Afghanistan's least developed and most volatile areas.

Ahmad Wali Karzai, a high-ranking official in Kandahar and the Afghan president's half brother, said Friday that 2,000 additional police pledged last month were sufficient, but the key to better security was obtaining inside knowledge of insurgent planning.

"That is enough. There is no need for more security," he said, adding that the main responsibility for foiling further attacks - especially suicide bombings - lay with the Afghan intelligence service, known by its initials, NDS.

"But even then, if someone wants to kill himself it is very difficult to find and stop him," Karzai said.

Along with adding police, authorities have stepped up roadblocks in and around Kandahar city in hopes of disrupting militant activity. Despite that, the Taliban maintains a visible presence in large swaths of the region and parts of the city remain a no-go area for security forces, especially after dark.

The death toll from the latest attacks remained unclear. Karzai initially reported three foreigners and three Afghans were killed in the more powerful of the two explosions that occurred after sundown when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle at the inner security barrier of a compound shared by several Western companies.

However, Kandahar's provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa, said at a news conference Friday that no foreigners had been killed in the attack. He said 10 foreigners were among 26 people wounded, including three Americans and a South African. The nationalities of the others were not immediately known, Wesa said.

NATO said 10 of the wounded were evacuated to its hospital in Kandahar, but gave no information on their nationalities or medical status.

The blast blew out windows as far as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away, including those at Karzai's home. The compound includes the offices of the international contracting company Louis Berger Group, the Afghanistan Stabilization Initiative and the aid contracting company Chemonics International.

Earlier Thursday, a remotely detonated car bomb went off in front of the Noor Jehan Hotel, which includes the offices of several foreign news organizations, wounding eight people and shattering windows in the four-story building.

Kandahar, with a population of about 500,000, has been shaken repeatedly by attacks in recent weeks. On March 13, a suicide squad detonated bombs at a newly fortified prison, police headquarters and two other locations in a failed attempt to free Taliban prisoners. At least 30 people died in the blasts. [Khan/AP/16April2010] 

Taiwanese Businessman Indicted for Spying in China. A Taiwanese businessman with operations in China was indicted by the Shihlin Prosecutors Office for spying for China.

Ho Chih-chiang, a China-based Taiwanese businessman, had been recruited by China's national security authorities since 2007 to collect Taiwanese national security secrets in return for financial subsidies and other privileges, the indictment said.

Acting under the instructions of Chinese officials, Ho returned to Taiwan and tried to recruit a Taiwan National Security Bureau (NSB) officer, surnamed Chao, to serve as a Chinese spy by collecting information related to the government's policies on Falun Gong, Tibetan independence, Japan and diplomacy, between December 2008 and February this year.

Ho also offered Chao US$20,000, liquor and additional pay several times that of Chao's retirement pension in exchange for information on NSB overseas deployments and its satellite communication routings, but this was rejected by Chao.

Ho was indicted on charges of bribery and of violating laws on national security and on protection of national secrets. [Chang-shun&Lee/FocusTaiwan/15April2010]

Government Uses NSA Tool to Detect Thumb Drives on Network. USB thumb drives and other portable storage devices offer a lot of convenience, but they also pose some unique security challenges. We have seen incidents over the years where misplaced thumb drives led to the accidental exposure of sensitive information or were used as an attack vector to infect networks that would otherwise be difficult to infiltrate.

Although having strong IT security policies can help reduce the risks, it's not always easy to enforce such policies. The NSA built a tool, called USBDetect, that is designed to help government agencies track the usage of USB storage devices on their internal networks. The tool is not publicly available, but is briefly described in a section of the NSA's 2011 budget proposal, which was highlighted yesterday by NextGov defense technology blogger Bob Brewin.

"A Computer Network Defense Tool developed by NSA, USBDetect 3.0, is available to U.S. Government (USG) users free of charge. USBDetect gathers data (locally or on a network) from personal computers running Microsoft Windows 2000 or later operating systems, and reports unauthorized usage of Universal Serial Bus (USB) thumb (a.k.a. flash) drives, external hard drives, compact disk drives, and other storage devices," the budget proposal says. "The USBDetect tool provides USG network administrators and system security officials with an automated capability to detect the introduction of USB storage devices into their networks."

The NSA characterizes the development of USBDetect 3.0 as one of its major accomplishments for the fiscal year 2009. Previous versions of the tool date back to 2008, when its use by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was documented in an Office of the Inspector General report about DHS IT policies relating to removable storage.

The NSA budget proposal lists several of the agency's other accomplishments for 2009, including the development of a Secure Mobile Environment-Portable Electronic Device (SME-PED) platform, which is basically a high-security, multifunction smartphone that is certified for handling Top Secret classified voice communication, as well as e-mails that are classified at the Secret level.

The agency's goals for 2011 include continuing to advance Public Key Infrastructure standards, begin rolling out the High Assurance Platform Release 2, and developing new products to enable interoperability between the cryptographic tools used by the US government and those of foreign allies. The agency will also continue playing a key role in overseeing the Department of Defense's Cryptographic Modernization Program. [Paul/ARSTechnica/16April2010] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Statement to Employees by Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Leon E. Panetta on Senior Leadership Changes. When I came to the CIA in February of 2009, I was extremely pleased that Steve Kappes agreed to stay on as my Deputy. He was a great partner and I, like so many others, valued his advice and experience. Steve is a one-of-a-kind professional who has dedicated himself to the CIA. He has helped me tremendously in guiding this great organization. Having worked side-by-side on some of the toughest issues around, I'm proud to call him a friend.

