SPY CRUISE

Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Germany Frees Mossad Agent. The Israeli agent arrested two months ago in connection with the alleged assassination of senior Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January, was released and returned to Israel.

The man known as Uri Brodsky was arrested two months ago in Poland, on a German EU-wide arrest warrant.

Brodsky was arrested on charges that a year earlier he had helped another man receive a German passport in the name of Michael Bodenheimer. The passport was used by the team who, according to Dubai police, carried out Al-Mabhouh's assassination.

The real Bodenheimer is a strictly Orthodox rabbi living in Israel who did not know that his name had been used on a German passport. According to footage and airport records presented by the Dubai police, the hit team used British, Irish, Australian, French and German passports, which caused diplomatic embarrassment for Israel and the expulsion of a number of diplomats.

The arrest of Brodsky in June was a further complication, because the Mossad agent, who had been instrumental in acquiring the passports for the Al-Mabhouh hit, had been sent abroad again using the same identity.

Last week Poland handed him over to Germany, but the decision of the Cologne prosecutor to indict him on only a minor charge meant that he could go home almost immediately.

Historian Michael Bar-Zohar, who has specialised in the past and current history of the Mossad, said this week: "The arrest of Brodsky is one of those cases in which the Mossad, which has such extraordinary capabilities, makes amateurish mistakes as a result of classic Israeli self-confidence and arrogance."

But in Professor Bar-Zohar's opinion, the use of authentic passports from friendly countries in the Al-Mabhouh hit was justified, despite the ensuing diplomatic crisis.

"When an agent is operating in a European country, you can take the risk of using a fake passport," he said. "If you get caught, it is not the end of the world.

"But in an Arab country, you must have a real passport, one that if they call the consul, he can verify. It can turn out to be a matter of life and death." [Pfeffer/TheCJ/20August2010] 

Director of National Intelligence Names Deputy to Boost Collaboration. After just two weeks on the job, the nation's new intelligence chief has taken his first step toward further integrating the intelligence community.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper announced that he is creating the position of deputy director for intelligence integration. In a written statement, Clapper said the new position is designed "to elevate information sharing and collaboration" between those who collect intelligence and those who analyze it.

Robert Cardillo, the deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, will assume the new position late next month, Clapper's statement said.

The intelligence community has been criticized for failing to adequately work together and connect bits of information that might have detected some recent failed terrorist attacks within the United States.

During his Senate confirmation hearings in July, Clapper acknowledged more collaboration within the intelligence networks was needed. He said it was his responsibility to do everything in his power to improve information-sharing within the 16-member intelligence community.

"There is indeed a unique culture in the intelligence community, and there are in fact subcultures very much built around the trade craft that each of the so-called stovepipes foster," Clapper told the senators. "The trick is, of course, is to bring them together ... and to synchronize and mesh them, and to bring together the complementary attributes that each one of those skill sets bring to bear. That's where I think leadership is huge." [Bensen/CNN/20August2010] 

Secret History: Former US Spy Goes to Work for DC's International Spy Museum as Historian. The International Spy Museum in Washington has recruited an ex-spy as its new historian.

The museum said Monday that Mark Stout would become historian after spending 13 years in intelligence. He is the museum's first research chief with an intelligence background.

Stout worked at the CIA and the State Department in intelligence and at the Defense Department. He is earning a doctorate in history.

Stout will be responsible for exhibit and artifact research at the museum.

The privately run spy museum's executive director, Peter Earnest, was in the CIA for more than 35 years. The museum's board includes former intelligence officers for agencies including the Soviet KGB, the FBI and Britain's MI5. [Zongker/AP/24August2010] 

CIA Station Chief a Key Afghanistan Troubleshooter. The CIA station chief in Afghanistan has assumed a key troubleshooting role in US dealings with President Hamid Karzai, including tasks normally reserved for diplomatic and military officials, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

"Karzai needs constant reassurance," one former colleague of the US intelligence official told the daily, describing the Central Intelligence Agency station chief as the Afghan president's "security blanket."

The daily wrote that the station chief, a former Marine in his 50s who is known to some colleagues by the nickname "Spider," generally is called upon during critical times.

The Journal reported that when the Afghan leader lashed out against his Western partners, it the station chief who was tapped by the White House to calm him.

"He's spent time with Karzai like no one else has," said a former senior intelligence official told the daily.

Karzai earlier this year unleashed a round of anti-Western invective, suggesting he might even join the Taliban in response to foreign meddling in the Afghan elections and other grievances.

Besides his relationship with Karzai, the CIA station chief is said to also carry out the more traditional role of running CIA operations in Afghanistan.

The CIA is expanding its presence there by 20 percent to 25 percent, in its largest surge since Vietnam. The several hundred officers assigned to Afghanistan outnumber those in Iraq at the height of that war, the Journal reported.

Meanwhile, the US administration reportedly is still trying to get all of its leaders in Afghanistan on the same page, following the dismissal earlier this year of General Stanley McChrystal and other upheaval that has put a strain on US-Afghan relations. [AP/24August2010] 

New Order on State, Local Access to Classified Information. The White House issued an executive order last week to formalize procedures for sharing classified information with state, local and private sector entities. The new order does not alter or amend previous orders on national security classification or access to classified information, but it should facilitate increased sharing of classified information with non-federal officials.

The closest thing to a policy innovation in the new order seems to be a provision that "a duly elected or appointed Governor of a State or territory... may be granted access to classified information without a background investigation" once he or she has signed a non-disclosure agreement and "absent disqualifying conduct as determined by the clearance granting official" (Section 1.3b).

"Information sharing" in this context is a paradoxical term that also implies "information non-sharing" with those who are not cleared for access to the information. For that reason it is a mixed blessing that some otherwise qualified persons may choose to forgo. [SecrecyNews/24August2010] 

Iran Agency Says Former Senior Nuclear Negotiator Was a Spy. The Iranian intelligence service repeated allegations Sunday that former deputy chief nuclear negotiator Hossein Moussavian had been a spy, the ISNA news agency reported.

During the second term of Mohammad Khatami's presidency from 2001 to 2005, Moussavian was the number two man in Iran's National Security Council - the main body in charge of nuclear negotiations - after chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani.

"Moussavian has provided aliens with classified information and this is a clear case of espionage," the intelligence service said in a statement carried by ISNA.

Moussavian was jailed in 2007 on espionage charges but later released on bail.

The intelligence service was referring to remarks earlier this week by Iran's vice-president and atomic chief Ali-Akbar Salehi, who said there was no proof that Moussavian has ever been involved in espionage during his time as deputy chief nuclear negotiator.

"He was therefore sentenced (in 2008) to a two-year suspended jail term and further banned for five years from any official posts within the Islamic Republic," the statement added.

Moussavian, also a former ambassador to Germany, was arrested in 2007 on charges of "connections to foreign elements and the transfer of information to them."

The Moussavian case was considered at that time as part of an internal power struggle between the camp close to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the opposition led by the two ex-presidents Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. [EarthTimes/23August2010] 

Defense Official Discloses Cyberattack. Now it is official: The most significant breach of U.S. military computers was caused by a flash drive inserted into a U.S. military laptop on a post in the Middle East in 2008.

In an article to be published Wednesday discussing the Pentagon's cyberstrategy, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III says malicious code placed on the drive by a foreign intelligence agency uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. military's Central Command.

"That code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control," he says in the Foreign Affairs article.

"It was a network administrator's worst fear: a rogue program operating silently, poised to deliver operational plans into the hands of an unknown adversary."

Lynn's decision to declassify an incident that Defense officials had kept secret reflects the Pentagon's desire to raise congressional and public concern over the threats facing U.S. computer systems, experts said.

Much of what Lynn writes in Foreign Affairs has been said before: that the Pentagon's 15,000 networks and 7 million computing devices are being probed thousands of times daily; that cyberwar is asymmetric; and that traditional Cold War deterrence models of assured retaliation do not apply to cyberspace, where it is difficult to identify the instigator of an attack.

But he also presents new details about the Defense Department's cyberstrategy, including the development of ways to find intruders inside the network. That is part of what is called "active defense." Counterfeit hardware has been detected in systems that the Pentagon has bought. Such hardware could expose the network to manipulation from adversaries.

He puts the Homeland Security Department on notice that although it has the "lead" in protecting the dot.gov and dot.com domains, the Pentagon - which includes the ultra-secret National Security Agency - should support efforts to protect critical industry networks.

Lynn's declassification of the 2008 incident has prompted concern among cyberexperts that he gave adversaries useful information. The Foreign Affairs article, Pentagon officials said, is the first on-the-record disclosure that a foreign intelligence agency had penetrated the U.S. military's classified systems. In 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing anonymous Defense officials, that the incursion might have originated in Russia.

The Pentagon operation to counter the attack, known as Operation Buckshot Yankee, marked a turning point in U.S. cyberdefense strategy, Lynn said. In November 2008, the Defense Department banned the use of flash drives, a ban it has since modified.

Infiltrating the military's command and control system is significant, said one former intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "This is how we order people to go to war. If you're on the inside, you can change orders. You can say, 'turn left' instead of 'turn right.' You can say 'go up' instead of 'go down.' "

In a nutshell, he said, the "Pentagon has begun to recognize its vulnerability and is making a case for how you've got to deal with it." [Nakashima/WashingtonPost/24August2010] 

CIA Sees Increased Threat From Al-Qaeda in Yemen. For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA analysts see one of al-Qaeda's offshoots - rather than the core group now based in Pakistan - as the most urgent threat to U.S. security, officials said.

The sober new assessment of al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has helped prompt senior Obama administration officials to call for an escalation of U.S. operations there - including a proposal to add armed CIA drones to a clandestine campaign of U.S. military strikes, the officials said.

"We are looking to draw on all of the capabilities at our disposal," said a senior Obama administration official, who described plans for "a ramp-up over a period of months."

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, stressed that that analysts continue to see al-Qaeda and its allies in the tribal areas of Pakistan as supremely dangerous adversaries. The officials insisted there would be no letup in their pursuit of Osama bin Laden and other senior figures thought to be hiding in Pakistan.

Indeed, officials said it was largely because al-Qaeda has been decimated by Predator strikes in Pakistan that the franchise in Yemen has emerged as a more potent threat. A CIA strike killed a group of al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen in 2002, but officials said the agency has not had that capability on the peninsula for several years.

"We see al-Qaeda as having suffered major losses, unable to replenish ranks and recover at a pace that would keep them on offense," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the CIA's assessments.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as its Yemen-based group is called, is "on the upswing," the official said. "The relative concern ratios are changing. We're more concerned now about AQAP than we were before."

Al-Qaeda in Yemen is seen as more agile and aggressive, officials said. It took the group just a few months to set in motion a plot that succeeded in getting an alleged suicide bomber aboard a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.

More important, officials cited the role of Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American-born cleric whose command of English and militant ambition have helped transform the Yemen organization into a transnational threat.

Philip Mudd, a former senior official at the CIA and the FBI, argues in a forthcoming article that the threat of a Sept. 11-style attack has been supplanted by a proliferation of plots by AQAP and other affiliates. "The sheer numbers . . . suggest that one of the plots in the United States will succeed," he writes in the latest issue of CTC Sentinel, a publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. In the future, he said, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region will not be the sole, or even primary, source of bombing suspects."

