Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

National Security Lawyers Receive Awards at a Public Ceremony for Mostly Secret Work. The Justice Department on Wednesday honored some of its employees behind the complex legal efforts to keep America safe, but the public ceremony raised more questions about what they did than answered them.

Call it the Black-Ops Oscars, where more than 35 people were presented awards in just less than an hour.

"We're sorry we can't say more about it," Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, as she recognized attorneys Benjamin Huebner and Joshua Raines for work they did on a "highly classified project affecting national security."

"Given the nature of the work, I won't be able to more fully and completely describe some of these accomplishments," said Monaco who heads the Justice Department's National Security Division, a section created in 2006 to combat terrorism and other national security threats.

The division employs 340 people with an $88 million budget. Because of the nature of the cases, attorneys often have to work with members of the intelligence community to come up with ways to present evidence at a trial without jeopardizing national security. And in many cases, attorneys have to find ways to prosecute a case without any sensitive intelligence information at all.

"The bad guys keep you very busy," Deputy Attorney General James Cole said. [Read more: AP/11January2012]

Hackers say Indian Cyber Spies Stole US Government Passwords. The cyber-spying case against the Indian government is gathering steam and could leave New Delhi red-faced.

A group of Indian hackers called "The Lords of Dharamraja" who earlier alleged the Indian government is strong-arming cell phone makers to provide backdoor access for digital surveillance on their devices said it has more proof that Indian agencies had infiltrated sensitive US government networks.

Infosec Island's Anthony M. Freed reported that one of "The Lords of Dharmaraja" hackers, who calls himself "YamaTough," gave him 68 sets of usernames and passwords for US government network accounts. "YamaTough" told Freed the account data is just a sample of the information the hacker group, the "Lords of Dharmaraja," copied from Indian government servers.

Reuters reported that US authorities are already investigating allegations that an Indian military intelligence unit hacked into emails of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) that monitors economic and security relations between the US and China. The US probe was ordered after "The Lords of Dharamraja" posted an Indian military intelligence document on cyber-spying.

The hacked memo suggests that, "in exchange for Indian market presence" mobile device manufacturers, including RIM, Nokia, and Apple (collectively defined in the document as "RINOA") have agreed to provide backdoor access on their devices. The Indian government then "utilized backdoors provided by RINOA" to intercept internal emails of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said her company had not provided the Indian government with backdoor access to its products. [Read more: Choudhury/FirstPost/13January2012]

Iran Says it has 'Evidence' U.S. Behind Scientist's Killing. Iranian state television said on Saturday Tehran had evidence Washington was behind the latest assassination of one of its nuclear scientists.

In the fifth attack of its kind in two years, a magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan's car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in the capital. His driver was also killed.

The United States has denied involvement in the killing and condemned it. Israel has declined to comment.

"We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA," the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported.

"The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents."

The Swiss Embassy has represented U.S. interests in Iran since Tehran and Washington cut diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

State TV said a "letter of condemnation" had also been sent to the British government, saying the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists had "started exactly after the British official John Sawers declared the beginning of intelligence operations against Iran." [Read more: Reuters/14January2012]

Mossad Agents Posed as CIA in Operation: Report. Agents with Israel's Mossad agency posed as American CIA agents in operations to recruit members of the Pakistani militant group Jundallah, a report in Foreign Policy magazine said Friday.

Using American dollars and US passports, the agents passed themselves off as members of the Central Intelligence Agency in the operations, notably in London, according to memos from 2007 and 2008, said the report.

Jundallah (Soldiers of God) says it is fighting for the interests of the southeastern province's large ethnic Baluch community, whose members, unlike most Iranians, mainly follow the Sunni branch of Islam.

The Baluch straddle the border with neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan and Jundallah militants have taken advantage of the unrest in the region to find safe haven in the border region.

In July it claimed responsibility for attacking the Grand Mosque in the provincial capital Zahedan, reportedly targeting members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, killing 28 people.

"It's amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with," a US intelligence officer told Foreign Policy.

"Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn't give a damn what we thought," said the official. [Read more: Breitbart/13January2012]

US, Israel Issue Severe Terror Alert in Bangkok. The United States and Israel have issued a warning of possible severe terrorist attacks in Bangkok after Thai authorities arrested a Lebanese suspect.

Police detained the man with suspected links to the Hizbollah militant group, which is backed by Iran, at Suvarnabhumi airport Friday evening as he attempted to leave the kingdom, said Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubamrung, who oversees national security.

Mr. Chalerm said police have control of the situation and urged the public not to panic. The situation was not as severe as initially feared, he added.

The authorities had received information about the terror suspect before the US issued the warning.

The US embassy said in a message posted on its website Friday that foreign terrorists may be in the process of looking to launch attacks against tourist areas in Bangkok in the near future.

US ambassador Kristie Kenney on Friday afternoon tweeted that "the info is specific and credible, concerns foreign terrorists and tourist areas in BKK."

US citizens are urged to exercise caution when visiting public areas where large groups of Western tourists gather in Bangkok, the embassy added. [Read more: BangkokPost/13January2012]

Ex-Estonian Spy Chief Charged With Piracy. Russia has charged a former Estonian foreign intelligence chief with hijacking a Russian freighter in 2009.

Russia's top investigative body said Friday that Eerik-Niiles Kross organized the takeover of the Arctic Sea vessel in July 2009 after it left a Finnish port for Algeria carrying timber.

Russia says the ship was hijacked in the Baltic Sea, that its navy seized it weeks later off Cape Verde and that the eight hijackers have been tried and convicted.

Speculation has persisted, however, that the ship was actually carrying Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles for Iran or Syria. [Read more: AP/13January2012]

Intelligence Officer Charged with Passing Secrets to Foreign Interests. A Canadian Forces officer who served for a decade inside military intelligence has been charged with passing government secrets to foreign interests over the span of four and a half years - a case that threatens this country's reputation among its closest allies.

The charge is the first ever laid under Canada's rarely used Security of Information Act, passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The offence carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. 

Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle, 40, works as an intelligence officer at the Royal Canadian Navy's HMCS Trinity centre in Halifax. Trinity gathers and analyzes information for warships. It receives intelligence collected by unmanned aerial drones operated from vessels. And perhaps most critically in the eyes of Canada's international partners, it is a nerve centre for information that is collected and then shared among allies including the United States.

As an intelligence officer, SLt. Delisle has worked for some of the top offices in the Canadian Forces over the past decade, often at the heart of operations.

