Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

With U.S. Okay, Cuban Agent Returns Home to See Brother. A Cuban agent on parole in the United States after 13 years behind bars for his activities in an espionage ring has returned temporarily to the communist island to visit his critically ill brother, state television reported on Friday.

Rene Gonzalez, one of what Cuba calls the "Five Heroes," returned on Friday "on a private family visit," it said.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard granted Gonzalez his request for the visit on March 19 with the proviso that he had to obtain permission from the U.S. government and return within 15 days.

Gonzalez's brother is said to be dying of lung cancer.

Similarly, jailed American contractor Alan Gross has requested that Cuban President Raul Castro allow him a temporary return to the United States to visit his 89-year-old mother, who has inoperable lung cancer.

Gonzalez, 55, is one of the so-called Cuban Five convicted of conspiring to spy on Cuban exile groups and U.S. military activities in Florida. Their organization was known as the "Wasp Network."

One of them is serving a double life sentence for his part in the shooting down of two U.S. planes in 1996 flown by an exile group that dropped anti-government leaflets over Havana.

In the United States, the case is little known outside the Cuban exile community, but is a major issue in Cuba where the government repeatedly says they were wrongly convicted and demands their release.

It says the agents were only collecting information on Cuban exile groups planning actions against the island 90 miles from Key West, Florida

Gonzalez, who has dual U.S.-Cuban citizenship, was the first of the five to be released from jail when he finished his sentence last year, but was ordered to stay in the United States for a three-year probation. [Read more: Franks/Reuters/31March2012]

Former CIA Director Warns of Threat to West. Unlike during the Cold War in the last half of the previous century, most Americans are unaware of the security threat that is under way in the United States, a foreign policy expert and former director of the CIA told an Oklahoma City group Friday.

"Instead of giving us the Soviets to struggle against, the times have given us ... a terrorist organization like Hamas with its supporters, and that's harder," said James Woolsey, who was director of America's spy agency from 1993-95 under former President Bill Clinton.

"It's harder to deal with a totalitarian movement that claims to be part of one of the world's great religions," he said. "We have to keep very clear in our own minds the difference between Islam as a whole and devout Muslims ... on the one hand versus people who fund schools to teach little boys they ought to want to be suicide bombers."

Woolsey said he wasn't condemning the Islamic religion, just as Christianity shouldn't be blamed for those who were part of the Spanish Inquisition centuries ago. He defined Islamism as a fundamentalist Islamic revivalist movement generally characterized by the attempt to implement Islamic values in all aspects of life. He said those who follow Islamism believe in terrorism. [Read more: McNutt/NewsOK/31March2012]

Former Soviet KGB Spy Chief Commits Suicide. Ex-Soviet KGB foreign intelligence chief Leonid Shebarshin was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Friday in an apparent suicide, Russian investigators said.

Shebarshin, 77, who headed the First Chief Directorate, a foreign intelligence service within the KGB during 1989-1991, appeared to have committed suicide, the Investigative Committee said on its website www.sledcom.ru. A gun, which he was awarded upon retirement, was discovered near his body.

Police also found a suicide note on the scene, Interfax news agency quoted a police official as saying.

The ex-spy, fluent in Urdu, worked on assignments in Pakistan, India and Iran in the 1950s-1970s. He was appointed deputy chief of foreign intelligence in 1987, and promoted to head the service in 1989.

Shebarshin briefly occupied the KGB's top post after the failed August 1991 hardline coup, intended to halt president Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms paved the way for the collapse of the communist party, the end of the Soviet Union and the creation of the present-day Russian state.

He resigned from active service shortly after the coup. [Read more: Anishchuk&Gutterman/Reuters/30March3012]

Indonesia Expresses Concern Over US Spy Base Proposal. Indonesia's Foreign Minister has sought an explanation from his Australian counterpart over a proposal that US spy planes be based in future on the Cocos Islands.

Marty Natalegawa phoned Bob Carr yesterday morning over his concerns that the proposal would "disturb the region".

"This morning I called the Australian Foreign Minister to seek first-hand explanation." Mr. Natalegawa said.

"The explanation I got is that Australia has never been asked by ... the US ... So there has never been any ministerial discussion on this issue," he said.

The Washington Post reported this week that the US was eyeing the Cocos Islands, 2700 kilometres east of Diego Garcia, as "an ideal site not only for manned US surveillance aircraft but for Global Hawks, an unarmed, high-altitude surveillance drone".

The news has set the military establishment in Indonesia on edge.

On Wednesday a Defence Ministry spokesman, Brigadier-General Hartind Asrin, said: "If we spot one and it has no permit, our fighter jets will intercept it."

He added that Australia and the US needed to clarify the issue "to avoid any miscalculation or misunderstanding in the field".

"In principle, we did not have the authority to be involved in their plan, but we aim to ask them about their intention to place spy drones near our territory," General Hartind said. [Read more: Bachelard/SydneyMorningHerald/31March2012]

Mossad Cuts Back on Iran Spy Efforts. A Time Magazine report revealed on Friday that Israeli intelligence services have scaled back their covert operations inside Iran.

According to senior security officials who spoke to the magazine, operations have been reduced in areas such as high-profile missions, including assassinations and detonations at Iranian missile bases, as well as in recruiting spies inside the Iranian nuclear program, and efforts to gather on-the-ground intelligence. 

The report further states that according to one official, the reductions have caused "increasing dissatisfaction" inside the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency. Another official credits the reduced activities to the reluctance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who the official says is worried about the outcome of the operations being discovered. [Read more: Haaretz/31March2012]

Homemade Spies Take to the Skies. Sharp-eyed dog walkers along the San Francisco Bay waterfront may have spotted a strange-looking plane zipping overhead recently that that looked strikingly like the U.S. stealth drone captured by Iran in December.

A few key differences: The flying wing seen over Berkeley is a fraction of the size of the CIA's waylaid aircraft. And it's made of plastic foam. But in some ways it's just like a real spy plane.

The 4 1/2-foot-wide aircraft, built by software engineers Mark Harrison and Andreas Oesterer in their spare time, can fly itself to specified GPS coordinates and altitudes without any help from a pilot on the ground. A tiny video camera mounted on the front can send a live video feed to a set of goggles for the drone's view of the world below.

"It's just like flying without all the trouble of having to be up in the air," Harrison said.

Thousands of hobbyists are taking part in what has become a global do-it-yourself drone subculture, a pastime that's thriving as the Federal Aviation Administration seeks to make the skies friendlier to unmanned aircraft of all sizes.

The use of drones in the U.S. by law enforcement and other government agencies has privacy advocates on edge. At the same time, some DIY drone flyers believe the ease of sending cheap pilotless planes and choppers airborne gives citizens a powerful tool for keeping public servants on the ground honest.

Drones are the signature weapon of U.S. wars in the 21st century. Just as Humvees became a presence on U.S. highways in the 1990s after the first war with Iraq, interest in non-military uses of drones from policing to farming is rising.

