Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

After Test, Intelligence Community Scrambles for Insights into North Korea's Nuclear Progress. North Korea's underground nuclear test shows it is making big strides toward becoming a true nuclear power. But it may also reveal key clues the secretive nation might have hoped to hide about how close, or how far away, it is from fielding a nuclear weapon capable of striking the United States or its allies.

Hoping to capitalize on a rare opportunity to gauge North Korea's nuclear capabilities, intelligence and military officials around the region are scrambling to glean data to answer three big questions: how powerful was the device Pyongyang tested, what sort of device was it, and what progress does the test indicate the nation has made.

North Korea has hailed Tuesday's test as a "perfect" success, saying it used a device that was stronger and more advanced than those its past two attempts. Add that to its successful rocket launch in December and the threat of a North Korea ready to strike at the United States, which it sees as its arch-enemy, would appear to be more real than ever.

But just how close is it? [Read more: Dozier/AP/13February2013]

Netanyahu Defends Israeli Espionage Services Amid Spy Scandal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first public comment on a spy affair involving the alleged prison suicide of an Israeli-Australian Mossad agent, defended his country's intelligence services.

"Israel's security and intelligence forces operate under the complete supervision of legal authorities which are completely independent," Netanyahu said Sunday at a weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

An Australia Broadcasting Corp. report last week alleged that an Australian citizen living in Israel and working for the Mossad intelligence agency had hanged himself after being imprisoned in 2010. ABC said its probe linked a man named Ben Zygier, also known as Ben Alon, to a figure dubbed "Prisoner X" described in a 2010 report by the Ynet news website as being held under tight security in Israel's Ayalon prison.

Following the ABC report, top editors of Israeli media outlets were called into Netanyahu's office and told that all reports relating to the story were subject to security censorship. An Israeli court later allowed a partial lifting of the gag order, and confirmed some of the facts in the ABC report. [Read more: Bloomberg/17February2013]

Finland Probes Apparent Russian Arms Smuggling to Syria. Finnish customs officials are investigating an apparent Russian attempt to smuggle arms to Syria through a Helsinki port in breach of an EU ban, after intercepting a container with spare parts for tanks last month.

Customs confiscated the parts, found in a container on the Finnsun, owned by Finnlines, when the vessel docked at the port of Vuosaari.

The container appeared have been sent from Russia to Syria, customs said in a statement, adding that there had been no requests for permission of such a delivery.

Finnlines confirmed that the cargo in question had been loaded in St. Petersburg on Dec. 20 and said it raised the alarm after finding the equipment in a regular onboard audit at the port of Antwerp, Belgium.

The company decided to deliver the container to customs officials in Finland, its previous stop.

"Finnlines immediately requested the Finnish customs to restrain the cargo," it said in a statement. [Read more: Reuters/18February2013]

James Clapper Warns of Sequester's Impact on Spy Agencies. With a March 1 deadline for sequestration legislation approaching, it's the season for scare talk about the effects of budget cuts. But even discounting for this, the warning Thursday from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about the impact on America's spy agencies was ominous.

Clapper discussed in a telephone interview Thursday what sequestration will mean for the 16 intelligence organizations he oversees. His remarks were amplified by a statement his office emailed Friday morning. Clapper warned that "the sheer size of the cut will create an immediate national security crisis situation" because some key collection and analysis programs will have to be cut. He made similar comments in an interview yesterday with Reuters.

Cuts to intelligence budgets are especially sensitive because the United States is fighting a war against Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations that seek to target the United States. Clapper said he will seek to mitigate these effects by redirecting money or cutting low-priority spending, but he cautioned: "Absorbing these cuts in short a short timeframe will require the budgetary equivalent of emergency amputations."

Clapper said that he would have to cut 9 percent in defense accounts, which fund overhead reconnaissance and other surveillance systems, and 7 to 8 percent for domestic accounts, such as the FBI. [Read more: Ignatius/WashingtonPost/15February2013]

Technical Woes Scuttle Army Spy-Blimp Project. The U.S. Army has shelved development of a football-field-size surveillance blimp amid concerns about the cost and reliability of the project, military officials said Thursday.

Seen as a high-tech eye in the sky that would provide U.S. troops in Afghanistan with life-saving intelligence, the airship, known as the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, ran into resistance from high-level Army officials as well as development problems that undermined the $517 million program, according to congressional and military sources.

"Due to technical and performance challenges, and the limitations imposed by constrained resources, the Army has determined to discontinue the LEMV development effort," said Army spokesman Dov Schwartz.

Military officials said the contractors, Northrop Grumman Corp. and Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd., hadn't yet been notified about the future of the project. Officials at Northrop Grumman declined to comment until the company receives formal word from the Army. Hybrid Air didn't respond to requests for comment. [Read more: Nissenbaum/WallStreetJournal/15February2013]

Suspected Israel Spy's Death Puts Government on the Defensive. The full story may never be known of why a baby-faced Australian Israeli attorney came under suspicion of working for the Mossad spy agency and then died alone in an Israeli jail cell charged with betraying the country he had adopted.

But as the political drama over Ben Zygier's 2010 arrest and death swept through Israel on Thursday, it left virtually no institution unscathed.

Mossad was scrambling to contain possible damage to its operations in Iran and other places where Zygier is believed to have traveled using his Australian passport.

