Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

GCHQ Spy Recruitment Code Solved. The code which GCHQ, the intelligence agency, posted online to recruit a new generation of tech-savvy spies has been solved within hours of going online. 

The agency told The Daily Telegraph that "a number of people" had solved the seemingly baffling grid of numbers and letters by noon on Thursday.

The feat was performed by the select few well within the deadline of midnight on the night of Sunday 11 December.

GCHQ declined to say how many people had cracked it or how quickly it had been done but it is understood that every individual who solves the problem will be offered a fast-track path to a job.

To be eligible for a job with the secret agency, however, the code-cracker must be a British citizen.

GCHQ introduced the puzzle - which contains no reference to the agency - to try to find people with the right skills for espionage in the computer age. 

The viral campaign on Facebook and Twitter directs users to a website called "Can you crack it?"

Players who can crack a code are directed to the GCHQ website and invited to apply for a job. [Read more: Rushton&Bloxham/TheTelegraph/2December2011]

The Spies Say They'll Scrimp for the Holidays. U.S. spy agencies might have been eager to celebrate their success this holiday season, following the death of Osama bin Laden, new indications that sanctions and sabotage are working against Iran, and the passage of another year without a major terrorist attack on the United States.

But with budget cuts looming, party plans are being pared back for the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA.

Both agencies have for years been known - at least among elites in the insular world of espionage - for throwing lavish year-end events.

Under then-director Leon E. Panetta last year, the CIA brought in shipments of California wine, and served fried oysters, grilled shrimp and quesadillas. His predecessor, Michael V. Hayden, made sure there were musicians playing Irish music while stations set up inside the agency's cavernous headquarters hallway served drinks and hors d'oeuvres.

At the CIA and DNI, hundreds of guests filed through receiving lines to meet the agencies' directors. Senior White House officials, lawmakers and journalists all mingled with officials from Washington's clandestine world.

But the CIA and DNI both acknowledged this week that the events this time around will be smaller, cheaper and off-limits to the press. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the holiday austerity reflects the nation's financial condition.

"Scaling back our holiday celebrations is just another small example of our commitment to making sure that we continue to make wise fiscal decisions across the board," Clapper said in a prepared statement. [Read more: Miller/WashingtonPost/30November2011]

New Intelligence Directive on Congressional Notification. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has issued a new Intelligence Community Directive on "Congressional Notification" that generally encourages "a presumption of notification" to Congress regarding significant intelligence activities.

The November 16 directive, designated ICD 112, elaborates on the intelligence community's responsibility to keep the congressional oversight committees "fully and currently informed" of U.S. intelligence activities, which is required by the National Security Act.

Among the types of activities that would normally warrant congressional notification, the directive says, are:

- intelligence activities that entail significant risk of exposure, compromise, and loss of human life;

- activities undertaken pursuant to specific direction of the President or the National Security Council, other than covert action (which is subject to a separate reporting requirement);

- a significant unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence information;

- a conclusion that an intelligence product is the result of foreign deception or denial activity, or otherwise contains major errors in analysis;

- intelligence activities that are believed to be in violation of U.S. law; and so forth.

"Not every intelligence activity warrants written notification," the directive says. That determination is "a judgment based on all the facts and circumstances known to the IC element, and on the nature and extent of previous notifications and briefings to Congress on the same matter.... If it is unclear whether a notification is appropriate, IC elements should decide in favor of notification." [Read more: Aftergood/SecrecyNews/1December2011]

Ex-DNI Dennis Blair: Get CIA Out of Long-Term Drone Campaigns. Former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who previously proposed scaling back the armed drone operation run in Pakistan by the Central Intelligence Agency, is now urging that program be publicly acknowledged and placed in the hands of the U.S. military.

"Covert action that goes on for years doesn't generally stay covert," Blair said during a forum Monday at the Aspen Institute's Washington office. "You need a way to make it something that is part of your overt policy. I think that the way that we know to do that is to make it a military operation and therefore, when you are going to be using drones over a long period of time, I would say you ought to give strong consideration to running those as military operations."

Blair said handing over the anti-terrorism operation to the military would make it easier for the U.S. government to discuss targeting procedures and precautions taken to avoid civilian casualties, sometimes referred to as collateral damage.

"Within the armed forces we have a set of procedures that are open, known for how you make decisions about when to use deadly force or not, levels of approval degrees of proof and so on and they are things that can be and should be openly put out. So yet another of the problems of trying to conduct long-term sustained covert operations is this secrecy," Blair said. "So, I argue strongly that covert action should be retained for relatively short duration operations which - no kidding - should not be talked about and should not be publicized. ... If something has been going for a long period of time, somebody else ought to do it, not intelligence agencies." [Read more: Gerstein/Politico/30November2011]

Colombia's Troubled Intelligence Agency Shuttered. Colombia's intelligence service has been led by hard-charging men drawn to the cloak-and-dagger world in the government's battle against drug traffickers and ultra-violent armed groups.

The new man in charge, however, is an affable bankruptcy lawyer and former university professor, and his role is decidedly different from his predecessors'. Ricardo Giraldo is dismantling the agency, which had once been considered a key component of the U.S.-backed effort to roll back the cocaine trade but has been paralyzed by one embarrassing scandal after another.