Government agencies currently need FAA permission on a case-by-case basis to fly drones domestically. Commercial use is banned except for a small number of waivers for companies building experimental aircraft. But lawmakers have instructed the agency to allow civilian use of drones in U.S. airspace by September 2015. The FAA is expected to take the first step this year by proposing rules that would permit limited use of small commercial drones. [Read more: WheelingNewsRegister/2April2012]

Details Emerge About bin Laden's Multiple Residences in Pakistan. It's an ornate but not lavish two-story house tucked away at the end of a mud clogged street. This is where Pakistan's intelligence agency believes Usama bin Laden lived for nearly a year until he moved into the villa in which he was eventually killed.

The residence in the frontier town of Haripur was one of five safe houses used by the slain Al Qaeda leader while on the run in Pakistan according to information revealed by his youngest wife, who has been detained.

Retired Pakistani Brig. Shaukat Qadir, who has spent the last eight months tracking bin Laden's movements, told The Associated Press that he was taken to the Haripur house last November by intelligence agents who located it from a description they got from Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada.

Al-Sada, a 30-year-old Yemeni, has been in Pakistani custody since May 2 when U.S. Navy SEALs overran the Abbottabad compound, killing bin Laden and four other people inside. Since then, Pakistan's intelligence agency, known as the ISI, has been trying to uncover the trail that brought him to Abbottabad villa in the summer of 2005.

The best information appears to have come from al-Sada, who was believed to be his favorite and who traveled with bin Laden since his escape from Afghanistan's eastern Tora Bora mountain range in 2001.

Qadir, a 35-year army veteran who is now a security consultant, was given rare access to transcripts of Pakistani intelligence's interrogation of al-Sada and access to other documents on bin-Laden's movements. [Read more: AP/1April2012]

Russia Accuses Retired Colonel of Spying for U.S. Russia's General Prosecutor on Tuesday accused a retired colonel of procuring secret maps for the U.S. military and charged him with espionage, a crime that carries up to 20 years in prison.

Vladimir Lazar, a colonel in reserve who until 2003 served in the military's topography service, is accused of passing information to a former classmate now working with U.S. defense intelligence, a statement from the prosecutor said.

The classmate, Alexander Lesment, has lived since the mid-1990s in Estonia, where he "actively cooperates with the (Defense Intelligence Agency) and is working on a long-term assignment" of procuring secret maps, it added.

As part of this assignment for Washington, Lesment asked Lazar to purchase topographic images from a Russian collector.

Lazar then "copied them to a hard disk and moved them to Belarus, where he passed them to Lesment through an intermediary," it said. [Read more:  DailyStar/3April2012]

MI5 Reveals Plot to Assassinate Russian Exile. A plot to assassinate a Russian politician in London has been uncovered by MI5, Britain's domestic counter-intelligence service.

The security services have issued an unprecedented warning that Akhmed Zakayev - an exile who is a friend of Vanessa Redgrave, the actress - is the target of a murder plot.

On their advice, the British Home Secretary has fought a court battle to remove the man MI5 believe would organise the ''hit''. They say he is a danger to national security.

But judges have allowed him to stay in Britain and fight to remain there.

The case raises serious questions about how Britain can be protected from foreign threats.

The murder plot comes amid growing concern over the number of Russians in Britain who could present a danger to security, particularly with the London Olympics fast approaching.

The assassination plot was outlined in court papers seen by London's Sunday Telegraph.

They reveal that the target is Mr. Zakayev, a dissident politician who was granted asylum in Britain. He was a politician in Chechnya, the breakaway Russian republic that has been the scene of a vicious civil war, until fleeing to London in 2002.

MI5 believes that Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen prime minister and his bitter rival, wants him dead. [Read more: Barrett/SydneyMorningHerald/2April2012]

Pentagon Activates Missile Defenses For North Korean Launch. The Pentagon activated its new U.S. ground-based global missile shield in anticipation of North Korea's launch of a long-range missile, according to defense officials.

The measures include stepped-up electronic monitoring, deployment of missile interceptor ships, and activation of radar networks to areas near the Korean peninsula and western Pacific.

Three interceptor ships near Japan and the Philippines, as well as U.S.-based interceptors, are ready to shoot down the North Korean missile if space-, land-, and sea-based sensors determine its flight path is targeted at the United States or U.S. allies, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Obama administration will regard any launch by North Korea as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions regardless of whether the North Koreans claim the rocket test is for space launch purposes, the officials said. The technology and rocketry used for a space launch is nearly identical to that used with ballistic missiles that carry a warhead, they said.

Also, because the payload or warhead of the test launch cannot be determined prior to launch, the Obama administration decided to activate the missile defense system.

According to U.S. officials, current intelligence assessments indicate the North Korean missile will be launched from a base called Tongchang-ri, located on a west coast peninsula north of Pyongyang between April 12 and April 15. [Read more: SatNews/2April2012]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Iraq Intelligence Fiasco Hangs Over Iran Analysis. At the nation's top spy agency, the ghosts of Iraq are never far away. 

One C.I.A. analyst who had helped develop some of the intelligence about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction had a breakdown months after the Iraq war began; he had participated in the post-invasion hunt there that found the weapons did not exist. When he eventually was given a new assignment assessing Iran's nuclear program, he confided a fear to colleagues: that the intelligence community might get it wrong again.

"He felt enormous guilt that he had gotten us into the war," said one former official who worked with the analyst. "He was afraid it was going to be d�j� vu all over again."

Today, analysts and others at the C.I.A. who are struggling to understand the nuclear ambitions of Iran are keenly aware that the agency's credibility is again on the line, amid threats of new military interventions. The intelligence debacle on Iraq has deeply influenced the way they do their work, with new safeguards intended to force analysts to be more skeptical in evaluating evidence and more cautious in drawing conclusions.

Former intelligence officials say that this shows appropriate vigilance in dealing with often murky information, while some detractors argue that the agency is not just careful but also overly skittish on Iran, reluctant to be blamed for any findings that might lead the United States to bloodshed.

"For a lot of people in the intelligence community, there is a feeling that they don't want to repeat the same mistake," said Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence analyst who resigned to protest what he considered the Bush administration's politicization of the prewar Iraq intelligence. "The intelligence community as a whole has better practices now partly because of the scar tissue they still have from Iraq," added Mr. Thielmann, now a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington.

Paul Pillar, a former senior C.I.A. analyst on the Middle East, says he believes that analysts are guided by the facts in making their assessments about Iran, but that they almost certainly have Iraq weighing on them.

"Because intelligence officials are human beings, one cannot rule out the possibility of the tendency to overcompensate for past errors," said Mr. Pillar, now the director of graduate studies at the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. [Read more: Risen/NYTimes/31March2012]

Fatal Attraction. The anti-piracy patrol off Somalia has found a new source of intelligence: the thousands of pirates who now have Internet access and use it enthusiastically. Although some are warned against discussing their work on their new smart phones (or less expensive "feature phones"), these guys are only dimly aware of how useful small bits of information on their operations can be. Western intelligence agencies constantly monitor pirates' activity on social networking sites and the Internet in general. Intel agencies are also able to eavesdrop on cell phone traffic, texting, and email. All this information provides a better picture of pirate plans and activities than anyone in the pirate community has. It's one reason the pirates are increasingly thwarted by anti-piracy patrol warships and aircraft. Some of the pirate leaders are aware of this weakness but have been unable to rein in their exuberant and newly prosperous subordinates.