Throughout his life, Steve has put the needs of others first, as he did in returning to the CIA in the summer of 2006. He hadn't planned on so lengthy a stay this time around. So when he told me a few months ago that it was time for him to move on, I understood. Steve has, to put it simply, more than met the highest standards of duty to the nation. He excels at what he does, because he embodies the very best of this outfit - skill and loyalty, dedication and discipline, integrity and candor. He also has, if you know him, one hell of a sense of humor.

After a superb career of public service that stretches back to the mid-1970s, when Steve was in the United States Marine Corps, he deserves the gratitude of his colleagues and his country. As he prepares to retire in May, I know I speak for every one of you when I wish him and his family all the good things.

It was, of course, crucial to both of us that we find an outstanding successor. Today, as we celebrate the achievements of one extraordinary public servant, I am announcing the promotion of another. I have asked Michael Morell, a 30-year veteran of the Agency, to become our next Deputy Director. Michael, as many of you know, has spent much of his career in the Directorate of Intelligence, most recently as its chief. He has also been a Presidential briefer, and was, from July 2006 until May 2008, CIA's Associate Deputy Director. His focus in that assignment was the administration of the Agency as a whole, assisting and advising the Director on key policy and personnel matters.

Michael has been part of the senior team for almost four years now. He knows the CIA from top to bottom. He understands intelligence as few others do - from collection and analysis to interaction with our customers. Michael has not only seen how the pieces fit together, he's actually brought them together. He comes to his newest task with a powerful intellect, proven leadership skills, and a deep familiarity with the ways of Washington and the world at large. Michael is someone who builds and improves, someone who takes great pride in the men and women who make this Agency the finest it can be.

Once Michael assumes his new duties, Fran Moore, Deputy Director for Intelligence, will move up to become Director for Intelligence. Fran has been in the Directorate of Intelligence front office since August 2008. She joined the Agency in 1983, and has held leadership positions in several Directorates, shaping our efforts in counterterrorism and counterintelligence, among other disciplines. She doesn't just tell you what she knows - she tells you how she knows it, how confident she is about it, and what we still need to learn. Fran is the consummate analyst and leader of analysts, insisting on absolute rigor while looking out for the people who do the work.

Three months ago, I named Stephanie O'Sullivan as our new Associate Deputy Director. After leading the Directorate of Science and Technology for more than four years, she has settled into her role as supervisor of the day-to-day operations of our vital and complex Agency. She is an exceptionally creative manager and problem solver. Stephanie blends clear, common-sense thinking with a profound respect for those around her. I rely on her counsel and trust in her judgment.

You've heard me say it before, but it's a message worth repeating: It is a real privilege for me to be your Director. As someone who's been around this town for 40 years, and has had some great jobs, I'll tell you that there is no more important mission than the one we share. More than anything else, it's the people here who make it that way - people like you, and people like those I've talked about in this note. I am extremely proud of all of you, and particularly proud of those we honor today. There is no better team to do the job of protecting the nation.

Please join me in congratulating our colleagues on these new chapters in their lives. [Panetta/CIA.gov/14April2010] 

Fleming's James Bond Novels Sell Big. Collectors purchased the top nine lots at Swann Auction Galleries' April 8 auction of the Penzler Collection of Espionage.

The sale's top lot was an archive of correspondence between Ian Fleming and dust jacket artist Richard Chopping. The correspondence concerned Fleming's famous James Bond books and sold for $57,600. A first edition copy of the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, 1953, by Fleming, brought $33,600. A 1955 first edition of Fleming's Moonraker, inscribed and signed by the author sold for $50,400.

"The Flemings took off as expected, but no one anticipated the runaway success of Moonraker and the archive of Fleming letters," said Christine von der Linn, Swann's 19th and 20th century literature specialist. "The fame and renown of Penzler and his collection brought in crowds from both sides of the globe, most of whom were keen collectors." [AntiqueTrader/16April2010] 

Section III - COMMENTARY

CIA Spies and Dartmouth Deans, by Scott Johnson.  Ishmael Jones is the pseudonymous former Central Intelligence Agency case officer who focused on human sources with access to intelligence on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. His assignments included more than 15 years of continuous overseas service under deep cover. He is the author of The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture, published by Encounter Books and just out in paperback.

We invited Mr. Jones to write something for us on a theme related to his book. He has followed up with the following post on a subject close to our heart:

"A challenge to free societies today is the growth in size, power, and cost of highly paid, non-producing administrators and bureaucrats. These Soviet-style nomenklatura classes can stifle the fundamental missions of organizations. As a former CIA officer involved in intelligence reform, much of the work I do is aimed at the systemic control of bureaucracy.

"In the CIA, bureaucracy weakens intelligence collection and makes Americans vulnerable to attack. At a college such as Dartmouth, which Power Line editors have followed closely, bureaucracy must be carefully monitored or it will hinder undergraduate education.

"Study of the CIA's clandestine service is helpful in the analysis of other organizations because its use of secrecy, essential for conducting espionage operations, also allows it to avoid accountability. It is a Petri dish that shows how bureaucracy can grow if unimpeded.