The Prison Service faced embarrassing questions about how a high-risk detainee could be found hanged in solitary confinement.

Courts were under fire for imposing an unusually broad gag order. Israeli news media were being criticized for missing the story. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was viewed as clumsily trying to suppress coverage in Israel even after the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Tuesday aired a report about the case, sparking international attention.

Even some members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, were accused of circumventing the court's gag order by publicly commenting on the case. [Read more: Sanders/LATimes/14February2013]

INSA: Intelligence Community CIOs See Need for Information Technology Enterprise. Driven by budget pressures and mission requirements, including the need to more efficiently share information between agencies, there appears to be a "growing consensus" among the Intelligence Community's chief information officers that implementing an IC Information Technology Enterprise is the right thing to do, according to an Intelligence and National Security Alliance paper.

INSA acknowledges that the study "presents a decidedly optimistic perspective" of the opportunities and challenges in implementing IC ITE, which requires a transition from an agency-centric IT model to a shared-services model that more fully integrates IC capabilities and promises to generate considerable cost savings.

A key challenge, the paper says, is "striking the balance between leveraging state-of-the-art IT and enterprise approaches, while sustaining and enhancing mission agility, information sharing, information assurance, and satisfaction of customer requirement."

According to most IC CIOs interviewed by INSA, although there may be may be some "near-term degradation," they believe common components and business practices are not only "inevitable" in the current challenging budget environment, but the "right thing to do" to better integrate capabilities among the 17 agencies that comprise the IC. 

"Doing in common that which is commonly done," the title of INSA's paper, is the theme frequently cited by IT managers within the IC to explain the IC ITE. The INSA paper is the first in a series of papers which will ultimately form the basis of a comprehensive white paper on the subject of IC ITE. [Read more: Slabodkin/FierceGovernmentIT/13February2013]

Spy Planes Check their Vision on These Parking Lot-Sized Focus Charts. When you go to the eye doctor, you look at a chart and tell them what you can see. It's the same way for the cameras on spy planes - but their charts have to be big enough to see from 20,000 feet.

There are an unknown number of these striking focus charts scattered around the U.S., reports the Center for Land Use Interpretation [CLUI]. They have been in use since they were first put together in the 1950s and '60s - when the development of spy planes like the SR-71 Blackbird and U-2 necessitated careful calibration of their onboard cameras.

The charts differ from one another, but all share some characteristics: large white bars painted at known sizes and distances, sometimes parallel, sometimes perpendicular to each other.

The result is an easy way to tell whether a camera can make out the details it's supposed to from high in the air, or whether adjustment is necessary. Other countries have them as well - something which attracted the notice of satellite imagery buffs several months ago. [Read more: Coldewey/NBC/17February2013]

PET Controls Come with Financial Windfall for Intelligence Agency. A new monitoring organisation being set up to keep a closer eye on domestic intelligence agency PET will receive five million kroner annually to oversee how the agency goes about its business. Critics say, however, that although increased oversight is long overdue, five million kroner a year is nowhere near enough money to do the job effectively, especially given that the government also plans to allocate 11.6 million kroner per year, more than twice as much, to PET to allow it to respond and comply to the oversight group's findings. The extra cash comes on top of the 800 million kroner per year that PET already receives in operating funds.

"We are strengthening control of PET significantly, and it is clear that the increased supervision requires that PET is able to comply with the results of that supervision," Morten B�dskov [Socialdemokraterne], the justice minister, told Berlingske newspaper.

The new parliamentary oversight agency, which critics have already said would leave Denmark as one of the European countries with the least control over its intelligence agency, will be significantly under-funded in comparison to neighbouring Norway and Sweden. The supervisory agency of the Norwegian intelligence service received just under 11 million Norwegian kroner in 2011, and the corresponding Swedish group received nearly 18 million Swedish kroner in 2012. [Read more: Weaver/CopenhaganPost/18February2013]

German Spy Chief Says Targets Russian, Chinese Industrial Espionage. The head of Germany's military intelligence said in a rare interview that one of his main challenges was to protect defence projects from industrial espionage by the Chinese and Russian secret services.

The Military Counter-intelligence Service has until now kept a much lower public profile than Germany's two other larger federal spy agencies - the BND, which gathers foreign intelligence, and the BfV, charged with domestic intelligence.

Chief Ulrich Birkenheier told Die Welt in an interview published on Monday that "espionage against international defence projects" was a growing challenge, with foreign agents trying to get hold of information about military trials of new defence products.

"Russian and Chinese secret services are still trying to recruit German soldiers. We have to investigate that and prevent it," Birkenheier told Die Welt in the agency's first media interview in its 57-year history.

Germany's intelligence services were seriously criticised after the discovery in 2011 of a small far-right cell, the National Socialist Underground, which murdered nine immigrants and a policewoman, carried out a bomb attack and robbed 14 banks over a decade without being detected.

Birkenheier said that affair had convinced his spy agency "how useful it is to explain our task and our work to the outside world". [Read more: Reuters/18February2013]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Spy Fail: Why Iran Is Losing Its Covert War with Israel. Slumped in a Nairobi courtroom, suit coats rumpled and reading glasses dangling from librarian chains, the defendants made a poor showing for the notorious Quds Force of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ahmad Abolafathi Mohammed and Sayed Mansour Mousa had been caught red-handed and middle-aged. And if the latter did them a certain credit - blandly forgettable always having been a good look for a secret agent - the prisoners still had to explain why they had hidden 15 kg of the military explosive RDX under bushes on a Mombasa golf course.