Sources say he worked at Trinity from 2001 to 2005 and then transferred to the Chief of Defence Intelligence group in Ottawa in 2006. He spent 2007 at the Strategic Joint Staff offices, also in Ottawa, and then 2008 at the Royal Military College in Kingston. SLt. Delisle later moved to the Canadian Forces Joint Headquarters, also in Kingston, before returning to Halifax in 2010, ending up back at Trinity.

The Mounties would not say whether the allegations involve a country or some other group. CTV reported Monday night that SLt. Delisle passed information on to Russian interests. [Read more: Globe&Mail/16January2012]

Mass. Escapee Turned Liberian Dictator had US Spy Agency Ties. When Charles G. Taylor tied bed sheets together to escape from a second-floor window at the Plymouth House of Correction on Sept. 15, 1985, he was more than a fugitive trying to avoid extradition. He was a sought-after source for American intelligence.

After a quarter-century of silence, the US government has confirmed what has long been rumored: Taylor, who would become president of Liberia and the first African leader tried for war crimes, worked with US spy agencies during his rise as one of the world's most notorious dictators.

The disclosure on the former president comes in response to a request filed by the Globe six years ago under the Freedom of Information Act. The Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's spy arm, confirmed its agents and CIA agents worked with Taylor beginning in the early 1980s.

"They may have stuck with him longer than they should have but maybe he was providing something useful,'' said Douglas Farah, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Washington and an authority on Taylor's reign and the guns-for-diamonds trade that was a base of his power.

The Defense Intelligence Agency refused to reveal any details about the relationship, saying doing so would harm national security.

Taylor, 63, pleaded innocent in 2009 to multiple counts of murder, rape, attacking civilians, and deploying child soldiers during a civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone while he was president of Liberia from 1997 to 2003. After a proceeding that lasted several years, the three-judge panel of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone is now reviewing tens of thousands of pages of evidence, including the testimony of about 100 victims, former rebels, and Taylor himself, whose testimony lasted seven months.

"We hope the verdict will come in the first quarter of this year,'' said Solomon Moriba, a spokesman for the court in The Hague.

Moriba said any relationship Taylor had with American intelligence was not related to his case before the court, but those who investigated the atrocities said it might explain why some US officials seemed reluctant to use their influence to bring Taylor to justice sooner. [Read more: Bender/BostonGlobe/17January2012]

Intelligence Shake-Up: Official Fired Over Failed Neo-Nazi Investigation. The first head has rolled at Germany's domestic intelligence agency in response to its failure to track down an allegedly murderous neo-Nazi terrorist cell for over a decade. The departmental head in charge of right-wing extremism has been replaced by an expert on combating Islamist terrorists. 

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, under fire for its failure to uncover a neo-Nazi cell that allegedly murdered at least 10 people since 2000, has relieved a senior official of his duties in the first staff change made in response to the affair.

At the end of 2011, the head of the agency, Heinz Fromm, removed Artur Hertwig as head of the department combating right-wing extremism. He has been replaced by Dinchen Franziska B�ddefeld, who has experience in investigating Islamist terror cells and is versed in cooperating with the regional intelligence departments.

Hertwig had been in charge of the departments investigating left-wing and right-wing extremism, which were merged in 2006 and will now be separated again. [Read more: DerSpiegal/16January2011]

Intelligence Officer Killed, 8 Injured in Ambush in Yemen. Unidentified attackers carried out an ambush targeting a vehicle of the Yemeni military intelligence agency in the southern port city of Aden Wednesday morning, leaving at least an officer killed and eight others injured, a security official told Xinhua.

Four masked gunmen opened fire at a vehicle of the military intelligence agency in the Khor Maksar district, killing at least a senior officer and injuring eight others, the local security official said on condition of anonymity.

The assailants managed to escape after the incident, the official said.

A local medic at the Bashuib military hospital in Aden, where the dead and injured intelligence officers were taken, confirmed to Xinhua the toll, saying that "some of the injured officers are in critical condition."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida group, according to the official. [Red more: Xinhua/11January2012]

MI5 Publishes Internet Quiz for Wannabe Spooks. MI5, Britain's security service, has launched an online quiz to root out individuals who can help it protect the United Kingdom from threats to its national security.

The 15 minute recruitment test encourages wannabe spies to apply for a job as an intelligence officer with the agency whilst providing a realistic insight into what life is like behind the closed doors of the service.

A Whitehall figure behind the online test explained: 'A career in the service is about brain not brawn, carefully piecing together vital intelligence to protect the UK.'

The test focuses on the mysterious withdrawal of a number of known spies from London with would be recruits tasked with piecing together clues from newspaper reports, file data and police reports to ascertain why.

Success will reward the participant with a link to the Security Service's 'how to apply' website. [Read more: Glenday/TheDrum/17January2012]

DIA Torch Bearers Award - Call for Nominations

For more than fifty years, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has served the nation as the Department of Defense's premier all-source intelligence agency. While preventing strategic surprise and delivering a decision advantage to warfighters, defense planners and policymakers, DIA continues to develop and honor excellence among its global workforce of dedicated professionals.

In 2011, DIA established the Torch Bearers Award to honor former DIA civilian and military members whose contributions directly impacted the agency's successes and accomplishments. The DIA Torch Bearers Award honors outstanding individuals; puts in place a cross-directorate recognition program for all ranks and grades, drawing attention to extraordinary achievement in an historical context; develops a shared sense of an agency-wide mission and vision for the future; and enhances the morale, welfare, and esprit de corps of the workforce.

If you know an exceptional DIA alumus, living or deceased, you may forward a nomination to DIA before June 1, 2012 for consideration for the 2012 award. Nominees may have served in any DIA organizational element, but they must have been retired from federal or military service for at least three years prior to the nomination date. No more than four nominees will be selected for the 2012 award.

Read more about the Torch Bearers Award at http://www.dia.mil/public-affairs/news/2011-10-03.html.

For answers to questions or for nomination details, please e-mail DIA-PAO@dia.mil.

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Sinister Stasi Museum Kills Kitschy East German Image. Manfred Lehmann avoids Berlin landmarks such as the Brandenburg Gate where hawkers selling old East German medals or students posing in guard uniforms for tourists are a painful spectacle to the 71-year-old, imprisoned for opposing the Socialist state.

"For us victims it is a tasteless circus. The way the old symbols and flags are bandied around. It shows a lack of respect for those who suffered. East Germany was a dictatorship," said the former mechanic.