"Bureaucracy perverts human nature. The CIA is filled with brave, talented, patriotic, and energetic people, but the system does not encourage clandestine work. Clandestine work is hard and lonely, and it takes place in dingy hotel rooms in dysfunctional countries, far from family. Any CIA officer who goes to hunt bin Laden, for example, will be living in tough and dangerous conditions for long periods of time. Absence from CIA headquarters means the officer will not develop the connections, friendships and administrative skills necessary for advancement. Any CIA officer who goes to hunt bin Laden will return years later, unknown and unpromoteable. Espionage has come to be regarded as low-level work, meant for newly trained employees or the naive. It's much better to become a headquarters manager, with regular hours, low stress, plenty of time with the family, and stronger promotion possibilities.

" At an educational institution like Dartmouth, which like many universities has seen a dramatic increase in administrative staff, an administrative job can be attractive. If a dean is considered more important than an educator, there will be strong pressure to create more positions for deans and to become a dean oneself. Undergraduate education means hard work. Undergraduates can be exasperating and rebellious. At the end of each term they might write unpleasant evaluations of professors which can be read by everyone on campus. It's much better to seek power, rank, and closer access to Dartmouth 's president and board by becoming an administrator.

"I once attended a meeting at CIA headquarters with a group of bureaucrats and was astonished to see that an admired friend and colleague had joined their ranks. He'd once done brave work in tracking nuclear proliferators in Africa . We laughed about his transition to bureaucrat, and he apologized for his sloth, but pointed out that his new path led to promotion, more money, and the chance to make big bucks some day through CIA contracts. He'd found a job for his wife as an administrator as well, and she sat in a nearby office. The CIA finds it easier to live a bureaucratic lifestyle within the United States - no getting arrested by foreign intelligence services, no hassles, clean drinking water. More than 90% of CIA employees now live and work entirely within the United States , which is in violation of the CIA's charter. The number of effective CIA officers operating overseas under deep cover is almost insignificant.

"Professional relationships don't need much of the administrative support that bureaucracy thrives upon. Good intelligence can usually be sent directly to the person who needs it - the President, military commanders, law enforcement - without much supervision. Bureaucrats just slow it down. Intelligence on the "Underwear Bomber" was available at the US embassy in Nigeria in November 2009, thanks to the bomber's father, but the information could not be pushed through the masses of supervisors during the five weeks before the bomber boarded the plane.

"Professional educators, like CIA officers, require little supervision and should not be burdened with excessive deans and other administrative personnel. Dartmouth professors such as John Rassias, renowned for his decades of close interaction with students, need little supervision. More importantly, such educators should not be removed from their fundamental work to become administrators themselves.

"The real dollar cost of bureaucrats is much greater than their salaries and benefits alone, because bureaucrats strive to look busy and to rise within the establishment, to control more funds and people. So they invent programs. A CIA contractor may take home $300k and his or her spouse another $300, with benefits at perhaps another $50k. We can still bear this burden. What we cannot bear are the $100 million programs these people create in order to advance themselves. Programs crowd out real espionage, which doesn't cost much. Good operations need only the cost of hotel rooms, airline tickets, and payments to sources.

"If highly paid employees at a college are not involved in education, then what are they doing? I suspect many are doing the same things that CIA managers do in Washington , DC: attending meetings, drawing up budgets, jockeying for position and influence, solidifying their political power, and doing whatever it takes to look busy.

"Bureaucracy's effect on human nature is fascinating. Its growth into a living creature within the CIA provides important lessons and warnings for the design and leadership of other institutions.

Mr. Jones has set up a site for his book here. He writes that all book profits go to veterans' charities. [Johnson/PowerlineBlog/12April2010] 

Is the U.S. Prepared for a Major Cyber Attack to Hit? by Lee LeClair. Ever since August 2008, when a cyber attack on the country of Georgia's government, media, and banking sites occurred just prior to an armed incursion from Russia, the reality of cyber warfare has been near the top of the to-do list for governments everywhere. So during the first chaos of real battle, the general population and government had to deal with non-functioning sites for news, information, money and government operations.

Analysis after the attack highlighted that determining the identity of who is responsible for a cyber attack is very difficult.

Less than a month after the Georgia attack, North Korea purportedly used Spear phishing attacks on specific South Korean military officials whose e-mails were actively harvested for attack purposes.

Spear phishing is a specialized form of attack. Specific individuals are targeted and sent customized e-mails that often contain malware or link to sites that contain malware designed to steal their information or otherwise compromise their computer. Spear phishing is much more difficult to detect than broad-based phishing attacks because the emails are typically customized to the individual receiving them.

This year, targeted attacks that appear to have originated in China were directed at more than 20 high-profile American companies from multiple sectors including the Internet, Google, finance, technology, media, and chemical sectors. These were mostly intended to steal information rather than damage and disrupt, but could accomplish both goals by stealing information and depositing disruptive malware programs.

The response from the U.S. military has been the creation of a new Cyber Command to combat the cyber threat offensively and defensively. Congressional hearings are underway to choose a commander for the group.

Lieutenant General Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and chief of the Central Security Service, is one of the leading nominees. There are concerns however, by some who believe that if someone holds both positions it could provide too much cyber power for one individual.