Created to advance Iran's interests clandestinely overseas, the Quds Force has lately provided mostly embarrassment, stumbling in Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, Kenya and most spectacularly in Thailand, where before accidentally blowing up their Bangkok safe house, Iran's secret agents were photographed in the sex-tourism mecca of Pattaya, one arm around a hookah, the other around a hooker. In its ongoing shadow war with Israel, the Iranian side's lone "success" was the July 18 bombing of a Bulgarian bus carrying Israeli tourists - though European investigators last week officially attributed that attack to Iran's Lebanese proxy, Hizballah. That leaves the Islamic Republic itself with a failure rate hovering near 100% abroad and an operational tempo - nine overseas plots uncovered in nine months - that carries a whiff of desperation. A Tehran government long branded by U.S. officials as the globe's leading exporter of terrorism may be cornering the market on haplessness.

Within Iran's own borders, however, the story is different. Twice in the past two years Iranian intelligence has cracked espionage rings working with Israel's Mossad, Western intelligence officials tell TIME. In both cases, the arrests were the furthest thing from secret: announced at a news conference, each was later followed up by televised confessions broadcast on Iranian state television in prime time. Given Iran's history of trumped-up confessions, skepticism is more than justified. But the arrests appear to be solid. One intelligence official said the captured Iranians provided "support and logistics" to the Mossad operatives who carried out the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. [Read more: Vick/Time/13February2013]

Israel's Prisoner X recalls Marcus Klingberg Spy Case. While more information continues to trickle out about Prisoner X, the mysterious man with alleged Mossad ties who hanged himself in Israel's Ayalon Prison in 2010 and was identified this week by an Australian TV show as Ben Zygier, it's not the first case of an Israeli spy jailed without public knowledge and under secretive circumstances.

During the Cold War, Marcus Klingberg, a high-ranking Soviet spy captured in Israel, found himself in similar circumstances.

Klingberg was born to a chasidic family in Warsaw in 1918, then fled to Soviet Russia during World War II, where he studied medicine and served as a colonel in the Red Army. After briefly returning to postwar Poland to assume a position in the sciences, Klingberg, an epidemiologist, moved to Israel in 1948.

According to Avner Cohen, author of "Israel and the Bomb," Klingberg was recruited by Ehud Avriel, a Haganah member and diplomat who was involved in purchasing weapons from Czechoslovakia. Avriel reportedly was on a mission to find scientists capable of increasing Israeli's scientific capabilities. From the JTA Archive:

"In April 1948, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding father and first prime minister, wrote a letter to Ehud Avriel, one of the Jewish Agency's operatives in Europe, ordering him to seek out and recruit East European Jewish scientists who could "either increase the capacity to kill masses or to cure masses; both are important." One of the scientists Avriel recruited was a 30-year old epidemiologist and colonel in the Red Army named Avraham Marcus Klingberg. In time, Klingberg became one of Israel's leading scientists in the area of chemical and biological weapons [CBW]. He was among the founding members and, subsequently, the deputy director of the Israel Institute of Biological Research [IIBR] in Ness Ziona, a dozen miles southeast of Tel Aviv.

But within a few years of arriving in Israel, Klingberg's allegiances came into question. [Read more: Soclof/JTA/15February2013]

MI5 Looking for Experts on Russia Online. British intelligence service MI5 is looking expert on Russia on the Internet. A vacancy ad has been posted on the website of the service. The text of the vacancy "Russian Intelligence Analysts" starts as follows: "The deeper you go into a language the more you uncover."

"Using your specialist Russian language skills and your knowledge of Russia's cultural affairs, history, politics, ideology and economy, you will add real understanding to the intelligence that has been gathered and deliver clear analysis in a variety of ways. Your work will enable us to take a well-informed view of potential threats to national security, including terrorism and espionage," the ad on the website of MI5 says. 

The knowledge of Russian is one of the necessary qualities. A job seeker can take a language test right on the website of the intelligence service.

"Whether you developed your Russian language skills through academic study, in the workplace or while living or working abroad, you have a genuine passion for languages. You'll thrive on the challenge of applying your Russian language skills on a daily basis to provide expert support to investigative officers," the job description runs.

For this job, MI5 needs only British citizens, whose parents are also British. [Read more: Pravda/19February2013]

One Man's Medal: The story of George Nishimura. George Kazuo Nishimura was an 18 year old teenager on December 7th, 1941. He sat and watched the Japanese bombing of Wheeler Field during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He had no idea what was going on until he read it in the paper.

He wondered, "Why?"

He would volunteer to serve in the United States Army like so many other Japanese American men, in the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

George Nishimura lives in Clarksville, and this week, he'll be presented his bronze replica of the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony to honor the 90 year old veteran. 

