Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

White House Orders Commercial Spy Sat Study As Deep Cuts Rumored. Worried that proposed cuts to the multi-billion commercial satellite imagery budget may be too deep, the White House has ordered a study to determine how much can or should be cut.

The study is being led by Roger Mason, associate director for systems and resource analyses in the Office of Director of National Intelligence, and Kevin Meiners, acting deputy undersecretary of intelligence for portfolio, programs and resources. It should be done by April.

A close observer of the EnhancedView program, as the commercial imagery contracts with GeoEye and DigitalGlobe are known, said the cuts were proposed by the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. The $7.3 billion (if all options are exercised with both companies) program "is not loved by Clapper," said the source. That is somewhat ironic given that Clapper was the head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency - and one of commercial imagery's biggest and earliest backers - for almost five years.

"In one way I find it understandable," said a former senior intelligence official, "but in another way, curious. Since the program was developed in part to cover gaps in national systems [read the NRO's spy satellites] and that need still exists, why would they cut it?"

The cuts come in the context of the major intelligence budget cuts first made public at the Geoint intelligence conference, said to be around $25 billion over the next decade. Word from the opaque intelligence community is that Clapper and the Pentagon's undersecretary for intelligence, Mike Vickers, had to come up with significant budget cuts two months ago and zeroed in on the commercial imagery pie. The cuts were significant, though we don't how big and haven't been able to find anyone who will admit to knowing how big they were yet. But they were deep. [Read more: Clark/AOLDefense/8December2011]

Albanian Former Spy Chief Ilir Nazmi Kumbaro on the Run in Britain. Albania's former intelligence chief is in hiding in Britain as he tries to dodge extradition to his homeland where he faces torture and kidnapping charges.

Ilir Nazmi Kumbaro was due to appear at Westminster magistrates' court in London for an extradition hearing on Thursday but failed to attend.

The 58-year-old is accused of six offences of torture and abduction, including the kidnap of father of five Remzi Hoxha, who went missing in 1995.

He has left his home in Fulham, west London, and police believe he is being harboured by friends.

'Although he does not pose a threat to members of the public, he is wanted in Albania,' said Det Supt Pete Rance. [Read more: Attewill/MetroUK/7December2011]

Virginia Man Admits Conspiring With Pakistan Spy Agency. A Virginia man admitted to aiding what prosecutors said was a "decades-long" operation by Pakistan's spy agency to influence U.S. policy on Kashmir through unregistered lobbying and campaign contributions to members of Congress.

Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, 62, pleaded guilty today in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and one count of impeding the administration of tax laws. He faces as long as eight years in prison when he's sentenced on March 9. U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady agreed to let Fai remain free until sentencing.

Fai admitted to helping funnel at least $3.5 million from Pakistan's government through the Washington-based Kashmiri American Council to sway the attitudes of U.S. lawmakers on the disputed territory with campaign contributions and other lobbying activities.

The council, which was headed by Fai at the time of his arrest in July, is "actually run" by elements of the Pakistani government, including Pakistan's military intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, or ISI, prosecutors said. [Read more: Schoenberg/Bloomberg/7December2011]

German Intelligence Has 130 Informants in Extremist Party. The detection of a neo-Nazi terrorist cell in Germany last month sparked fresh calls for a ban on the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). But before any attempt to ban the party can be carried out, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, will first have to deactivate its informants within the party. A previous attempt to ban the party failed because of the presence of paid informants within the NPD.

Now, the scale of the challenge that such a move would pose has become clear. SPIEGEL has learned that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has over 130 informants active within the controversial party, some of them in senior positions. The magazine arrived at the total by analysing information about sources that the authorities have released over the past few weeks. The total includes officials in leadership positions on both the state and national levels, as well as ordinary members of the party.

In the event of a new attempt to ban the party, the domestic intelligence agency would have to deactivate over 100 of these informants. [Read more: DerSpiegal/12December2011]

Boot Camp for Defense Intelligence Analysts Pops up in Piedmont Virginia. Like many of the students in the class, she was hesitant to use her name for fear it would jeopardize her chances of a top-secret job.

Over the past year, the Defense Intelligence Agency moved about 800 jobs from the Washington area to Rivanna Station, a military facility north of Charlottesville. The agency has a robust internal training program, the Defense Intelligence Strategic Analysis Program, the spokesman said, which starts immediately and continues throughout an analyst's career. Early course work is supplemented by on-the-job training that hones skills and areas of expertise.

The boot camp, he said, "is not in any way affiliated with DIA."

Boot camp students are submitted for clearance investigations as consulting interns once they enter the program, said Hugh K. Bolton, president and chief executive of ATIC, which designed the boot camp. Their initial contracts were through Air Force organizations, he said, and now include other government agencies.