U.S. officials said the administration's plans to escalate operations in Yemen reflect two aims: improving U.S. intelligence in Yemen and adding new options for carrying out strikes when a target is found.

The CIA has roughly 10 times more people and resources in Pakistan than it does in Yemen. There is no plan to scale back in Pakistan, but officials said the gap is expected to shrink.

Details of the plans to expand operations in Yemen have been discussed in recent weeks among deputies on the National Security Council at the White House, officials said. According to one participant, the talks are not about whether the CIA should replace the U.S. military in its leading operational role in Yemen, but "what's the proper mix."

Although the CIA has expanded the number of case officers collecting intelligence in Yemen over the past year, officials said the agency has not deployed Predator drones or other means of carrying out lethal strikes.

Instead, attacks over the past eight months have been the result of secret military collaboration between Yemen and the United States.

U.S. Special Operations troops have helped train Yemeni forces and helped them to execute raids. A senior U.S. military official said the United States has not used armed drones in Yemen, mainly because they are more urgently needed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. As a result, intermittent strikes on al-Qaeda targets have involved cruise missiles and other weapon that are less precise.

An airstrike on a suspected gathering of al-Qaeda operatives in Marib province on May 25 involved a cruise missile launched from a U.S. naval vessel. Among those killed was the deputy governor in the province, who was reportedly seeking to persuade the militants to give up their arms. The human rights group Amnesty International later said it found evidence that U.S. cluster munitions were used in the attack.

Proponents of expanding the CIA's role argue that years of flying armed drones over Pakistan have given the agency expertise in identifying targets and delivering pinpoint strikes. The agency's attacks also leave fewer telltale signs.

"You're not going to find bomb parts with USA markings on them," the senior U.S. official said. Even so, the official said, the administration is considering sending CIA drones to the Arabian Peninsula "not because they require the deniability but because they desire the capability."

A senior Yemeni official indicated that the government would not welcome CIA drones. "I don't think we will ever consider it," the official said. "The situation in Yemen is different than in Afghanistan or Pakistan. It is still under control."

Introducing a covert CIA capability might also improve the U.S. ability to carry out attacks - perhaps from a U.S. base in Djibouti - if the Yemeni government were to curtail its cooperation.

That relationship is "in as positive a place as we've been for some time," the senior administration official said. But, he added, "we always have to be in a position where we are able to protect our own interests should that be necessary."

The concern about al-Qaeda in Yemen is remarkable considering that the group was all but stamped out on the peninsula just a few years ago and is known more for near-misses than successful, spectacular attacks.

Indeed, some government intelligence analysts outside the CIA argued that it would be wrong to conclude that al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has eclipsed the organization's core.

"We still do view al-Qaeda core as they view themselves," a senior U.S. counterterrorism analyst said, "which is the vanguard of the jihad, providing a lot of global direction and guidance."

Even under constant pressure from Predator attacks, al-Qaeda has proven remarkably resilient. Officials also stressed that it is surrounded by other militant groups in Pakistan that share its violent aims.

The U.S. citizen who planted a failed bomb at Times Square earlier this year, for example, said he had been trained by the Pakistani Taliban.

But concern about AQAP has risen sharply in the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day attack.

U.S. officials cited recent indications that AQAP has shared its chemical bomb-making technology with other militant organizations, including Somalia-based al-Shabab.

Because Yemen is an Arab country and the ancestral home of bin Laden, some analysts fear that it could be more difficult to dislodge al-Qaeda there than in Pakistan.

Officials acknowledged that since a military strike missed Aulaqi in December, they have had few clues on his whereabouts. Aulaqi has been linked to three plots in the United States, and his presence has further radicalized his peers.

"The other leaders of AQAP are predominantly Yemenis and Saudis, and their worldview and focus is on the peninsula," said the senior U.S. counterterrorism official. Aulaqi "brings a world view and focus that brings it back here to the U.S. homeland." [Miller&Finn/WashingtonPost/24August2010] 

Author of Disputed CIA Book Kills Self on Accident. To his wife and friends, Roland Haas was a patriotic hero who secretly risked his life for the U.S. government during the Cold War, yet critics denounced him as a "James Bond wannabe" who fabricated a memoir claiming he had been a CIA assassin.

Regardless of which version is true, police and Haas' family insist the gunshot that killed the 58-year-old author in west Georgia last weekend was an accident, a fatal fluke without intrigue or any connection to his disputed past.

Haas was found dead Saturday night behind his car at a roadside in Newnan, a quarter-mile from his home. Investigators say he accidentally shot himself in the leg and bled to death after the bullet pierced his femoral artery. They found Haas' own gun on the ground by his head.

Three years earlier, Haas published "Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin." In the book, he claimed to have worked as a Cold War secret operative in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He wrote that he had assassinated international drug dealers, helped Soviet officers escape East Germany and had been tortured in an Iranian prison.

The book was denounced as a hoax by several former CIA officers who said Haas' spy story was too outlandish to be true. The author's wife stands by his memoir and said her husband wasn't a man who told elaborate lies.

"There are a lot of things that happen all over the world that nobody knows about, and it's supposed to be that way," said Marilyn Haas, his wife of 30 years. "To me, he was a hero. He was a patriot."

Before his death, Haas spent more than 15 years as a civilian intelligence officer for the Army Reserve at Fort McPherson outside Atlanta. When his book was published, former CIA polygrapher John F. Sullivan was so outraged he wrote a letter to Haas' commanders, asking why they would employ a man trying to pass off fiction as fact.

Sullivan, who has written two books of his own, said Wednesday he was sorry to hear Haas had died. But Sullivan insisted Haas' memoir contradicts everything he knew about the CIA after 31 years with the agency.

"I'm convinced his entire book was a total fabrication," said Sullivan, 71, of Reston, Va. "He was a James Bond wannabe. And he profited from it."

The CIA denied Haas had ever worked for the agency. "This individual was not a CIA employee ever," said CIA spokeswoman Paula Weiss.

Lt. Col. Bernd Zoller, a spokesman for the Army Reserve, confirmed Haas was employed as a civilian intelligence officer, but said the job mostly dealt with maintaining computer networks and security.

"For the Army Reserve, there's not a whole lot of intelligence gathering," Zoller said.

Coweta County sheriff's deputies found Haas when two passing motorists heard a gunshot and called 911. One witness who pulled over told investigators Haas was bleeding but said he was OK. He died before an ambulance arrived.

Coweta County sheriff's Maj. James Yarbrough said Wednesday police are confident nobody else fired the shot. He said investigators suspect Haas may have stopped his car because he was having medical problems.

Haas' wife said he had open-heart surgery in November and afterward suffered a mini stroke. More recently, she said, Haas had surgery to remove a kidney that left him with nerve damage to his hands.

"Honestly it was a fluke accident," Marilyn Haas said. "Nobody else was involved." Bynam/WashingtonPost/25August2010]

Al Qaida Cell Uncovered in Canada. An Indian national was among terrorism suspects trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan who were captured in a raid by Canadian forces, an official said.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police captured a group of alleged terrorists during Operation Samosa. One of the men, Misbahuddin Ahmed, was an Indian national, India's Indo-Asian News Service reports from Toronto.

The RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said the raids carried out Wednesday were part of a yearlong investigation into a plot that has ties to top al-Qaida figures, the report added.

The 36-year-old Indian man had worked as an X-ray technician and at an Ottawa hospital. Ahmed and his co-conspirator Hiva Alizadeh made a brief appearance in court Thursday to face terrorism charges in connection with the alleged bomb plot.

Authorities told IANS the men were plotting to attack Canadian power plants and electrical power lines that transmit electricity to the United States.

The arrests mark the second plot linked to al-Qaida uncovered in Canada. Eighteen men from Toronto were arrested in 2006 for plotting to behead the prime minister and take several members of Parliament hostage.

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian living in Canada, was arrested for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport on New Year Eve 1999. He entered the United States through Vancouver.

Canadian authorities said the latest arrests are a sign their country isn't immune to international terrorism. [UPI/26August2010] 

CIA Joins Probe of British Spy Slaying. The CIA was called in to help investigate the death of a British spy whose body was found decomposing in a sports bag in his bathtub, officials said Thursday.

Gareth Williams, a 31-year-old code breaker for the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service, supplying Britain with foreign intelligence, was often sent on secret missions to the United States. He returned to London from his last U.S. trip a few weeks before he was found dead, The Daily Mail reported.

His death in his upscale London townhouse apartment near MI6 headquarters - said to have happened as much as two weeks ago but just discovered Monday - has led to a flurry of speculation about how he died and why.

Security officials told the Mail they could not explain how someone holding his sensitive post could go missing for such a long time before police were called.

Detectives were said to be trying to determine if Williams was strangled or asphyxiated or if drugs or alcohol were present in his system. Police discounted lurid speculation he had been stabbed or even dismembered, the Mail said.

Williams was days from returning to Britain's eavesdropping Government Communications Headquarters intelligence agency in Cheltenham, 100 miles northwest of London, most British media outlets reported.

Despite the intrigue, Williams' death is being investigated by the Homicide and Serious Crime Command of London's Metropolitan Police, suggesting the death may be unrelated to espionage, The Guardian reported.

The newspaper said investigators suspected Williams may have known his killer. [UPI/26August2010] 

CIA Retirees Call for Escalated Probe of Pan Am 103 Bomber's Release. An influential organization of CIA and other ex-intelligence officers is calling for Scotland, Britain and all relevant branches of the U.S. government to cooperate with a U.S. Senate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the release of a Libyan agent convicted in the 1988 Pan-Am Flight 103 bombing.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was released to Libya last year by Scottish authorities on humanitarian grounds on the basis that he had only three months to live because of advanced prostate cancer. But the former Libyan intelligence agent has been spotted several times in evident good health.

"Multiple officers from within the U.S. Intelligence Community" were aboard the plane when a bomb ripped it apart over Lockerbie, Scotland in Dec. 1988, Gene Poteat, the president of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, said late Thursday night, in what he called a "rare" statement by the organization's membership and board of directors.

One of the victims, he noted, was Matt Gannon, the agency's deputy chief of station in Beirut.

"The families of the murdered intelligence officers - and indeed all of the families - deserve no less than a full airing of the facts around Mr. al-Megrahi's release," Poteat said.

A former CIA officer himself, Poteat said he couldn't recall the last time AFIO's board pulled itself together to issue an organizational statement on an issue.

"There have been few clear-cut issues where so many of us agree as we do on this one," Poteat said by e-mail. "The decision triggering al-Megrahi's release was a shock, and had a strong whiff of manipulation and back-room deals."

Critics have maintained that al-Megrahi was released by Scotland to grease the way for British oil giant BP to resume operations in Libya, which had been isolated for years because of the PanAm bombing, which killed 270 people, and other terrorist attacks.

On Thursday Tony Hayward, the outgoing chief executive of BP, rebuffed a request by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to testify about al-Megrahi's release, saying he was "focusing on ensuring a smooth transition of leadership at the company."