This is his story, and the story of the 442nd "Go For Broke" soldiers who were Japanese-American citizens wanting to serve their country, the United States of America. George would serve with the Military Intelligence Service as a language officer. [Read more: Bonecutter/ClarksvilleOnline/19February2013]

Crime History: Master Spy Robert Hanssen Busted after NoVa 'Dead Drop'. On this day, Feb. 18, in 2001, FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union and Russia in what is possibly the worst intelligence breach in U.S. history.

Hanssen was taken into custody minutes after leaving a package of highly classified information at a "dead drop" site under a wooden footbridge in Vienna, Va.

Hanssen, a counterintelligence expert and the bureau's liaison to the State Department, was in a key position to slip secrets to his handlers.

Hanssen sold the secrets for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. He shared details about spy technology and how the U.S. would react to a Soviet nuclear attack.

He was sentenced to life and is being held in the Supermax prison in Colorado. [McCable/WashingtonExaminer/18February2013]

Section III - COMMENTARY

Everything You Need to Know about Israel's 'Prisoner X' Spy Scandal. You might have heard something about the "Prisoner X" story, a complicated scandal, stretching from Israel to Australia, that involves espionage, a mysterious death and press censorship. Here, to help you follow the story and grasp why it matters, is a basic recap and primer.

First, a disclaimer: Much of the world's understanding of this story comes from a single source: a just-out report by the Australian Broadcasting Corp., which has itself become part of the story. I've tried to indicate where the ABC report is the only source.

Sometime around 2000, according to ABC, an Australian man named Ben Zygier emigrated to Israel and changed his name to Ben Alon. ABC also says that Zygier/Alon worked for Israel's spy service, Mossad. [Update: The New York Times is now also reporting that Zygier, Alon and "Prisoner X" were all the same person.]

In 2010, Israeli officials arrested Zygier/Alon and placed him in solitary confinement in Ayalon Prison. The ABC report says that he was housed in a special, single-cell "prison-within-a-prison" that was built to accommodate Yigal Amir, the man who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. [Update: The Israeli justice ministry now says that the prisoner - whom they're still not naming - had access to lawyers and was visited by family.] That December, Zygier/Alon hanged himself in his cell. [Read more: Fisher/WashingtonPost/13February/2013]

The Nation Has Heard Enough About Benghazi Already. Sen. Lindsey Graham recently threatened to block a vote on Chuck Hagel's confirmation and President Obama's nomination of John Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency unless the White House provides more information about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

With all due respect to Graham, I am tired of hearing him insist on more information about Benghazi. Those who died there knew they were in danger when they went to Libya, but they went because they wanted to serve their country.

All members of the Department of State, the CIA and the Department of Defense are in danger abroad - and in the U.S. None of them ask for or expect special treatment or protection. They know that risking their lives comes with the job, that if a terrorist or group of terrorists wants to kill them, it can be done.

Ambassador Christopher Stevens certainly knew the risks he was taking in going to Benghazi, but he had a job to do and he knew he could not function effectively as a diplomat surrounded by Marines and security personnel.

No one demanded an explanation from the president of the U.S. as to why Ambassador Adolph Dubs did not have adequate protection when he was killed in a kidnapping attempt in Afghanistan in 1979. [Read more: Lamb/PressCitizen/18February2013]

Section IV - Books and Coming Events

Books

Stories From the Secret War: CIA Special Ops in Laos by Terrence M. Burke. In the early 1960's, a handful of CIA paramilitary officers led a secret war in the mountains of Laos against North Vietnamese and Lao Communist forces. One of those secret warriors, Terrence Burke, gives a vivid account of primitive guerrilla warfare that eventually led to an attempt by the North Vietnamese to capture him. Burke's stories of that war are of gritty and often deadly hit and run tactics against the North Vietnamese, attempted rescues of downed pilots, and daily survival far from American support.

For two and a half decades, a war was carried out in the northern mountains and southern jungles of Laos. This war ran in spurts from the 1950s through 1975 when the Kingdom of Laos ceased to exist and the Lao People's Democratic Republic came into being. The early years of the war were dominated by the French Army. As the French left Indo China, their presence in Laos was eventually taken over in the early 1960s by American Special Forces teams and a few CIA paramilitary officers.

In 1962, the Geneva Accords was signed. It called for all foreign troops to leave the Kingdom of Laos. While the United States honored the agreement, the North Vietnamese Army and their Laotian proxies, the Pathet Lao, did not follow suit, but remained a threatening military force in Laos. Anticipating this, the CIA trained a Thai Police element named the Parachute Resupply Unit, or PARU. Following the withdrawal of the American military, these Thai units, with two American CIA paramilitary officers, clandestinely entered Northern Laos to begin working with a mountain tribal group, the Hmong [or Meo]. Thus began the Secret War.

The real story of the CIA paramilitary officers who fought the secret war in those mountains alongside their Meo and Thai partners has never been told. Terrence Burke played a role in this drama and believed it important to fill that gap. [Read more: storiesfromthesecretwar.com]

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in 2013 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.

Wednesdays, 6 - 27 February 2013 10 am - Washington, DC - "Spy Seminar Series: Exfiltrations, Captures, or Kills: Famous High Stakes Intelligence Operations" at the International Spy Museum

Intelligence operations that hold human life in the balance are some of the most difficult missions any intelligence service will ever undertake. Exfiltrations are supremely delicate. This is the process of extracting a person or people from a targeted site with absolute urgency due to a sudden change which makes the site hostile. This could happen when a spy's cover is blown or a change in leadership puts people in danger. Captures are just that: snaring an enemy. And lastly kills. Wet jobs. Assassinations. When the enemy is bad enough that termination is the only answer. In this series, a distinguished group of experts and former intelligence personnel will introduce you to some of the greatest of these intense operations.