The class begins with an introduction to intelligence, how to think and brief like an analyst, and ways to gather unclassified information. As the class continues, the students (hopefully) get security clearances and can work with classified data on specialized topics.

In a recent class, students gave briefings and answered questions on topics such as the likelihood of China building a naval base in Pakistan, Libya's weapons arsenal, North Korea's offensive cyber capability, effects of the Arab Spring on Syria's leaders, and Russia's willingness to join the World Trade Organization. [Read more: WashingtonPost/Svrluga/11December2011]

Mexican Intelligence Foils Plan for one of Gaddafi's Sons to Enter the Country. Several people were arrested over a plan for Saadi Gaddafi and his family to enter Mexico after intelligence authorities got a tip on Sept. 6, a government spokeswoman said. However it was not clear when the arrests were made.

Spokeswoman Alejandra Sota told a news conference of "the capture and dispersal of a criminal network related to the alleged use of a forged document, people trafficking and organized crime."

Saadi Gaddafi fled south across the Sahara to Niger as his father's 42-year rule crumbled in August. Niger has said he would remain in the West African nation until a United Nations travel ban is lifted.

Like many senior members of the Gaddafi regime, Saadi, a businessman and former professional soccer player, was banned from travelling and had his assets frozen by a UN Security Council resolution when violence erupted earlier this year. [Read more: MercoPress/8December2011]

Alaska Militia 'Intelligence Man' Arrested Again by FBI. It appears the federal government may not yet be done pursuing federal charges against jailed militia leader Schaeffer Cox, and that it needs one of Cox's former associates to get the job done.

New details about the role Michael Anderson, 35, played in Cox's plans and what he knew about them were revealed today in a 16-page affidavit filed with the court in support of Anderson's arrest by the FBI Tuesday. Anderson had previously been jailed pending trial in a state court case against Cox and his associates alleging the group intended to capture and kill a state judge and other members of law enforcement. After a judge ruled audio and video surveillance gathered during the investigation was inadmissible, the state dropped its case against the men.

But Cox and two others remain accused of several federal weapons violations stemming from the joint state-federal investigation. Lonnie and Karen Vernon are accused in a separate federal case of plotting to kill a federal judge who oversaw a tax case in which they were involved.

Anderson is suspected of being the group's intelligence gatherer, able to swiftly track down home addresses and other information on people, someone who, at Cox's direction, maintained a hit list. On Tuesday an FBI agent told the court that a review of items seized from Anderson's home included a notebook that contained a page titled "Federal Hit List" and also the name of a Deputy U.S. Marshal stationed in Alaska. [Read more: Burke/AlaskaDispatch/7December2011]

Japan Successfully Launches Intelligence Satellite. Japan on Monday successfully launched a new information gathering radar satellite, apparently to spy on North Korea.

A domestically developed H-2A rocket carrying the satellite lifted off at 10:21 a.m. (0121 GMT) from the Tanegashima Space Center, about 1,000 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said. The satellite was separated from the booster rocket and entered into an orbit around the earth, according to the JAXA.

The development cost of the latest satellite was around JPY 39.8 billion (USD 513 million) and its launch expenses were JPY 10.3 billion (USD 133 million), according to the government.

Officials didn't reveal details of the satellite's capabilities, but Kyodo News Agency said the satellite is believed to be able to distinguish objects as small as 1 meter in size on the ground. [Read more: KUNA/12December2011]

Charter of Open Source Org is Classified, CIA Says. Open Source Works, which is the CIA's in-house open source analysis component, is devoted to intelligence analysis of unclassified, open source information. Oddly, however, the directive that established Open Source Works is classified, as is the charter of the organization. In fact, CIA says the very existence of any such records is a classified fact.

"The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request," wrote Susan Viscuso, CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator, in a November 29 response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Jeffrey Richelson of the National Security Archive for the Open Source Works directive and charter.

"The fact of the existence or nonexistence of requested records is currently and properly classified and is intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure," Dr. Viscuso wrote.

This is a surprising development since Open Source Works - by definition - does not engage in clandestine collection of intelligence. Rather, it performs analysis based on unclassified, open source materials.

Thus, according to a November 2010 CIA report, Open Source Works "was charged by the [CIA] Director for Intelligence with drawing on language-trained analysts to mine open-source information for new or alternative insights on intelligence issues. Open Source Works' products, based only on open source information, do not represent the coordinated views of the Central Intelligence Agency."

As such, there is no basis for treating Open Source Works as a covert, unacknowledged intelligence organization. It isn't one. [Read more: Aftergood/SecrecyNews/12December2011]

NSB to Create National Intelligence Officers. An amendment to the Organic Act for National Security Bureau passed through the legislature yesterday, allows the country's top intelligence agency to establish a new "national intelligence officer" system in an effort to expand its overseas operational capabilities. 