Other U.K. officials, including former foreign minister Jack Straw and Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish cabinet secretary for justice, have declined invitations of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to testify on the matter.

"The hearing would have focused on the circumstances surrounding the release and, in particular, what BP and its special adviser, Sir Mark Allen, a former high-ranking official of MI6, the intelligence service, said to members of the British government in 2007 about a proposed prisoner transfer agreement with Libya," David R. Cameron, director of the Yale Program in European Union Studies, wrote last week.

In its statement, AFIO expressed strong support for the Senate committee's investigation and called on "the UK and Scottish Governments to launch independent inquiries into the release of Mr. al-Megrahi to ensure that commercial and/or political interests did not lead to Mr. al-Megrahi's freedom."

It also asked "that CIA Director Leon Panetta, NSA Director Keith Alexander, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Attorney General Eric Holder direct their staffs to fully cooperate with the Senators' investigation."

Poteat said he declined to target BP at this point, because "the moral weight of the decision - and the process that caused the poor outcome - rests with the U.K. And that is where any committee hearings and investigations should begin - over there and here at home."

"As the layers are peeled away," he added, "we will see what was at the center of the early, and unexpected release, of this malingering convicted terrorist."

AFIO, formed by a former CIA officer in the mid-1970s to combat widespread criticism of its involvement in Cold War assassinations and coup de'etats, also called for U.S. government agencies "to assist in providing minimally redacted operational cables and intelligence reports to cleared Senate staff in a secure environment. All documents should be narrowly focused on al-Megrahi's release in order to protect sources and methods of collection."

"In the event documents ought to be made public," it added, "we believe that the staffs of the above Senators, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and agencies involved can (and must) work together to declassify the appropriate documents." [Stein/WashingtonPost/27August2010]

Russian Intelligence Chief Dies While Swimming. The deputy head of Russia's powerful military intelligence agency died mysteriously in a swimming accident, Russian media reported Saturday.

"Several days ago, General Yuri Ivanov died while swimming," official news agency RIA Novosti quoted a military source as saying.

The report did not give any further details on the circumstances of the death, or the location.

Ivanov was deputy head of the GRU, the overseas intelligence gathering arm of the Russian military.

Daily Kommersant reported that the 52-year-old had died "tragically," wording that was repeated in an obituary in defense ministry newspaper Red Star, which also failed to provide any details.

During the Soviet era the GRU was considered a rival to the KGB, the secret service, now known as the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). [MyFoxPhilly/28August2010] 

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

New Intelligence Chief Clapper Brings Sense of Humor to Serious Job. In a PowerPoint briefing of senior staff last week, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper outlined his sober vision: to unite the traditionally separate missions of intelligence collection and analysis and to shrink and flatten the intelligence bureaucracy.

But he included a slide of the hood ornament from a Mack truck. Below the image was this phrase: "the only surviving sound-bite from 3+ hours." It was a wry reference to one of his more-memorable utterances from his July confirmation hearing, in which he pledged not to be a "titular figurehead or a hood ornament."

Clapper, 69, showed flashes of humor in the presentation, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, as well as an understanding that the intelligence community would benefit from better coordination. At the beginning of the PowerPoint, titled "Leading the IC: A 'Re-set," he repurposed an old cartoon by Post cartoonist Herblock that shows a disjointed complex of castle towers and other buildings, each flying a different spy agency flag, evoking the disunity of the intelligence community. The caption reads, "What's wrong with this picture?"

Clapper, now into his second week as DNI, is the fourth person to serve as intelligence director since the position was created in 2005. He replaced Adm. Dennis C. Blair, who was nudged out by the White House after clashes with CIA Director Leon Panetta.

In the presentation, he indicated that his approach would be reminiscent of his leadership of what was the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. The agency, which he ran from 2001 to 2006, was marked by "internal dysfunction," he said, and he set out to tear down the "two stovepipes" of the imagery and mapping functions. The agency was renamed the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to reflect a single mission.

Clapper, whose dislike for hierarchical organizations is well known, outlined a community structure that at least on paper looks relatively horizontal. He is, for instance, eliminating a layer of deputies at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and pushing their jobs down into the organization.

He has created the job of deputy director for intelligence integration to unify the collection and analysis tasks.

"It shows a refreshingly new way of thinking about what this job is about," said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior CIA official. "I'm upbeat about this job for the first time since it was created. It's our last chance to get it right."

Others said Clapper, who has also served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, might be flattening too much. "For his first shot, he's overshooting the mark and will trim back where it doesn't make sense," another former CIA official said. "He's not afraid to reorganize and reorganize and reorganize and reorganize. This is not a secret. Jim must have reorganized DIA and NGA 182 times. He's not afraid to second-guess himself."

In the presentation, Clapper held up as a role model Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who as CIA director from 1991 to 1993, led the intelligence community before there was a DNI. Gates had a long career in intelligence before becoming CIA director.

Clapper also took note of what he called in his presentation the "we-be" factor, the notion that there will always be "a cadre of people whose attitude is, 'We be here when you show up, and we be here when you leave,' " Lowenthal said.

In a nod to the importance of Congress, Clapper observed that "Keeping the Hill Happy" was "an imperative."

A final slide showed he was under no illusions about the pressure and expectations he faced. He had adapted a cartoon by Daryl Cagle of http://Slate.com depicting a grim Clapper in an Uncle Sam hat at the wheel of a car, labeled "Leading the IC: A Re-set." The car is packed with children imploring: "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" [Nakashima/WashingtonPost/20August2010] 

UK Declassifies File on Glamorous German Spy. She was thought to be one of Germany's prized secret agents, described as beautiful and languid and capable of infiltrating an enemy camp, obtaining secret plans of attack, and then delivering them to her bosses.

A former ballerina, Marina Lee was said to have naturally light blonde hair, spoke several languages, and a page in her security service dossier made note of intelligence passed on by the French: Very nice legs.

The intelligence on Lee - or Maria Ley, plus other aliases she was believed to possess - are part of a cache of files from Britain's MI5, Britain's domestic spy agency, released Thursday by the National Archives.

Along with detailing the World War II activities of alleged spies, the files document the efforts of the intelligence community to unpick the activities of the German conglomerate Siemens and determine the loyalty of the company's employees.

In a file called the "Siemens-Halske-Schuke Combine," British agents are reminded of a 1936 law that said "every German man and woman must render service to the Fatherland in time of war and that Germans who live abroad, including those of dual nationality, are bound to serve when called up."

Operatives were asked to look into the company's employees in far-flung locales such as Iran, India, Iceland and Chile, while others were sent to interrogate local citizens who'd come into contact with characters deemed suspicious.

Those interviews didn't always go smoothly: A woman with a weak heart, interviewed in England by MI5 about a German houseguest who worked for Siemens - and who was believed to be an enemy agent - kept bursting into tears.

It turned out, the investigator reported back to London, that the woman knew nothing of her guest's activities, which was likely a good thing because "she would probably be dead from a heart attack in any case if she knew he had."

There are 170 files in Thursday's release. So far, nearly 4,500 British security service files have been placed in the archives in Kew, in west London. They are open for the public to view, and some are available online.

This batch of declassified files also include a dossier on Wolf Mankowitz, who wrote the screenplay for the first film incarnation of the James Bond classic "Casino Royale." MI5 was worried he might be a communist agent, even though the file contains a report from his commanding officer who said he observed Mankowitz during his time in the army - and wasn't worried.

"Even if he possesses communist views I do not think he has the personality or strength of character to pass them on to his fellow soldiers," the report said. "There is no evidence that he has attempted to air these views whilst with this unit."

The security service got nervous again in the mid-1950s, when Mankowitz headed to Moscow for a visit to the World Youth Fair, and returned proclaiming that he'd like to set up a British-Soviet film project. Their interest dwindled, however, by 1958, and his file was closed.

Previously released files have revealed that MI5 was concerned about Hitler Youth cycling around Britain, warning they could be spies. Others have shown MI5 hired an astrologer to try and match the forecasts given to Adolf Hitler by his own personal astrologers.

The dossier on Lee reads like the outline of a spy novel. She was believed to have been born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and then was trained as a ballerina. She fled Russia when her parents were killed by the Bolsheviks, eventually marrying a Norwegian. There's no photograph of her in the file, but her physical beauty is described in glowing terms.

One report details the debriefing a captured German agent called Gerth Van Wijk gave the secret service. He told them a story another agent called "von Finckenstein" had passed on about Lee.

He said a German commander, Gen. Eduard Dietl, was facing defeat and retreat near the Norwegian port of Norvik in 1940. But according to the dossier, Lee was able to infiltrate the headquarters of British Gen. Sir Claude Auchinleck.

"She returned to Dietl and with the information she had obtained he was able to adjust his position and defeat Auchinleck," the dossier says. "Finckenstein described her as blond, tall, with a beautiful figure, refined and languid in manner."

Lee was believed to have moved on to Spain, and the dossier includes a 1947 alert warning police and border agents that her arrival in Britain "should be reported to MI5 immediately." But the file contains no further reports on Lee, and her file was closed in 1960. [AP/25August2010]

James Bond Screenwriter Was Suspected Soviet Spy. Wolf Mankowitz, who introduced producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli to each other, helped write their first film Dr. No, as well as a spoof version of Casino Royale.

But at Cambridge University, once a breeding ground for communist spies, he had joined the university communist society, provoking the suspicion of MI5.

The security service ran a file on him for 14 years, which has been released to the National Archives, and photographed him as he visited the Soviet Consulate on four separate occasions.

Born in Bethnal Green in 1924, Mankowitz was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, who had improved on his East-end schooling by reading the second-hand books in which his father dealt, winning an exhibition in English literature to Downing College, Cambridge.

After leaving he began selling antiques and built up a renowned collection of Wedgwood pottery.

MI5's first report from June 1944 related to his wife, Ann Seligman, who was on a list discovered by agents and thought to be the proposed branch committee of Cambridge University communist society.

In September 1948, the Central Office of Information asked for information on Mankowitz after he applied for a temping job and was told he was "the husband of a communist party member and himself a convinced Marxist." He was turned down for the job.

Sir Percy Sillitoe, the director general of MI5, circulated a letter asking for information from chief constables in April 1949 but nothing new emerged.

A memo from the BBC to MI5 in November said he was a contributor to programmes from time to time and described himself as a freelance writer and lecturer, who had written for magazines including the Spectator.

MI5 replied that he would be a security risk if he was given access to classified information - which seemed unlikely since he was working on a translation of a Chekhov play.

A press cutting from October 1956 said he wanted to set up a British-Soviet co-film production which might explain observation logs from MI5 officers watching the Soviet Consulate which recorded him arriving by taxi four times between October 1955 and December 1956.

On one occasion the report noted: "Fawn duffle coat, dark hair" on another "blue zip jacket, grey trousers."

A report from December 1956 from "an established and usually reliable source" was stamped in red "use with caution" and said Mankowitz was an active member of the British Soviet Friendship Society.