One former director of the Administrative Department of Security, or DAS, as the agency is known here, has been convicted of conspiring to kill union activists. A former high-ranking manager is accused of collaborating with death squads to assassinate a television humorist. Dozens of agents have been implicated in what prosecutors call a systematic effort to illegally spy on the Supreme Court and opposition politicians, which some former DAS agents said was done with U.S. equipment and funding.

And in recent weeks, Semana magazine revealed how rogue agents tried to kill the current interior minister and how other agency employees provided drug trafficking organizations with secret files, including the names of undercover agents and informants.

Government officials have tried to downplay what some analysts call the transformation of the DAS into a criminal organization.

But what is clear is that the DAS has been "a deeply dysfunctional organization, without a clear mission, that is unable to deliver strategic intelligence," as Douglas Porch, an intelligence expert at the California-based Naval Postgraduate School, put it in a long report. Indeed, it has been police and army intelligence agents - and not DAS operatives - who have infiltrated the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to help the military deliver paralyzing blows. [Read more: Forero/WashingtonPost/4December2011]

Lawmakers Push to Save Spy Program for Commercial Satellites. Lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee are asking the Obama administration to avoid cutting a more than $7 billion commercial satellite program being developed by GeoEye Inc. and DigitalGlobe Inc.

The Defense Department is considering "major" reductions that may damage the EnhancedView program, which provides commercial satellite imagery to the defense and intelligence communities. No amount was specified in the letter.

GeoEye, based in Herndon, Virginia, in 2010 received a $3.8 billion contract from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for the program, and DigitalGlobe, based in Longmont, Colorado, received a $3.55 billion contract. The public-private partnership was designed to support existing government satellites.

"In this period of extreme fiscal restraint, this partnership represents a creative solution that should be applauded and emulated," a dozen House and Senate lawmakers wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and National Intelligence Director James Clapper. "We support the EnhancedView program and urge the department and the intelligence community to sustain it."

The letter was signed by seven Democrats and five Republicans, including Senators Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican. All three sit on the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence. [Read more: McGarry&Capaccio/Bloomberg/1December2011]

Military Planning $300 Million Intelligence Campus in Bethesda. The Pentagon plans to set up a $300 million hub in Bethesda for the federal government's intelligence-gathering agencies on a 40-acre site vacated in September by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency .

The Army Corps of Engineers is working with the Defense Intelligence Agency on the large-scale overhaul, which could take about five years to develop and would shift 3,000 workers to the site off MacArthur Boulevard and Sangamore Road.

Parts of the project are still being refined, but the corps, which handles real estate projects for the military, has begun laying out its plans to local groups. [Read more: Sernovitz/WashingtonBusinessJournal/2December2011]

Americans Not Immune if They Act Against U.S: CIA. American citizens are not immune from being treated like an enemy if they take up arms against the United States, the CIA general counsel said on Thursday.

CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston was responding to a question at an American Bar Association national security conference about the killing of Americans overseas without presenting evidence of wrongdoing.

A CIA drone strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, earlier this year.

He was linked to failed plots to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger plane in 2009 and cargo planes headed for the United States in 2010, U.S. officials say.

Preston said he would not discuss Awlaki or any specific operations.

"I will make this observation that citizenship does not confer immunity on one who takes up arms against his own country. It didn't in World War Two when there were American citizens who joined the Nazi army and it doesn't today," Preston said. [Read more: Reuters/1December2011]

Drone Belonged to CIA, Officials Say. The unmanned surveillance plane lost by the United States in Iran was a stealth aircraft being used for secret missions by the CIA, U.S. officials said Monday.

The officials said Iran's military appears to be in possession of one of the more sensitive surveillance platforms in the CIA's fleet, an aircraft that was shaped and designed to evade enemy defenses.

The mission of the downed drone remains unclear. Iran, a longtime adversary of the United States, is believed by U.S. intelligence agencies to be pursuing the development of a nuclear weapon and is also accused of providing support to anti-coalition elements in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The RQ-170 has been used by the CIA for highly sensitive missions into other nations' airspace, including months of surveillance of the compound in Pakistan in which Osama bin Laden was hiding before he was killed in a May raid by Special Operations forces.

A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the drone was being flown by the agency. A Pentagon spokesman, George Little, also declined to comment. [Read more: Miller/WashingtonPost/5December2011]

US Spies Given Go-Ahead to Share Information with Private Companies. The US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee has approved a recently introduced bill that would allow greater cyberthreat information sharing between intelligence agencies and private companies, even though privacy advocates say it would allow those agencies to spy on US residents.

The committee approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act late Thursday by a 17-1 vote. The bill would allow intelligence agencies to share classified cyberthreat information with approved US companies, while encouraging companies to share their own information with the government or other companies.

The next step for the bill is a vote in the full House. That vote has not yet been scheduled. [Read more: Gross/IDG/5December2011]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

CIA Family Support Group Celebrates Tenth Anniversary. The Central Intelligence Agency is famously off the grid of public attention, neither seeking nor welcoming the spotlight. But a decade ago, when CIA Special Activities Division officer Johnny "Mike" Spann became the first American war casualty in Afghanistan, something unusual happened. When news organizations published details of Spann's death, the CIA did not shirk from public interest. The agency publicly confirmed that on November 25 he had been killed by the Taliban in a bloody prison revolt. Spann's death, the return of his body to the US, his burial at Arlington National Cemetery, and his widow and three young children became national news.