The new system was created following the National Intelligence Officer system of the United States government's Central Intelligence Agency, according to NSB director-general Tsai De-sheng.

The newly established general-ranking national intelligence officer will be stationed overseas, while one of the three special agents currently posted abroad will be transferred back to Taiwan, Tsai said.

Tsai said the reason for creating the new post is to offer better promotion opportunities to local secret service agents.

"Currently many agents are forced to leave the national security system because of the lack of a sound promotion system."

In the future, the NSB will further set up a three-tier "national intelligence officer" system to cultivate new blood and train qualified special agents for intelligence, he noted. [Read more: Yeh/ChinaPost/10December2011]

Hezbollah Names CIA agents in Lebanon. The militant group Hezbollah has revealed the identities of CIA officers working undercover in Lebanon, a blow to agency operations in the region and the latest salvo in an escalating spy war.

Hezbollah made the names public in a broadcast Friday night on a Lebanese television station, al-Manar. Using animated videos, the station recreated meetings purported to take place between CIA officers and paid informants at Starbucks and Pizza Hut.

The disclosure comes after Hezbollah managed to partially unravel the agency's spy network in Lebanon after running a double agent against the CIA, former and current U.S. intelligence officials said. They requested anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence. [Read more: CBS/AP/13December2011]

Air Force Museum to Display Cold War Satellites. Newly declassified satellites that the United States used for Cold War photo-spying on adversaries are being prepared by the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force to go on public display in late January.

The National Reconnaissance Office, which worked for decades with the Air Force in the program to track the activities of the Soviet Union and other adversaries, has transferred the KH-7 Gambit, KH-8 Gambit 3 and KH-9 Hexagon satellites to the museum. The programs were in operation in the 1960s, �70s and �80s.

A private ceremony to commemorate the operational history of the satellites is planned at the museum in late January. After that, the satellites will be put on public display. [Read more: Nolan/DaytonDailyNews/9December2011]

Inside Romania's Secret CIA Prison. In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the center of Romania's capital city, is a secret that the Romanian government has tried for years to protect.

For years, the CIA used a government building - its code name Bright Light - as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees.

There, it held al Qaeda operatives Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11, and others in a basement prison before they were ultimately transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006, according to former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the location and inner workings of the prison.

The existence of a CIA prison in Romania has been widely reported, but its location has never been made public until a joint investigation by the Associated Press and German public television, ARD Panorama.

The news organizations located the former prison and learned details of the facility, where harsh interrogation tactics were used.

The Romanian prison was part of a network of so-called black sites that the CIA operated and controlled overseas in Thailand, Lithuania and Poland. All the prisons were closed by May 2006, and the CIA's detention and interrogation program ended in 2009.

Unlike the CIA's facility in Lithuania's countryside or the one hidden in a Polish military installation, the CIA's prison in Romania was not in a remote location. It was hidden in plain sight, a couple of blocks off a major boulevard on a street lined with trees and homes, along busy train tracks. [Read more: Goldman&Apuzzo/AP/8December2011]

NSA Launches New Crypto Mobile Game App. The National Security Agency (NSA) announced today the launch of "NSA CryptoChallenge," a mobile cryptograph game app available free of charge from the Apple App Store. The game is the latest digital communications effort designed to educate young adults on career opportunities with NSA and recruit the best and brightest to support NSA's cybersecurity initiatives.

NSA's CryptoChallenge game challenges today's most intelligent college students and young adults to decode hundreds of puzzles, which test pattern recognition skills through a series of cryptographs under various categories, including famous quotes, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) trivia, pop culture factoids and more. It's "you against the clock" to see how fast you can crack the code. Players can also choose to share their completion time to see how they stack up against other players across the globe, even sharing scores on Facebook and Twitter.

"This is the technology today's college students use most to communicate and make important life decisions, so we have to use these tools to successfully recruit the top-tier technical talent we need to become future leaders of the Agency, " said Kathy Hutson, NSA's Director of Human Resources.

Serious brainiacs are unlikely to get bored by NSA's CryptoChallenge, as players will find that the game includes an advanced level and uses multiple algorithms, so puzzles have a different encryption each time they appear. The game is also expected to be released for Android platforms in the near future. [Read more: NSA.gov/9December2011]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

China's Spies Are Catching Up.  In 1995, a middle-aged Chinese man walked into a C.I.A. station in Southeast Asia and offered up a trove of secret Chinese documents. Among them was a file containing the top-secret design of the American W-88 nuclear warhead that sits atop the missiles carried by Trident submarines.