MI5 at least discovered he had a shared interest with James Bond in sex. During an interview with the society's magazine from February 1957, soon after a trip to the USSR, he commented on the treatment of sex in Soviet novels, saying: "The Russians underestimate the importance of sex as grossly as the Americans exaggerate it. They treat it as if it didn't exist. No-one will admit to having problems in their sex life. I found it almost impossible to get anybody to discuss seriously the Soviet attitude towards sex, though somebody did eventually admit to me that there was quite a lot of adultery."

Mankowitz hosted a Friday night chat show on ITV and in March 1958 his guest Ludovic Kennedy finally confronted him with allegations he was a communist.

"I'm not a communist. I'm an anarchist," he replied.

He was in any case, ill-suited for spying - his commanding officer during his National Service observed: "A highly strung individual of nervous temperament. Even if he harnesses communist views, I do not think he has the personality of strength of character to force them on to his fellow soldiers." [Gardham/Telegraph/25August2010]

The Spy Who Did Not Love Me. There is something primal about intelligence agencies. The raison d'etre of intelligence agencies is collective security. Hence wherever there are states and governments, there are intelligence agencies.

However, while governments come and go, intelligence agencies stay forever - a fact that determines the sense of superiority by the latter over the former. And in countries where the military is more organized than the political class, such as in Pakistan, intelligence agencies assume an even larger role that ultimately serves its interests even if at the cost of the state's subjects.

Because Pakistan's intelligence agencies are instruments of the state, their political role can only be appreciated in relation to the nature of the regime, according to a Carnegie Endowment report.

Understanding civil-military relations is, therefore, a prerequisite to understanding both their political functions and the mechanisms through which these functions are performed.

Since 1958, Pakistan has endured four military dictatorships, with only brief intervals of civilian regimes between 1971 and 1977, in 1988, in 1999, and, more recently, since the 2008 elections. Overt military rule characterizes Pakistan. Still, even the military regimes have felt the need to civilianize themselves by co-opting politicians. Such was the case under Generals Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf.

Civil-military relations have therefore always alternated between direct and sometimes complete domination by the military and power-sharing agreements. Power sharing has, at times, points out the Frederic Grare report, occurred under both civilian and military regimes, the primary difference being the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the civilians.

Pakistan's power-sharing arrangement means that the military has important influence over foreign, security and key domestic issues, and mediates confrontations among feuding political leaders, parties or state institutions - if such confrontations are deemed threatening to the political order and stability. The military is obviously the only institution empowered to judge whether such threats exist.

Whatever autonomy the civilian governments in Pakistan enjoy, for the political and economic management of the state it is always expected to take the military's considerations into account. Thus, every civilian regime is faced with the same dilemma: it has to prove on the one hand that it can act autonomously and is not beholden to the military while, on the other hand, it cannot afford to alienate the military whose support is crucial for its survival.

Importantly, the Pakistani military always ensures, whenever it withdraws from direct rule, that its interests, powers, and privileges are preserved by whatever constitutional safeguards are deemed necessary.

The infamous Article 58(2)(b), instituted by General Ziaul Haq in 1985, that empowered the president to sack the government and dissolve parliament, is a case in point. When this was removed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif with the help of her rival and ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 1997, General Musharraf restored it in 2000. The 18th Constitutional Amendment passed this year has undone it again.

Among the plethora of intelligence agencies in Pakistan, the ISI has enjoyed dominance. It was created in 1948 to focus essentially on India. It originally had no active role in conducting domestic intelligence activities except in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and the current Gilgit-Baltistan region.

The ISI's political role was a direct result of the coup d'�tat of General Ayub Khan, in 1958. The agency at that time became responsible for monitoring Pakistani politicians.

Monitoring the media and politically active segments of society such as trade unions and student groups also became part of the ISI mission. The agencies thus became instruments of consolidation for Ayub's regime, which saw any criticism as a threat to national security.

The intelligence agencies became even more deeply involved in domestic politics under General Yahya Khan. ISI activities at that time were directed more specifically at ethnic separatists, who were to become a nightmare for successive Pakistani regimes.

ISI was also employed by Pakistan's first elected civilian leader prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto against Baloch nationalists and was on occasion no less clinical than it had been under Ayub and Yahya.

But in order to counterbalance the ISI, Bhutto also created the Federal Security Force (FSF), a group parallel with the regular police, which was accused of operating as a private army to subdue his opponents and former allies.

Significantly, in 1975 Bhutto created the Political Cell of the ISI, which was accused of rigging the 1977 elections with disastrous consequences culminating in his execution by Zia over disputed charges of abetment to the murder of a political rival.

The FSF was disbanded by Zia but who further expanded the ISI's powers to collect domestic intelligence on political and religious organisations that opposed his regime.

The ISI was responsible for collecting intelligence about Sindhi nationalist activities and monitoring the leadership of the Pakistan People's Party, including Benazir Bhutto, which had launched the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in the early 1980s. Dissident political leaders were constantly monitored and harassed by the intelligence agencies.

It was also during Zia's reign that the Military Intelligence (MI), although focused on military and security-related affairs, became involved in domestic political activities. The MI later played an important role in implementing orders to dismiss the two Bhutto-led governments in August 1990 and November 1996.

Two years after he took over, Musharraf attempted reforms in the intelligence apparatus, applying them into the Afghan theatre of conflict albeit these did not reduce the involvement of agencies in domestic politics. All through the campaign leading up to the October 2002 elections, Benazir complained about pre-election rigging by the ISI and coercion against PPP.

The ISI coerced the politicians into joining the "king's party" of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid to provide a civilian facade to Musharraf's regime.

But in the 2008 elections, Musharraf and his cronies were spectacularly rejected and civilians returned to power, qualifying Pakistan as a transitional democracy even though the future of the civilian dispensation remains uncertain.

Ironically, even this transition owed in large part to Musharraf's successor and current army chief, General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, who made a conscious decision to remain neutral and in fact, wean the army away from politics.

This, however, does not alter the structural imbalance that continues to hold at the expense of civilian supremacy. [Rehmat/GulfTimes/25August2010] 

For Arms Sales Suspect, Secrets Are Bargaining Chips. Accused of a 15-year run as one of the world's biggest arms traffickers, Viktor Bout is thought to be a consummate deal maker.

Now his future may hang on whether he can strike one last bargain: trading what American officials believe is his vast insider's knowledge of global criminal networks in exchange for not spending the rest of his life in a federal prison.

Justice Department officials were relieved on Aug. 20 when a Thai appeals court approved the extradition of Mr. Bout (pronounced boot), a Russian, from Bangkok, where he has been incarcerated since 2008. But they are wary of declaring victory in a long diplomatic wrangle with Russia until Mr. Bout actually arrives to face charges in Manhattan, a development that could be days or weeks away.

Immersed since the early 1990s in the dark side of globalization, Mr. Bout has mastered the trade and the transport that fuel drug cartels, terrorism networks and insurgent movements from Colombia to Afghanistan, according to former officials who tracked him. And he is believed to understand the murky intersection of Russian military, intelligence and organized crime.

"I think Viktor Bout has a great deal of information that this country and other countries would like to have," said Michael A. Braun, chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2005 to 2008, when the agency was engineering the sting operation that led to Mr. Bout's arrest in Bangkok two years ago.

"It's a question of whether he sees his wife and kid again someday, after 10 or 15 or 20 years," said Mr. Braun, now with Spectre Group International, a private security firm. "I think there's potential for a deal."

Mr. Bout, who has lost about 70 pounds while imprisoned in Thailand, has shown no inclination to cooperate with investigators. In interviews, he has portrayed himself as an honest businessman who would transport whatever he was paid to carry, whether disaster relief supplies or attack helicopters. On his Web site he calls himself "a born salesman with undying love for aviation and eternal drive to succeed."

He has labeled as "ridiculous" American charges that he agreed to sell shoulder-fired missiles to D.E.A. agents posing as members of a Colombian leftist guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. "I have never traded in weapons," he said in a statement released Friday. His wife, Alla, who has visited him in Bangkok with their teenage daughter, Elizabeth, has told reporters he traveled to South America "for tango lessons."

But if the bravado falters when Mr. Bout faces prosecutors in New York, he has plenty to tell, said Douglas Farah, co-author of a 2007 book about him, "Merchant of Death."

"He knows a great deal about how weapons reach the Taliban, and how they get to militants in Somalia and Yemen," Mr. Farah said. "He knows a lot about Russian intelligence as it's been restructured under Putin," he added, referring to Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister.

Rumors in Bangkok have suggested that the Russians and the Americans engaged in a bidding war over the American extradition request, with Russia offering Thailand cut-rate oil and Americans offering military hardware.

Both sides have denied such bargaining. Thai officials say they must process a second United States request for extradition on a separate indictment for money laundering before Mr. Bout can be put aboard the American jet that arrived last week to pick him up.

The legend of Mr. Bout, 43, a former Soviet Air Force officer and gifted linguist who speaks English, French, Arabic and Portuguese, may have outgrown even the facts of his career, the basis for the 2005 movie "Lord of War." Operating a web of companies, at times calling himself Viktor Bulakin, Vadim Aminov or other pseudonyms, he rose in the global arms underworld after the Soviet collapse freed aging aircraft and huge weapons supplies.

"What you have in Viktor Bout is a prime figure in the globalization of crime," said Louise I. Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University. "He epitomizes the new type of organized crime, in which the person is educated, has international ties and operates with the support of the state."

By the mid-1990s, Mr. Bout's growing private air force had come to the attention of Western intelligence agencies. By 2000, when Lee S. Wolosky became director for transnational threats at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, Mr. Bout's web of companies was turning up in country after country, Mr. Wolosky said.

"My colleagues who worked on Africa noticed that he was popping up in each conflict they were trying to resolve: Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola," said Mr. Wolosky, now a lawyer in New York. "He had a logistics capability that was matched by very few nations."

Mr. Bout developed ties with such notorious figures Charles Taylor of Liberia, bedded down next to his plane in African war zones and sometimes took payment in diamonds, bringing his own gemologist to assess the stones. His arms escalated the toll of the fighting. "Wars went from machetes and antique rifles to A.K.'s with unlimited ammunition," Mr. Farah said.

Former American officials say they worked on a plan to grab the arms dealer and deliver him to either Belgium or South Africa to face criminal charges, a procedure known as "rendition to justice." Before they could act, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made Mr. Bout a lower priority.

Mr. Wolosky said he and his colleagues were astonished to learn from later news reports that Mr. Bout's companies were used as subcontractors by the American military to deliver supplies to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, earning about $60 million, by Mr. Farah's estimate.

"I read those reports with shock," Mr. Wolosky said. "Personally, I attributed it to the disorder of the Iraq war effort."

In Afghanistan before 9/11, Mr. Bout had long supplied Ahmed Shah Massoud, the ethnic Tajik warlord who spent years fighting the Taliban. Later, he supplied the Taliban, said former American officials, who believe his only real allegiance was to money.

In 2007, Mr. Braun, then the D.E.A. operations chief, said he was asked by Bush administration officials about prosecuting Mr. Bout. The agency lured him into a trap in which the agency said he agreed to sell surface-to-air missiles and other military gear to agency informants posing as FARC operatives.

At a meeting in a Bangkok hotel in March 2008, according to court records, Mr. Bout scribbled price estimates and doodled an aircraft, telling his ostensible customers "that the United States was also his enemy."