Lehmann joined several thousand visitors, mostly pensioners, at the reopening of the former headquarters of the East German secret service or Stasi on the weekend, a place he sees as providing a vital counterweight to the ever-increasing commercialisation and trivialisation of the former East.

"I wanted to see how this place is being preserved for the future, how the past is being represented," he said, standing outside the drab, 1960 pebble-dash block in the suburb of Lichtenburg, today branded the Stasi Museum.

A slight man in a red parka and wearing a rucksack, he walks around the museum with intense interest. Germany pays Lehmann a "victim pension" of 250 euros per month, to compensate him for his time in and out of prison and deep psychological scars.

Fears that the refurbishment of the offices used by Erich Mielke, the man who led the Stasi's campaign of surveillance and repression for 32 years, may have led to a loss of authenticity, prove unfounded.

The drab suite of rooms with mustard walls, wooden wall panels and parquet floors, with old telephones and switchboards on the desks, gives a vivid sense of a sinister, formidable bureaucracy, able to destroy citizens' lives at will.

Elsewhere in the complex are the millions of files in which Stasi agents recorded the minutiae of peoples' lives.

"It is impressive how powerful a feeling you get here. I wanted to find out about Mielke, see where he worked. But I don't want to see my Stasi file. I think that is something best left in the past," said Lothar Karas, 63.

Since the collapse of East Germany in 1989 which led to a euphoric storming of the old Stasi headquarters, some 2.8 million people have applied to see their Stasi file, a process which for some has brought damaging revelations, such as that close friends or partners had been informing on them. [Read more: Hudson/Reuters/16January2012]

Document Backs Claims KGB Stopped Wallenberg Probe. A newly found Swedish document shows how the KGB intervened in the early 1990s to stop an investigation into World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg's fate, two U.S.-based researchers said Monday.

The Swedish diplomat, who would have turned 100 this year, is credited with rescuing tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis. He disappeared after being arrested in Hungary by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.

The Russians have said he was executed on July 17, 1947, but unverified witness accounts and newly uncovered evidence suggest he may have lived beyond that date.

Wallenberg researchers were hoping that key pieces of the puzzle would emerge when an international commission was granted access to Soviet prison records as the communist rule was heading toward its end.

But a document from the Swedish Foreign Ministry supports claims that the KGB - the former Soviet secret police and intelligence agency - acted to obstruct that effort, said German researcher Susanne Berger who consulted a Swedish-Russian working group that conducted a 10-year investigation until 2001.

The Sept. 16, 1991 memorandum from the Swedish Embassy in Moscow cites the former head of the Soviet "Special Archive," Anatoly Prokopenko, as telling Swedish diplomats that the KGB instructed him to stop a search for documents by researchers working for the first International Wallenberg Commission.

Prokopenko also said the KGB wanted copies of all documents that the researchers had already viewed, according to the memo, which was made available to The Associated Press by Berger. Its authenticity was confirmed by the Foreign Ministry.

Berger said the document was significant because it illustrates how since the end of the Cold War researchers have struggled to get access to crucial documents from Soviet archives.

"The action in 1991 has, unfortunately, proved symptomatic, rather than an exception to the rule," Berger told the AP. "Twenty years later, we are still facing this fundamental problem." [Read more: Nordstrom/AP/16January2012]

Academics Anonymous. James Jesus Angleton '41, breeder of rare orchids and disputably a paranoiac, founded and edited the short-lived but reputable literary magazine, Furioso, during his time as an undergraduate at Yale. Beginning a series of enthusiastic correspondences with Ezra Pound after the two met in Italy during the summer of 1938, Angleton published Pound's poems along with the work of Cummings, MacLeish and Williams in his magazine the next year. But more ink has been spilled describing Angleton's life than those of his beloved poets. Returning to Washington after World War II, Angleton would go on to help found the Central Intelligence Agency.

His early literary activities and engagement with the school of New Criticism at Yale, which focused on the exclusion of authorial intent and readers' emotion in the close readings of texts, were later by no means inconsequential to his lifelong career as the "mother of counterintelligence." And the life he led as a spy eventually took a wild turn into a narrative of its own: so suspicious was Angleton - this man who peppered his phrases with poetry - of the superficial and duplicitous motives of others that he began a labyrinthine manhunt for an underlying traitor within his own ranks. This quest would lead him to accuse members in the highest echelons of government of treason, isolating him in his futile search for a deeper meaning.

Likewise, the decades-long relationship between Yale and the CIA has been characterized by equal shows of brilliance and folly - by an eagerness to cooperate and a proclivity for distrust.

In a visible show of solicitude, an exact replica of the Nathan Hale statue from Yale's Old Campus stands in front of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virg. As any peppy Yale tour guide will happily let you know, Hale class of 1773 was a captain in the Continental Army during the American Revolution and one of the nation's first spies.

The Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the CIA's predecessor, was so heavily populated by Yale alumni in its early years that it was known as "the campus." During the Second World War, the OSS spooks had also been distinguished scholars such as the historians William Lewis, Horace Walpole and Sherman Kent. Forty-two students from the Class of 1943 ended up in the OSS and many stayed on through its transformation into the CIA.

Varsity crew coach Skip Waltz recruited for the OSS what he saw as the best of Yale's white Anglophile protestant males from its population of mostly white Anglo-Saxon protestant males. Following the conclusion of war in 1947, OSS alumnus Walter L. Pforzheimer '35 contributed to drafting the act that would establish the CIA.

And still today, some recent alumni from both campuses include CIA directors Porter J. Goss '60, R. James Woolsey Jr. LAW '68, and George H.W. Bush '48. Now a visiting lecturer at the Jackson Institute, John Negroponte '60 served as the first Director of National Intelligence under President George W. Bush '68. William F. Buckley '50, founder of the National Review, wrote one of the many aforementioned fictionalized accounts of Angleton's life, and served a stint in the CIA as well.

In "Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961" former Yale history professor Robin Winks writes: "Rightly or wrongly, a historian could, in assessing the link between the university and the agency, declare in 1984 that Yale had influenced the CIA more than any other university had..."

The reverse of his equation reads equally true. [Read more: Kofman/YaleDailyNews/13January2012]

Section III - COMMENTARY

Defense Cuts: Don't Gut the One Thing that Makes all Else in this Country Possible. At the end of World War II, as our country rushed to disarm - the Air Force having assured the American people that, with the advent of nuclear weapons, ground forces were practically obsolete except as occupation forces - talk was renewed that the Marine Corps should be disbanded.