Alexander has already publicly stated his position that knowing the specific identity of one's attacker should not be necessary to begin taking immediate action, just as police and soldiers do not need to know the exact identity of who is shooting at them.

In real terms, what might take place with a cyber attack on a country?

Just as with Russia and Georgia, targets would likely include commercial, government, media and financial sites. The goal being to disrupt communications, functions, and operations as well as generation of public panic to further divert military and civil operations.

For example, much of the U.S. Department of Defense relies upon a Web-based system which most military and civil personnel must use to book their travel. The potential is obvious.

In addition, targeting infrastructure such as the electrical power grid, seems like it might be helpful to an enemy. Imagine the chaos of huge tracts of homes and businesses as well as government offices without power. Similarly, targeting banks, media outlets and mobile telephony providers would be panic-inducing.

Is the nation prepared? It hardly seems like it. Most commercial and government agencies continue to get poor grades from publicized IT security reviews. Even attacks on tech-savvy commercial entities such as Google often seem successful.

The difficulty in dealing with attacks is the complex nature of defense. Often organizations can detect and deal with outright and obvious attacks like some denial-of-service attacks with their routers, firewalls and intrusion detection systems. But it's more difficult to stop a spear phishing attack on specific, important, and usually non-technical individuals via e-mail.

Other attacks use an organization's applications and exploit flaws in the actual code of the application, something most firewalls are powerless to stop.

What will it take to beef up our cyber defenses? Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet. It takes more than technical appliances like firewalls, spam filters, and antivirus software to "just deal with it" for security issues. It requires training, education, and awareness at all levels of an organization as well as clear processes and understandable policies.

I hope we have it in us to get it together or it will be a rude awakening indeed when a major cyber attack hits. [LeClair/AzBiz/16April2010] 

Tectonic Shifts at CIA, by Philip Giraldi. Last week's surprise resignation of Stephen Kappes as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was at least partly due to disagreements over how to spy. Kappes is an experienced clandestine service operator with particular expertise in operations directed against Middle Eastern and terrorist targets. He is regarded as a hard liner who endorsed many of the questionable interrogation and incarceration policies initiated by George Tenet, but he also supports maintaining the CIA's traditional emphasis on classic espionage operations. Kappes favored using resources to build up cadres of agents inside Iran and other countries viewed as hostile that could both be a source of information and could ultimately influence developments.

Kappes had previously retired after disagreements with Director Porter Goss but was brought back into the agency to provide both experience and stability. He is being replaced by CIA senior analyst Mike Morell. Agency insiders believe the replacement of Kappes by an analyst is a reflection of the fact that the CIA no longer emphasizes agent handling, referred to as tradecraft, and has instead become a video-game-like targeting and killing machine that is an integral part of the so-called global war on terror. High tech shooting galleries do not require much in the way of traditional espionage skills, which are largely being lost at CIA as case officers who actually spent their time developing, recruiting, and running agents retire. [Giraldi/AmConMag/18April2010] 

The Enemy Within: An Ugly Dossier of Espionage is Revealed, by Gustavo Silva Cano. While I was an exchange student at L'Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, otherwise known as Sciences Po, I took a class called 'Intelligence Agencies in Democratic Societies'. My professor was an interesting fellow, very knowledgeable about the inner workings of the American CIA, the British MI6, and the French Renseignements G�neraux (RG), among other agencies. To be honest, I did not pay much attention in class throughout the semester, partly because I ended up in that course by some mistake of Science Po's scheduling software. However, an event in Colombia last week reminded me of some of the things I learned in that class and I would like to start take this column from there.

On one of our first sessions in that class, I had to give an oral presentation about the following question: Is espionage a transhistorical phenomenon? In other words, is espionage (euphemistically called 'intelligence' in modern times) an element inherent to human civilization? Soon after I started my research, some ancient voices spoke to me with a very clear answer.

Sun Tzu, a Chinese military strategist who lived around the year 500 BC and author of the classic 'The Art of War', wrote the following words: "Whether the object be to crush an army, to storm a city, or to assassinate an individual, it is always necessary to begin by finding out the names of the attendants, the aides-de-camp, and door-keepers and sentries of the general in command. Our spies must be commissioned to ascertain these." Sun Tzu kept talking to me with that soft and reptile-like voice of his: "Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies. None should be more liberally rewarded. In no other business should greater secrecy be preserved."

Besides Sun Tzu, I found other men of ancient times who also used spies to weaken their enemies. The Book of Deuteronomy (1:22) tells of how Moses decided to use espionage against the people of Canaan: "Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report." On his side, Kautilya (born circa 350 BC), a strategist and an advisor to an Indian emperor, wrote in his treatise on statecraft, 'The Arthashastra', that a piece of information brought by spy could only be trusted until there was confirmation from two other independent sources. The Pharaoh Ramses II is also said to have defeated the Hittites thanks to his network of counterespionage, which realized that two seemingly repentant Hittite soldiers were actually giving false information to the Egyptians on purpose.

So yes, espionage is as old as human civilization. It is a weapon of war - and perhaps the only one that can be used during peacetime. It involves secrecy and deceit. By definition, there can be no such thing as 'clean' or 'decent' espionage. It is a dirty game of lies, fabrications and backstabbing. And that is precisely the reason why 'intelligence' and 'legal' usually do not mix well together in modern Western societies. How can you wiretap someone's telephone in order to prevent them from committing a crime, without violating their right to privacy and the presumption of innocence? How strong should be the indication that someone is a threat to others in order for the state to be allowed to trigger its espionage machinery against him? If getting a warrant from a judge is a requirement for conducting 'legal' spying on somebody, could that judicial procedure alert that person who, in turn, could act to hide all his wrongdoings? There are no easy answers to these questions.