Thus Somali pirates are facing a problem created by their own success. Several hundred million dollars has been received in ransoms over the last five years. The general rule is that half the ransom goes to the financiers, the gang leaders, and ransom negotiators. About a quarter of the money goes to the crew that took the ship, with a bonus for whoever got on board first. The pirates who guard the ship and look after the crew gets ten percent, and about ten percent goes to local clans and warlords, as protection money (or bribes). This has made dozens of gang leaders very rich and thousands of their followers affluent enough to buy cell phones and then smart phones. For the pirates who took the ship, then helped guard it for months until the money was paid, the take was still huge. Pirates who actually boarded the ship tend to receive at least $150,000 each, which is ten times what the average Somali man makes over his entire lifetime. Even the lowest ranking member of the pirate gang gets a few thousand dollars per ransom. [Read more: StrategyPage/31March2012]

The Steward-Turned-Spy. During the last weeks of March 1862 some 121,000 troops from the Army of the Potomac - the Union's largest military force - began arriving on the Virginia Peninsula, the first step in what Northerners hoped would be a successful jab at Richmond, the Confederate capital. For over three weeks, hundreds of boats transported the men, 14,000 horses and incalculable tons of mat�riel southward down the Chesapeake Bay to Union-held Fort Monroe on the peninsula's tip.

The colossal amphibious movement was carried out with well-designed efficiency and seemed to spell impending doom for Richmond, and possibly the end of the war. Though the strategy was Gen. George B. McClellan's, the troops were there largely because of a free black man named William Ringgold.

Ringgold's story began on April 23, 1861, less than two weeks after the firing on Fort Sumter, when the steamship Logan left Baltimore for Fredericksburg, Va. Ringgold, working as a steward, was aboard. As soon as the ship reached its goal, Ringgold, the Logan and its crew were impressed into service by Virginia - which, newly at war, was frantically preparing defenses against invasion. The need for labor was overwhelming: volunteer soldiers had to spend their time drilling, and thus thousands of African- Americans were forced into service digging trenches to prepare against a possible attack up the peninsula from Fort Monroe. By fall of 1861 the Confederates had a solid network of defenses.

By then Northern troops had been soundly whipped at Bull Run, and President Lincoln had placed Gen. George B. McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac. Though McClellan was accused of having no plan of action, and was widely suspected of being pro-slavery, he was formulating a rather bold strategy for capturing the Confederate capital. Instead of driving his army directly south from Washington, he envisioned using the Chesapeake Bay to bypass the South's well-placed entrenchments in northern Virginia, then disembarking his troops somewhere east and possibly south of Richmond.

While McClellan was putting together his plan, Ringgold's service came to a surprising end. The Logan and its crew had been busy moving laborers and troops, but on Oct. 22 a storm had swept through the Virginia Tidewater, damaging the ship and putting it out of service. Ringgold and his crewmates were then discharged, and they traveled to Richmond to be paid. While there, Ringgold observed Confederates forcing more than 700 free blacks and 2,000 slaves to labor on defensive works around the city. Everywhere Ringgold traveled, the Rebels were making great effort to protect Virginia from invasion - with the noticeable exceptions of West Point, on the northern side of the peninsula, and the York River railroad. There seemed to be no artillery positions protecting either, and only a few troops guarding the railroad's bridges.

Once paid, it was time to go home. Ringgold and two of his crewmates managed to get passes providing unmolested travel to the Eastern Shore of Virginia (apparently the three seemed harmless enough). The weary band then set off on the river and crossed the enormous Chesapeake Bay in a canoe. This feat alone was impressive, but upon reaching Cherrystone Creek on the Eastern Shore they made their way over 200 miles on foot back to Baltimore, reaching their hometown on Nov. 14.

Sometime within the next two weeks, Ringgold apparently decided that the Northern Army might be interested in what he knew about Virginia, and he obtained an audience with Gen. John A. Dix. A former secretary of the Treasury under James Buchanan, Dix was a primary reason that Maryland was still in the Union: as head of the military Department of Maryland, he used his power to prevent the state's legislature from meeting and thereby kept it from voting to secede. After talking to Ringgold, the crafty officer realized what Confederate authorities apparently did not: The free black man held detailed and valuable knowledge about Rebel dispositions in Virginia.
Allan Pinkerton, ca. 1861Library of CongressAllan Pinkerton, ca. 1861

Dix quickly sent Ringgold to Allan Pinkerton, the famous spy who was working as McClellan's head of intelligence. [Read more: Brasher/NYTimes/30March2012]

Must-See Technologies at DoDIIS. The Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems (DoDIIS) conference is held once a year by the Defense Intelligence Agency technology leadership team. This is an incredible event full of information-packed presentations and social sessions. One of its greatest features is a expo floor with 100′s of technologies available for demonstrations and evaluations.

That great feature has become so popular and there are so many tech firms there that it has become impossible to see them all during the conference. Because of our background in technology in this field we are frequently asked which firms and technologies should be focused on during the event and have prepared a list below of our recommendations.

First a word on our methodologies: We continually scour a wide variety of sources to track emerging technologies. Our methods include scouring the internet, interacting with venture capital firms, attending conferences and soliciting inputs at our web properties. This process enables us to maintain a list we call the "Disruptive Technologies List" at CTOlabs.com. In general, if a firm is on that list and at DoDIIS, we recommend you check them out. But we also ran a survey asking our readers for input and nominations and used that to flesh out the list below. After evaluation of over 300 inputs we categorized our top picks below.

Please let us know your thoughts on the list. Did we leave any hot tech out that should have been here?

After you check out the firms at DoDIIS we would appreciate feedback on how we did. Were these firms worth focusing on? [Read more: Gourley/Sys-ConMedia/1April2012]

Former CIA Agent Discusses Spying Ethics as Part of OneBook. Freshman Leaders On Campus assembled Thursday night at the University Center's Bluebonnet Ballroom to hear James Olson give a speech on his life in deep cover and the ethics of covert spy operations.

Olson, who authored the book Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying, was invited to speak to students and other attendees as part of the OneBook program. OneBook is a program for freshman English classes to read and discuss the same book. The 2011-12 selection is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which discusses the ethics for healthcare.

Biology freshman Beryl Quaye said the classes have discussed many aspects of ethics in different fields and thought Olson could give a unique perspective.

"The OneBook theme for the freshman class is ethics, so we decided to have this speaker, who is a former CIA agent, to discuss the ethics of spy area in a thought-provoking discussion," she said.

Olson worked for the CIA for more than two decades, serving mostly overseas, and was chief of counterintelligence at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. He is now a senior lecturer at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service.

"I think the biggest misconception about the CIA is that we are unethical, we are criminals, we violate human rights - that is the farthest thing from the truth," he said. "The people that I knew in the CIA I considered to be people of real honor and integrity, and we select them on that basis."