"It's not, uh, business," Mr. Bout said on tape, the records say. "It's my fight." [Shane&Fuller/NYTimes/30August2010]

Section III - COMMENTARY

Can Assassinations Turn the Tide in Afghanistan? by Robert Baer. The Obama Administration's new military strategy in Afghanistan may be a sign of desperation - a Hail Mary pass - but it may just work. The President's counterterrorism adviser John Brennan describes it as giving up the hammer for the scalpel. The military, as we know from classified military documents put on the Internet by WikiLeaks last month, prefers the term kinetic strike. I've heard the Pentagon use the term eliminating command nodes. But I'll go ahead and call it by its everyday name: assassination.

The tactic is familiar in the war on terrorism, of course, its template being the CIA's unmanned-aerial-vehicle strikes on al-Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas of Pakistan - another form of assassination. Putting aside questions of the long-term wisdom of firing area weapons into small villages, no one has convincingly disputed the fact that these strikes have badly hurt al-Qaeda, with its remnants either hiding in caves or fleeing to places like Yemen. Not surprisingly, the military has asked, Why can't we do the same in Afghanistan? 

An official back from Washington told me I'd be surprised at the extent to which my former colleagues in the CIA are caught up in this new Afghan strategy, the agency having turned itself into a paramilitary operation at the service of the military. The CIA in Afghanistan wakes up in the morning and goes to bed at night thinking about how it can better guide Brennan's scalpel. It has even adopted a new term for officers helping the military - targeters. But the flaw in the new strategy remains the availability of good, solid intelligence. 

The first assassination I ever looked into in depth was that of Bashir Gemayel, Lebanon's Christian President-elect who was killed along with 26 others by a bomb attack on his Phalange party's headquarters Sept. 14, 1982. What was apparent from the beginning was that the assassins had fantastic intelligence. They not only had people continuously watching Gemayel right up until the moment they detonated their bomb; they also had unimpeded access to the building in which Gemayel was killed. The assassins did not intend to miss, because for them assassination is a form of intimidation - a message to Gemayel's party that if it continued cooperating with the Israelis, who had invaded Lebanon, the rest of the party's leadership would meet the same fate. It worked. Gemayel's brother Amine, who succeeded him, gave up any idea of cooperating with Israel.

That's pretty much what we'd like to do in Afghanistan: decimate the Taliban's leadership, and force the survivors to put down their arms. But Afghanistan isn't Lebanon. For a start, there is no single leader of the Taliban. How many Taliban commanders would we have to kill before the Taliban was intimidated? Fifty? A hundred? We don't know the Taliban well enough to put a number on it. Second, what's clear in Afghanistan is that while our military is more than capable of wielding a scalpel, we don't have the intelligence to point out where to strike. We saw evidence of this in the WikiLeaks documents on the failed assassination attempt of al-Qaeda operative Abu Laith al-Libi in Afghanistan. It underscores the problem that the Taliban is possibly the most elusive military force in the world. Unlike with the Gemayel assassination, there simply is no way for us to keep our eyes on a target right up until the assassination, let alone get access to wherever he's hiding.

Like any Hail Mary pass, we'll just have to wait and see whether the play works. [Baer, a former Middle East CIA field officer, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower.] [Baer/Time/21August2010]

Section IV - OBITUARIES, BOOKS, JOBS, RESEARCH REQUESTS AND COMING EVENTS

Obituaries

World War II Flying Ace Marcel Albert Dead at 92. Marcel Albert, a World War II flying ace hailed as a hero of the French "Normandie-Niemen" squadron based in the Soviet Union, has died in south Texas. He was 92.

A statement from the office of France's veterans affairs minister, Hubert Falco, expressed condolences Wednesday to Albert's former comrades-in-arms and "all the Russians who consider him a great hero."

France's Ordre de la Liberation says Albert died Monday in Harlingen, Texas, where he moved and founded a hotel chain after the war. It said he was buried in Chipley, Fla.

The order - founded by Gen. Charles de Gaulle - said on its Web site that Albert flew 199 missions and holds the record of 24 "victories" for the Normandie-Niemen, including seven in October 1944 alone. [PalmBeachPost/24August2010] 

E. Henry Knoche, 85; A Key Player in the Intelligence Game. One of the leading scorers on the University of Colorado's basketball team in the 1940s was E. Henry Knoche, a limber, 6-foot-4 center, who averaged 18 points a game for the Buffaloes. In 1947, he was among the first players picked in the inaugural draft of the league that would become the NBA.

He was selected by the Pittsburgh Ironmen, but the team, about to go out of business, sold his contract to the New York Knicks. Spying a financial opportunity, Mr. Knoche attempted to negotiate his salary with the Knicks.

The star player demanded $2,500. The Knicks said no deal.

So ended Mr. Knoche's basketball career. He went to work instead as a Navy intelligence officer, a position he parlayed into a job with the CIA. By the end of his career, Mr. Knoche had risen to acting director - a position he held for about seven weeks under President Jimmy Carter - and was party to the country's deepest secrets.

Mr. Knoche kept those secrets safe until he died of congestive heart failure July 9 at a hospital in Denver, where he lived in retirement. He was 85.

After Navy service in World War II and Korea, Mr. Knoche (pronounced KNOCK-ee) joined the CIA in 1953 as an analyst fluent in Russian and the Fuzhou dialect of Chinese.

Mr. Knoche never served in an operational capacity and lacked clandestine experience. But his colleagues respected him for his efficiency and work ethic, and he received steady promotions within the agency.

On July 7, 1976, Mr. Knoche became the deputy director of the CIA under George H.W. Bush, responsible for day-to-day operations. When Carter took office in 1977, Bush resigned, and Mr. Knoche became acting director.

One of the first things Carter did as president was ask Mr. Knoche to brief him on the 10 most sensitive operations the CIA had underway.

A few days later, at a meeting with the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, a member asked Mr. Knoche, under oath, to repeat everything that he had told the president.

Mr. Knoche agreed, but on the conditions that the senators expel their staff members and let the room be swept for wiretaps three times.

Then, against the advice of his lieutenants, Mr. Knoche laid out in detail the 10 covert operations.

According to Knoche family lore, a shaken Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a junior committee member, approached Mr. Knoche after the briefing and told him a story.

"When I first became a senator, an old friend told me there would be things I would learn in this job that I wish I never knew," Biden, a first-term Democrat from Delaware, told Mr. Knoche. "I never understood what my old friend meant, but now I know."

Enno Henry Knoche was born Jan. 14, 1925 in Charleston, W.Va. He attended the University of Colorado as part of the Navy's V-12 program, an accelerated college curriculum to develop officers during the war, and he graduated, after the war, from Washington and Jefferson College near Pittsburgh.

During his CIA career, Mr. Knoche became accustomed to meeting with presidents at the White House. But according to Mr. Knoche's family, meeting John F. Kennedy for the first time was a nerve-rattling experience for the seasoned intelligence officer.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Mr. Knoche was dispatched to the president's home in Massachusetts to brief the commander in chief on the latest developments.

The morning of their introduction, Mr. Knoche stood in front of the mirror in his hotel room, practicing how he would greet the president, who was one of his idols.

"Good MOR-ning, Mr. President." He said out loud to himself. "Mr. President, GOOD morning."

When he arrived at the Kennedy home, Mr. Knoche was stunned to find the president, who behind the scenes suffered from chronic back pain, with his mouth clenched in agony, his body tightly wrapped in a brace.

Mr. Knoche greeted his hero by saying, "What the hell happened to you?"

He married the former Angie Papoulas in 1947. One of their sons, Pete Knoche, died in 1992. Besides his wife, of Denver, survivors include four sons, John Knoche and Randy Knoche, both of Craig, Colo., Chris Knoche of Annandale and Jeff Knoche of Denver; and nine grandchildren.

Mr. Knoche served as acting director until Adm. Stansfield M. Turner was confirmed to lead the agency. Mr. Knoche retired from the CIA on Aug. 1, 1977. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, one of the country's highest honors. [Shapiro/WashingtonPost/28August2010] 

Robert F. Grealy. Former AFIO National Board member Bob Grealy died on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 in Bethesda, MD. Beloved husband of Mary J. Grealy; father of Catherine Grealy Cohen, Rosemary "Sisty" Crossfield and Robert Emmett Grealy; grandfather of Corey and Katy Crossfield, Melissa, Caroline, and Ian Cohen, and Lauren and Kristen Grealy; brother of Michael J. Grealy, Jr., Ann M. Grealy and the late Thomas Grealy. Relatives and friends may call at St. John the Baptist Church, 12319 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20904 on Saturday, August 28, 2010 from 10:30 to 11 a.m. with Mass of Christian Burial at 11 a.m. Inurnment Arlington National Cemetery on Friday November 12, 2010 at 10 a.m. (Please assemble at the Administration Building at 9:30 a.m.). www.collinsfuneralhome.com. [WashingtonPost/27August2010]

Books

Spy Novels by Real Spies: Anthony Burgess, John le Carre and Others. Early this summer I asked an idle question of Seattle Times readers: What are the great spy novels written by authors who were actual spies?

Another learning experience: When it comes to avid readers, there are no idle questions. I was deluged by titles of books written by former intelligence workers and spies: whether out of guilt, a compulsion to testify after a lifetime of secrecy or an urge to set the record straight, the numbers of former intelligence workers who have written fictional takes on their profession are legion.

But first, a word from an actual intelligence analyst turned author.

Susan Hasler worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for 21 years, including a very unhappy time after 9/11 when she watched with dismay as the Bush administration, drawing on faulty or fabricated intelligence, launched a war with Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that never materialized. A former Soviet specialist, speechwriter to three CIA directors and a counterterrorism analyst, Hasler has written a black comedy, "Intelligence" (St. Martin's Press), about a clutch of eccentric but dedicated CIA workers trying to outguess a real terrorist bent on attacking the U.S. as their superiors deluge them with pointless busywork.

In 1983, Hasler had a degree in Russian languages, and the CIA was one of the few employers looking for those qualifications. Twenty-one years later, after the invasion of Iraq, she left the CIA. "When I left, the last thing I wanted to do was write," she said in a phone interview. "I was very upset about the whole run-up to the Iraq war and 9/11. ... I always had the greatest respect for the people I worked with. The idea that the president would lie to the people was one I really couldn't swallow."

But if you have to write a book, you have to write a book - even if you're an ex-CIA employee and must submit the manuscript to vetting by the agency's publications review board. Hasler was scrupulous about fabricating details, such as the office lingo she made up. She says the terrorist threat she writes about (involving use of remote-control model planes) couldn't actually happen.

In the end, "I pretty much knew what I could say, and not," she said: "They didn't change a word. They're not allowed to cut something just because it's embarrassing; there are very precise regulations."

Hasler mostly reads literary fiction, but you will find some of her favorite spies-turned-spy-novelists in the following list. (No room here for great spy novelists such as Alan Furst who were never spies.) For suggestions I particularly thank a group called the Association of Former Intelligence Officers - my initial request was picked up by their weekly newsletter, and I got tips from around the country, and the world.