February 20 - Saving Ryszard Kuklinski
In 1972, Polish Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski volunteered to spy for the United States. His self-appointed mission: to undermine his country's Soviet-dominated leadership to save Poland from nuclear destruction. Over the next nine years of high-risk, clandestine exchanges, he copied tens of thousands of secret documents and covertly passed them to the CIA—including plans to crush the Solidarity movement. Learn the inside story of this extraordinary case and of Kuklinski's last-minute, daring escape from International Spy Museum Executive Director, Peter Earnest, a former CIA officer who did unprecedented research into Agency records for Benjamin Wesier's A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country. Former CIA officer, Sue Burggraf, who worked with Kuklinski in Warsaw will also comment on the heroic Pole.

February 27 - Canadian Caper
International Spy Museum board member and former CIA chief of disguise Tony Mendez led the famous rescue of six Americans who were trapped in Iran after they had escaped from the US Embassy during the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979. Mendez came up with an ingenuous plan to get the Americans out by creating a fake movie called ARGO, setting up a cover film studio, and disguising them as a location scouting team from Canada. Mendez will take you behind the scenes of the operation, recently immortalized in the real film ARGO, from Canada's incredible support of the rescue to what kind of props he brought to make the Americans look more like film industry types.

WHERE: International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW Washington, DC Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
TICKETS: Tickets: $120 (must be purchased through the Smithsonian)
To register: (via phone) 202.633.3030; (online) www.SmithsonianAssociates.org. Internet Quick Tix code for the program: 1M2-647. For more information visit www.spymuseum.org

Saturday 23 February 2013 - Orange Park/Gainesville, FL - AFIO North Florida Chapter hosts Terry Williams, former CIA, on A Spy Novel and the CIA Experience

The North Florida AFIO Chapter meets Saturday, 23 February rather than its customary date of 9 February. Starting time, schedule and location remain the same. Please RSVP to Quiel Begonia, Secretary/Treasurer at qbegonia@comcast.net or call 904-545-9549 as soon as you can so we can get an accurate head count and keep the country club happy.
Our guest speaker will be Mr. Terry Williams, who has just completed a spy novel that is salted with his years of CIA experience. Terry is a former CIA Operations Officer with over thirty years' experience conducting and managing covert operations in Asia, Europe and Eastern Europe. He served as Chief of Station in Taipei and Ottawa and as Chief of Base in Shanghai. He was the Deputy Chief of East Asia Division for Counterintelligence and did rotational assignments to the FBI and Capitol Hill. Prior to his tenure at the CIA, Williams served in the Peace Corps in Bogota, Colombia, taught at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City, taught English to helicopter pilots and mechanics of the Imperial Iranian Air Force, and at a university in Tokyo, Japan.
Cooper's Revenge is his first novel. He is currently writing a sequel, Unit 400, to be released this year. Terry is a treasure trove of career experience. His Agency classmates include John Brennan, DCI candidate. We hope to see you at the meeting. Family and guests are cordially invited as well.

Monday, 25 February 2013, 4:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Islamisation of Europe: The Origin, Process, Objections and Implications" presentation by Dr. Rogatchi at Institute of World Politics

Dr. Inna Rogatchi, Co-founder and President, The Rogatchi Foundation, Senior Advisor on International Affairs to the European Parliament, has taught courses and written extensively about political and cultural aspects of individual and group mindsets and behaviour at the Universities of Helsinki and Turku (Finland), was a principal professor conducting a modern history and mentality seminar at the Renvall Institute (Helsinki), and was an expert at the Finnish Institute of Foreign Policies. She lectures internationally on various topics of international politics, and is the Senior Advisor on International Affairs to the European Parliament. Dr. Rogatchi is also a senior strategic advisor to a number of leading international institutions involved in risk management and conflict resolution.
Location: The Institute of World Politics, 1521 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20036.
Parking map here. RSVP here

Wednesday, 27 February 2013, 7 - 10 pm – Washington, DC - "Dinner with a Spy: An Evening with Martha D. Peterson" at the International Spy Museum

Undercover at the US Embassy in Moscow in 1977, CIA officer Martha D. Peterson was one of the first female CIA case officers to serve there. Peterson discovered that she could move freely around Moscow without a trace of surveillance coverage, unlike her male CIA colleagues who were smothered by KGB surveillance teams. She became almost solely responsible for retrieving messages from a key spy in the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, code named TRIGON. She communicated for nearly 21 months with TRIGON through dead drops disguised as logs, dirty gloves, crushed milk cartons, and crumbly pieces of concrete. On the evening of July 15, shortly after Peterson placed a concrete concealment device filled with spy equipment in a tower on a railroad bridge, she suddenly found herself in the clutches of KGB agents. She was arrested and harshly interrogated. She refused to cooperate, held her ground, and ultimately was declared persona non grata and sent back to the US. Three KGB officers drove out to the airport to salute her plane in recognition of her composure during interrogation. Spend an evening with this heroic woman and learn what it was like to be caught and keep your cool! You will be one of only 14 guests at Adour for a four-course dinner and wine-pairing where you'll talk with her about her remarkable career and her thoughts on today's intelligence issues.
Peterson is the author of The Widow Spy which is recommended for pre-event reading.
Location: Adour, 923 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20006
Tickets: $250. Ticket includes four-course dinner with wines. Please call 202.654.0932 or write lhicken@spymuseum.org to register and with special dietary needs.