He commented that as a matter of national security, it is important that the CIA be able to rely on the character of its case officers.

"We ask them to do some pretty nasty things, but we always do it for the greater good of our country," Olson said. "We have to do those things because we are fighting some really bad people." [Read more: Ward/TheShorthorn/2April2012]

Inside the Mission to Catch Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Everything the Americans could rustle up pointed to Karachi. Every source and bit of information said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was operating out of the capital of Pakistan's Wild West. Back at Langley, the CIA's newly formed "KSM targeting team" had assembled a massive file on him that included all the disparate dots that the U.S. government had previously failed to connect. By then, a congressional joint inquiry was already cataloguing those failures. Once the Pakistani security services started looking in earnest, they found the same thing. Almost every Al Qaeda suspect they picked up in the last year had some connection to Mohammed. Many of those arrested had no links to one another, but they all knew Mohammed.

The Americans knew Karachi was a much tougher target than almost anywhere else in Pakistan, perhaps the world. Karachi in the best of times is a difficult city. With its "no-go" zones, rampant organized crime, and seemingly perpetual sectarian wars, it has been a kidnapping and murder capital for years. Much as California localities post warnings on what to do in case of an earthquake, bulletin boards in public buildings in Karachi routinely display advice on what to do in case of a kidnapping.

It is a mark of Karachi's cosmopolitanism that most of its millions of citizens carry on life as if this underworld does not exist. In that regard, it is in many ways no different from any other 21st century metropolis - ungainly, exciting, raucous, difficult. There are hip clubs with DJs, cool new restaurants with enigmatic names, a burgeoning middle class. Kids ride bikes, markets hawk DVDs and digital cameras, the bright shiny silks of upscale ladies-about-town billow in the breeze. It is Pakistan's most progressive city, former home to its first female prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and thousands of women go about the city unescorted, unveiled, running errands, going to jobs, lunch dates, and prenatal classes. Graduates of its university engineering programs are prized in technology centers and other outposts of the new world economy.

Still, especially after the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, it seemed a woolly, scary place to do business. Agents routinely felt they needed to run what they called surveillance detection routes, SDRs, when they went to and from their living quarters.

Raids, even when they were able to mount them, didn't seem to produce much. Karachi was terribly overbuilt. Much of the construction industry was controlled by the military, and much of the military's money was illicit. It couldn't just sit around; it had to be put to use. It built buildings whether the market existed for them or not. So even a city that was growing an average of 5 percent a year had a perpetually high rate of vacant buildings. It made Karachi an easy place to hide. You could slip in and out of empty places - a new one every day if you wanted; you could rent them for almost nothing. A series of raids in the spring and summer of 2002 had found a lot of empty flats. [Read more: McDermott&Meyer/TheAtlantic/2April2012]

Section III - COMMENTARY

The CIA-Congress War. I was a lawyer at the CIA from 1976 through 2009, a 34 year span that coincided with the birth and evolution of the Agency's relationship with its overseers in the Congress, specifically, the House and Senate select committees on intelligence. Indeed, I owe to Congress the fact that I was hired at the CIA all those years ago. The Senate panel established in 1975 to investigate the CIA's misadventures and misdeeds of the previous quarter century - known as the "Church Committee" because of its chairman, the Idaho Democrat Frank Church - had, among its final recommendations, urged the Agency to supplement its then-meager and entirely "inbred" legal staff with new and younger attorneys who had no previous ties to the Agency.

I was in that first surge of new lawyer hires, the eighteenth lawyer to join the Office of General Counsel; little did I realize that this would mark the beginning of OGC's exponential growth over the next three decades, culminating in a legal staff that was six times that number by the time I retired as the CIA's top legal advisor in late 2009.

So there I was, newly arrived on the scene at the CIA, just about the same time that Congress created its first permanent set of committees devoted exclusively to intelligence matters. The two committees, one in the House and one in the Senate, would immediately and forevermore be referred to (at least by us at the Agency) as HPSCI and SSCI, respectively. For my entire career, I would deal with these committees on a more or less continuing basis, usually in times of controversy and turmoil (which is, of course, usually the times when lawyers tend to become involved in most things).

In fact, looking back now, the two events that would have the most significant and lasting impact on my career - the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-80s and the CIA's counterterrorist detention and interrogation programs in the post-9/11 years - involved in large part my interactions with the Congress. And so, drawing from those two milestones, plus countless other episodes I witnessed or participated in over the years, I offer here a few observations on the state of relations between the CIA and its overseers on Capitol Hill. Specifically, this is my personal perspective on why I think the relations have gone inexorably downhill over the past three-plus decades. There are a number of reasons I could cite for this unfortunate development, but in this piece I will focus on the one reason that I believe stands above all others: A failure to communicate. [Read more: Rizzo/Hoover/30March2012]

Fighting Terrorism, French Style. France and the United States have different notions of liberty, equality and fraternity, though the words look roughly the same in both languages. Methods of combating homegrown terrorism - another French word dating from 1789 - are also quite different, stemming from different histories, legal systems and conceptions of the state.

The horrors in Toulouse - the murders of seven people in a bit more than a week by Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old French citizen of Algerian-born parents who claimed membership in Al Qaeda - created a fierce debate in France about whether the police and security services failed to identify him in time. The police also failed to take him alive, making it harder to discover the true breadth of his contacts and of his path to terrorism.

Mr. Merah clearly slipped through the French net, which relies heavily on human intelligence and judgment. The French are asking why, and whether he might have been more easily identified by the more automated - and expensive - American-style reliance on computerized monitoring of phone calls and the Internet. That question is unanswerable, of course. But the differences between the two countries and their methods are considerable.

"In the United States, it is the system that counts; in France, it is the men," says Marc Tr�vidic, a senior investigating magistrate for terrorism in France. 

French law governing intelligence was reformed in 1986 and refined again after 1995 and 2001, with another reform in 2006 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then interior minister, to give even more margin of maneuver to the investigating judges and the police. The Central Directorate of Domestic Intelligence was founded in 2008 as a merger of the intelligence services of the Interior Ministry, which were responsible for counterterrorism and counterespionage, and of the state police. [Read more: Erlanger/NYTimes/30March2012]

Big Data Initiative Or Big Government Boondoggle? The Obama Administration last week unveiled a "Big Data Research and Development Initiative" that will see at least six government agencies making $200 million in additional investments to "greatly improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize, and glean discoveries from huge volumes of digital data."

The big data initiative sounds good in theory, and I'm all for promoting U.S. competitiveness in math and science. But after sitting through nearly two hours of presentations on the feds' big data initiative, I fear those investments will be spread too thinly among too many agencies that aren't collaborating. 

It's encouraging that the White House is at least aware of all the agencies involved in data- and compute-intensive research. The administration released a fact sheet that listed at least 80 projects and initiatives across a dozen federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, Health and Human Services, and Food and Drug Administration. 