He told a story to the C.I.A. that was so bizarre it might just be true. He said that he worked in China's nuclear program and had access to the archive where classified documents were stored. He went there after hours one night, scooped up hundreds of documents and stuffed them into a duffel bag, which he then tossed out a second-story window to evade security guards. Unfortunately, the bag broke and the papers scattered.

Outside, he collected the files and stuffed them back into the torn bag. Although many of the documents were of interest for their intelligence content, it was the one about the W-88 that roiled American counterintelligence most because it contained highly classified details about a cutting-edge warhead design.

The United States had been producing small nuclear warheads for decades, and the Chinese were desperate to find out how to build miniaturized warheads themselves. China's military was, and still is, playing catch-up to the United States.

China's success in obtaining the secret design of the W-88 is the most dramatic example of a fact that United States counterintelligence agencies have been slow to recognize: just as China has become a global economic power, it has developed a world-class espionage service - one that rivals the C.I.A. [Read more: Wise/NYTimes/10December2011]

MI6 Goes Public For Praise. In an unusual move, the British government publicly praised a successful operation by foreign intelligence operation, MI6. In this case it was to praise numerous successful efforts by MI6 in Libya earlier this year. Not only did MI6 operatives, and the British GCHQ (similar to the U.S. NSA) provide valuable information for NATO and the rebels, but it also foiled attempts by Kaddafi's secret police, and Islamic terrorist allies, to kill rebel leaders and foreign diplomats in Libya, and civilians in Britain. Kaddafi had ordered his secret police to use all available resources to carry out these attacks. MI6 has been watching Kaddafi for decades, and quickly detected this attack order. This MI6 success was not an accident. Back in 2002, Britain decided to double recruitment of MI6 field agents and increase the MI6 budget 20 percent. All this was to deal with the Islamic terror threat.

This kind of effort was nothing new for Britain, which has been playing the espionage game long before the United States even existed. When the CIA came along after World War II, it was based on the wartime OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and the need to have a central organization to sort out the intelligence from all American intel operations and give the president one report.

But the legacy of the OSS was one of having agents in foreign countries and running active operations to gain information and weaken enemy capabilities. So in the decades after World War II, this led to interference in foreign nations, overthrowing governments seen as harmful to US interests and working with a lot of unsavory people. By the 1970s, many of these operations were seen as embarrassing and restrictions were put on this sort of thing. The British MI6 suffered no such restrictions, mainly because MI6 was smaller, not given to large scale adventures the CIA was fond of and, perhaps most importantly, had much longer experience in dealing with espionage in foreign nations.

MI6 is less than one tenth the size of the CIA (in manpower) and has a budget that's even smaller. But the CIA is by no means ten times as effective as MI6. For all its size and resources, the CIA cannot, or often will not, do things that MI6 will. Part of this has to do with MI6's greater experience and need to make do with less. But a lot of it has to do with different styles of operation. Both organizations are in the overseas espionage business, but both go about their business in quite different ways, and with often quite different results. [Read more: StrategyPage/9December2011]

Secret Agenda: 20 Classic Spy Movies. There's one big problem with compiling a list of great spy movies: How exactly do you define a "spy movie"? Do the spies have to be employed by a government agency? Does the action have to be international, or can it be domestic, even local? Do the characters have to engage in deception and/or information-gathering, or can they mainly be assassins, like James Bond or Jason Bourne? Is the "assassin film" its own separate genre? If movie characters have nothing to do with international politics but engage in surveillance and deception and other classic spy activities, can their story be grouped within the "spy movie" category?

James Bond wouldn't spend five seconds contemplating any of that. He'd be too busy quaffing martinis with a diplomat's wife and telling a dealer to pass the shoe. He's represented on this list of great spy movies, along with grittier, more mundane depictions of espionage, deceit and international mayhem. I included a couple of TV programs as well as movies, because the genre's emphasis on character and atmosphere makes it especially well-suited to the small screen.

Since these lists always seem to be compiled according to some mysterious private criteria, I'll disclose mine upfront: If a film depicts characters navigating the treacherous labyrinth of the military-industrial complex, in their own country or abroad, and engaging in deception or impersonation or codebreaking or defection or assassination or other tried-and-true espionage mainstays, I considered it. But if too many of those aspects were missing, I ruled it out. That's why you'll see "The Ipcress File" but not, say, "The Conversation." I've also arranged the list in pairs, or double features, because some of the films just seemed to fit together nicely. Let's argue about it in the Letters section, where I hope you'll volunteer your own list of great spy films, and your own definition of the category. Be sure to use a pseudonym and file from a secure location. You can't be too careful. [Read more: Seitz/Salon/9December2011]