Many politicians and other-service brass didn't like the idea of sharing the defense budget with "specialty" units. Marine leadership, used to "step child" status until the chips were down, hunkered down to weather the storm as the Corps was cut to a single, spread-out, division. Luckily, they had sense enough to preserve large quantities of weapons in storage depots (instead of disposing of them as did the Army) for a rainy day.

In 1950, untrained Marine reservists who had joined but not yet been to boot camp, were learning to fire basic weapons on the fantails of troop ships rushing them to Korea. They were to fill out budget-depleted units fighting for survival on the South tip of the peninsula. On-the-job training cost many lives before the tide turned.

In 1958, we were eating WWII era C rations discarded by the Army in favor of the new field rations. Our mess halls were receiving beef rejected by the other services. The Corps was the only service returning unspent funding to the treasury because it was "expendable" in budget fights. Today? "D�j� vu' all over again." Only this time all the services face the knife. Will they be capable to meet the challenge in case of another "Korea?"

In order to protect entitlement spending, the president wants to cut the military first - a familiar story throughout our history. He believes that he can protect the country with our naval and air forces, special operations units (Seals, Green Berets, etc.), drones and cyber technology, and still be capable of waging war in two separate regions of the world. Can he?

In the 1990s, the Clinton administration decimated the CIA, all but destroying its human-intelligence (HUMINT) capability in favor of spy satellites. It is arguable that on-the-ground intelligence may have prevented the 9/11/01 terrorist attack. [Read more: Barber/TheBugle/15January2012]

Mossad Agents Pose As CIA To Recruit Iranian Terror Agents - OpEd. Foreign Policy's Mark Perry reports the astonishing story that Mossad agents posing as CIA operatives recruited Iranian Sunni dissidents affiliated with Jundallah to engage in acts of terror inside Iran.

I've been reporting for some time that the Mossad has been doing this with the MEK, which has assassinated Iranian scientists and bombed Iranian missile bases. Le Figaro also wrote that Israeli intelligence recruited Iranian Kurds inside Iraqi Kurdistan to engage in sabotage within Iran. Now, Perry's story confirms an Israeli anti-Iran terror Trifecta.

I published a post here some time ago based on a Wikileaks cable in which Meir Dagan confirmed to Nicholas Burns the broad outlines of the above plan. The Israelis operate under the mistaken impression that by playing on the natural internal dissension among ethnic groups inside that country that it can subvert both Iranian stability and the current regime.

This is similar to the CIA's tactics throughout the 1960s and later in Cuba, by which we tried mightily to bring down Castro through invasion, assassination attempts, and airline bombings. You can see how well that turned out.

I think it can and should be argued that such outside intervention by nations already viewed by the native population as hostile to their country's interests, only serve to reinforce internal cohesion. They rally citizens around a repressive regime by focusing fear and paranoia on an external enemy. This is why it would a terrible idea for the U.S. to be seen to intervene publicly on behalf of the Iranian Green Movement and why the current black ops war against Iran fueled by both the U.S. (indirectly, see Stuxnet) is an even worse idea. It's a typically ham-handed operation displaying all the subtlety of a jack hammer on a New York street. [Read more: Silverstein/EurasiaReview/14January2012]

CIA Assassination an Option in Thwarting the Iranian Nuclear Threat. Among the most serious of the problems facing the world today is the unrelenting attempt by Iran to develop nuclear weapon capacity. The rogue nation declares a right to nuclear arms, nuclear tipped missiles. To make matters worse, Iran, and the supercilious president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have bragged that they will �wipe Israel off the face of the planet"; While this is only rhetoric, it cannot be ignored.

Politicians in America, in Great Britain, and throughout the world have pondered what steps may become necessary should this Iranian proliferation continue. Some have conceded a willingness preemptively to strike Iranian nuclear development areas, showing strength to the world and eliminating the threat. Recent history has shown that strikes such as they propose, intended to resolve the threat in a few days, can stretch on for years, and involve all quarters of the world. A preemptive strike, regardless of how well planned, would inevitably lead to the deaths and severe injury of many persons, and would likely elicit strong criticism from those uninvolved.

In early January, Iran rounded up and arrested several persons whom they charged with spying. In that instance, they accused Israel and the United States of carrying out covert intelligence operations in order to undermine Iranian elections, and in some cases to oppose the Iranian nuclear program. In a similar arrest in December, an American man, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, was arrested as a spy. Iran media reported that Hekmati admitted to U.S. training and was involved in terrorist activities.

We can imagine a scenario wherein those accused of spying are held captive in the near-areas of nuclear research and testing. This strategic placement would hinder or thwart any preemptive threat from the free world. [Read more: Lake/Blogcritics/16January2012]

Section IV - Careers, Books, Obituaries and Coming Events

Careers

The Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Group of SAIC is currently seeking operational support professionals to provide analytical, operational and mission support for the following openings: Intelligence Analysts; Targeters; Desk Officers; Collection Management Officers; Operations Officers.
These positions are located in the Northern Va area and may require some travel that could include hostile/war zone environments.  All positions require an active TS/SCI with Polygraph.   Positions are contingent upon contract award.

SAIC is a FORTUNE 500® scientific, engineering, and technology applications company that uses its deep domain knowledge to solve problems of vital importance to the nation and the world, in national security, energy and the environment, critical infrastructure, and health. For more information, visit www.saic.com. SAIC: From Science to Solutions®

If you would be interested in learning more, please send resume or inquiry to Mike Bruni of SAIC at brunim@saic.com or by phone at 703-318-4653.

Methamphetamine SME (TS/SCI) - JBAB [formerly Bolling AFB] Washington, DC.

The Parsons Corporation is looking for an immediate fill supporting the Defense Intelligence Agency Counternarcotics Intelligence effort in Washington, DC. We are looking for a mid-to-senior range analyst with in depth knowledge of the methamphetamine/precursor chemicals problem set. Experience in Counter Drug (CD) operations at the Joint or Interagency level is a requirement. Must also be able to demonstrate strong analytical and presentation skills using Intelligence and CD community tools and processes. Successful candidate must have the ability to work with other commands and agencies. Familiarity with database development and construction preferred.

Duties and Responsibilities: This analyst will support a multi-agency effort to improve the knowledge of the illegal Methamphetamine/precursor chemical issue.  Ultimate goal is to produce improved intelligence analyses and contribute to development of a government developed database tracking shipment and seizure of these chemicals.