"A Choice of Enemies" by Ted Allbeury. The British newspaper The Independent said of Allbeury when he died in 2005: "For his humanity and depth of characterization, Allbeury may be considered the spy-story-writer's spy-story writer." Allbeury worked in army intelligence in Britain during World War II, according to his obituary in The Independent. Titles: "A Choice of Enemies," "The Alpha List" and "The Other Side of Silence. "

Milt Bearden. This former CIA officer in charge of the covert war in Afghanistan wrote 2002's "The Black Tulip," set in the late 1980s during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

John Bingham. The pen and family name for Baron Clanmorris, Bingham worked with John le Carr� in British intelligence and is said to be one of the inspirations for George Smiley (see below). Bingham, who died in 1988, wrote his own spy and detective novels, including "Brock and the Defector." "Well written, concise and compelling" said one reader.

John Buchan. Buchan wrote "The 39 Steps," the classic 1915 novel on which the 1935 Hitchcock movie and the recent PBS adaptation were based. "The 39 Steps" vies for contention as the first spy novel with "Kim" by Rudyard Kipling and "Riddle of the Sands" by Erskine Childers. Buchan worked for British intelligence during World War I.

Anthony Burgess. The 1966 novel "Tremor of Intent," by the British author of "A Clockwork Orange," might be described as a high-concept parody of the James Bond adventures. Burgess apparently did "cipher work" for British Army intelligence in Gibraltar during World War II, according to the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

John le Carr�. My opinion: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," "The Honourable Schoolboy" and "Smiley's People" by le Carr� are not just the best spy novels ever written, but some of the best novels, period. This epic trilogy is the story of George Smiley, an aging spy who is called back to ferret out a traitor in the British Secret Service. Le Carr� (real name: David Cornwell) worked for British Intelligence during the Cold War.

James Church. An author of North Korea-based mysteries, featuring the diligent civil servant/detective Inspector O, Church is a former intelligence operative in East Asia ("James Church" is a pseudonym). In 2007's "Hidden Moon," Inspector O's hapless assignment involves investigating a bank robbery, but no one is talking, which means the government may not want him to find the answers. Shades of Martin Cruz Smith's "Gorky Park." Church's latest Inspector O book is "The Man with the Baltic Stare" (2010).

Richard A. Clarke. Clarke, White House counterterrorism chief under both Clinton and Bush, has written several nonfiction books and two novels: 2007's "Breakpoint" and 2005's "The Scorpion's Gate," the latter about an ill-advised plan to invade an Islamic republic. The writing "is nothing special; what is special is Clarke's passionate and deftly detailed version of the present, albeit one told in terms of its consequences," said Publishers Weekly.

Charles Cumming. Cumming's book, "A Spy by Nature," published in Britain in 2001 and the U.S. in 2007, is "loosely based on the author's real-life experience of having been recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in 1995," said Publishers Weekly. It's about a British marketing consultant who lives to regret a job assignment which turns into industrial espionage.

Lawrence Durrell. Durrell, author of "The Alexandria Quartet," worked as a press attach� in Britain's foreign office in Yugoslavia. It's not clear whether he worked in intelligence, but his 1957 book "White Eagles Over Serbia" is about a British secret agent sent to Serbia to investigate the assassination of one of his colleagues. "White Eagles" is "fun, quite an adventure story," said Anna Dewart, a professor of English at the College of Coastal Georgia.

Ian Fleming. The creator of James Bond worked in British naval intelligence in World War II, and several Bond characters are based on real British spies. "Q," the head of the research division that supplies Bond with fantastic gadgets, is based on the work of Charles Fraser-Smith, a real person who supplied British agents with "miniature cameras, invisible ink, hidden weaponry and concealed compasses" according to Ben Macintyre's book "Operation Mincemeat."

E. Howard Hunt. The notorious intelligence operative of the Nixon era wrote more than 80 books, many of them spy novels ("The Berlin Ending"), under his own name and numerous pseudonyms.

W. Somerset Maugham. According to the new biography "The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham," Maugham worked for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service in Switzerland in 1915-16 (and later during World War II). His first boss told him: "If you do well you'll get no thanks ... and if you get into trouble you'll get no help." Thanks, boss. Maugham's six-story collection "Ashenden: or The British Agent" was nominated by several readers, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 movie "Secret Agent" is based partly on this book.

Charles McCarry. A reader favorite, McCarry was a clandestine officer for the CIA in several countries during the Cold War era of the 1950s and '60s. Of McCarry's "The Tears of Autumn," published in 1974, one reader said "the novel reads as fresh and timely as if it was written yesterday, plus, it offers a credible explanation for who assassinated John Kennedy and why." McCarry wrote a number of novels featuring a spy named Paul Christopher, several of which have been reissued by Overlook.

Stella Rimington. Dame Stella, appointed director general of MI5 in 1992, was the first woman to hold the post and the first director general whose name was publicly announced on appointment. She has written several novels, the latest of which is "Dead Line" (2010) and frequently highlights the conflict between MI-5 and MI-6 (the British equivalents of the FBI and the CIA).

David Stone. A pseudonym for a former intelligence officer and military man, "Stone" has written "The Echelon Vendetta," "The Orpheus Deception," "The Venetian Judgment" and "The Skorpion Directive," about "cleaner" Micah Dalton, a guy who cleans up CIA operations after things fall apart. "You need to start with the first one and read through. ... you'll be mostly lost if you don't," said George Edward Stanley, a professor at Cameron University in Lawton, Okla., and a much-published author himself. [Gwinn/SeattleTimes/23August2010]

Jobs

DHS Accepting Applications. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is developing and hiring senior leaders. 

Executive Training Opportunities
Applications are now being accepted for the DHS Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program (SES CDP), a 12- to 18-month program for experienced professionals that focuses on developing SES executive core qualifications. Candidates will learn through classroom training, developmental assignments and other activities, all under the guidance of an SES mentor.

DHS employees, current federal government employees, and applicants outside the federal government at the GS-15 level or equivalent may apply. Applicants outside the federal government, who are selected, receive a three-year, limited term appointment as a GS-15 within DHS. Go to www.dhs.gov/sescdp for more information or to apply.

Executive Job Opportunities
Applications are also being accepted for a number of senior executive positions. Play a critical role in securing our Nation in the areas of counterterrorism, border security, immigration, and preparedness, response and recovery by becoming a leader in the DHS Senior Executive Service (SES) civilian workforce. Opportunities are (or will soon become) available in the areas of:

* Business / Finance
* Information Technology / Cybersecurity
* Intelligence
* International (Travel & Trade)
* Law Enforcement / Immigration Enforcement
* Legal
* Management
* Medical / Scientific
* Preparedness / First Response / Recovery

To learn more about SES opportunities, benefits, resume-only application process, and to apply or sign up for job posting notifications, visit www.dhs.gov/executivehiring. Apply Today!

Research Requests

Bill Randle. My name is Chris Kennedy. I'm writing a biography on popular 1950's Cleveland deejay Bill Randle. Bill died in 2004.

I'm investigating the possibility, per his family's belief, that Bill Randle had been involved with Army G-2 or the Counterintelligence Corps.

Randle was 4-F during WW2 because Scarlet fever left him deaf in one ear. He had a photographic memory, total recall. Post WW2, the family remembers many mysterious trips to China, Yugoslavia, Spain, of which he never spoke of in detail. Randle came back from one of these trips fluent in Chinese.

He apparently, in the 1960's / 70's, would parachute with the 101st Airbourne. I would imagine that not just anyone could have access to do this.

Does any of this raise any flags for you? I'd like to determine if any records exist that can substantiate the family's claim.

Thanks for your assistance on this, I hope to hear back from you.

Best, Chris Kennedy 201-934-4581 chriskennedysart@hotmail.com

Coming Events

EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in August with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are in detail below and online.

Wednesday, 1 September 2010, 6 pm - Las Vegas, NV - The Roger E. McCarthy AFIO Las Vegas Chapter Meets to hear "Just War: Dealing with Counterterrorism"

Speaker Cathy Hanks, Ph.D. discusses "Just War: Dealing with Counterterrorism" at Nellis Air Force Base Officers' Club.
(Guest names must be submitted along with their birthdate to me by 4:00 p.m., Monday, August 23rd. Please join us at 5 p.m. in the "Robin's Roost" bar area for liaison and beverages
Dr. Hanks is a visiting Assistant Professor to UNLV and is a Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science from the University of Maryland in Baltimore County. She is an expert in National Security Policy and Intelligence.
The Nellis AFB has just changed their visitor access rules and we now have to include each guest's birthdate on the visitor roster. If you are planning to attend the AFIO meeting on Wednesday, September 1, 2010, please provide your birthdate to me as soon as possible. I need to have it sent to me by 4:00p.m., Monday August 23, 2010 in order to have your name included on the access list for Nellis AFB. Also, if you have a guest, please provide a birthdate for them as well. Entrance to the Base for you and your guest(s) cannot be guaranteed if I don't have their names and birthdates.
Place: The Officers' Club at Nellis Air Force Base. All guests must use the MAIN GATE located at the intersection on Craig Road and Las Vegas Blvd. Address: 5871 Fitzgerald Blvd., Nellis AFB, NV 89191 Phone: 702-644-2582.
Dinner: You are welcome to arrive early and join us in the "Robin's Roost" bar area, inside the Officer's Club. The Robin's Roost has an excellent, informal dinner venue along with a selection of snacks. Water will be provided during the meeting, but you may also purchase beverages and food at the bar and bring them to the meeting. Once again, please feel free to bring your spouse and/or guest(s) to dinner as well as our meeting, but remember to submit your guest(s) names to me before the stated deadline above.
Email or call Mary Bentley at BentleyM@nv.doe.gov or 702-295-1024 if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you!

Wednesday, 8 September 2010 - Albuquerque, NM - The Tom Smith AFIO New Mexico Chapter meets to hear Robert Hull on "Designing Buildings to Protect Against Terrorist Attack."

Robert (Bob) Hull—one of our long time members from Los Alamos--has agreed to present his paper on "Designing Buildings to Protect Against Terrorist Attack." This is one of the courses Bob teaches for FEMA, for whom he is a certified Instructor. This should be very interesting, and we look for a good turnout. Location: Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort, Santa Ana Reservation (Bernalillo)
11:00 AM: Buffet Lunch Served; 11:30 AM: Call To Order. To register or for additional info: Jerry Monahan at 505 242-9857 or foreigndevil@yahoo.com

8 September 2010, 11:30 a.m. - Scottsdale, AZ - The Arizona Chapter of AFIO hosts Dr. Robert H. Reuss who will speak on "Novel electronics technologies being explored and developed for the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community."