All this rambling about espionage is part of this column for a reason. Last week, the office of Colombia's Prosecutor General made public a series of documents that had been taken from the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), one of the country's intelligence agencies. The information that those documents contain is truly hair-raising. For a long time, Colombia has known that DAS had wiretapped the telephones of some magistrates of the Supreme Court, of politicians in opposition, of certain journalists who were critical of the government, and even of certain officials who work directly for the President. However, what the Office of the Prosecutor General published this week is even worse. According to a witness in the investigation, DAS eavesdropped on some of the private meetings of the Supreme Court, when the magistrates were discussing topics like the President's possible re-election or the extradition of drug offenders to the US. According to the witness, DAS had been doing that in order to give that information to government officials, something that still has to be proven.

And if listening secretly to the discussions of the Supreme Court does not look bad enough to you, read this. Some of the documents show that DAS orchestrated a wide-ranging campaign to discredit opposition politicians and create them legal trouble. The documents have titles like "Political War" and they outline the objectives of several DAS operations. Those documents clearly say things like: "Piedad C�rdoba (a Senator from the Liberal Party): Create links with the AUC... Horacio Serpa Uribe (current governor of the department of Santander): Create links with ELN... Gustavo Petro (current presidential candidate for the Polo Democr�tico): Generate links with FARC". Other DAS documents explicitly pinpoint some NGOs (for instance, Redepaz), international organizations (such as the European Human Rights Commission and the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights), and a law firm (CCAJAR) as targets of "sabotage" and "discredit". The document that describes the actions that will be taken against CCAJAR reads: "Create links between CCAJAR and ELN... ACTION: Exchanging a message with an ELN commander, which will be found during a raid". In other words, DAS planned to forge evidence to put the CCAJAR lawyers in jail.

If these documents are real, and there are reasons to believe that they are, somebody has some serious explaining to do. DAS seems to have forgotten that we do not live in Sun Tzu or Kautilya's times of sovereigns with unlimited power and no accountability. If Colombia wants to deserve the name of 'democracy' and 'free nation' (and not a 'partly free' one, as the Freedom House has it), then all this illegal espionage must cease immediately. Perhaps nobody at DAS has been informed that Colombia is a republic of citizens, and not a tyranny of subjects. And citizens have rights. This situation is simply unacceptable, and I would like to see some heads roll. I am not keeping my hopes up, though.

If you have read my previous columns, you certainly know that I am one of those Colombians who are deeply thankful to President Uribe for all the good changes he has brought to Colombia. To be sure, I am the most uribista of all the columnists in Colombia Reports, and I have written in favor of the government's actions many times. But not this once. The Supreme Court, opposition politicians, NGOs, international organizations - all those must be off limits for the state's intelligence apparatus. Unless there is clear and overwhelming indication that someone is associated with terrorists (and simply agreeing with them does not qualify as such), he cannot be spied on. And do not even get me started on the forgery of evidence. That is immoral, illegal, and disgusting.

As Juan Gossa�n, one of Colombia's most influential journalists said recently in an excellent radio editorial, it is time that we understand that the government and the state are not the same thing. The political enemies of the ruling administration are not the enemies of the state. On the contrary, they have the right and the duty to dissent and to argue against the government. To have an active opposition is the only road to democracy. The government has to win against them in the battlefield of ideas and policymaking, not through wiretapping and fabrications. The enemy within, it seems to me, is not the opposition or the Supreme Court, but a bunch of power hungry DAS agents and their self-righteous masters.

I hope that those who ordered these illegalities face justice and pay for their actions. Many questions are still unanswered, and given the incredibly slow pace of the Colombian judiciary, as well as the interests involved in this case, chances are that nothing will happen. I hope I am wrong. But if I learned something from that class in Paris is that states have used and abused their intelligence machineries since times immemorial. The challenge of democracy is to restrain these organizations that work mostly in secret, accountable to very few people. It remains to be seen whether Colombia's fragile democracy is up to that task. [Cano/ColombiaReports/18April2010]

Section IV - BOOKS, OBITUARIES AND COMING EVENTS

Books

The NSA Leak. Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media and the Rule of Law, by Gabriel Schoenfeld, reviewed by Shannen Coffin. I'm in the process of reviewing Gabriel Schoenfeld's forthcoming book Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media and the Rule of Law for National Review. It is an important book on the difficult issues presented by going after leakers of classified information and, just as importantly, the newspapers who profit by knowingly publishing the leaked information. Prosecutors always have to balance the dangers of disclosing more information in the criminal process and raising the profile of the leaked information, on one hand, with the need to protect national security information. Throw into the mix the First Amendment rights for which most reporters are willing to go to jail, and you've got a difficult problem. It will be interesting to see how the Drake prosecution will play out. But for a marvelous read of the history of leaks and the government's attempts to grapple with them, check out Schoenfeld's book when it comes out. [Coffin/NRO/14April2010]

Obituaries

Samuel B. Harman Hopler. Samuel B. Harman Hopler died on April 14, 2010 at St. Peters Hospital, Helena, Montana under Hospice care.

