WRECKING BALLROOM: There has been a ton of discussion over the past few days about the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make space for a big, beautiful ballroom. At first, officials said that only portions of the edifice would meet the wrecking ball – but now the entire East Wing has been reduced to rubble. One thing that hasn’t received much attention, however, is the question of what will happen to the offices that have traditionally been housed in the East Wing. The first lady’s office, the social secretary and visitor’s offices have been there – but of particular interest to us at The Cipher Brief is another East Wing resident, the White House Military Office (WHMO) – pronounced “WHAMO” by some insiders. Those are the folks who organize the military aides – the people who carry the nuclear football. The Mil Office also supervises the handling of Air Force One, Marine One, Camp David and the like. Where will they all go now? At first they may be relocated to the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building – but one White House veteran we talked with speculated that the President may seize the opportunity to kick the White House Press corps out of the West Wing, close the James Brady Briefing Room, and give that space to the evicted tenants from the East Wing. This is all speculation right now but the President mused about possibly moving the media across the street to the EEOB when discussing the Pentagon’s media policy.
PENTAGON PRESS CORPS 2.0: NOW WITH 100% MORE LOYALTY OATH: We are old enough to remember when the Pentagon called itself the Department of Defense. You know—back when “defense” wasn’t a dirty word. But this week, the newly rechristened Department of War announced what it calls the “next generation” of the Pentagon press corps. Apparently, “next generation” means “the ones who will agree to play nice.” According to a tweet from Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, over sixty so-called “independent journalists” and “new media outlets” have signed the Department’s “media access policy.” The statement announcing all this is a masterpiece of Orwellian spin. The Department praises the newcomers for “circumventing the lies of the mainstream media” and “getting real news directly to the American people.” Or at least, whatever the Pentagon tells them is the real news. The X post also sneers at the journalists who “self-deported” from the building. So, who makes up the new generation? CNN’s Natasha Bertrand says they include reps from LindellTV (AKA My Pillow Guy TV), Gateway Pundit and TPUSA.
CLOCK AND DAGGER: If you have a second, you might enjoy this... China has accused the U.S. National Security Agency of attacking Beijing’s timekeeping service. Cyberscoop reports that China’s MSS claims that the NSA hacked into China’s National Time Service Center systems in April 2023 and since then, has been messing around in ways that really ticked off the Chinese. NSA would not give the allegations the time of day, saying “NSA does not confirm nor deny allegations in the media regarding its operations,” in an email statement adding “Our core focus is countering foreign malign activities persistently targeting American interests, and we will continue to defend against adversaries wishing to threaten us.” It is not exactly clear what NSA might have been hoping to achieve IF in fact, their time bandits were engaging in chrono-logical warfare. Maybe it was payback for Tik-Tok.
The Dead Drop is now updating throughout the week. Why? Because there's just too much good gossip in the national security world these days for a once-a-week collection.
HEADS UP DEAD DROP AFICIONADOS: The pace of Dead Drops early this week may be a bit lighter than usual since everyone who is anyone is fully consumed with the annual Cipher Brief Threat Conference. If you are saying to yourself – wait a minute! I’m someone and I’m not there – well, there’s always next year.
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