10 Charming, Old-Timey Spy Gadgets. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes out in theaters today, injecting a little nostalgia into the techno-thriller spy genre. Although spycraft today involves computer hacking and surveillance drones, today we're paying homage to spy equipment from history. Some of it deserves respect for its ingenuity. Some just deserves a laugh. Check out ten ancient pieces of spy gear. [Read more: Inglis-Arkell/IO9/9December2011]

Section III - COMMENTARY

Iran Has America's Super Spy Drone. So What? On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 surveillance plane was downed by a SA-2 surface-to-air missile over the Sverdlovsk area of the Soviet Union. The U-2's mission - code-named Operation Grand Slam - was to photograph Soviet ballistic missile sites to inform the missile-gap debate raging in Washington. Though Grand Slam was the 24th deep-penetration flight over Soviet territory in four years, and CIA analysts warned of improvements in Soviet air-defense radars and missiles, the risks were deemed worth taking. As Secretary of State Christian Herter had noted in a plea to President Dwight Eisenhower to resume the U-2 flights: "The intelligence objective outweighs the danger of getting trapped." 

Is history repeating itself? On Thursday, Iranian state television showed two men in military uniforms running their hands across the swept-wing frame of what the broadcast claimed was an RQ-170 Sentinel drone. An unnamed U.S. official said with "high confidence" that the drone displayed was the Sentinel that had gone missing 140 miles inside of Iran. (Only days earlier, a senior official had claimed: "The Iranians have a pile of rubble and are trying to figure what they have.") Several officials have acknowledged that the drone was under CIA control on an intelligence collection mission inside Iran.

It is understandable that an event with headlines that include the words "Iran," "drone," and "nuclear" generate a great deal of attention. Yet, for all the bytes and ink expended in discussing the downed Sentinel drone, it is neither surprising nor particularly revealing. As was true in 1960, the benefits of spying on Iran outweigh the dangers of the program being revealed or a downed aircraft, and are what Americans should expect from the $55 billion spent last year on national intelligence. To understand why this downed drone is such an ordinary event requires an understanding the day-to-day process of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC).

Here's how it works. [Read more: Zenko/ForeignPolicy/9December2011]

Are These Satellite Images Exposing America's Secrets? Google may be compromising national security - all in the name of better mapping technology.

At Google Maps, anyone can search for the names of military bases and zoom in to see airstrips and possibly even top-secret military drones like the RQ-170 Sentinel lost in Iran last week. Aviation website Flight Global has done just that, and claims to have found the secret airstrip at Yucca Lake, Nev., used for testing the RQ-170.

The Google Maps site shows satellite images of either a Predator or Reaper drone on the airstrip, although Flight Global says the RQ-170 was tested there as well - information that's surely of interest to the Iranian military, said Cedric Leighton, a retired Air Force colonel.

"Iranians would be most interested in operational bases because that tells them how we fly our surveillance missions," Leighton told FoxNews.com.

Sure enough, other Nevada military bases at the Tonopah Test Range like the Creech Air Force Base are also viewable at Google Maps. With this information, anyone - even foreign military - can look up satellite images to inspect secret U.S. spy planes.

"Google is making public what was once the sole province of the military and intelligence community, making this a brave new world for the intel agencies as well," he said.

Google did not return FoxNews.com requests for comments. [Read more: Brandon/FoxNews/10December2011]

A Bleak Look at America's Future. Is American power in decline, relative to the rest of the world? That question is at the center of a provocative study by the U.S. intelligence community exploring what the world might look like in 2030.

The answer, judging by comments from a panel convened to discuss the topic, is that America faces serious trouble: The U.S. economy is slowing, relative to its Asian competitors, which will make it harder for the country to assert its traditional leadership role in decades ahead. That, in turn, could make for a less stable world.

This pessimism among intelligence analysts contrasts sharply with the relentlessly upbeat prognostications made by politicians, especially the field of Republican presidential candidates, who describe an America of perpetual sunshine and unchallenged leadership. That's certainly not the view of this nonpartisan group.

The unclassified study, titled "Global Trends 2030," is being prepared by the National Intelligence Council, which is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This is the fifth such study (the first, published in 1996, looked toward 2010) and the only one to radically question U.S. staying power.

In preparing the document, the analysts decided to focus on America's role in shaping the global future. "You have to be intellectually honest that there are changes in the U.S. role, and the role of rising powers," that will affect events, explains Mathew Burrows, a counselor at the National Intelligence Council and the principal author of the report. [Read more: Ignatius/WashingtonPost/9December2011]

Washington's Secret Wars. Following the widely reported Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and alarming new reports of civilian deaths in Syria, the White House has issued several findings to the intelligence community authorizing stepped-up covert action against both Damascus and Tehran. A "finding" is top-level approval for secret operations considered to be particularly politically sensitive. Taken together, the recent findings, combined with the evidence of major intelligence operations being run in Lebanon, amount to a secret war against Iran and its allies in the Mideast.