Prior to joining the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, in Washington, DC, Dr. Robert Reuss spent twenty years in technology and research management positions with Motorola Corporation in the Phoenix area. Prior to that he had worked for a U.S. government agency for seven years as a research and development manager. For three years he was a professor conducting research at the University of Colorado. Dr. Reuss received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Drexel University in 1971. He has published over 50 papers and has been awarded 13 U.S. patents. His technology interests lie in the area of materials and electrochemistry technologies for advanced microelectronic applications and microsystems integration as well as large area electronics. The presentation will discuss novel electronics technologies being explored and developed for the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. Presentation will be unclassified. This 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. Arthur Kerns, President of the AFIO AZ Chapter, president@afioaz.org

10 September 2010, 6 pm - Washington, DC - Christopher Harmon book-signing on his "How Terrorist Groups End" at the Institute of World Politics

Dr. Christopher C. Harmon, editor of Toward A Grand Strategy Against Terrorism, [McGraw-Hill, 2010], speaks on this just-released book. Harmon is a faculty member at the Institute of World Politics. If you would like a book signed by Dr. Harmon, please purchase it beforehand. Book not sold at the event. To have it signed, purchase immediately from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, and bring to this event.
The lecture will be followed by a Welcome Reception for new and returning IWP students.
A team of nearly two dozen authors -- all associated with the Marshall Center, the joint German/American research and teaching institution in Garmisch -- composed Toward A Grand Strategy Against Terrorism, published this May. This very international team became cohesive in lecturing and running seminars together after Marine Colonel (ret.) A. N. Pratt began the program in 2004. While there are seven PhDs in the writers' pool and too many master's holders to mention, what is more notable are the tallies of work-years as practitioners in the fields of intelligence, diplomacy, and the military, which easily add into the hundreds. These specialists' thoughts on how to go about attacking terrorism have been refined and clarified over long careers. The result is an important accomplishment which will make its mark on how counterterrorism is taught in our graduate schools, institutes, and higher military schools.
• A scholar who has held two academic chairs in international law advises on when use of force is permissible, and when it is not.
• Two diplomats team up to write on how their craft can work against international terrorism.
• A Reuters editor considers how media may publish balanced and reasonable stories about horrid terrorist events.
• A senior Pentagon specialist on low intensity conflict--J Q Roberts--explains 'how to build a CT team.'
• French experience against terrorism is laid out by a co-author who, for many years, held the second position in French internal espionage services.
• The history-and the present course-of terrorism are detailed by an editor who spent a career in the field supporting certain insurgents and opposing others.
• Harmon's 2 chapters include "How Terrorist Groups End," a topic he began lecturing on right here at IWP a few years after the tragedy of 9-11.
For more information visitwww.iwp.edu

13 September 2010 - Portsmouth, NH - CIRA New England chapter luncheon meeting
For further information phone 207-374-2169. Inquiries to raguay@roadrunner.com

Tuesday 14 September 2010, 5:30-6:30 pm - Washington, DC - AFIO Hampton Roads Chapter hosts Membership Meeting

Location: Tabb Library in York County, Main Meeting Room. Members will discuss chapter plans for the year and other business matters. RSVP: Melissa Saunders mwsaunders@cox.net

15 September 2010, 8 am - Washington, DC - The ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security hosts breakfast at University Club

The speaker at the breakfast is Congresswoman Jane Harman on "The Authorization for Use of Military Force" To register contact Holly McMahon, Staff Director, at 202-662-1035 or at hmcmahon@staff.abanet.org More information at www.abanet.org/natsecurity

16 September 2010 – San Francisco, CA – The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Lt. Col. Roger Dong on the People's Liberation Army and Chinese military strategy.

Lt Col Roger Dong is Chairman, American Legion War Memorial Commission and Immediate Past President, AFIO SF chapter. The presentation will be on the People's Liberation Army and will cover historical recap of the PLA and discuss Chinese military strategic concepts, vis-a-vis the US military. The advances of the PLA Navy will be a special focus during the presentation. RSVP and pre-payment required. The meeting will be held at UICC, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat/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

Thursday, 16 September 2010, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO – The Rocky Mountain Chapter features speaker on terrorism.

The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Sheriff Terry Maketa who will speak on legal issues involving El Paso County, crime statistics and give an update on terrorism. To be held at a new location the AFA... Eisenhower Golf Course Club House. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

21 September 2010, 7 pm – Center Valley, PA – DeSales University National Security Program hosts AFIO member Dr. John Behling on “The Evolution of Standard Overt Jihad into Covert Stealth Jihad.”

Dr. John Behling served in the Office of Strategic Services and Military Intelligence during and after WWII.  He was a member of the Office of Intelligence and Research with the State Department, a Foreign Service officer, a free lance contract agent for the CIA, and a university professor.  He has numerous publications dealing with language studies, the USSR, and terrorism.  AFIO members are invited to join us as Dr. Behling shares a chapter from his forthcoming book The DNA of Terrorism.  The event takes place in the Commonwealth Room in the DeSales University Center on the DeSales University campus (2755 Station Avenue, Center Valley, PA 18034).  For questions please email Dr. Andrew Essig at Andrew.Essig@desales.edu  or call 610-282-1100 x1632.  No RSVP is required.   This event is open to the public and free of charge.

Wednesday, 22 September 2010, 1130 - McLean, VA - The Defense Intelligence Forum luncheon discusses "China's Intelligence Operations Against the U.S."

The speaker is on the National Defense Intelligence College faculty. He has over ten years' experience as a China analyst. He was a supervisor in the FBI's China counterintelligence analysis unit and an all-source intelligence analyst in DIA's Korea and China divisions. He is a retired US Army Reserve Military Intelligence officer who has served as Deputy Chief of CENTCOM J2's Iraq current intelligence team and as liaison officer to the CIA Iraq Operations Group.
The speaker's remarks about Chinese intelligence will be off the record and not for attribution.
Events takes place at Pulcinella Restaurant, 6852 Old Dominion Drive, McLean, VA. Pay at the door with a check for $29 payable to DIAA, Inc
Social hour starts at 1130, lunch at 1200. The Defense Intelligence forum is open to members of all Intelligence Community associations.
RSVP by Friday, 17 September, by email to diforum@verizon.net
-- In your response, give your name and the names of your guests. For each, choose chicken al limone, salmon, lasagna, sausage, or pasta with portabello.
-- Include also telephone numbers and email addresses.
Pay at the door with a check for $29 per person.
-- Make checks payable to DIAA, Inc.
-- The DIAA does not take cash. If you do not have a check, the restaurant will have you prepay the $29 using your credit. The copy of the restaurant's receipt allows you to check-in for lunch.

Wednesday, 22 September 2010, 7:30 pm - Fairfax, VA - Stalling For Time: My Life As An FBI Hostage Negotiator by Gary Noesner

Gary Noesner, the founding chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit shares a firsthand account of many dramatic cases -- the D.C. Sniper, Waco and Montana Freemen -- highlighting successes, failures and lessons for resolving all types of crises. Event being held in Research I, Room 163 on Fairfax campus of George Mason University. For more information visit www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library

Thursday, 23 September 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - The A-12 Oxcart - an event at the International Spy Museum

"Forty-five years ago…a group of young Air Force pilots volunteered to be 'sheepdipped' from the Air Force to the CIA to fly an unidentified aircraft at an undisclosed venue to replace the U-2." --Frank Murray, A-12 pilot The Air Force's high-flying SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft, which literally flew faster than a speeding bullet, is legendary. Much less well known is the CIA's version, the A-12, which first flew two years before the SR-71 under the OXCART program. Built by Lockheed's famous "Skunk Works," the plane was an engineering marvel. It made repeated flights over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, providing photographs to commanders in less than 24 hours from the end of a mission. In 1968, in a ten minute mission that photographed all of North Korea without being detected, an A-12 located the captured American spy ship, Pueblo. Only recently has the veil of secrecy been lifted from this amazing aircraft, allowing the full story to be told, including its enduring legacy. Now the program's pioneers gather to share its history: from sky-high successes to fiery crashes. CIA chief historian David Robarge will be joined by program veterans Robert B. Abernethy, inventor of the J-58 engines used in the A-12, Thornton D. Barnes, hypersonic flight specialist, and AFIO's President S. Eugene Poteat, the CIA officer who assessed threats to the A-12, and others. Kenneth Collins, an A-12 pilot who flew six missions over Vietnam, will also tell his story, along with other test pilots. Tickets: $12.50 per person Register at www.spymuseum.org

23 September 2010 - Reston, VA - "Intelligence and the Law" - Instructor: W. George Jameson, former CIA lawyer, 33 years.

W. George Jameson gives this one-day course examining the legal and policy framework that governs the U.S. Intelligence Community. It presents the core legal authorities and restrictions - derived from the Constitution, statutes, and Executive orders - and explores how and why they are applied to the conduct of U.S. intelligence today. Designed for a wide audience, the course reviews the history and evolution of intelligence law and policy and provides an in-depth look at selected laws that affect intelligence activities. Topics include: the National Security Act and establishment of the CIA and other intelligence elements; electronic surveillance and FISA; the role of the DNI; privacy, civil liberties, and restrictions on the conduct of intelligence; covert action; congressional oversight; protection of sources and methods, classification, and leaks; and the laws and relationships that govern the fight against terrorism. Finally, the course provides an introduction to how the laws are applied to emerging national security concerns such as cyber threats.
Fee: $750.
Location: The Intelligence & Security Academy, 1890 Preston White Dr Suite 250, Reston, VA 20191
To Register: https://www.regonline.com/intelligence_and_the_law

Thursday-Friday 23-24 September 2010 - Harrisburg, PA - First Annual Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence (IC CAE) Symposium "Intelligence and Homeland Security: Policy and Strategy Implications" - The symposium is by Penn State Harrisburg.

SAVE THE DATE! Potential topics: • Careers in the intelligence community; • Cyber security and information; assurance; • Border security; • Critical infrastructure protection (CIP);
• Intelligence and information sharing – domestic and international; • Fusion centers; • Ethical issues in intelligence; • Operations security (OPSEC); • Terrorism; • Drug cartels; • Private sector and NGOs; • Public health; • Geospatial information; • Counter-proliferation. Registration information and call for presentations/papers to follow.
Event location: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Hilton Hotel
Contact: Tom Arminio, tja12@psu.edu, tomarminio@gmail.com Mobile: 717-448-5377
or Kate Corbin Tompkins, katespa@psu.edu; Office: 717-948-6058; Mobile: 717-405-2022; Fax: 717-948-6484

24 September 2010 - Tysons Corner, VA - AFIO National Fall Luncheon features CIA Deputy Director, Michael J. Morell and Author/Lawyer Stewart Baker.

11 a.m. speaker - Stewart A. Baker, former General Counsel, NSA, 1st Undersecretary DHS, and author of the important new book: Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren't Stopping Tomorrow's Terrorism .... and .... 1 p.m. speaker Deputy Director Michael J. Morell, CIA
Check in for badge pickup at 10:30 a.m., Stewart Baker gives address at 11 a.m., Lunch served at noon; Michael J. Morell gives address at 1 p.m., Event closes at 2 p.m. REGISTRATION Here. EVENT LOCATION: The Crowne Plaza, 1960 Chain Bridge Road • McLean, Virginia 22102
R E G I S T R A T I O N EVENT LOCATION: The Crowne Plaza, 1960 Chain Bridge Road • McLean, Virginia 22102. Driving directions here or use this link: http://tinyurl.com/8228kw Registration limited HERE

Saturday, 25 September 2010, 10:00 am - Coral Gables, FL - "Management of Kidnap and Extortion Incidents" the topic at the AFIO Miami Chapter event.This program is a seminar conducted by Bruce Kaplan and Elman Myers of Special Contingency Risks. Being held at the Courtyard Marriott, 2051 S LaJuene Rd, Coral Gables, FL. $10 for AFIO members, $25 for nonmember guests. RSVP to Tom Spencer at trsmiami@aol.com or send payment to him at 999 Ponce de Leon Blvd, Suite 510, Coral Gables, FL 33134.