Who knew the government was funding so much data-driven research? The White House issued this fact sheet as if to say, "Look how much we're doing already!" But when you start reading about all the separate initiatives and all of the high-performance computing labs and research facilities already in place, it makes your head spin. As a taxpayer, it pains me to see so many examples of apparently duplicative research, staff, and infrastructure. Read more: Henschen/InformationWeek/2April2012]

What Are Spies Really Like? From James Bond to Spooks, from Jason Bourne to Tinker Tailor, spying is big box office business. Its vocabulary has become familiar to us all, from "stings" and "moles" to "dead letter drops" and "honey traps".

The fact is that the image of such operations as depicted on the big and small screens - and in airport blockbusters too - is firmly rooted in reality. The "tradecraft" is common to both the fictional and real world of spying. 

But those who actually carry out these covert and potentially dangerous operations could not be further removed from their imaginary counterparts, as I found out when I interviewed serving officers from MI5 (the domestic Security Service) and MI6 (the overseas Secret Intelligence Service).

Recruiting and running agents is the most dangerous and demanding part of being a modern spy. That's what Michael does for MI6. He works in al-Qaeda's heartlands - the precise locations of which are confidential for security reasons.

"Our ability to get inside these terrorist networks is critical to give us advance warning of the threats that we face", he says.

So how does he go about it? [Read more: Taylor/BBC/2April/2012]

Giant Spy Blimp Sounds Like an Oxymoron. Normally, when one talks about a device that is used to spy on enemy territory, we would be looking at something which is extremely covert - so much so that it blends in with the rest of the environment. It does not really make sense then to hear about a giant spy blimp - surely something this large is able to attract the attention of just about anyone and everyone? Well, here is the story - one and a half years ago, the Pentagon's chief ordered the Air Force to start building a king-sized blimp whose main purpose is to spy on entire Afghan villages simultaneously. This blimp is nearly ready to take to the skies, but it seems that the Air Force now has second thoughts about deployment. This bad boy is called the Blue Devil Block 2, where it measures 370 feet long and 1.4 million cubic feet fat, making it one of the country's largest blimps ever built since World War II, where it is capable remaining in the sky for days at a time, and is capable of keeping tabs on a minimum of four square kilometers at once. This eye in the sky sounds impressive, but will it get shot down all too easily? [Read more: Kee/Ubergizmo/3April2012]

Section IV - Researcher Requests, Books, Obituaries and Coming Events

Researcher Requests
 [IMPORTANT: AFIO does not "vet" or endorse these research inquiries or job offers. Reasonable-sounding inquiries and career offerings are published as a service to our members, and for researchers, educators, and subscribers. You are urged to exercise your usual caution and good judgment when responding or supplying any information.]

Seeking Former CIA Officers Who Worked in Saigon Station 1964-5: My name is Ian Shapira and I'm a staff writer at The Washington Post and frequently write about family life and the CIA. I am looking to speak any former or retired CIA officers or employees who might have worked at the Saigon station at the U.S. embassy in 1964 to 1965. I am writing a piece about about Barbara Robbins, a CIA secretary who served there at that time. Robbins was killed in a car bombing at the embassy in March 1965 and was the first female CIA employee killed in action, and the youngest. She died at 21. She worked under Peer de Silva, who briefly mentioned her in his memoir Sub Rosa. Robbins was honored in May 2011 at the Wall of Honor by Leon Panetta. I'd be grateful for anyone's help if they knew her or know people who might have known her. I am also happy to speak with people anonymously as well. 

You can reach me at shapirai@washpost.com. Office: 202-334-7572

Books

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. If the Macintyre clan do not already have a motto, I would like to suggest one: "Truth is stranger than fiction". Ben Macintyre is a well-known newspaper columnist but his greater fame is likely to rest on his compelling histories of espionage in World War II. 

After the bestselling Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat comes Double Cross, the real story of the secret agents run by MI5's Twenty Committee from fag-smokey rooms in St James, London's posh clubland district. John Le Carr� would hesitate to make up a novel with a plot as outlandish as Double Cross. Even Ian Fleming would blush.

The spies controlled by the Twenty Committee were all Nazi agents who had been "turned" by MI5 and persuaded to bat for Britain. The cricketing analogy is deliberate; the MI5 eccentrics running the "Double Cross System" were convinced that England's summertime sport embodied wisdom applicable to the spy game.

So how did they score runs against the Germans? The Double Cross spies radioed their former masters in the Abwehr (German intelligence) tidbits suggesting that the Allied D-Day landings would be in Norway, or maybe Calais. The Nazis swallowed both red herrings and, on June 6, 1944, conspicuously failed to be ready and waiting in the right place, the beaches of Normandy. So convincing indeed did the hapless Abwehr find the "intelligence" supplied by the double cross spooks that it paid them �4.5million (which MI5 promptly snaffled, meaning the Abwehr actually funded its own hoodwinking). Agent Garbo was awarded the Iron Cross.

Naturally, to pull off the deception that helped win the big match for the Allies, D-Day 1944 required the Twenty Committee to assemble the best team of double agents possible. The D-Day spies were brilliant at conning the Germans but when Macintyre describes them as "one of the oddest military units ever assembled", he is understating it somewhat. [Read more: Lewis-Stempel/Express/1April/2012]

Obituaries

Vic Matsui.  Victor Masao Matsui, of Williamsburg, Virginia, passed away suddenly from natural causes on Monday, March 26, 2012 while on a trip to visit his son and family in Hong Kong. He was 88 years old. Victor was born on June 2, 1923, and raised in Southern California. His UCLA education was interrupted in 1942 when he and his family were evacuated and interned in Arkansas. He received an honorary degree from UCLA in 2011. Although an American by birth, he was classified as an alien in 1942 for military service. However, in January 1945, he was reclassified and conscripted into the Army and received basic training at Camp Blanding, Florida. He became a staff cadre. When the war in Europe ended, he was transferred to the Pacific theatre, Camp Ritchie, to study Japanese tactics and strategies. After VJ day, he was transferred to the CIC and shipped to Japan in November 1945. He served in SCAP, G-2 until June 1952. He received his field commission as Chief Warrant Officer II in 1946 and did parachute training with the 11th Airborne Division in Sendai, Japan. Subsequently, Victor received the Legion of Merit Medal for his service during the Korean War. After an honorable discharge in July 1952, he joined the American diplomatic service where he served until 1985, in Cambodia, Egypt, Pakistan, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, and Zaire (now Congo). He was appointed director of operational training for Foreign Service officers from 1981 to 1984. After retiring from government service, Victor became involved with the Williamsburg chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA.) In addition to serving as the President for the Williamsburg chapter of the HLAA, Victor was also the Virginia state chapter coordinator and the HLAA representative on the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation ADA Advisory Committee and Virginia Advisory Council for the Mental Health for the Deaf, Deaf-Blind, Late Deafened and Hard of Hearing People. He joined the HLAA Board of Trustees in 2005 Victor was also involved with the Japanese American Veterans Association (JAVA). On November 2nd, 2011, he was one of many deserving recipients of the Congressional Gold Medal for his service with Military Intelligence Service during the Second World War. When not travelling, Victor was an avid participant in water aerobics and spinning classes at the Williamsburg YMCA. He was married to the late Teru Kamikawa Matsui, who received her Nursing degree from Johns Hopkins University. She accompanied him on his diplomatic assignments and served as the embassy nurse, while raising the family. Their four children graduated from Brown University. [Read more: WashingtonPost/29March2012]

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

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

Wednesday, 4 April 2012, 1000-1130 [lunch to 1300]- Annapolis Junction, MD - National Cryptologic Museum Foundation Spring Program features Douglas Waller on Wild Bill Donovan

The NCMF welcome Douglas Waller as their guest speaker for the spring program. The presentation is at the L-3 Stratis Conference Center in the National Business Park (NBP). Directions are below. After the program, lunch will be served until 1300.