There was a large, spontaneous outpouring of public support. People sent checks to the CIA for the Spann family, but the agency was not allowed to accept donations. Instead, a group of former officers got together to create a charitable organization that could accept donations on behalf of Shannon Spann and her children. That organization is the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation, and this month it celebrates its tenth anniversary. Over the decade it has grown from a fund for the Spann family to a means of financial support for all CIA families who have lost a loved one in the line of duty. Since Spann's death, another 22 CIA operatives have died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Bill Harlow, the CIA's chief spokesman from 1997 to 2004 and a member of the foundation's board, says, "The CIA, being a much smaller organization than the military, does not have an extensive safety net. The resources available to the military are terrific, but there isn't anything comparable for CIA officers who die in the line of duty. Their children are not equally covered. The foundation helps fill that need."

Much of the financial assistance is used for children's education, but not all of it. "We also provide assistance to spouses who lost a husband and who need to go back to college to get a degree," Harlow explains. [Read more: Joynt/Washingtonian/1December2011]

Secret History: Finland and American Intelligence. As a change from all the hectic news that has filled these pages in recent weeks, I thought readers might be interested in this interesting historical take on Finnish neutrality. It's by Jukka Rislakki, a Finnish author now based in Latvia. It won a prize in an American essay competition, but is not online anywhere, so I am posting it here. It's long, but gives a revealing take on a much neglected aspect of cold war history. Finland was a lot closer to American defence planning that most people realised at the time. I suspect that's still the case now. 

During the Cold War, Finland occupied a strategic position between two hostile blocks and was an object of interest to the superpowers as both a buffer zone and an overflight and military transit route. Both sides cultivated the potential to use tactical nuclear weapons against targets in our (i.e. Finnish) territory, at least pre-emptively. Both engaged themselves in intensive intelligence activities in Finland and in the bordering areas.

Bomber formations heading east would have crossed Finland's air space during the first hours of a war between the two blocs. A Strategic Air Command (SAC) pilots' Escape & Evasion route through Finland to the west was prepared for the eventuality that bombers ran out of fuel or were shot down on the way to or from the Moscow area.

Already in April 1949 the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said about the Scandinavian countries: "Current strategic plans envisage overflights of their territories by combat aircraft". It was clear to them, as well as to Finnish intelligence, that Scandinavian air bases were necessary and would be used for this purpose by bombers stationed in England, Iceland, and Greenland. 

The Soviet Union wanted to detect and engage the adversary's nuclear attack assets well before they reached the Soviet-Finnish border since Finland's eastern border ran close to important Soviet population and military centers. 

The Finnish military informed the government in 1958 that there were "a lot of nuclear targets" behind our eastern border. Nowhere else were vital Soviet targets so well within the reach of the western military apparatus. [Read more: TheEconomist/1December2011]

10 Spies Who Aren't Household Names. We've all heard of Mata Hari, Nathan Hale and, more recently, Anna Chapman. But given the nature of the job, it's probably safe to say that the most successful spies don't always become household names. With the espionage thriller "The Debt" coming out on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, December 6, get in a covert state of mind by exploring the lives of these extraordinary but lesser-known secret agents. [Read more: History.com/1December2011]

Digging into China's Nuclear Tunnels. The Chinese have called it their "Underground Great Wall" - a vast network of tunnels designed to hide their country's increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear arsenal.

For the past three years, a small band of obsessively dedicated students at Georgetown University has called it something else: homework.

Led by their hard-charging professor, a former top Pentagon official, they have translated hundreds of documents, combed through satellite imagery, obtained restricted Chinese military documents and waded through hundreds of gigabytes of online data.

The result of their effort? The largest body of public knowledge about thousands of miles of tunnels dug by the Second Artillery Corps, a secretive branch of the Chinese military in charge of protecting and deploying its ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads.

The study is yet to be released, but already it has sparked a congressional hearing and been circulated among top officials in the Pentagon, including the Air Force vice chief of staff.

Most of the attention has focused on the 363-page study's provocative conclusion - that China's nuclear arsenal could be many times larger than the well-established estimates of arms-control experts. [Read more: Wan/WashingtonPost/30November2011]

Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon. In October, a foreign national named Mike Fikri purchased a one-way plane ticket from Cairo to Miami, where he rented a condo. Over the previous few weeks, he'd made a number of large withdrawals from a Russian bank account and placed repeated calls to a few people in Syria. More recently, he rented a truck, drove to Orlando, and visited Walt Disney World by himself. As numerous security videos indicate, he did not frolic at the happiest place on earth. He spent his day taking pictures of crowded plazas and gate areas.

None of Fikri's individual actions would raise suspicions. Lots of people rent trucks or have relations in Syria, and no doubt there are harmless eccentrics out there fascinated by amusement park infrastructure. Taken together, though, they suggested that Fikri was up to something. And yet, until about four years ago, his pre-attack prep work would have gone unnoticed. A CIA analyst might have flagged the plane ticket purchase; an FBI agent might have seen the bank transfers. But there was nothing to connect the two. Lucky for counterterror agents, not to mention tourists in Orlando, the government now has software made by Palantir Technologies, a Silicon Valley company that's become the darling of the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

The day Fikri drives to Orlando, he gets a speeding ticket, which triggers an alert in the CIA's Palantir system. An analyst types Fikri's name into a search box and up pops a wealth of information pulled from every database at the government's disposal. There's fingerprint and DNA evidence for Fikri gathered by a CIA operative in Cairo; video of him going to an ATM in Miami; shots of his rental truck's license plate at a tollbooth; phone records; and a map pinpointing his movements across the globe. All this information is then displayed on a clearly designed graphical interface that looks like something Tom Cruise would use in a Mission: Impossible movie.