29-30 September 2010 - Washington, DC - Conference on the American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975 by the U.S. Department of State.

The U.S. Department of State's Office of the Historian is pleased to invite AFIO members to a conference on the American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975, which will be held in the George C. Marshall Conference Center at the State Dept. The conference will feature a number of key Department of State personnel, both past and present. Those speaking will include:
* Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger
* Former Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte
* Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard A. Holbrooke
The conference will include a panel composed of key print and television media personnel from the Vietnam period discussing the impact of the press on public opinion and United States policy. A number of scholarly panels featuring thought-provoking works by leading scholars will also take place. Registration information will be available at the State Dept website, http://history.state.gov, after August 1.

Thursday, 30 September 2010; 12 noon - 1 pm - Washington, DC - Stalin's Romeo Spy: The Remarkable Rise and Fall of the KGB's Most Daring Operative - Event at the International Spy Museum.

Dmitri Bystrolyotov was a man out of the movies: dashingly handsome and fluent in many languages, he was a sailor, artist, doctor, lawyer, and artist. He was also a spy for Stalin's Soviet Union. By seducing women, including a French diplomat, the wife of a British official, and a Gestapo officer, he was able to deliver many secrets back to his masters in Moscow. His espionage career came to an end in 1938, however, when he was caught up in Stalin's purges. Sent to the Gulag for twenty years, he suffered tremendous physical hardship but he also came to see the reality of the regime for which he had spied. Join us for a fascinating talk about Bystrolyotov's rise to greatness and fall from Stalin's graces with author Emil Draitser, once a journalist in the Soviet Union and now a professor at Hunter College in New York. Free! No registration required! Join the author for an informal chat and book signing. More information at www.spymuseum.org

2 October 2010, 1000 - 1430 - Salem, MA - The AFIO New England Chapter Meets to hear three outstanding intelligence speakers.

The event features three outstanding speakers. The first speaker will begin his presentation at 1030. We'll work in the next 2 speakers and lunch at 1200. We'll adjourn at ~1430.
Our speakers will be: Major Bryan K. Pillai, Chapter Member Edward M. Jankovic, Author John Weisman.
Bios of the three speakers are available from: afionechapter@gmail.com
Location: 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/
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 15 September 2010.
Mail your check and the reservation form to: Arthur Hulnick, 216 Summit Avenue # E102, Brookline, MA 02446; 617-739-7074 or hlnk@aol.com

Saturday, 2 October 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - William J. Donovan Award Dinner Honoring Ross Perot by The OSS Society

The OSS Society celebrates the historical accomplishments of the OSS during WWII through a William J. Donovan Award Dinner. This year the annual dinner honors Ross Perot. Event includes special performance by humorist Mark Russell. Black Tie/Dress Mess. Location: Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 1330 Maryland Ave SW, Washington, DC. By invitation. Tables of ten: $25,000; Table of ten: $15,000; Table of eight: $10,000; Table of Six: $5000; Seating of four: $3,000; One guest: $1,000. Some tickets available for $175 pp. Donations welcomed. Inquiries to The OSS Society at oss@osssociety.org

Tuesday, 5 October 2010; 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - Russian Illegals: The Spies Next Door - an Event at the International Spy Museum

"It's pretty shocking. I didn't think stuff like this still went on." --Scott Inouye, neighbor to two Russian spies On 29 June, 2010 Americans were stunned and then bemused to learn of the arrest of ten Russian "deep-cover" spies who had lived among us for decades as neighbors and Facebook friends-while at the same time operating with secret mission: to meet influential Americans and exploit them for their knowledge of government policy. "Illegals," like these spies, have been a Moscow specialty for years, but traditionally are used sparingly-for only the most sensitive of operations. Seldom has the U.S. government been able to find and arrest "illegals," so Americans are generally not aware of this threat. Join H. Keith Melton, renowned intelligence historian, technical advisor to American intelligence agencies, author of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda, and International Spy Museum board member, and Brian Kelley, counterintelligence specialist with over forty years experience as a USAF and CIA case officer specializing in double agent and deception operations, a recipient of the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, and currently adjunct professor at several graduate schools on counterintelligence and national security issues, as they shine a spotlight on the murky world of illegals: what they are, how they operate, and the threat they pose. With access to never-before-seen images, Melton will demonstrate both the classis and up-to-date spycraft used by these "spies next door." Retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin will also provide commentary based on his years running agents in the U.S. Tickets: $12.50 per person. Register at www.spymuseum.org

Wednesday, 20 October 2010, noon – 1 pm – Stealing Atomic Secrets: The Invisible Harry Gold - a program at the International Spy Museum.

Harry Gold was literally the man who handed the Soviets the plans for America's nuclear bomb. A Russian-Jewish immigrant from Switzerland, he became a spy for the Soviets while studying chemistry in the United States during the depths of the Great Depression. His KGB code names, such as "Goose" and "Mad," belied his importance as a liaison to important spies within the scientific and engineering communities. During World War II, he was entrusted to be the KGB's handler for physicist Klaus Fuchs, who had burrowed deep into the Manhattan Project, America's super-secret program to build an atom bomb. After Gold's arrest in 1950, his testimony helped send Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair. Journalist and historian Allen Hornblum will help us understand how a decent and well-intentioned man helped commit the greatest scientific theft of the twentieth century.
Free! No registration required! Join the author for an informal chat and book signing. More information at www.spymuseum.org

22 October 2010, Noon luncheon - - Washington, DC - The ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security luncheon at University Club
The luncheon features Richard Clarke on "Cyber Security." To register contact Holly McMahon, Staff Director, at 202-662-1035 or at hmcmahon@staff.abanet.org More information at www.abanet.org/natsecurity

Saturday, 23 October 2010, 10 am - Coral Gables, FL - "How We Know That You Are Lying: Explorations in the Science of Polygraphy" with John Palmatier, PhD -- at the AFIO Miami Chapter

Dr. John J. Palmatier of Slattery Associates/Dawn Associates [ www.polygraphexperts.com] speaks at this Saturday morning event hosted by the AFIO Ted Shackley Miami Chapter. The fee is $10 for AFIO member; $25 for guests. No charge for U.S. Government employees, military, students, faculty or law enforcement.
RSVP with check to Tom Spencer, 999 Ponce de Leon Blvd Ste 520, Coral Gables, FL 33134. Questions to 305 648-0940 or email TRSMiami@aol.com

28 October 2010, 0930- 1715 - Newport News, VA - AFIO Hampton Roads Chapter hosts 2nd Annual Workshop on National Security and Intelligence

Location: Christopher Newport University, Newport News. Theme: Maritime and Port Security
We seek sponsorship at all levels to help cover costs. Please advise if you know of a company or organization that might like to sponsor the event.
Sponsorships start at $250.
RSVP: Melissa Saunders mwsaunders@cox.net

29 October 2010, 11 a.m. - Tysons Corner, VA - Naval Intelligence Professionals (NIP) Fall Luncheon. To be held at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Tyson's Corner, VA Event ends at 2 p.m. Keynote speaker TBD.

29-31 October 2010 - Middletown, RI - The New England Chapter of the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association (NCVA-NE) will hold a Fall Mini-Reunion. Event takes place at the Newport Beach Hotel and Suites. The registration cut-off date is September 29, 2010. For additional information, call (518) 664-8032 or visit http://web.meganet.net/kman/mr2010b.htm.

Tuesday, 2 November 2010, 6:30 pm - Washington, DC - Attack on Mumbai: A New Paradigm for Terrorism? - a program at the International Spy Museum.

"One of the gunmen seemed to be talking on a mobile phone even as he used his other hand to fire off rounds." — Nisar Suttar, eyewitness, November 2008
On 26 November 2008, ten highly trained and disciplined men used covert intelligence and off-the-shelf technology to terrorize and immobilize the city of Mumbai, killing 166 people and wounding over 300. The attackers were able to effectively overwhelm the Mumbai police and Indian security forces utilizing integrated tactics, superior weaponry, and sophisticated covert communications that provided their Pakistani handlers with "real time" command and control as events unfolded. This change in tactics has presented a challenge for the West: how can we find ways to defend against similar attacks in the future? H. Keith Melton, renowned intelligence historian, technical advisor to American intelligence agencies, author of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda, and International Spy Museum board member, has thoroughly researched the planning and technology behind the attack. Using videotape of the surviving attacker's confession and intercepts of terrorist voice communications during the assault, he will offer a strategic overview of the attacks and explore the tactical phases, and the use by the terrorists of "commercial off-the-shelf" (COTS) technologies and the Internet. Tickets: $12.50 per person. Seating is limited. Register at www.spymuseum.org

13 - 20 November 2010 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - SPYCRUISE to Grand Turks, Turks & Caicos; San Juan, PR; St. Thomas, USVI; and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - with National Security Speakers Discussing "Current & Future Threats: Policies, Problems and Prescriptions."

SPYCRUISE®: A National Security Educational Lecture/Seminar Series. The CI Centre and Henley-Putnam University are sponsoring a new SpyCruise®, November 13-20, 2010. Join them on the Holland American MS Eurodam as they set sail from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to the Grand Turks, San Juan, St. Thomas and Half Moon Cay in the Caribbean. Speakers include former DCI’s Porter Goss and Gen. Michael Hayden plus many others. AFIO member and retired CIA operations officer Bart Bechtel continues his role as the “SpySkipper.” For more information about this year’s SpyCruise®, go to: http://spytrek.com/spycruise.html. RESERVATIONS: www.DFunTravel.com or call 1-888-670-0008.
Fees for an eight day cruise: $1,199 inside cabin; $1269 Ocean View Cabin; $1449 Verandahs; $1979 Suites. Price includes program, taxes, port charges and gratuities. Colorful brochure here.

Thursday, 18 November 2010, 6:30 pm - "Uneasy Alliance: The CIA and ISI in Pakistan" at the International Spy Museum

"CIA and ISI operatives depend on each other for their lives…" - so says an anonymous senior ISI official, December 2009
As the U.S. hunts down Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, the CIA appears to be working closely with the Pakistan Intelligence Service (ISI). But the two services have a long and rocky history with frequest betrayal by ISI members saying one thing, and aiding the Taliban behind-the-scenes. While the ISI has helped with the capture of Afghan Taliban leaders, some they have released Taliban figures they caught on their own. What is the future of this relationship? Are the CIA and ISI endgames compatible? Join this panel of experts as they explore what's opinions of what's happening on the ground in Pakistan and a few predictions for the future: Farhana Ali, senior lecturer, AFPAK Team, Booz, Allen & Hamilton; Seth Jones, RAND analyst and author of Counterinsurgency in Pakistan; and Shuja Nawaz, director, South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council of the United States.
Fee: Tickets: $12.50 To register, visit www.spymuseum.org

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

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