Experience and Qualifications: Requirements - 5-9 years of intelligence analysis; 3-5 supporting Counter Drug operations; Proficiency in Law Enforcement and Intelligence Community tools; Familiarity with national and theater Counter Drug agencies and organizations; Bachelor's Degree preferred, can substitute relevant experience; Proof of US citizenship or permanent residency is required. TS/SCI clearance required

POC: Ms. Lyn Keesling, lkeesling@mcmunn-associates.com,
Candidates are encouraged to apply at https://parsons.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=09298 or www.parsons.com/careers.

Microsoft Seeking CyberSecurity Attorney
Microsoft is looking for an attorney to join its Regulatory Affairs team to support Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing (TwC) security business and provide company-wide expertise on various cyber security and national security topics. For more information or to apply please visit: https://careers.microsoft.com/jobdetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=1&jid=72048&jlang=EN Page down for this particular job opening.

Books and DVDs

Warfare's New, Financial Face. American capitalism - led by and caricatured as the financial industry centered on Wall Street - is predicated on the notion that the market is driven by fundamentally economic motives. To its admirers, that means its dynamics are dictated by profit motivation. Wall Street's critics call it greed.

The rules and regulations that govern our stock transactions largely reflect this assumption. We discourage undesirable behavior primarily by levying fines and otherwise making it costly to engage in it.

Forgive the obviousness of this question but, what if actors who are interested in affecting our stock market and economy more generally are motivated not by making money but by some larger strategic interest? In that case, financial disincentives are likely to prove completely ineffectual.

For example, would our present Maginot Line of financial defenses - much of them constructed by legislators bearing names such as Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank, Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley - protect us if avowed enemies of this country sought to inflict a major, and possibly decisive, blow against us and didn't care if they lost money in the process?

This proposition is explored in a riveting book that will be published this month by one of my colleagues, Kevin D. Freeman, a senior fellow of the Center for Security Policy. In fact, as the title of "Secret Weapon: How Economic Terrorism Brought Down the U.S. Stock Market and Why It Can Happen Again" suggests, Mr. Freeman's thesis is that it already has occurred, with devastating effect, and that worse may be in the offing.

By training a certified financial analyst who worked for a decade with one of the giants of modern finance, investment maven Sir John Templeton, the author knows his stuff. Among other things, Mr. Freeman reminds us that U.S. enemies - potential and actual - have served notice repeatedly that they understand our market's vulnerabilities to attack. [Read more: Gaffney/WashingtonTimes/3January2012]

American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. "One shot, one kill" is the creed of military snipers. For those in elite warfare units such as the U.S. Navy SEALs, the additional skill of being able to quietly infiltrate an enemy's area undetected in order to deliver precision fire is mandatory. Working in proximity to where adversaries are operating, and being expected to survive in order to be deployed to additional firefights, is a given.

"American Sniper" is retired Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle's gripping and dramatic account of how he became the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history, with more than 160 officially confirmed "kills" in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2009.

Mr. Kyle's early life and military exploits read like a thrilling adventure movie. Growing up in Odessa, Texas, he hunted animals with a bolt-action 30-06 rifle and had a talent for "breaking" horses. While in college, Mr. Kyle became a proficient enough horseman to earn money as a professional bronco rodeo rider until he was injured when a bronco flipped over him. With an interest in becoming a ranch manager, he started out as a ranch hand and eventually made his way to Colorado. On a second try to join the Navy, a recruiter called to ask whether he was interested in becoming a SEAL.

Joining the Navy in February 1999, he began the rigorous physical training program required to become a SEAL. He ended up as one of the 10 percent of the starting class to graduate. After additional advanced training, he was selected to SEAL Team 3, based in Coronado, Calif., whose teams saw action in the Middle East.

Of particular interest is Mr. Kyle's explanation of how the military services' special operations units operate, with each having a specialty. The Army Rangers, for example, make up a large assault force, while SEALs operate as quick surgical strike forces against small but high-value targets, such as the unit from SEAL Team 6 that killed Osama bin Laden.

Mr. Kyle's first assignment, during the 2002-03 winter, was with a SEAL mission that boarded and searched ships carrying illicit weaponry in the Persian Gulf off Iraq.

The book's narrative turns dramatic when Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003 and he became a gunner in forward-deployed SEAL scout missions that supported Army and Marine Corps units as they advanced rapidly throughout the country to defeat Saddam Hussein's army. With opposition elements, including al Qaeda, beginning to mount an armed insurgency, Mr. Kyle's sniper specialty became indispensable, especially in rural and urban warfare environments. In the great distances afforded by a rural countryside, his shots would run from 800 to 1,200 yards. In the proximity of urban combat, where he made most of his "kills," the range of his shots was 200 to 400 feet. [Read more: Sinai/WashingtonTimes/13January2012]

Satan's Spy.  Satan's Spy, Andr� Le Gallo's 2nd novel, is an espionage thriller that will resonate with anyone interested in current affairs. The story catches up with Steve Church and Kella Hastings from their previous assignment (see The Caliphate,) as they are sent to Tehran on a CIA mission to determine the status of Iran's nuclear weapons program. While undercover, they unveil an insidious plan to cripple America's infrastructure and they must evade capture to prevent a disaster worse than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 together. The backdrop to the story includes naval clashes in the gulf, Inside-the-Beltway intrigue, and Iran's religious and tribal mosaics. [Read more: VentureGalleries/5January2012]

6-DVD Set Now Available for complete 7th Raleigh Spy Conference held last August on Illegals.

Did you miss that special Raleigh Spy Conference on "The Spies Among Us: The Secret World of Espionage Illegals"?
You can now attend virtually with this new 6 DVD set which should be ready to ship in less than two weeks.
The conference was a great success, as many of you know. Michael Hayden's keynote address described the lead-up to the Bin Laden operation, told from his perspective as former chief of both NSA and CIA.
Michael Sulick (former director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service); discuss the history and current deployment of espionage "illegals", specially trained spies who work in foreign countries with no official cover. The recent case of the ten Russian illegals working in the US made headlines. Our conference speakers gave us the real story.
The DVD package also includes the Author's Roundtable that included David Wise on the espionage threat from China; Doug Waller on the latest and most complete biography of Wild Bill Donavan (founder of OSS); and Kent Clizbe on his examination of the effect of Soviet propaganda on Western institutions.
Our great friend Brian Kelley – who presented a session on illegals and hosted the Author's Roundtable – died a month after his appearance in Raleigh. Brian helped found and direct the RSC so it is fitting we have him on film at his best.
The 6-DVD set sells for $119.95. Spy conference attendees from any of our events can order for $110.95. We will add postage when you make your order. You can add a 5% discount for orders of five; a 7% discount for orders of ten; a 10% discount for orders of 15 to 20; and a 15% discount for orders above 20.
Please let Cyndi Harris at cyndi@metromagazine.net know of your interest. She will respond with credit card information and the total amount due. Call Cyndi at 919-831-0999 or email her at: cyndi@metromagazine.net.