Since 2008 the United States has regarded the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. This enables the Department of the Treasury to freeze its business interests and bank accounts. But it has also permitted aggressive steps against the group itself, including killing its members under the White House doctrine that all terrorists are potential targets anywhere in the world. A finding approved by the Bush administration in 2003 and strengthened in 2006 on the pretext that Iran was "interfering" in Iraq and Afghanistan authorized the use of intelligence assets to disrupt Iranian Revolutionary Guard activity in border zones. These included areas adjacent to Pakistan inhabited by ethnic Baluchs, the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and the ethnically Arab province of Khuzestan, which borders southeastern Iraq. 

Activity in the Kurdish region was most intense because it was regarded as a more permissible operating environment with a long, open border and a friendly local government in Arbil, but it was limited by Turkish sensitivities and was partially run by Israelis to provide deniability by the U.S. That effort was abandoned altogether in 2009, when the Obama administration decided to double down on the Turkish relationship, increasing intelligence and military cooperation with Ankara against the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK). Attacks in Baluchestan and the Arab region over the past seven years have continued intermittently, however, killing a large number of Revolutionary Guards and even more civilians.

A separate finding on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program was signed in 2007 by President Bush. It authorized attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists and other facilities in Tehran and elsewhere as well as coordination with the Israelis to develop computer viruses to disrupt the Iranian computer network, a program that led to the production of the Stuxnet worm. While the media credits �the Israelis� in the assassinations of Iranian scientists, the reality is that no Israeli (or American) intelligence officer could possibly operate effectively inside Iran to carry out a killing. The assassinations, which are acts of war, have actually been carried out by followers of the dissident Iranian Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), the separatist Baluch Jundallah, and the Kurdish PJAK, all acting under direction from American and Israeli intelligence officers. The MEK's role in doing the CIA's and Mossad's dirty work is one reason so many neoconservatives and national security experts have been calling for the group to be removed from the U.S. terrorist group list.

The new finding on Iran extends existing initiatives and is intended to strangle Iran by creating insurgencies along all of the country's borders. [Read more: Giraldi/AntiWar/8December2011]

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

Careers

Founding Director, Office of Defense, Security and Intelligence (DSI) Programs, Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Oklahoma Norman Campus 

The University of Oklahoma seeks nominations and applications for the founding director of the Office of Defense, Security and Intelligence (DSI) Programs within the Office of the Vice President for Research. 

Responsibilities include matching current and emerging OU R&D capabilities with DSI opportunities in government and industry, working with faculty and other researchers from idea inception to funded project, facilitating OU awareness and involvement in relevant DSI conferences, and facilitating opportunities to engage in all varieties of restricted research and development.

Qualifications.  Successful candidates will be visionary, collegial and highly motivated leaders who have extensive experience working with or within DSI agencies (e.g., DOD, DHS, NSA, CIA, FBI), or with or within private companies which have DSI-focused R&D portfolios.  Individuals having experience at the interface of industry/academia/agencies are of particular interest.  A masters degree is required.  Candidates must be able to operate effectively within the academic culture.  Additional qualifications can be found at jobs.ou.edu. If listing does not immediately appear, search by Requisition number 13083.

Application Process.  Confidential review of applications will begin 1 February 2012 and continue until the position is filled.  Salary will be commensurate with qualifications. Details regarding application procedures may be found at jobs.ou.edu, and questions should be directed to Dr. Kelvin K. Droegemeier, Vice President for Research, University of Oklahoma, kkd@ou.edu. 

The University of Oklahoma is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages diversity in the workplace.

Research Assistance

Seeking a copy of Jane's Explosive Ordinance Disposal.

My name is Alex Gowen and I am an AFIO member. I am seeking a copy of Jane's Explosive Ordinance Disposal. If you are replacing an outdated version with a new edition I would very much appreciate the discarded copy for a humanitarian project. I am willing to pay for the cost of shipping. Thank you very much for your assistance. Contact me at Alex Gowen 919-452-2405 or email at trinity.oak@prodigy.net

Obituaries

Peter Lunn. Peter Lunn, who has died aged 97, captained the British skiing team at the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen; later, as a gentleman spy in the early Cold War years, he pioneered the idea of digging tunnels under Soviet-controlled zones to facilitate telephone tapping. 

Peter Northcote Lunn was born on November 15 1914 into British skiing aristocracy. His grandfather, Sir Henry Lunn, was a one-time missionary who, having failed to convert the Indians to Methodism, moved to Switzerland, where he embarked on encouraging the British to ski. To this end, he established The Public Schools Alpine Sports Club which, by offering hotel accommodation near the mountains, was the precursor of the ski travel business. 