As the CIA analyst starts poking around on Fikri's file inside of Palantir, a story emerges. A mouse click shows that Fikri has wired money to the people he had been calling in Syria. Another click brings up CIA field reports on the Syrians and reveals they have been under investigation for suspicious behavior and meeting together every day over the past two weeks. Click: The Syrians bought plane tickets to Miami one day after receiving the money from Fikri. To aid even the dullest analyst, the software brings up a map that has a pulsing red light tracing the flow of money from Cairo and Syria to Fikri's Miami condo. That provides local cops with the last piece of information they need to move in on their prey before he strikes.

Fikri isn't real - he's the John Doe example Palantir uses in product demonstrations that lay out such hypothetical examples. The demos let the company show off its technology without revealing the sensitive work of its clients. Since its founding in 2004, the company has quietly developed an indispensable tool employed by the U.S. intelligence community in the war on terrorism. Palantir technology essentially solves the Sept. 11 intelligence problem. The Digital Revolution dumped oceans of data on the law enforcement establishment but provided feeble ways to make sense of it. In the months leading up to the 2001 attacks, the government had all the necessary clues to stop the al Qaeda perpetrators: They were from countries known to harbor terrorists, who entered the U.S. on temporary visas, had trained to fly civilian airliners, and purchased one-way airplane tickets on that terrible day.

An organization like the CIA or FBI can have thousands of different databases, each with its own quirks: financial records, DNA samples, sound samples, video clips, maps, floor plans, human intelligence reports from all over the world. Gluing all that into a coherent whole can take years. Even if that system comes together, it will struggle to handle different types of data - sales records on a spreadsheet, say, plus video surveillance images. What Palantir (pronounced Pal-an-TEER) does, says Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner (IT), is "make it really easy to mine these big data sets." The company's software pulls off one of the great computer science feats of the era: It combs through all available databases, identifying related pieces of information, and puts everything together in one place. [Read more: Vance&Stone/Bloomberg/22November2011]

Section III - COMMENTARY

Cyberwar Storm Clouds are Gathering. Cyberspace. Some call it the new domain of war, after land, sea, air and space. The 2010 Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran's uranium enrichment plant, suspected to have come from Israel or the US, seemed to confirm this status.

Stuxnet raised the spectre of cyber-sabotage. The recently discovered Duqu trojan, which contains some Stuxnet code, is built to steal information about computers controlling industrial plants. IT security analysts such as Symantec suspect Duqu came from the same source as Stuxnet, and may be seeking vulnerable points for future sabotage.

October saw a glut of talk about cyberwar. News reports in the US claimed that Barack Obama's administration chose not to launch a cyberattack against Libyan air defences in March. Also in October, the Pentagon announced that the joint chiefs of staff, the country's highest military officers, were reviewing the rules of engagement for cyberwar. A few days later, another report suggested China may have launched a cyberattack against two US civilian satellites.

Despite all this activity, the nature of cyber-threats remains poorly defined. Analysts have been warning for years about vulnerabilities in US government and private computer networks. In 2009, Obama launched a 60-day cyberspace security review to assess the threats. It concluded they were dire, and urged government-wide coordination to fight the threat under the direction of the US National Security Council, along with cooperation with other countries and private industry.

Firewalls guarding US military information are attacked relentlessly, sometimes successfully. "Over the past decade, terabytes of data have been extracted by foreign intruders," then US deputy defence secretary William Lynn said in July. A single intrusion in March saw 24,000 files stolen.

Yet cyberwar goes far beyond this activity. There is industrial espionage; criminal attacks, including stealing military secrets; and selling counterfeit military parts on the internet, which can damage or destroy equipment. Insurgents and opposition groups pose their own threats. Thus security must go far beyond protecting government documents and facilities. [Read more: Hecht/NewScientist/29November2011]

America's Shadow State in Pakistan. Officially, America's relations Pakistan's military and intelligence services were in a tailspin in August. Furious at having been kept in the dark ahead of the Americans' May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, Pakistan's military had kept U.S. investigators out of the place until it was scrubbed for evidence and had refused them access to bin Laden's wives for some time. And the Pakistanis had outed the CIA's Islamabad station chief, putting his life at risk. Meanwhile, back in America, fears were rising over possible al Qaeda attacks on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11.

But in the shadows, far from the public rancor, Pakistani-U.S. cooperation quietly continued. In Quetta, the Taliban's capital in exile, U.S. intelligence was monitoring the cellphone of the presumed planner of any Qaeda anniversary attacks, Younis al-Mauritani, the group's newly named external operations chief. The Americans' tracking data - signals intelligence, or sigint, as it's known in the profession - was being shared in real time with the local branch of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps. When his exact location was discovered, the Pakistanis smashed through the doors of his safe house and grabbed him along with two deputies.