Douglas Waller is a veteran correspondent, author and lecturer. He served in TIME Magazine's Washington Bureau from 1994 to 2007 where he covered foreign affairs extensively as a diplomatic correspondent. Before joining TIME, Waller served as a reporter on Newsweek magazine. He has written a total of eight books of which Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster who created the OSS and Modern American Espionage is his latest.

Donovan was the man President Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. One of America's most exciting and secretive generals, Donovan is a mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated. "Wild Bill" Donovan was Director of the OSS, the country's first intelligence agency, the forerunner of today's CIA.

We hope you can join us on 4 April. The Program fee is $40. Make your check out to NCMF, and return by 28 March. Replies/RSVPs to cryptmf@aol.com

Directions from Baltimore: Take MD-295 (Baltimore-Washington Parkway) south towards Washington; Take the MD-32 West exit towards Columbia; Keep right at the fork toward NBP; Turn right onto NBP; Take 2nd right to 2720 Technology Drive (L3 is on the left)
Directions from Washington: Take MD-295 (Baltimore-Washington Parkway) north towards Baltimore; Take the MD-32 West exit towards Columbia: Keep right at the fork toward NBP; Turn right onto NBP; Take 2nd right to 2720 Technology Drive (L3 is on the left)

Wednesday, 4 April 2012, 6pm – 9pm - New York, NY - NYU Brennan Center hosts showing of film: "The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby" and a second film advocating more Oversight of US Spy Agencies

William Colby began his intelligence career during WWII as an OSS officer who parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe. After the war, he rose through the CIA ranks, oversaw the coup against President Diem in Saigon, and ran the Phoenix Program. But after decades of obediently taking on the White House's toughest and dirtiest assignments and rising to become Director of the CIA, Colby landed in hot water for breaking with the Agency's history of limited disclosure. He revealed to the Church Committee some of the Agency's darkest, most tightly held secrets and extra-legal operations, every one of which was suggested, authorized, or directed by specific verbal or written orders from the White House...often from the President or those surrounding him.
America has a special fascination with CIA, an organization it asks to do many dangerous, risky assignments, which it later uses as a scapegoat when the mood of the country rapidly oscillates. Perhaps because Colby seemed troubled by some of the CIA assignments, his decision to cooperate with the Church Committee's investigation cost Colby his job but might have saved the Agency.
After the screening, Colby's son Carl, the movie's Director and Producer, and the Brennan Center's Chief Counsel, Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr., who was Chief Counsel to the Church Committee, will discuss the unique challenges inherent to intelligence oversight, from the point of view of a total outsider, and another who prosecuted the Agency for doing the dirty work of the White House.
Location: Lipton Hall at New York University School of Law, 108 West Third St, New York, NY
Refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to Kimberly.Lubrano@nyu.edu or (646) 292-8342

Tuesday, 10 April 2012, 11:30 am - 2 pm - MacDill AFB - AFIO Florida Suncoast Chapter hosts Hon. Gus M. Bilirakis at this luncheon.

Gus M. Bilirakis, Republican from Palm Harbor serving on the Committees on Homeland Security, Veterans' Affairs and Foreign Affairs. Gus has been appointed Chairman of the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communication, a vital post for the state of Florida. He will be touching a number of topics of vital interest to our nation.
Event location: MacDill AFB Surf's Edge Club, 7315 Bayshore Boulevard, MacDill AFB, FL 33621. RSVP no later than Wednesday, April 4, for yourself and include the names of any guests. Email
or call the Chapter Secretary at mfshapiro@att.net.
Cost is $20. If you make a reservation, don't cancel and get a cancellation confirmation by the response deadline and then don't show up, you will be responsible for the cost of the luncheon.
Note that the base is now enforcing a handscan registration for those with ID cards so, if you haven't been on-base recently, you should look into this or allow some extra time when you arrive for the meeting. Should you not have a 'bumper sticker' or ID card for access to MacDill AFB, please so state in your RSVP. If you have not already submitted information required for the Gate Access List, be sure to include your license number, name on drivers license and state of issue for yourself and for any guests you are bringing on base.
Anyone with special AFIO Gate Access should proceed to the Bayshore Gate. If you need directions, please let us know.

Wednesday, 11 April 2012, 11:30am - Scottsdale, AZ - AFIO AZ Chapter hosts Thomas Davidson, CWO4 on "Mexican Drug Cartels - Their Areas of Operation along US Border."

CWO4 Thomas S. Davidson II is Military Intelligence, USArmy (Ret). Tom served a total of 36 years in the U.S. Army. His last assignment was with the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He started the FMSO Mexico and Southwest Border Security Team in January 2002 when he was recalled to active duty.

Location: McCormick Ranch Golf Course, 7505 McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale AZ 85258 ~ Phone 480.948.0260.
WE WILL NEED FOR EVERY MEETING an RSVP no later than 72 hours ahead of time; in the past, not reserving or cancelling without prior notice (72 hours prior to the meeting) created much grief for those of us organizing the meeting and dealing with the personnel!
WE ARE charged for the no-shows and please remember, we are a small organization with a humble coffer! We would therefore APPRECIATE that you all respond to this email to confirm your presence (or not).
Our meeting fees will be as follows: $20.00 for AFIO members; $22.00 for guests and other nonmembers.
For reservations or questions, please email Simone simone@4smartphone.net or simone@afioaz.org or call and leave a message on 602.570.6016

Saturday, 14 April 2012, 1-6pm - Washington, DC - "Solidarity and the CIA" with Ted Kontek, and two other topics/speakers at IWP event.