Following the outbreak of war in 1939, Lunn was commissioned into the Royal Artillery but was soon seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). He spent most of the war years in Malta, where ostensibly he worked for the British Council and endured the bombing that led to the island's award of the George Cross. In a later article he compared the feelings of a downhill racer before the start with those of somebody caught in a heavy bombardment.

In 1945 he was posted to Italy, where he took a parachute course, an activity which he described as an activity providing "maximum fright with minimal risk".

After the war Lunn was posted as head of the MI6 station in the divided city of Vienna, with the official title of Second Secretary at the British embassy. Though he was once described by the espionage writer Richard CS Trahair as having a "slight build and blue eyes" and speaking "in a soft voice with a lisp", every inch the gentleman spy, he also had a razor-sharp mind.

In 1948 Graham Greene, who had also worked for SIS, went to Vienna to research material for the screenplay of The Third Man (1949). He discovered the existence of a force policing a vast network of sewers under the city which allowed agents to pass from one zone of occupation to another.

Lunn too was interested in the city's subterranean world. According to David Stafford, in his book Spies Beneath Berlin, Lunn realised that "cables linking the Red Army to Soviet units in Austria ran through the British and French sectors [of Vienna]". If he could tap these communications, "he would be the first to know if Stalin gave the order to invade Western Europe".

After winning over his superiors in London, he recruited a team of experts - including a private mining consultant - to build at least three tunnels which would enable him to tap into the underground cables which the Soviets used to communicate. He even bought a villa on the route of the cable that linked the Soviet headquarters in Vienna with the city's airport and its overall command station for Austria at St P�lten. From the villa, his team could excavate undisturbed.

Operation Conflict, as Lunn's eavesdropping scheme was known, yielded a wealth of intelligence about Soviet operations in Eastern Europe between 1948 and 1951.

It was not a glamorous undertaking. When an SIS officer arrived in the city, Lunn greeted him: "So now you're in Vienna you think it's going to be all wine, women and song. Well, let me tell you, old boy, it's all beer, bitches and broadcasting."

After a posting in Berne, in mid-1953 Lunn was named MI6 section chief in Berlin at a time when intelligence gathering was being hampered due to the Soviet shift from radio to landline. When the American defence secretary George Marshall declared "I don't care what it takes, all I want is 24 hours' notice of a Soviet attack", Lunn suggested that they should try the same tunnel trick again.

Winston Churchill, then prime minister, had been informed of the success of the Vienna tunnels. Now, he personally authorised Lunn to undertake something similar in Berlin. The Berlin tunnel, which extended hundreds of yards into the East German side, was built mainly by the CIA and was a much more elaborate affair than the Vienna prototype (in Vienna, Lunn had kept his tunnelling operation secret from the Americans.)

SIS was responsible for the critical final phase of the operation - placing the tap itself. When the first successful tap was made in May 1955, the message sent to Washington was: "The baby is born". But its usefulness was short-lived. On the night of 21/22 April the next year, the Soviets "discovered" the tunnel (having being tipped off, as it later emerged, by the British traitor George Blake, whom Lunn had considered his best agent-runner). None the less, the intelligence gathered during the time that it was operational was so great that processing the backlog continued until 1958.

Lunn's KGB counterparts, who had spent years observing him in action, described him as "demanding" of the agents he ran.

He went on to serve as head of station in Bonn, and during the 1960s in Beirut, where he enjoyed skiing at The Cedars, a resort where, as he recalled, discipline in the lift queues improved dramatically after an attendant shot dead the two worst queue jumpers. Even so, it was "not so stimulating as M�rren", and throughout his years in the service he always brought his family to M�rren for a month at Christmas.

Lunn described himself as a "skiing glutton" and he preferred to ski fast, off-piste and alone. When one interviewer asked a M�rren lift operator where to find him, he was told to "look for crazy tracks in the deep snow".

After retiring in 1986 Lunn spent every winter in M�rren and continued to ski even after a car crash in 1985 that left him with double vision from a collapsed eye socket and knees so badly broken that doctors predicted he would never walk again. Every year after his retirement he participated in the Inferno race until he broke his hip in another car accident at the age of 90. Even that did not stop him, and he continued to ski regularly until last year.

The author of several technical books about skiing, in 1947 Lunn published a novel, Evil in High Places, about a psychotic mountaineer.

Peter Lunn was appointed OBE in 1951 and CMG in 1957.

He married, in 1939, Antoinette Preston, daughter of the 15th Viscount Gormanston. She died in 1976, and he is survived by his partner, Christa Palmer, and by two sons and two daughters. Another son and daughter predeceased him. [Read more: TheTelegraph/6December2011] 

Books

Kim Philby Hailed as 'Great Spy' in Russia. Notorious British double agent Kim Philby may be regarded as a traitor in his home country but twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union he remains a hero in Russia for divulging Western secrets. 