Soon he was hundreds of miles away, at a special detention center in Punjab province, under intensive interrogation by a pro-U.S. faction of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. The Americans began getting regular reports on potential threats connected to the anniversary. CIA officials were even given an "unofficial" visit to question Mauritani directly.

Many in the U.S. government regarded the capture as a crowning achievement of a decade-long, multibillion-dollar effort to build a secret network of Pakistani security forces, intelligence operatives, counterterrorism fighters, and detention centers. Its objective had been to create a friendlier, more trustworthy alternative to Pakistan's military and intelligence services.

Now, however, just three months after Mauritani's capture, the partnership is facing its most dire challenge. [Read more: Lake/TheDailyBeast/5December2011]

Mysterious Blasts, Slayings Suggest Covert Efforts in Iran. At an Iranian military base 30 miles west of Tehran, engineers were working on weapons that the armed forces chief of staff had boasted could give Israel a "strong punch in the mouth."

But then a huge explosion ripped through the Revolutionary Guard Corps base on Nov. 12, leveling most of the buildings. Government officials said 17 people were killed, including a founder of Iran's ballistic missile program, Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam.

Iranian officials called the blast an accident. Perhaps it was.

Decades of international sanctions have left Iran struggling to obtain technology and spare parts for military programs and commercial industries, leading in some cases to dangerous working conditions.

However, many former U.S. intelligence officials and Iran experts believe that the explosion - the most destructive of at least two dozen unexplained blasts in the last two years - was part of a covert effort by the U.S., Israel and others to disable Iran's nuclear and missile programs. The goal, the experts say, is to derail what those nations fear is Iran's quest for nuclear weapons capability and to stave off an Israeli or U.S. airstrike to eliminate or lessen the threat.

"It looks like the 21st century form of war," said Patrick Clawson, who directs the Iran Security Initiative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank. "It does appear that there is a campaign of assassinations and cyber war, as well as the semi-acknowledged campaign of sabotage."

Or perhaps not. [Read more: Dilanian/LosAngelesTimes/4December2011]

Analysis: How Big is the Threat from Russian Spies? There may well be Russian spies operating in Britain today, but Katia Zatuliveter - who has won an appeal against deportation - is not one of them and the failure of the case against her is an embarrassing blow to a security service for whom the Russians were once the top target.

In the Cold War, Soviet bloc intelligence services certainly did target Parliament and in some cases managed to recruit MPs and those around them.

Honey traps were also employed - one Conservative MP in the 1960s had pictures of him in the arms of a Russian girl sent to colleagues in Parliament, the media and to his wife when he refused to co-operate with the KGB.

So have those days passed?

Just after the Cold War ended, some of British intelligence's most senior officers made an unusual visit to Moscow. They were greeted at the airport by a KGB officer bearing roses and then went to the Lubyanka, the headquarters of Russian intelligence, for what those present remember as a surreal meeting.

Hunting for Russian spies had been the bread and butter work of MI5 in the Cold War and the two sides gingerly danced round the question of whether they would go on spying on each other now that war was over.

Both sides came away with the sense that not as much was going to change as some thought. The reality was that despite a brief hiatus in the 1990s, spying has continued. [Read more: Corera/BBC/29November2011]

Section IV - Careers, Obituaries, Books, Research Requests and Coming Events

Careers

Assistant/Associate Professor of Forensic Psychology - Tenure Track - Specializing in Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence - Marymount University, Arlington, VA

The Department of Forensic Psychology at Marymount University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant or Associate level, beginning August 2012. The department offers a Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology (broadly defined as any application of psychological principles, knowledge, and methods to the criminal, civil and juvenile justice systems).

Responsibilities include: developing and teaching graduate-level courses in (counter)terrorism and/or (counter)intelligence, and teaching other established program courses; advising students; participating in department and University service requirements; and engaging in scholarship.

Minimum qualifications: Doctorate in any area of psychology, criminal justice, criminology or related discipline; commitments to interdisciplinary collaboration and service are essential.

Preferred qualifications: Teaching experience, record of scholarship, and/or professional experience in the areas of (counter)terrorism and/or (counter)intelligence.

Review of applications begins immediately and continues until the position is filled.  Interested individuals must apply for the position at: https://www.marymountjobs.com (position # 09736).  Include cover letter, curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy, and the names and contact information of at least 3 references.  Please direct any questions about this position to Dr. Jason Doll at jason.doll@marymount.edu

Obituaries

Glenn Whidden Glenn Whidden, 83, of Fort Washington, MD died November 24, 2011 after a short illness. Glenn was President of Technical Services Agency Inc., a private firm that designs and markets electronic equipment for eavesdropping detection. Holder of five U.S. patents. Part-time instructor, World Institute of Security Enhancement, Greensboro, N.C. Author of A Guidebook for the Beginning Sweeper; The Russian Eavesdropping Threat -- Late 1993; The Axnan Attack; and five other books on the subject of countereavesdropping.Whidden was a 28-year CIA veteran who retired 1974. He worked in 50 countries worldwide and had field experience in most types of espionage activity, including mail intercepts, surreptitious entry, and electronic eavesdropping. He is survived by his wife Natalie; three sons Mark, David, and Thomas; and numerous grandchildren. He will be buried in Manchester, NH in a private family service.