28 February 2013 - San Francisco, CA - "Defense Strategy for Acquisition and its Influence on Intelligence Gathering" is Lt. Col. William Chadwick's topic at AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter Luncheon.

Lt Col(R) William Chadwick , lecturer at The Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, will be speaking on "Defense Strategy for Acquisition and its Influence on Intelligence Gathering." The luncheon begins at 11:30AM with no-host cocktails; meeting starts at noon. Location: The United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, SF (between Sloat/Wawona). E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi at afiosf@aol.com and mail a check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578, Burlingame, CA 94011. Members and students: $25; non-members $35.

Friday, 1 March 2013, 11 am - Westchester, CA - the AFIO LA Chapter hosts annual business meeting.

This meeting is for chapter members only in good standing, and includes the annual elections along with the annual plan for 2013. If any member would like to add any items to the agenda please forward them to me by no later than Wednesday, February 27, 2013.
RSVP by 25 Feb 2013 to Vincent Autiero at afio_la@yahoo.com your attendance. Lunch will be served and chapter member attendance is highly encouraged.
Meeting Location: Alejo's Italian Restaurant, 8335 Lincoln Blvd, Westchester, CA 90045
There is plenty of parking on the street. The restaurant is right up the street from the LMU front entrance (fountain) on Manchester.

Tuesday, 5 March 2013, noon - Washington, DC - "The Rice Paddy Navy: US Sailors Undercover in China" at the International Spy Museum

After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1942, the US Navy knew it would need vital information from the Pacific. Captain Milton 'Mary' Miles journeyed to China to set up weather stations and monitor the Chinese coastline—and to spy on the Japanese. After a handshake agreement with Chiang Kai-shek's spymaster, General Dai Li, the Sino-American Cooperative Organization (SACO) was born. SACO consisted of nearly 3,000 American servicemen, 97,000 organized Chinese guerrillas, and 20,000 "individualists," including pirates and lone-wolf saboteurs. This top-secret network worked hand in hand with the Nationalist Chinese to fight the Japanese invasion of China while erecting crucial weather stations, providing critical information to the US military, intercepting Japanese communications, blowing up enemy supply depots, laying mines, destroying bridges, and training Chinese peasants in guerrilla warfare. Join author Linda Kush as she reveals the story of one of the most successful—and little known— covert operation efforts of World War II.
Join the author for an informal chat and book signing.
Tickets: Free! No registration required. For more information visit www.spymuseum.org

Tuesday, 5 March 2013, 8-9 a.m. - Tysons Corner, VA - CICENTRE Brief on Global Terrorism, Espionage, and Cyber Security.

*Up to 5 guests per person (all must RSVP)
*New updated material every month!
*Light refreshments will be served and multiple PRIZES will be drawn!
* MORE DETAILS

Don't forget to RSVP for our FREE one hour brief on Global Terrorism, Espionage, and Cyber Security! Location: Microsoft Store Tysons Corner Mall, Virginia, Level 2 parking area: Terrace C.
RSVP to reserve your seat Meaghan.Smith@cicentre.com or call (240) 281-1627

Wednesday, 13 March 2013, 6:30 p.m. - Washington, DC - "Blowing Blofeld's Mind: The Psychology of Villainy" at the International Spy Museum

All the greatest men are maniacs. –Dr. No
The Spy Museum's new exhibition, Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains, features some of the most memorable fictional evildoers of the last half century. Many were inspired by real world figures or by the actions of real people who were really evil. What makes people move down a dark path? These experts can tell you exactly how Bond villains demonstrate classic criminal or otherwise aberrant psychological behavior based on their experiences with real offenders: Dr. David L. Charney,who was the psychiatrist for notorious spy Robert Hanssen and interviewed him extensively in prison; and Dr. Stanton Samenow, a noted forensic scientist and author of The Criminal Personality and Inside the Criminal Mind. Dr. Samenow was the prosecution's mental health witness regarding the younger DC sniper, Lee Boyd Malvo. Why would someone betray their country like Robert Hanssen or GoldenEye's Alec Trevelyan? How realistic is the Stockholm syndrome suffered by Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough? What makes people consider crime as a way of life? In this extraordinary conversation, you'll learn exactly how maudlin sentimentality—Blofeld's love for his cat—can coexist with chilling brutality.
Tickets:  $20. To register or for more information visit www.spymuseum.org

Wednesday, 13 March 2013, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm - Scottsdale, AZ - AFIO AZ Chapter hears Shields Fair on "Art and Science of Eavesdropping."