A Russian publisher has unveiled a major new biography of Philby, including interviews with his Russian widow and declassified documents, praising him as a "great Soviet spy."

Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) recently unveiled a plaque to Philby on one of its buildings, as the role of the man vilified as a traitor in Britain appears to be coming out of the shadows.

Philby, one of the Cambridge Five spy ring shockingly uncovered as British traitors, spent the last 25 years of his life in the Soviet Union after his cover was blown and he fled from Beirut to Moscow in 1963.

The new book, titled simply "Kim Philby", is written by Nikolai Dolgopolov, deputy editor of state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

The idea for the book was proposed by the SVR, the successor organisation to the KGB. 

The book publishes newly declassified documents provided by the SVR, including secret reports to Stalin citing "the resident agent of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) in London." [Read more: TheTelegraph/12December2011]

U.S. Government Counterterrorism: A Guide to Who Does What. U.S. Government Counterterrorism: A Guide to Who Does What is the first readily available, unclassified guide to the many U.S. government agencies, bureau offices, and programs involved in all aspects of countering terrorism domestically and overseas. The authors, veterans of the U.S. government's counterterrorism efforts, present a rare insider's view of the counterterrorism effort, addressing such topics as government training initiatives, weapons of mass destruction, interagency coordination, research and development, and the congressional role in policy and budget issues.

Individual chapters describe the various agencies, their bureaus, and offices that develop and implement the counterterrorism policies and programs, providing a useful unclassified guide to government officials at all levels as well as students and others interested in how the U.S. counters terrorism. The book also discusses the challenges involved in coordinating the counterterrorism efforts at federal, state, and local levels and explains how key terror events influenced the development of programs, agencies, and counterterrorism legislation. The legislative underpinnings and tools of the U.S. counterterrorism efforts are covered as are the oft-debated issues of defining terrorism itself and efforts to counter violent extremism.

In addition to outlining the specific agencies and programs, the authors provide unique insights into the broader context of counterterrorism efforts and developments in the last 10-plus years since 9/11 and they raise future considerations given recent landscape-altering global events. [Read more: CRCPress/December2011]

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.

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, 14 December 2011, 11:45 am - Albuquerque, NM - The AFIO Tom Smith New Mexico Chapter hosts luncheon at this "close the year" meeting.

Location: Marcello's Chophouse, Albuquerque Uptown, 11:15 AM: Arrive, Sign in, Order Lunch 11:45 AM: Call To Order. Inquiries, reservations to Pete Bostwick, Chapter President, at foreigndevil@yahoo.com or call 505-898-2649.

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 caf� 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

Wednesday, 8 February 2011, 6:30 – 8:30 pm – Washington, DC - "Poison Lecture: A Performance about Magic and Deception" at the International Spy Museum

"Combines the secretive worlds of magic and espionage, entertainment and geopolitics, mass captivation and government, to wittily expose their kindred spirit."--Beatrice Gross, independent curator
Poison Lecture is everything a lecture is not: it is a multi-layered performance piece exploring the seemingly unlikely connections between legendary magician John Mulholland, the CIA, and the science of espionage. This unique event is the creation of Christine Rebet, a French visual artist based in New York. Inspired by the fact that the CIA hired Mulholland, America's most famous magician to write two secret manuals on sleight-of-hand and covert communication techniques in the early days of the Cold War, Rebet developed this thought-provoking performance. Featured at the Phoenix Fringe Festival, X initiative New York, and at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, Poison Lecture melds historic images with a live magician performing key tricks while "Mulholland" explains them. As the piece unfolds, darker aspects of espionage—assassination, mind control, and manipulation—are revealed, all in the context of iconic foreign political situations of the Cold War.
Tickets: $20 To register or For more information visit www.spymuseum.org

Thursday, 16 February 2011, noon – 1:00 pm – Washington, DC - "Shadow Commander: The Epic Story of Donald D. Blackburn - Guerrilla Leader and Special Forces Hero" at the International Spy Museum

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army's most secretive unit may have been the Studies and Observations Group (SOG). This unit captured enemy prisoners for interrogation, rescued American POWs, and conducted reconnaissance missions in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It also ran teams of clandestine agents and conducted psychological operations. The leader of this group in the mid-1960s was a legendary Army officer, Donald Blackburn, a man who in 1942 had refused to surrender at Bataan and had gone on to raise a 22,000-man army of Filipinos to fight the Japanese. Author Mike Guardia will describe Blackburn's colorful life, how his SOG mapped out the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and how, after his return to Washington, he was the architect of the famous Son Tay Prison Raid, the largest POW rescue mission of the war.
Free! No Registration Required! For more information visit www.spymuseum.org

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

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