The Institute of World Politics hosts The Kosciuszko Chair's Second Annual Kosciuszko Chair Spring Symposium. The three topics are:
The Euro and Poland's Economy by Prof. Andrzej Kazmierczak, Solidarity and the CIA with Ted Kontek, and The New York Times and Poland by Pawel Styrna.
1:00 PM: Registration and Light Refreshments; 2:00 PM: Sessions 1 & 2; 4:00 PM: Break; 4:30 PM: Session 3; 5:30 PM: Wine & Cheese Reception
Location: 1521 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036
RSVP Required: email Katie Lenczowski Bridges at kbridges@iwp.edu

Friday 13 April 2012, noon - 3pm - Ashburn, VA - The Loudoun Crime Commission hosts FBI ADIC/WFO James McJUNKIN, former ADIC/CT Division on "Washington Field Office Responsibilities: CT, CI, Crime, Intel and Community Outreach."
Luncheon Speaker is: FBI ADIC James McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge, Washington Field Office, the FBI's second largest field office, most recently served as the Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division.
Location: Belmont Country Club, off Rte 7 in Ashburn at 19661 Belmont Manor Lane, Ashburn, VA, 20147. Directions can be found at http://www.belmontcountryclub.com/location-direction.shtml.
Cost: $20.00 cash or check at the door. Doors open at noon for registering and networking, lunch at 1230, and speaker at 1pm. RSVP is strongly suggested but we always try to have a few extra seats for stragglers.
RSVP by 9 April to: collins@loudouncrimecommission.org

Wednesday, 18 April 2012, 6:30 – 8:30 pm – Washington, DC - "Graphic Intelligence: Comics, the KKK, and Covert Ops" at the International Spy Museum

Comic books often reflect the time in which they are created. Since the Cold War, spies have been hot, and the world of comics has had a great assortment of espionage volumes. National security lawyer and comic collector/dealer Mark S. Zaid has assembled a rich array of comics that address spies and espionage. He'll showcase some of the coolest and rarest volumes in his collection while he describes how spy comics mirrored the intelligence issues of the time period in which they were published—some purporting to reveal true spy cases. He'll also share tales of how comics may have been used as intelligence tools and to push social agendas involving war, race, and sex. Then there is the story of the famous superhero who teamed up with actual spies to strike a blow for justice and equality in the United States. Award-winning author Rick Bowers shares the story behind his new book Superman vs. the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate. Bowers reveals how the producers of The Adventures of Superman radio show took on the resurgent Ku Klux Klan in 1946, teaming up with infiltrators within the secret society to produce a ground-breaking, 16-part radio drama in which the Man of Steel conquered the hooded hate mongers.
WHERE: International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW Washington, DC Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station.
Tickets: $15.00 Register at www.spymuseum.org

19 April 2012, 8 AM - 7 PM - Fort Lauderdale, FL - South Florida InfraGard Branch Regional Conference on "Current and Future Security threats: How are the private and public sectors working to meet these challenges."

The South Florida InfraGard Branch of the InfraGard Membership Alliance invites AFIO members to participate in their first Regional Conference: Current and Future Security threats: How are the private and public sectors
working to meet these challenges.
As security threats continue to develop and new plans and intentions are exposed which target our private and public sector entities, it is imperative to stay aware and current on technology/physical security best practices, to prevent, mitigate and react to potential disruption and loss of services, life and property. Conference speakers will represent all sectors and functions facing the challenges threatening our Cyber and Critical Infrastructure, and
will address methods to protect it, as well as Technology and Risk Management trends and advances towards the safeguarding of our National Security.
FOOD: Breakfast, full gourmet lunch, snacks and an evening cocktail event are included. LOCATION: Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Airport Hotel.
REGISTER AT: http://www.s-fla.eventbrite.com
For list of speakers, their topics, their bios, and additional information visit http://www.infragardmiami.com/
Questions to Nancy Bianco, South Florida InfraGard, 650 533-5360 or nrbianco@mindspring.com

Thursday, 19 April 2012, 3:30pm - Washington, DC - JNSL Symposium to discuss "Shadow Wars" featuring William C. Banks, Syracuse U Col of Law

The Journal of National Security Law & Policy and The Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law will be hosting a symposium to discuss JNSLP's latest issue:
"Shadow Wars."
Opening Remarks by William C. Banks, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of National Security Law & Policy. Banks is on the Board of Advisors Distinguished Professor, Syracuse University College of Law, Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs, Maxwell School of Syracuse University; Author of the JNSLP article "Shadow Wars."
Featured Authors and Panelists: Laura Dickinson, Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School; Author of the JNSLP article Outsourcing Covert Activities.
Louis Fisher, Scholar in Residence, The Constitution Project; Former Specialist in Constitutional Law, Library of Congress; Author of the JNSLP article Basic Principals of the War Power.
John Prados, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Iraq Documentation Project; Director of the Vietnam Project at the National Security Archive at The George Washington University; Author of the JNSLP article The Continuing Quandary of Covert Operations.
Scott Shane, National Security Reporter, Washington Bureau, The New York Times.
WHERE: Hart Auditorium, Georgetown University Law Center, 600 New Jersey Avenue, Washington, DC.
Reception to Follow
RSVP to rsvp2@law.georgetown.edu or contact nationalsecurity@law.georgetown.edu with questions.

19 April 2012, 6pm - 9pm - Arlington, VA - Annual Black Tie Banquet of the FAOA

The Foreign Area Officer Association hosts their Annual Black Tie Banquet featuring keynote speaker: James R. Clapper, Lt Gen, USAF(Ret) - Director of National Intelligence.
Location: The Army Navy Country Club, 1700 Army Navy Drive, Arlington, VA. (Note: This is not the Army Navy Club in DC)
Attire: Black Tie – Tuxedo/formal evening gown and military personnel equivalent. Open Bar Included. Mixer starts at 6:00 PM and proceedings start at 7:00 PM
Register online here.

Friday, 20 April 2012, 5 PM - Washington, DC - "Ronald Reagan's Policies for Intelligence and Security: A Useful Model for Today's Challenges" by Professor deGraffenreid at IWP
Kenneth deGraffenreid is a full-time professor and Faculty Chairman at The Institute of World Politics, where he teaches courses on intelligence and counterintelligence.
From 2004-2005, Prof. deGraffenreid served as Deputy National Counterintelligence Executive to the President of the United States. He has also served as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Support at the Department of Defense, Senior Director of Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council, Senior professional staff member at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Senior Fellow on Intelligence at the National Strategy Information Center.
He is a Retired Captain, U.S Navy Reserves, and a founding member of the IWP Board of Overseers. He holds a B.A. from Purdue University and an M.A. from The Catholic University of America
Location: The Institute of World Politics, 1521 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036
MUST RSVP to attend. Contact: kbridges@iwp.edu.

Saturday, 21 April 2012, 2 pm - Kennebunk, ME - "How 20th Century Technology Transformed 21st Century Spycraft" - at AFIO Maine

CIA Operations officer Robert Wallace takes off the mask to reveal tales of deception and trickery as he shows "How 20th Century Technology Transformed 21st Century Spycraft" at the April 21st meeting of the Maine Chapter of the Association for Intelligence Officers.
After serving in the U.S. Army in 1968-1970 in Vietnam where he led long-range reconnaissance patrol teams of Company E, 75th Rangers, Bob moved to Washington, D.C. in 1970 as Administrative Assistant to the late Ohio Congressman William McCullough. In 1971 he joined the Central Intelligence Agency where he enjoyed a 32 year career with assignments as operations officer, station chief, resource manager and director of clandestine technical programs, finally becoming Director of CIA's Office of Technical Service (OTC) in 1998. As Director of OTC he was engaged in managing programs for the design, development and deployment of technical equipment to support clandestine operations worldwide.
Wallace is co-author of "SPYCRAFT: The Secret History of CIA's Spytechs from Communism to al-Qaeda" (2008) and co-author of "The Official CIA Manual of Deception and Trickery" (2009).
He retired from CIA in 2003 and founded Artemus Consulting Group, a network of intelligence and security professionals providing services to government and corporate clients.
The meeting will be at the Brick Store Museum Program Center, 2 Dane Street, Kennebunk and the public is invited. For information call 207-967-4298.