Topic: "The Art and Science of Electronic Eavesdropping: Past – Present and Future" by Shield T. Fair.
For nearly one hundred years, since microphones and amplifiers were invented, electronic eavesdropping has been a major tool of spies, sleuths, investigators, jealous spouses and lovers.
Battles have been won, marriages have ended, bad people have gone to prison and drugs have been intercepted, thanks to electronics.
For nearly 20 years I manufactured a variety of small electronic devices capable of listening in on phone calls, whispered conversations and all manners of telecommunications. Virtually all of this was undetectable. I have also built and used sophisticated detection equipment to locate devices like the kind I and others created.
Speaker Shields T. Fair is an expert on the design/build of electronics eavesdropping equipment. He supplied hundreds of special devices to a variety of government agencies. He had an extensive career in electronics in the U.S. and Mexico.
Event location: McCormick Ranch Golf Course, 7505 McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale AZ 85258, Phone 480.948.0260.
RSVP NO LATER than 72 hours ahead of time. If you do not show up for the lunch meeting and have not cancelled 48 hours prior, please send your check to Simone – you will be charged for the lunch.
Meeting fees are as follows: $20 for AFIO AZ Member; $22.00 for Non-Members
For reservations or questions, please email Simone: simone@afioaz.org or simone@4smartphone.net. To call, please leave a message on 602.570.6016.

15 March 2013, 12:30 pm - Los Angeles, CA - The Greater Los Angeles, CA AFIO Chapter hosts former CIA Officer, Richard Holm.

Richard Holm, author of The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA, is the keynote speaker at the AFIO L.A. Meeting Location: LMU Campus Play del Rey Hilton Business Building Room 304. Complimentary Refreshments will be served. Email AFIO_LA@yahoo.com to register and/or for additional information.

16 March 2013, 2 pm - Kennebunk, ME - The Maine AFIO Chapter hears from Amer Sami Abusada on "Palestine: A Student's View."

AFIO Maine welcomes Amer Sami Abusada as guest speaker on the topics of "Palestine: A Student's View." Amer is a non-muslim, 17-year-old, exchange student at Bonny Eagle High School, Buxton, Maine. He comes from Beit Sahour, Palestine, a small city not far from Bethlehem. After exposure to the American view of events in Palestine, gathered largely from press reports, Amer sensed the need to present another view and to correct misconceptions. His presentation includes selected pictures and videos, and will touch on the culture and lifestyle of the people, history of Palestine, the political situation, and what he calls "the wall of discrimination" from his perspective.
The meeting, open to the public, will be held at the Brick Store Museum Progam Center, 2 Dane Street, Kennebunk. For information call 207-967-4298

16 March 2013, 5 – 7 p.m. - Mission Viejo, CA - AFIO Orange County hosts Dick Holm, former CIA COS

Richard L. Holm, author of "The American Agent" will address the chapter.
Born in the Midwest, Dick Holm joined the CIA in the early 1960s and rose rapidly in the ranks to become Chief of several stations, eventually receiving the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the CIA's highest award.
Mr. Holm had an eventful and action packed career that spanned thirty five years. He was first assigned to Laos where he worked with the Hmong tribesman and led operations against the Ho Chi Minh trail during the early stages of the Vietnam War. He was then sent to the Congo where he suffered near fatal injuries in a plane crash in the far northeastern region of that country. Treated by local tribesmen, his severe burns were treated with tree bark and snake oil. He subsequently spent two years at Walter Reed Hospital where he underwent dozens of operations. It was a trying period during which he regained his eyesight and the use of his hands.
Among other places, Dick Holm served in Hong Kong, Brussels and Paris and, at one point in his career he was head of the Agency's Counter Terrorism Office. Intensely patriotic, he has worked under thirteen CIA Directors and has deeply held views on policies - past and present, national and international - which ultimately determine where, how, and why the CIA is deployed/used.
In his fascinating memoir, Dick Holm not only gives an inside view of the life of a CIA officer, but poignantly describes his appalling injuries after the plane crash in the Congo and his determined fight for survival.
Mr. Holm is married, wife Judith, and has a platoon of daughters (4). He currently resides in McLean, Virginia.
In 2004, Holm published his memoirs, "The American Agent." An updated version of his memoirs recently appeared as "The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA," published in August 2011 by Mountain Lake Press.

Additional Information: There is a nominal cost of $10.00 per attendee, payable at the door, cash or check. Hors d'oeuvres and drinks will be served.
Location: Norman P. Murray Community Center, 24932 Veterans Way, Mission Viejo, CA 92692
RSVP to LarryHoldridge@gmail.com (Tel. 954-298-5442) or TCagley@earthlink.net (Tel. 949-831-1211)

Thursday, 21 March 2013, 11:30 am – Colorado Springs, CO - "Bugs, snakes, rats, torture and the Sex Life of a Naval Aviator in the Hanoi Hilton" at the Rocky Mountain Chapter of AFIO

The title of this meeting would catch the attention of anyone! Attend to hear Capt John Michael McGrath, USN(R) talk about "Bugs, snakes, rats, torture and the Sex Life of a Naval Aviator in the Hanoi Hilton 1967-73." McGrath was a Vietnam POW for six years and has some remarkable accounts to share. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net and also to obtain directionss.