Obituaries

Malcolm Mackintosh. Malcolm Mackintosh, who has died aged 89, was one of the Britain's foremost Sovietologists during the Cold War, explaining and interpreting top secret intelligence for governments for more than 30 years.

He was formally taken on by the Foreign Office in 1960, working on its intelligence assessment staff. There he developed an encyclopedic knowledge of the disposition of Warsaw Pact forces, carrying the career details of many figures from the Soviet command in his head.

The value of this expertise was quickly recognised, and Mackintosh was permitted to share his knowledge with allies including America, where audiences for his briefings including Senators Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Ted Stevens. Later George Bush Snr (a CIA Director before he became President), invited Mackintosh to the Oval Office.

Back in Britain, Mackintosh was asked by Sir Anthony Duff, chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, to remain in an advisory role with the Cabinet Office beyond normal retirement age. In the mid-1980s he played a pivotal role in the critical debate which ended with Margaret Thatcher being persuaded that the West could "do business with" the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev .

Mackintosh emphasised that the weight of history in a nation that had lost 27 million people in the Second World War (and therefore considered a nuclear war to be survivable) meant that it was unrealistic to think that the Soviet system and the attitudes that had sustained it could change overnight, if ever. Initial "reforms" to the Soviet military had been designed to respond to Western technological superiority and did not represent any kind of new thinking. If Gorbachev was sincere about his desire to transform the Soviet military system, Mackintosh warned, it would be a long struggle and he would be up against hugely powerful entrenched interests.

But, he believed, there was good reason for believing that Gorbachev could be persuaded to negotiate in good faith: the Soviet economy was creaking towards bankruptcy and he had little choice. As Mackintosh saw it, Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader to realise that, to preserve the USSR, he had to do something to boost the non-military aspects of the economy. It was arguments like these, backed up by hard evidence, that enabled Mrs. Thatcher to convince a skeptical Reagan administration that there was a real prospect of progress, and which led to a series of face-to-face meetings between the American and Soviet leaders and genuine negotiations on Strategic Arms Limitation and human rights.

John Malcolm Mackintosh was born on Christmas Day 1921 in Sherborne, Dorset. His father, James, had qualified both as a doctor and a barrister, and rose to become Chief Medical Officer for Scotland as well as writing poetry, both in English and Ancient Greek. Life at home was intellectually rigorous.

His father's medical training enabled John to recover from a bout of polio, which he contracted aged eight. He was educated at Mill Hill School (of which he eventually became a life governor) until the age of 15, but when the family moved to Edinburgh he attended the Edinburgh Academy. In spite of his father's wish that he study Classics, he was eventually allowed to study History and Russian at Glasgow University.

The war intervened and he was called up after only one year of his course. A few weeks into his officer training, however, a letter arrived inviting him to take up a language course at the School of Slavonic Studies in London. It is likely that this call came from SOE, as Mackintosh was subsequently posted to Cairo, the headquarters for SOE operations in the Balkans .

Later on he was parachuted into Yugoslavia in support of Tito's partisans and subsequently became involved in an operation to extract some Polish generals, who had fled to Romania after being released from internment by Stalin. As it turned out the plane transporting the soldiers to Italy suffered mechanical problems en route which forced it to land in Bulgaria and, in consequence, Mackintosh found himself, for the next two years, seconded to the Allied Control Commission in Sofia, liaising with the occupying Soviet forces.

There, in early 1945, he met his future wife, Lena Grafova, the daughter of a White Army Officer who had fled Russia in 1917 and settled in Sofia. They married in 1946, just before his demobilisation. Returning to Britain, Mackintosh resumed his studies at Glasgow University. Notwithstanding the arrival of a daughter in 1947, he graduated the following year with a First.

He then obtained a post as a programme organiser in the Overseas Service of the BBC, in its Bulgarian and Albanian Section, where he remained until 1960. This was despite the fact that he had also been offered a post by the Foreign Office; as he had already accepted the BBC job he felt that he could not let the broadcaster down.

The Foreign Office kept in touch with him, however, and when two high-level Soviet delegations, including Marshall Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, visited Britain in 1955 and 1956, Mackintosh was co-opted to act as interpreter on their tours of the country and at high-level meetings with Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Anthony Eden.

Mackintosh recalled that there were several semi-diplomatic "incidents" during these visits. One occasion the Soviet delegation was greatly cheered to be greeted on their arrival at the Piccadilly Hotel in Manchester by a huge and excited throng of young people; police then asked them to use the back entrance to make way for the pop singer, Johnny Ray. It was also difficult to persuade them that it was not possible to have the traffic halted so that the party could go past the Blackpool Illuminations a second time, against the flow of the one-way system.

Subsequently Mackintosh was approached by Alastair Buchan to assist in the formation of the Institute (now International Institute) for Strategic Studies, of which he became a co-founder with Professor Sir Michael Howard and Denis Healey. In 1962 he published Strategy of Soviet Foreign Policy, followed in 1967 by Juggernaut: a History of the Soviet Armed Forces.

After joining the Foreign Service in 1968 Mackintosh was seconded to the Cabinet Office, briefing ministers on Intelligence matters. Though he had never visited the Soviet Union at this point, he soon established a reputation as a leading expert on the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. His first trip to the Soviet Union came in 1973, when he was part of the delegation led by the Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home. His reputation preceded him, however, and a complaint was made through official channels that the British delegation had included a notorious "falsifier of history" - a description that Mackintosh took as a compliment. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he received a personal apology for this.

Mackintosh's role at the Foreign Office was always outward-looking. As well as advising the British government, he frequently travelled abroad to brief American and Commonwealth leaders. He also lectured widely both at military and civilian training and research establishments, continuing to do so after he eventually retired at the age of 66.

He was appointed CMG in 1975. [Read more: TheTelegraph/1January2012]

Gevork Vartanyan. Gevork Vartanyan, who has died aged 87, worked for Soviet intelligence for more than half a century and played an important part in thwarting a Nazi plot to assassinate Churchill, Stalin and President Roosevelt at the Tehran Conference in 1943. 