Sam was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on May 30, 1926. He attended school in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and graduated from Porter Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina. He served in the United States Navy Flight Program from 1943 to 1946. He graduated from The Citadel in Charleston in 1950.

He was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency from 1950 to 1977, serving in Europe, Asia and Washington D.C. Upon retirement he was appointed a Magistrate in Loudoun County, Virginia and later moved to Montana where he became a sapphire and gold miner. Health considerations caused a move to Florida in 1992, with summer holidays in Montana every year.

Sam is survived by loving wife Martha, daughter Whitney Gale Morgan, sons Harold Woods Hopler, Frederick Charles Hopler, Nicholas Marshall Hopler, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren. [Helenair/18April2010]

Howard W. 'Bill' Kulp, NSA Analyst. Howard W. "Bill" Kulp, 83, a retired analyst with the National Security Agency who worked on the top-secret Venona counterespionage effort during the Cold War, died April 8 of cancer at the Renaissance Gardens nursing facility in Silver Spring.

Mr. Kulp, a Silver Spring resident, joined a forerunner of the NSA in 1950 and spent many years on the Venona project, a long-term effort to decipher coded messages from the Soviet Union. He closed the project in 1980 after determining that little additional intelligence could be gained.

He was stationed in Great Britain from 1958 to 1961 and from 1971 to 1974. He received awards from the NSA and CIA and retired in 1984.

Howard William Kulp was born in Philadelphia and served in the Navy during World War II. He graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., in 1949.

He traveled widely on bird-watching trips and served a term as president of the Montgomery County chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society. He volunteered at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton and the Hillwood Estate in Washington. Survivors include his wife of 58 years, the former Carol Ann Fawthorp of Silver Spring; four children, Howard W. Kulp Jr. of Union Bridge, Md., Gretchen Barlow of Somerset, N.J., Daniel R. Kulp of Colorado Springs and Amanda Petrusky of Laurel; two sisters; and five grandchildren. [Schudel/WashingtonPost/16April2010] 

George F. Murphy Jr. USIA Official. The Hon. George F. Murphy Jr., 85, an atomic energy and arms control official who served as inspector general of the U.S. Information Agency under President George H.W. Bush, died April 13 at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He had congestive heart failure.

Mr. Murphy was a CIA case officer before embarking on a long career on Capitol Hill. He spent about 20 years with the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, serving as its executive director from 1975 until it was abolished in 1977.

Subsequently, he directed the Senate's office of classified national security information and was a consultant with the American Nuclear Energy Council, a nuclear power lobbying organization. In 1988, he was named deputy director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and began working at USIA in 1990.

George Francis Murphy Jr. was born in Boston and grew up in nearby Newton Centre. He served in the Army Air Forces in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II and graduated from Harvard University in 1949.

Mr. Murphy's wife of 55 years, Eleanor Enright Murphy, died in 2006, and he moved from Bethesda to Ohio that year. Mr. Murphy was a columnist for AFIO's Intelligencer Journal in the early 2000s, where he wrote under a pseudonym.

Survivors include two sons, George Murphy III of Charlottesville and Charles Murphy of Dublin, Ohio; a sister; and five grandchildren. [Bernstein/WashingtonPost/16April2010] 

Coming Events

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in April and May with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are as follows:

• Wednesday, 5 May 2010; 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Abduction, Black Site Prisons, and the CIA: Extraordinary Rendition Today" at the International Spy Museum
• Thursday, 6 May 2010; 12 noon – 1 pm - Washington, DC - "On the Front Lines of Cyber War with Richard A. Clarke" at the International Spy Museum
• Monday, 10 May 2010; 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Our Man in Havana" at the International Spy Museum
• Thursday, 13 May 2010; 10 am - 2:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Codebreaking in World War II: The Inside Story" at the International Spy Museum
• Thursday, 20 May 2010; 6 pm - Washington, DC - "Goldfinger" at the International Spy Museum

23 - 25 April 2010 - S. Portland, ME - The New England Chapter of the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association (NCVA-NE) holds a spring Mini-Reunion at the Marriott at Sable Oaks.  For additional event information, call (518) 664-8032 or visit website. 

26 April 2010 - Washington, DC - Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Roundtable Hosted by LexisNexis. LexisNexis will host its first Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Roundtable at the National Press Club

EVENT ADVISORY: Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Roundtable hosted by LexisNexis
LexisNexis will host its first Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Roundtable at the National Press Club on April 26, 2010. Doors open at noon, program to begin at 1:00pm. The focus of this initial event will be “The Government’s Open Source Intelligence Enterprise.”
The program will include keynote remarks by Director Doug Naquin from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Open Source Center, followed by a "perspectives" discussion with leading experts among our group of distinguished attendees. The discussion will be based on the future of OSINT as a recognized discipline in strategic and tactical national security decision-making.
The OSINT Round table was created to make a public space for discussion about the government’s needs for Open Source Intelligence and to facilitate relationships between government officials and private sector leaders, in order to foster an increasingly responsive open source intelligence infrastructure that meets the needs of national security decision makers.

No Charge. Seating may be limited. RSVP at www.lexisnexis.com/osint

SORRY - EVENT BELOW HAS SOLD OUT

28 April 2010, 6:00 p.m. - Washington, DC - The Goethe Institute will host a presentation and discussion of the film "The Lives of Others" about the surveillance society of East Germany during the Cold War.