Robert Edward "Bob" Savage. Robert Edward "Bob" Savage, 79, a retired officer with the CIA's Directorate of Operations from 1958 to 1992, died Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, at his home in San Pasqual Valley, Calif., after a two-year battle with bladder cancer. During his career with CIA, Savage spent 14 years in numerous countries in the Far East prior to returning to Langley. Subsequent to retirement in 1992, he served under contract to the agency as a consultant on counterintelligence matters until 1999. He served three years in the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps prior to his Agency career. Born in Madison, to Hazel and Norman Savage, he received his BA in economics from the University of Maine, Orono. While there, he was a member of Theta Chi fraternity. Prior to moving to Calif., in May 2006 to be near his daughters and their families, he and Sue resided in Rockville, Md. After retirement Bob volunteered at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., and then in Escondido, Calif., at the Safari Park. He enjoyed spirited and knowledgeable conversations of current and past events and was an avid tennis player. He leaves behind his wife of 54 years, Sue; twin daughters, Catherine Gregg and Cynthia Priest; sons-in-law, Keith Gregg and Greg Priest; grandchildren, Robert and Ryan Gregg, Taylor Grace "TiGi" and Andrew Priest of Escondido, Calif.; his sister, Shirley "Shan" Prehn and her husband, Jerry; niece, Elizabeth P. Hogan; and nephews, Jeffrey and Matthew Prehn of Virginia. He was the salt of the Earth. A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, 16275 Pomerado Road, Poway, Calif. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to San Diego Zoo's Safari Park, Escondido, Calif. Sign the guest book online at www.obits.nctimes.com. [Read more: BangorDailyNews/3December2011]

John 'Jake' Brandt III. John "Jake" Brandt III, 84, a retired CIA officer who had served in operations, staff and administrative roles, died Oct. 28 at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg after a stroke, said his daughter-in-law, Kimberly Brandt. Mr. Brandt retired from the CIA in 1980 after more than 28 years with the agency. His career included duty in Vietnam and other Asian countries and temporary assignments in Europe and Latin America. He received a Career Intelligence Medal on retirement.
After his formal retirement, he was an independent contractor for the CIA until the mid-1990s.
John Hamilton Brandt III was born in Baltimore and served in the Army in Europe during World War II. He graduated from the University of Maryland in 1951.
A former Potomac resident, he had lived in the Lake of the Woods community in Locust Grove, near Fredericksburg, for more than 15 years. He was active in the Lake of the Woods's fire and rescue unit, acting group and square-dance club.
His first marriage, to Ann Murphy Brandt, ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 24 years, Gloria Pierce Brandt of Locust Grove; three children from his first marriage, John H. Brandt IV of Sykesville, Md., Karen Brandt of Olney and Leslie Brandt-Dillon of Arlington, Wash.; a sister; and five grandchildren. [Read more: Barnes/WashingtonPost/29November2011]

Books and Other Reading

Declassified Memo Hinted of 1941 Hawaii Attack. Three days before the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt was warned in a memo from naval intelligence that Tokyo's military and spy network was focused on Hawaii, a new and eerie reminder of FDR's failure to act on a basket load of tips that war was near.

In the newly revealed 20-page memo from FDR's declassified FBI file, the Office of Naval Intelligence on December 4 warned, "In anticipation of open conflict with this country, Japan is vigorously utilizing every available agency to secure military, naval and commercial information, paying particular attention to the West Coast, the Panama Canal and the Territory of Hawaii."

The memo, published in the new book December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World went on to say that the Japanese were collecting "detailed technical information" that would be specifically used by its navy. To collect and analyze information, they were building a network of spies through their U.S. embassies and consulates.

Historian and acclaimed Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, author of the just released December 1941, doesn't blame FDR for blowing it, but instead tells Whispers that it "does suggest that there were more pieces to the puzzle" that the administration missed. The 70th anniversary of the attack is next month. [Read more: Bedard/USNews/29November2011]

Ian Fleming and American Intelligence. On 15 May 1941, two Englishmen flew from London to Lisbon, at the start of a ten-day wartime journey to New York City. Though they wore civilian clothes they were, in fact, the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey, and his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming RNVR, the future author of the James Bond novels. What followed was to change American intelligence forever.

Until December 1941, the United States of America was neutral in the Second World War. In two years of open blitzkrieg, the Nazis had conquered much of Europe; Britain stood alone and broke, summoning aid from its overseas dominions and colonies. The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill remembered well that industrial America's entry into the Great War in 1917 had assured victory. He needed a repeat, but the US President F.D. Roosevelt proceeded cautiously.

The first American aid to the Allied cause was spun as protecting an isolationist nation. In return for 50 old American destroyers for the Royal Navy, the USA obtained from the British Empire 99-year leases on a chain of strategic Atlantic bases: in Newfoundland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Antigua, St Lucia, Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana. Between January and March 1941, there were also secret military and naval staff talks codenamed ABC - the American-British Conversations. Following these, the Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Intelligence Committee in London sent the two men to Washington DC to help 'set up a combined intelligence organisation on a 100 per cent co-operative basis'.