The three Allied leaders convened at Tehran in November that year to discuss strategy, the principal item on the agenda being the opening of a second front in Western Europe. The Abwehr, Germany's military intelligence service, had learnt of the time and place of the conference the previous month, having deciphered the American naval code, and the operation to assassinate the Allied leaders, code-named Long Jump, was put in the hands of one of their most trusted agents, Otto Skorzeny.

The operation was betrayed, however, when a Soviet intelligence officer, Nikolai Kuznetsov, posing as a German Oberleutnant called Paul Siebert, forged a friendship with an SS Sturmbannf�hrer, Ulrich von Ortel. One evening von Ortel got drunk with Kuznetsov and boasted about Long Jump, revealing that special teams were being trained for the task in Copenhagen.

Security at the conference was principally the responsibility of the Soviets. Under the Russian-Persian Treaty of Friendship of 1921, the Soviet Union had sent troops into northern Persia in August 1941 to curb the operations of German agents. Britain, meanwhile, had deployed troops in the south to guarantee the flow of British-American lend-lease supplies to the USSR from the Persian Gulf.

The Conference itself (code-named Eureka) was held in the Soviet Embassy. One of the buildings in the compound was converted for use as a residence for President Roosevelt, since the American mission was in the suburbs and not considered secure. A tunnel was constructed between the Soviet embassy and the British embassy across the street. The area was heavily guarded.

Vartanyan later recalled: "Tehran at that time was flooded with refugees from war-ravaged Europe. For the most part, these were wealthy people trying to escape the risks of the war. There were about 20,000 Germans in Iran, and Nazi agents were hiding among them. They were aided by the pre-war patronage extended to the Germans by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who openly sympathised with Hitler. The German field station in [Persia], headed by Franz Meyer, was very powerful."

In 1940-41 Vartanyan's team of seven intelligence officers (who called themselves "the light cavalry" because they travelled about the city mainly by bicycle) had identified more than 400 Nazi agents, all of whom had been arrested by Soviet troops. Meyer was eventually discovered working as a gravedigger at an Armenian cemetery and arrested by the British.

In their efforts to foil the assassination plot, Vartanyan's group located six Nazi radio operators shortly before the conference opened on November 28 1943. The German assassins had been dropped by parachute near the town of Qom, 40 miles from Tehran: "We followed them to Tehran, where the Nazi field station had readied a villa for their stay. They were travelling by camel, and were loaded with weapons. While we were watching the group, we established that they had contacted Berlin by radio, and recorded their communication.

"When we decrypted these radio messages, we learnt that the Germans were preparing to land a second group of subversives for a terrorist act - the assassination or abduction of the 'Big Three'. The second group was supposed to be led by Skorzeny himself ."

All the members of the first group were arrested and forced to contact their handlers under Soviet supervision. "We deliberately gave a radio operator an opportunity to report the failure of the mission," said Vartanyan, "and the Germans decided against sending the main group under Skorzeny to Tehran. In this way, the success of our group in locating the Nazi advance party and our subsequent actions thwarted an attempt to assassinate the 'Big Three'."

Gevork Andreyevich Vartanyan was born on February 17 1924 in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. His father was a businessman of Armenian origin, and himself worked for Soviet intelligence in Persia from 1930 to the early Fifties, managing an active network of agents. Gevork Andreyevich was recruited into the intelligence service at the age of only 16, and in 1955 graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages at Yerevan, Armenia - during the course of his long career he came to be fluent in eight languages.

In 1942, using the name Amir, Vartanyan succeeded in taking a course in Tehran (set up under the guise of an amateur radio club) for British spies who would be disseminated in the Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Transcaucasian area. After being accepted as a trainee, Vartanyan made a list of the students at the school, thus exposing an important potential network; many of them were subsequently arrested on Soviet territory and turned to become double agents.

Vartanyan later observed: "The British, true to form, continued to do mean things to us despite the fact of their being allies. They established a special group and organised a school where they trained subversives and spies to be dropped over the territory of the Soviet Union. And in that school I went through a six-month training and so I am grateful to the British intelligence."

The fact that the two nations were allies did not, of course, preclude espionage. During the Tehran Conference, Stalin observed Roosevelt passing a handwritten note to Churchill, and instructed his head of intelligence in Persia, Ivan Ivanovich Agayants, to get hold of a copy. He succeeded. It read: "Sir, your fly is open."

In 2003, relying on declassified documents, Yuri Lvovich Kuznets published a book called Tehran-43 or Operation Long Jump, which detailed Vartanyan's role at the Tehran Conference. A Soviet film, Tegeran-43, which featured the French actor Alain Delon, was released in 1981.

Most of Vartanyan's work, however, remains secret to this day. After the war he worked alongside his wife, Goar; they had met when she was 13, and he recruited her when she became an adult. They married in 1946, and, according to the SVR (successor to the KGB), they worked undercover together for 30 years in Europe, Asia and the United States. They returned to the Soviet Union in 1986, Goar retiring shortly afterwards. Vartanyan continued to work for the service until 1992.

He was appointed a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1984; his wife received the Order of the Red Banner.

In 2007 Churchill's granddaughter Celia Sandys met Vartanyan in Moscow while she was contributing to a Russian-British television documentary about relations between the two countries. At the meeting Vartanyan raised a glass of Armenian brandy to "the great troika - Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt", adding: "It is thanks to them that we live in peace today." He said that Stalin had sent Armenian brandy to Churchill "by the case."

At the end of his life Vartanyan reflected: "We were lucky - we never met a single traitor. For us underground agents, betrayal is the worst evil. If an agent observes all the security rules and behaves properly in society, no counter-intelligence will spot him or her. Like sappers, underground agents err only once." [Read more: TheTelegraph/11January2012]

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in January, February 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.