If interested in attending this free cinema presentation and discussion, send your RSVP to: rsvp@washington.goethe.org  or by phone to: 202/289-1200 extension 170.  Please note that the film discussion is scheduled to begin AFTER the film. The entire film will be shown, followed by discussion. To accept: rsvp@washington.goethe.org

28 April 2010, 1:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m - Washington, DC - The Early Years of the U-2 Spy Plane and its Role in Cold War History. 
The U-2 spy plane and the intelligence that it collected played an important role in Cold War history. Convened in connection with the 50th anniversary of the downing of Francis Gary Powers' U-2 over the Soviet Union on 1 May 1960, Mayday 1960: Reassessing the U-2 Shoot Down will examine the role of the U-2 in the missile-gap debate and will explore the political, diplomatic and intelligence history surrounding the events of 1 May 1960. Panel I: The U-2 and the Missile Gap, 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. Alarmed by the launch of Sputnik in October 1957 as well as by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's claim that the Soviet Union was producing ICBMs "like sausages," the United States became embroiled in an increasingly contentious debate on "the missile gap" in the run-up to the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon Presidential election. Drawing upon imagery from the last few U-2 flights over the Soviet Union which has never before been seen in public, Panel I will focus on the role of signals intelligence, newly developed photo-reconnaissance satellites and the U-2 in resolving the missile-gap debate.• Christian Ostermann – chair; • Chris Pocock - author, 50 Years of the U-2; • Martin Sherwin - Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow; • Dino Brugioni - all-source analyst, (ret.) National Photographic Interpretation Center
Panel II: The U-2 Shoot Down, 3:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. - U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union on 1 May 1960 provoking a major Cold War incident which led to the cancellation of a planned superpower summit. Drawing upon newly declassified documents on the Board of Inquiry which examined Powers' conduct during the shootdown and his subsequent captivity, Panel II will examine the repercussions of the U-2 shoot down in international politics and intelligence history.• Chris Pocock - chair;• Svetlana Savranskaya - director of Russian programs, the National Security Archive;• Giles Whittell - Washington correspondent, The Times of London and author, Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War;• Matthew Aid - visiting fellow, the National Security Archive and author, The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency.
LOCATION of event: 6th floor Moynihan Board Room, Woodrow Wilson Center
Visit www.cwihp.org for more information and to RSVP.

30 April 2010, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. - Washington, DC - "The Stasi and its Foreign Intelligence Service" - Free Workshop by CWIHP and GHI.  
The German Historical Institute and The Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosts one day workshop on the STASI. This CWIHP-GHI workshop will be held at the Woodrow Wilson Center, One Wilson Plaza/1300 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. in Washington. There will be four panels with leading American, German, British and Canadian historians working on the Stasi and HVA: Panel 1: The Stasi and East German Society; Panel 2: The Stasi and the East German State and the SED (communist party); Panel 3: The HVA and KGB; and Panel 4: The HVA and the West, which will deal mainly with East German espionage in West Germany.
PROGRAM: Friday, April 30 (Woodrow Wilson Center) The Stasi and East German Society, with Uwe Spiekermann, GHI; Jens Gieseke, Zentrum f�r Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam, and Gary Bruce, Waterloo University, Canada. David Bathrick gives commentary.
The Stasi, the SED, and the GDR State - a panel with Christian Ostermann, Woodrow Wilson Ctr, Walter S��, Birthler Agency, Berlin, and Jefferson Adams, Sarah Lawrence College.
Keynote Address: “The Stasi Legacy in Germany’s History” by Professor Konrad Jarausch, University of North Carolina
The HVA and KGB panel with Mircea Munteanu, Woodrow Wilson Ctr, Benjamin Fischer, formerly CIA History Staff, Washington, DC and Paul Maddrell, Aberystwyth University. Comment by Oleg Kalugin, KGB (ret)
The HVA and the West panel with R. Gerald Livingston, GHI, Georg Herbstritt, Birthler Agency, Berlin and Kristie Macrakis, Georgia Institute of Technology
Dirk Doerrenberg, formerly Bundesamt f�r Verfassungsschutz.
A luncheon keynote address on the Legacy of the Stasi in German History will be delivered by Professor Konrad Jarausch of the University of North Carolina's History Department.
AFIO members are invited to participate in the discussion following panelists' presentation. but asked to register with the Wilson Center in advance, identifying themselves as AFIO members. No fee for participation is required. REGISTER by e-mail at the following address: coldwar@wilsoncenter.org.
Contact persons at the Wilson Center: Mircea. Munteanu, CWIHP Deputy Director (Mircea.Munteanu@wilsoncenter.org) or Tel: 202/69-4267, or Timothy McDonnell (Timothy.McDonnell@wilsoncenter.org). A full program outline can be provided by the Wilson Center contact persons.