The relationship of Admiral John Godfrey to Ian Fleming was like that of 'M' and James Bond, but also father/son. Fifty-three-year-old Godfrey had three daughters but no son; thirty-three- year- old Fleming had three brothers but no father. (Major Valentine Fleming DSO had been killed in the Great War just before Ian's ninth birthday.) Admiral Godfrey had a brilliant mind but a volcanic temper; Ian Fleming was imaginative and imperturbable. He was a good fixer and drafted swift, crisp memos. [Read more: Rankin/OxfordUniversityPress/29November2011]

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in December, January, and beyond, 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, 7 December 2011, 6 pm - Las Vegas, NV - Las Vegas Chapter Holiday and Award Dinner

The Roger E. McCarthy Las Vegas Chapter will present Colonel Sully de Fontaine, US Army (Ret), a highly decorated veteran of World War II, the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. He also served in the African conflicts of the early 1960's. Colonel de Fontaine will recount how he was trained by the British Special Operations Executive and the Special Air Service in 1943 and 1944 (commando and aireborne schools); and the clandestine assignments which parachuted him into Occupied France (twice) to escort downed aircrews to safety. For his work, de Fontaine was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm (France and Belgium).

Colonel de Fontaine is a member of AFIO's Roger E. McCarthy Las Vegas Chapter, the OSS Society, and other distinguished organizations.

This meeting is also our holiday dinner. If you are planning to attend, please provide your name and birth date to me, Mary Bentley, Corresponding Secretary, 702-295-1024, or by email at BentleyM@nv.doe.gov as soon as possible. The dinner/meeting charge per person is $20.00.

Thursday, 8 December 2011, 10:30 am - 2 pm - Tysons Corner, VA - AFIO Winter Luncheon - Speaker: John D. Bennett, Director, National Clandestine Service, CIA and J.M. Berger, author of JIHAD JOE: Americans Who Go To War In The Name of Islam

Speaker: John D. Bennett, Director, National Clandestine Service, CIA, OFF THE RECORD, and morning speaker J.M. Berger, author of JIHAD JOE: Americans Who Go To War In The Name of Islam. Location: Crowne Plaza, Tysons Corner, VA. REGISTRATION CLOSED. No Space Remains.

8 December 2011, 6 - 9 pm - New York, NY - The AFIO NY Metro Chapter meeting features Jim Rasenberger on "The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs"

Jim Rasenberger, Author: The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Ccastro and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs, April 17, 1961 "How could we have been so stupid" remarked one administration official. Did this "doomed invasion" contribute to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and the assassination of President Kennedy? LOCATION: "3 West Club" 3 West 51st Street, Manhattan.
6:00 PM Registration 6:30 PM Meeting Start Please Note this Time Change from our usual start. Buffet Dinner Cash Bar COST: $40/person. Cash or Check, payable at the door only.
REGISTER: Strongly suggested, not required. Seating is limited.
Email: afiometro@yahoo.com or telephone Jerry Goodwin 347-334-1503.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011 - MacDill AFB, FL - The AFIO Florida Suncoast Chapter luncheon features Karla Stevenson on Afghanistan-Pakistan.

Stevenson is Coordinator, Analytic Outreach & Strategic Relationships Afghanistan-Pakistan Center, U.S. Central Command
Location: MacDill AFB Surf's Edge Club, 7315 Bayshore Blvd, MacDill AFB, FL 33621. Please RSVP no later than Tuesday, December 6, for
yourself and include the names of any guests. Email or call the Chapter Secretary at Michael F. Shapiro mfshapiro@att.net

Wednesday, 11 January 2012, 6:30–8:30 pm - Washington, DC 2011 Espionage Debrief: Year in Review at the International Spy Museum

How did 2011 measure up intel-wise? What was 2011 like for intelligence agencies and operatives around the world? Which service was penetrated? Who was caught? Which covert action operations flew under the media's radar? David Major knows. As a retired Supervisory Special Agent and Director of Counterintelligence, Intelligence and Security Programs for the FBI and Spy Museum Board Member, he understands the cases and knows their implications. As the founder of the CI Centre which provides counterintelligence and security studies and training, Major tracks the most important spy cases from around the globe and has the most up-to-date information on their status. Learn about defector on defector violence in North Korea and discover the critical information that was sought by Libya's intelligence mastermind, Abdullah Senussi. You'll learn the hottest targets and who's been attacked by cyberespionage and why. Major will also include key economic espionage cases and their outcome in this essential international update. Tickets: $15 Visit www.spymuseum.org to register or more information

Thursday, 12 January 2012, Noon-1 pm – Washington, DC - SMERSH: Stalin's Secret Weapon: Soviet Military Counterintelligence in WWII at the International Spy Museum

In the early James Bond novels, the hero battled the villainous forces of SMERSH, a shadowy Soviet intelligence organization. While Bond was fictional, SMERSH really existed. Drawing its name from the Russian phrase smert shpionam or "death to spies," it was Stalin's wartime terror apparatus—a collection of torturers and killers unleashed with brutal effect in 1943 to cut a bloody swath across Eastern Europe. Its job was to "filter" the Red Army for spies and, as a result, it was responsible for the arrest, torture, and execution of many thousands of innocent servicemen and citizens of countries occupied by the Red Army. Join historian and human rights activist Vadim J. Birstein as he discusses this ruthless organization and reveals new evidence suggesting that Raoul Wallenberg was one of its victims.
Free! No Registration Required! Visit www.spymuseum.org for more information

Thursday, 19 January 2012, 6:30–8:30 pm - Washington, DC – Vienna, City of My Dreams: An Evening with Oleg Kalugin at the International Spy Museum