5 May 2012, 11:30am - 2pm - Melbourne, FL - AFIO Florida Satellite Chapter meets to hear Col. Jespersen on T.E. Lawrence

11:30 social hour with cash bar. Lunch 12:30.
Speaker will be Col. Robert Randolph Jespersen who will discuss T.E. Lawrence: soldier-scholar and his impact on guerilla warfare doctrine.
Location: Eau Gallie Yacht Club.
RSVP to POC Donna Czarnecki, donnacz12@aol.com

Tuesday, 8 May 2012, noon – 1 pm – Washington, DC - "Spies and Commisars: The Early Years of the Russian Revolution" at the International Spy Museum

Russia was a chaotic hotspot after the Revolution of 1917, torn by Civil War between the Bolsheviks and the White Russians. While Lenin and Trotsky tried to spread their revolution across Europe and the great powers attempted to extinguish the Bolshevik experiment, an extraordinary collection of adventurers, opportunists, journalists, and spies poured into the roiling Russian political scene. Outsized characters like Sidney "Ace of Spies" Reilly, communist activist John Reed, and author Somerset Maugham all played their parts…under the watchful eye of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the head of the ruthless Cheka, the first of the Soviet state security organizations. Join renowned British historian Robert Service for a discussion of his thrilling new book about this turning point of twentieth century history.
Free! No registration required. For directions go towww.spymuseum.org

Wednesday, 9 May 2012, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m – Washington, DC - "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden - From 9/11 to Abbottabad" at the International Spy Museum

"Tonight, I can report…that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden."—US President Barack Obama, May 1, 2011

When Osama bin Laden declared war against the United States for the first time to a Western audience, Peter Bergen was there. He produced Osama bin Laden's first television interview. His book, The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader, was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2006. Bergen has continued to write and report extensively on bin Laden and the conflict between the US and al Qaeda for publications ranging from The New York Times to Rolling Stone. He's produced award-winning documentaries on the subject matter, and in his latest book he has turned his attention to the hunt and termination of the notorious terrorist. Join us for an inside account of Bergen's professional connection to bin Laden, his perspective on the decade-long hunt to capture or kill him, and his thoughts on the results of Operation Neptune Spear.
WHERE: International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW Washington, DC Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
Tickets: $15.00 Register at www.spymuseum.org

10 May 2012, 8:30 am - 5 pm - Stony Brook, LI, NY - "The History of Spying: Espionage In America" Conference at Long Island Spy Museum

An exclusive opportunity to explore the art of spycraft.
9:00-9:30: Coffee/Light Refreshments; 9:30-9:45: Introduction by Master of Ceremonies; Actor Peter Firth from the critically acclaimed television series MI-5.; 9:45-10:45: Michael Sulick | Former Director of the US National Clandestine Service and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency: "Revolutionary War Espionage & George Washington's Spies."; 10:45-11:45: Bill Birnes | New York Times bestselling author, TV personality, espionage historian and New York University School of Law graduate: "WWII-Office of Strategic Services (OSS): The Birth of an Intelligence Agency; Patriots, Buccaneers & Movie Stars."; 11:45-12:45: LUNCH BREAK; 12:45-1:45: General Michael Hayden | Former Director of both the Central Intelligence Agency & National Security Agency: "CIA, the War on Terror, and the Killing of Bin Laden."; 1:45- 2:00: Coffee Break.; 2.00-3:00: Cindy Webb | Former Chief of Counter Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency: "Counterintelligence in the Cold War and Beyond."; 3:00-4:00: Tom Betro | Former Director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS): "Counterintelligence 2.0; CI Challenges and Opportunities in the Internet Era."; 4:00-4:30: Q&A session;
4.30-4:40: Closing Remarks.
Admission $25.00 Doors open: 8:30 AM. Limited seating available. To purchase tickets visit: www.LongIslandSpyMuseum.org
Long Island Spy Museum, 275 Christian Ave, Stony Brook, NY 11790
Call 631-371-1473 for additional information.

11-13 May 2012 - North Conway, NH - The New England Chapter of the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association (NCVA-NE) holds Spring Mini-Reunion

Location: North Conway Grand Hotel, North Conway, New Hampshire. The registration cut-off date for the event is 27 April 2012. For additional information, local members and prospective members may call (518) 664-8032 or visit http://ncva-ne.org

Thursday, 17 May 2012, 11:30 - Englewood, CO - The AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Ray Levesque - the new DIA Representative to NORAD

The AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Ray Levesque - the new DIA Representative to NORADNorthCom, J2's SIO in Iraq and recently back from work in Mexico. This is a joint meeting of AFIO and Denver INFRAGARD. will be held at Centennial Airport. There are seating limitations of 45 seats so we will accept reservations on a first come first serve basis. You will receive directions when you RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net. The lunch will cost $12.00. You can pay at the door.

Friday, 18 May 2012, 6:30 – 9:30 pm – Washington, DC - "Surveillance 101 with Eric O'Neill" at the International Spy Museum

Test your surveillance skills on the mean streets of DC!

What if you were assigned to watch the most damaging spy in US history? As a young operative in the FBI, Eric O'Neill was put into position as Robert Hanssen's assistant with the secret task of spying on his boss, who was under suspicion of working for Russia.$7 O'Neill's background with the FBI was in surveillance, so he was up to the challenge. But how would you measure up? It's your chance to find out. O'Neill is prepared to share his hard-earned expertise with you. This intense small group introduction to surveillance will include learning the basics and conducting surveillance in the streets of DC. Will you be able to track the "Rabbit" without being "made?" You'll learn how to snap clandestine shots and keep your target in view so you won't miss operational acts or secret meetings. O'Neill will lead the exercise and help you learn how to blend into the shadows for the best spy results!
WHERE: International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW Washington, DC Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
Tickets $94.00. Space is limited to only 10 participants – advance registration required. Call 202 654-0932 to register.

Thursday, 24 May 2012, 6 pm - New York, NY - AFIO NY Metro meets to hear Dr. Vadim Birstein on Stalin's SMERSH

Dr. Vadim Birstein - Russian American who arrived in the US in 1991, is a historian, a molecular geneticist and author of over 150 scientific papers, three
scientific books and one history book. www.vadimbirstein.com/bio.htm
Dr. Birstein's new book "SMERSH" an acronym of the Russian phrase "Death to Spies." "SMERSH" was Stalin's secret weapon, Soviet Military Counterintelligence during WWll. Dr. Birstein
reveals for the first time the structure of this super secret organization, its torture and execution of countless Soviet officers and servicemen and its brazen arrest of foreign civilians, the recovery of Hitler's body and its completely unknown involvement in the Nuremberg trials and much, much more.
RSVP: Strongly suggested, not required. Email afiometro@yahoo.com
Location: 3 West Club, 3 West 51st St, NYC
Cost: $45/person including buffet dinner & cash bar.

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

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