Saturday, 1 May 2010, 1000 - 1430 - Salem, MA - The AFIO New England Chapter will hear Joe Wippl, former senior Clandestine Services Officer at CIA . Joe Wippl is currently a Professor of Practice at Boston University, and was a senior Clandestine Services Officer at CIA,  He served as COS in Vienna and Berlin, Chief of the Europe Division, and headed the Congressional Affairs Office. 
The May 1st chapter meeting will be held at the Salem Waterfront Hotel located in Salem MA. The hotel web site is here: http://www.salemwaterfronthotel.com/. For directions to the hotel look here: http://www.salemwaterfronthotel.com/location.html Information about Salem MA and local hotels can be found here: http://salem.org/
Our schedule is as follows: Registration & gathering, 1000 - 1130, membership meeting 1130 – 1200. Luncheon at 1200 followed by our speaker, with adjournment at 2:30PM.
NOT too late to register. If you think you can attend, send in your reservation via email afionechapter@gmail.com and let us know you're planning on attending
Note, as this meeting is a one-day event we have not made any hotel arrangements. For additional information contact us at afionechapter@gmail.com
Advance reservations are $25.00, $30.00 at the door - per person. Luncheon reservations must be made by 23 April 2010.
Mail your check and the reservation form to: Mr. Arthur Hulnick, 216 Summit Avenue # E102, Brookline, MA 02446, 617-739-7074 or hlnk@aol.com

8 May 2010 - Orange Park, FL - AFIO North Florida Chapter meets to hear Gerhardt Thamm on THE MAKING OF A SPY. Gerhardt Thamm discusses his new book THE MAKING OF A SPY. Chapter meets at Country Club at Orange Park. RSVP to Ken Meyer or call him at 904-777-2050

Wednesday, 12 May 2010, 11:30 a.m. - Scottsdale, AZ - Arizona Chapter of AFIO on "State of Arizona's Finances." TOPIC: The State of Arizona's Finances: What’s Really Going On With The Budget.
Hon. Dean Martin was elected in 2006 as State Treasurer, Arizona’s Chief Financial Officer and is responsible for the prudent custody and management of state and local monies. The Treasurer also serves as the Chairman of the State Board of Investment, and State Loan Commission, as the State Surveyor General, and on the State Land Selection Board. Treasurer Martin is currently second in line of succession to the Governor. He previously served six years as a State Senator and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Event is being held at: McCormick Ranch Golf Club (7505 McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale AZ 85258 ~ Phone 480.948.0260). Our meeting fees will be as follows: • $20.00 for AFIO members• $22.00 for guests. 
For reservations or questions, please email Simone sl@4smartphone.net or simone@afioaz.org or call and leave a message on 602.570.6016.

20 May 2010, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter at the Air Force Academy, Falcon Club features Mark Pfoff of the El Paso Sheriff Office, "Computer Forensics and all things Digital." RSVP to Tom Van Wormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

20 May 2010 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Andr� Le Gallo, former CIA Chief of Station and Senior National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism. Le Gallo will be speaking about Intelligence: Past and Present, comparing the Cold War CIA with today’s. RSVP and pre-payment required. The meeting will be held at United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat and Wawona). 11:30 AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-member. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate chicken or fish): afiosf@aol.com and mail check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578 Burlingame, CA 94011

25 May 2010 - Arlington, VA - The Defense Intelligence Forum meets to hear Allen Keiswetter on "Political Islam." The DIF meets at the Alpine Restaurant, 4770 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22207. Allen L. Keiswetter will speak on political Islam. Allen Keiswetter, a retired senior Foreign Service officer, is a scholar at the Middle East Institute and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. He has also taught courses on Islam and the Middle East at the National Defense Intelligence College and the National War College. In the Department of State, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs in the Near East Bureau, and Director of the Office of Intelligence Liaison in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His postings abroad include Riyadh, Sanaa, Khartoum, Baghdad, Tunis, Beirut, Brussels and Vietnam.
Make reservations by 18 May by email to diforum@verizon.net. Social hour starts at 1130, lunch at 1200. Give names telephone numbers, email addresses, and choice of chicken al limone, baked salmon, veal marsala, or pasta primavera. Pay at the door with a check for $29 per person payable to DIAA, Inc. They do NOT accept CASH!

25 - 27 May 2010 - Ottawa, CAN - The IAFIE hosts 6th conference on Intelligence Education. The International Association for Intelligence Education (IAFIE) hosts 6th Annual Conference at the Ottawa Marriott Hotel. Theme: Intelligence Education: A Global Phenomenon. For more information or to register.

27 May 2010, 11:30 a.m. - San Diego, CA - AFIO San Diego Chapter hosts Charles Wurster, USCG (Ret). Charles D. Wurster - President/CEO, The San Diego Port Authority, Retired U.S. Coast Guard Vice Admiral Charles D. Wurster was appointed as the Port's President/CEO by the Board on January 5, 2009. Wurster is a three-star Admiral who served 37 years in the Coast Guard. Before serving as Coast Guard's Commander of the Pacific Area from 2006-2008, he served as Commander of the Fourteenth District in Honolulu. He also served as the Chief of Acquisition in Washington, DC; Chief of Staff for the Pacific Area in Alameda, CA; Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard base in Kodiak, Alaska; and Commanding Officer of the Facilities Design and Construction Center in Seattle, Washington. Wurster holds a Master's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois and graduated with honors from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut
Location: The Trellises Garden Grill, Town and Country Resort and Convention Center, 500 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108
$20.00 per person including gratuity. RSVP for you and your guest required by Friday, May 21, 2010.
Calling Marjon at 619-297-9959 or by sending an Email to Darryl at darryl@pexis.com

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

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