"More than a century of spying history makes this romantic city a place where…agents and informants still feel at ease."—Sigrun Rottman, BBC News, July 8, 2010
Vienna is famous for waltzing, coffee houses, pastries, and the Prater, but for Spy Museum Board Member Oleg Kalugin, the city is all about intrigue. Kalugin, the youngest Major General in KGB history, operated clandestinely in the Austrian capital throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where he developed a passion for the history of this city of spies. From Alfred Redl, the chief of Austrian-Hungarian Intelligence, who was recruited by the Russian Imperial Secret Service in 1907, to Norwegian diplomat Arne Treholt's KGB meetings caught on film in the 80s, Vienna has served as a legendary setting for espionage. Join General Kalugin for this evocative evening of music, film, history, and his own personal experiences as a spy in this elegant European crossroads. While guests enjoy Austrian delicacies, he'll address unanswered questions such as whether one-time Viennese resident Felix Bloch was truly a spy. Come celebrate Vienna's glorious ball season and the confidential information that can be exchanged…in the course of a waltz.
Tickets: $20 Visit www.spymuseum.org to register or more information

1, 8, 15, 22 February 2012 - Washington, DC - "The Greatest Spies of WWII: Garbo, Baker, De Clarens…and Hemingway?" (4-Session Daytime Course) at the International Spy Museum in collaboration with Smithsonian Associates

Imagine operating behind enemy lines using your wits, fame, or seductive powers to fight a ruthless adversary. The spies of World War II knew that they faced death upon discovery, yet they continued to engage in daring and dangerous exploits to thwart the Axis powers. Some were incredibly effective while others, like Hemingway, were just incredibly bold. In this series, a distinguished group of experts and former intelligence officers will introduce you to some of the bravest and most daring spies of the 20th century.

Juan Pujol Garcia
Wednesday, 1 February 1012, 10:15 am – 12:15 pm - Washington, DC - at the International Spy Museum in collaboration with Smithsonian Associates Program

Spaniard Juan Pujol Garcia—codenamed Garbo—was one of the most effective double agents in history. While working for the British, he deceived the Germans into believing he was operating a valuable spy network. It was valuable…for the Allies. International Spy Museum historian and former CIA analyst Mark Stout will reveal how Garbo managed to deceive the Germans so thoroughly that they thought the D-Day invasion of Normandy was a ploy to distract from a real invasion in the Pas-de-Calais.

Josephine Baker
Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 10:15 am – 12:15 pm at the International Spy Museum in collaboration with Smithsonian Associates Program

Night club sensation Josephine Baker escaped racism in the U.S. to live a glamorous life as the toast of European café society. As a star in Paris, her affection for France was so great that when World War II broke out, she volunteered to spy for her adopted country. Jonna Mendez, former CIA Chief of Disguise, will reveal Baker's espionage on behalf of the French Resistance and place it in the context of Baker's glamorous and groundbreaking life.

Jeannie de Clarens
Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 10:15 am – 12:15 pm at the International Spy Museum in collaboration with Smithsonian Associates Program

As a member of Georges Lamarque's French Resistance network, Jeannie de Clarens risked her life and was captured twice. Her exact and detailed reports on Germany's secret military plans, especially their development of the V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets, helped persuade Prime Minister Winston Churchill to bomb the German test site at Peenemunde. David Ignatius, Washington Post foreign affairs columnist and spy novelist, will profile his friend de Clarens using selections from his recently filmed interview with the formidable former spy.

Ernest Hemingway
Wednesday, 22 February 2012, 10:15 am – 12:15 pm at the International Spy Museum in collaboration with Smithsonian Associates Program

Ernest Hemingway, true to his macho image, plunged into WWII intelligence work with his brother Leicester and his son Jack. The Hemingways searched for Fascist spies in Cuba, patrolled the Caribbean for Nazi subs, parachuted into occupied France, roamed the battlefields of France after D-Day, and even met secretly with the KGB. Nicholas Reynolds, an intelligence and military historian who has taught at the Naval War College, served as Officer-in-Charge of Field History for USMC, and worked on the history of the OSS for the CIA Museum, will recount the Hemingways' exploits.
Tickets: $112 for the 4 sessions. Register by phone with the Smithsonian Associates at 202-633-3030 or online at http://residentassociates.org

Tuesday, 7 February 2011, 6:30 – 8:30 pm – Washington, DC - "Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals" at the International Spy Museum

What do you do if the girl of your dreams gets married off to a National Guard general who can pay a bigger dowry than you can? If you are Abdullah al-Gilani, you join al-Qaeda. Later you learn that your true love ran away from her husband to join the jihad in Iraq—where she may have been martyred. This sad story of star-crossed lovers is just one of the true tales Ken Ballen, author of Terrorists in Love, will share in a night devoted to misspent passion. As a former prosecutor and counsel to the House Iran-Contra Committee, and now as President of Terror Free Tomorrow, he has tapped into the inner secrets of the terrorist world that no spy agency could divine. When terrorists opened their hearts to him, he found that the stories of Islamic radicals and terrorists are as much about love as hate: a missed love, a love you cannot have, a love you can only find in God, a love a man can never have with a woman, or in one case with another man. Consider bringing your sweetheart to this eye-opening evening… if you can make the dowry.
Tickets: $9 For more information visit www.spymuseum.org

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

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