27 March 2013 - New York, NY - "Circle of Treason" with Sandy Grimes, former CIA, at the AFIO NY Chapter Meeting

Sandy Grimes, one of the CIA principals behind the search and unmasking of Aldrich Ames - the traitor in their midst at CIA HQ - discusses in "Circle of Treason," her new book, co-authored with the late Jeanne Vertefeuille, this mole who nearly escaped capture. A remarkable story.
Location: Society of Illustrators 128 East 63rd St, New York City.
For further information contact Jerry Goodwin, Chapter President, at 646-717-3776 or email to afiometro@gmail.com

2 April 2013, 8 am - 3 pm - Washington, DC - CACI Hosts conference on Combating Asymmetric Threats: The Interplay of Offense and Defense

Discuss Asymmetric Threats on April 2 at an event co-sponsored by The U.S. Naval Institute, the Center for Security Policy, and CACI International Inc.
Participants will have a unique opportunity to explore America's capability to counter asymmetric threats by assessing the interplay of our nation's offensive and defensive powers. In particular, we will examine whether the United States has forfeited any of its asymmetric advantages, as well as what needs to be done in order to reclaim those advantages and ultimately defeat asymmetric threats to our national security and national interests. Winning the asymmetric fight is the core issue to be explored.
Speakers: ADM James G. Stavridis, USN–Commander, US European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (invited); LTG Michael T. Flynn, U.S. Army – Director, Defense Intelligence Agency (confirmed); The Honorable Jon Kyl – US Senator, Arizona, 1995-2012 (confirmed).
Location: Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004
This symposium is complimentary and open to participants by invitation only. Registration and further information at www.asymmetricthreat.net. To request an invitation to register, do so here.

Tuesday, 9 April 2013, 11:30 am - MacDill AFB, FL - "My Life in the CIA" with Richard Holm at Meeting/Luncheon by Florida Suncoast Chapter

Richard Holm, a former paramilitary adviser, decorated operations officer, senior manager and station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency, will share fascinating stories of his experiences during the Cold War. Drawing from the material he used in writing his book, The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA, he will recount highlights of his 35-year Agency career and explain why it is imperative for Americans to understand and support what the CIA does--a goal that also underlies AFIO's efforts to raise public awareness of the importance of national intelligence. He will also touch on the impact of an intelligence career on one's family and family life.
Location: MacDill AFB Surf's Edge Club, 7315 Bayshore Blvd, MacDill AFB, FL 33621.
RSVP: no later than Wednesday, April 3, for yourself and include the names of any guests.
Email or call the Chapter Secretary at (813) 832-1164 or at mfshapiro@att.net or visit www.suncoastafio.org
Cost: $20. You must present your $20 check payable to "Suncoast Chapter, AFIO" (or cash) at check-in to cover the luncheon. 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.

Saturday 20 April 2013 - Milford, MA - AFIO New England Chapter hosts Mike Stedman on "'A' for Argonaut" at their Spring Meeting

Mike Stedman, South Boston born and bred, is a former political columnist, magazine writer, and intelligence consultant to major corporations. Formerly on the New England board of the Association for Intelligence Officers, he has been both a practitioner and critic of the spy world. Stedman, a former U.S. Army Reserve soldier with the 94th Infantry, has served as chairman of the New England Chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition and President of his local Rotary Club. He lives outside of Boston with his wife. They have three sons, three daughters-in-law, and seven grandchildren, including identical twin boys.
But really... who is Michael J. Stedman?
Born Michael J. Hurley into a pre-arranged adoption at St. Mary's Infant Asylum in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, Michael J. Stedman considers himself one of the luckiest people alive.
Location: Courtyard by Marriott in Milford, Mass. Hotel web site is here: http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/bosml-courtyard-boston-milford
Schedule: Registration & gathering, 1000 – 1130, Membership meeting 1130 – 1200; Luncheon at 1200 followed by keynote speaker; Adjournment at 2:30PM.
Questions to afionechapter@gmail.com\

Wednesday, 24 April 2013, 10-11:30 am plus lunch - Annapolis Junction, MD - Sandy Grimes, former CIA/NCS, addresses National Cryptologic Museum Foundation members and guests

Ms. Sandy Grimes, author and former employee of the CIA National Clandestine Service, will be the guest speaker for the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation's spring program. The program will be held Wednesday, 24 April, from 1000-1130, at the L3 Conference Center in National Business Park. A booksigning and lunch will follow the presentation.
Ms. Grime's co-authored Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed, with her colleague, the late Jeanne Vertefeuille. Together they worked on a CIA task force to investigate the disappearance of Soviet agents who were working undercover for the CIA. The lecture will focus on the decade-long investigation and the clues that led to the exposure of one of the most dangerous traitors in U.S. history.
Fluent in Russian, Ms. Grimes was recruited by the CIA in 1967 and spent most of her 26-year career targeting the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. She and her husband of 43 years reside in Great Falls, Virginia.
Join us for this riveting story of Cold War espionage. The Program fees are $15 for NCMF members, $40 for guests. The guest fee includes an annual membership in the Foundation. Make check payable to NCMF and send to PO Box 1682, Fort George G Meade, MD 20755-3682 by 17 April. The L3 conference center is located at 2720 Technology Drive Annapolis Junction MD 20701.
Questions? Contact Mary J. Faletto, Senior Administrator, National Cryptologic Museum Foundation, Office: 301-688-5436 Cell: 443-250-8621. E-mail: cryptmf@aol.com

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

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