17 January 2012, 11:30 am - McLean, VA - Defense Intelligence Forum hears Allen Keiswetter on Arab Spring

Allen Keiswetter, a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer, is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. His responsibilities included Iraq, Iran, the Arab Peninsula and North Africa. He served in six Arab countries including Iraq and Saudi Arabia. As a Scholar at the Middle East Institute, he made more than 200 media appearances on CNN, BBC, Fox News, and other news outlets. He taught courses on the Persian Gulf, Islam and the Middle East at the National Defense Intelligence College, the National War College, and the University of Maryland.
Other positions he held in the Department of State include Senior Advisor to the UN Security Council and General Assembly on Middle East Issues, Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs, Director of the Officer of Intelligence Liaison and NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs. He served in Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia, Iraq, Lebanon and Vietnam.
His most recent publication is "The Arab Spring: Implications for US Interests and Policies," published by the Middle East Institute in December.
His degrees are from Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has fluency in both Arabic and French languages.)
For this forum, you may attribute the speaker's remarks. Everything will be on the record.
Location: Pulcinella Restaurant, 6852 Old Dominion Drive, McLean, VA
Pay at the door with a check for $(29) payable to DIAA, Inc
Make reservations by 13 January by email to diforum@diaalumni.org. Include names, telephone numbers, and email addresses. For each attendee, choose among (chicken cacciatore, tilapia puttanesca, lasagna, sausage with peppers, or fettuccini with portabella).
Pay at the door with a check for $29 per person, payable to DIAA, Inc.
Check is preferred, but will accept cash; however, credit card payments are discouraged

Thursday, 19 January 2012, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - The Rocky Mountain AFIO Chapter luncheon features former Senior CIA Officer/former Deputy Legal Advisor to Condoleezza Rice

At this meeting, the chapter presents Bryan Cunningham who will provide a recap of current national security policy, and look ahead at the 2012 election year. Bryan is a former senior CIA officer and was deputy legal advisor to Condoleezza Rice when she served as National Security Advisor in President George W. Bush's first administration. To be held at The Inn at Palmer Divide, 443 S. Highway 105 Palmer Lake, CO, Exit 161 westbound off I-25, West on Highway 105. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

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

21 January 2012 - Kennebunk, ME - The AFIO Maine Chapter Meeting features David Hunt, CIA, on Turmoil in East Africa

David Hunt's talk will be on "Turmoil in East Africa - Danger to the U.S.?" David P. Hunt will share his knowledge of Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Ethiopia -countries located on the strategic Horn of Africa - and their impact on international instability and terrorism. Hunt is a former senior CIA officer in what was then called the Directorate of Operations. Having served twice as Chief of Station on Mogadishu, Somalia, he will speak from personal knowledge of this important region. Hunt 's 32 year service with CIA included tours in Italy, Saigon, Oslo, Paris, and New York City. His areas of expertise encompass a knowledge of Soviet operations, European affairs, and counterintelligence. He holds the Donovan Award for Excellence as well as the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, CIA's highest award.
Hunt is a graduate of St. Paul's School and also attended school in Switzerland. He holds a B.A. in History/Government from Colby College. He also served in the U. S. Army Counterintelligence Corps with one year in Korea.
Hunt is currently chairman of Charles Pratt and Co., L.L.C. in New York City and the Dosoris Trust Company. He serves on boards of several conservation organizations including The Ocean Conservancy.
The meeting will be held at the Brick Store Program Center, 2 Dane Street, Kennebunk, ME. at 2:00 p.m.on Saturday, January 21, 2012. The meeting is open to the public. The speaker has indicated that, beyond the subject of his talk, he will answer questions on any aspect of intelligence making this an unparalleled opportunity to get the real scoop on some of the things you have always wondered about but never dared ask. For information call 207-967-4298.

26 January 2012, 12:30 pm - Los Angeles, CA - The Los Angeles Area AFIO Chapter will be holding their annual business chapter meeting at the LMU campus in the Hilton Business Building.

They will be discussing their goals and objectives for the 2012 year and review current chapter status. The meeting is open only to current chapter members in good standing. Please RSVP via email to Vince Autiero at afio_la@yahoo.com if you would like to attend. We wish all of you Happy Holidays and a very healthy and prosperous New Year!

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

2 February 2012 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Maj. Gen. J. Michael Myatt, USMC (ret.), on "Reflections on Intelligence Support for Ground Commanders for Gulf War 1.0."

Myatt speaks on "Reflections on Intelligence Support for Ground Commanders for Gulf War 1.0." The meeting will be held at UICC, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat/Wawona): 11:30AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-member/no reservation. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate meat or fish) at afiosf@aol.com and mail a check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578, Burlingame, CA 94011.

4 February 2012 - Melbourne, FL - The AFIO Satellite Florida Chapter luncheon features AFIO National President Gene Poteat on "Evolution of CIA Covert Ops from Beginning to the SEAL Team Raid in Pakistan."

Gene Poteat, AFIO National President, addresses the chapter which meets at Indian River Colony Club, Melbourne FL at noon. For tickets and information, please contact Donna Czarnecki, 321 600-4415 or 321 848 4425

Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 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 2012, 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

Saturday, 11 February 2012, 11 am - Orange Park, FL - North Florida Chapter hosts luncheon meeting.

Chapter President Baird has a couple of potential speakers lined up and the next chapter newsletter will have additional details.  If you will be attending, never too early to RSVP to Quiel at qbegonia@comcast.net or 904-545-9549.  Hope to see you there!

15 February 2012, 3 - 4 pm - Washington, DC - "George F. Kennan: An American Life"

As one of the Cold War's most influential foreign policy thinkers, Kennan was the architect of containment and the Marshall Plan. But after leaving government, he went on to become one of the most outspoken critics of American diplomacy, politics, and culture during the last half of the twentieth century. Now the full scope of Kennan's long life and vast influence is revealed by one of today's most important Cold War scholars.
Organized by the Cold War International History Project in collaboration with the Kennan Institute and International Security Studies Drawing upon extensive interviews with George Kennan and exclusive access to his personal archive, former Wilson Center fellow and Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University John Lewis Gaddis, will discuss his revealing new biography, George F. Kennan: An American Life. Event takes place at 6th Floor Flom Auditorium, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Visit www.CWIHP.org for more information and to RSVP

Thursday, 16 February 2012, 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

Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 6:30 – 8:30 pm – Washington, DC - "Intel and the Arab Spring: What Does the Future Hold?" at the International Spy Museum

How could the world have missed the signs that an Arab Spring was coming? Did the U.S. suffer from poor intelligence, compromised relationships, or simply a failure of the imagination? And now how do we prevent the reemergence of blind spots as we build relationships with rapidly emerging regimes and their intelligence services? Join experts Reuel Marc Gerecht, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, author of The Wave: Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East, and a former Middle East specialist in the CIA's Clandestine Service; and Colonel W. Patrick Lang, former Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism, author of Intelligence: The Human Factor, and expert consultant on intel operations in Muslim countries; for a spirited discussion of how the U.S.'s understanding—or misunderstanding—of the Middle East affects intelligence collection and analysis in the region. Sparks may fly when the speakers share their potentially conflicting ideas about how the U.S. can alter a decades-old paradigm
Ticket: $15. To register or for more information visit www.spymuseum.org

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