CIA DIRECTOR SWEEPSTAKES: For the past several weeks, the Dead Drop has resisted reporting on rumors of who will be nominated to lead the CIA in the next administration. We’ve held off – not for lack of interest – but because we figured that the mystery would be solved any day now, rendering our item obsolete. But “not so fast” says 2020. Initially, the rumored leading candidate was (and may still be) former CIA deputy director (and twice acting director) Michael Morell. But then Morell took some heat from folks like Senator Ron Wyden who objected to the fact that Morell has called Senator Dianne Feinstein’s 2014 report on Agency interrogation practices ‘flawed’ – and said that some valuable intelligence came from the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Virtually every other living former CIA director has said the same things – but apparently Wyden wants a CIA director who will speak truth to power – as long as it is the “truth” he agrees with. Then, former national security advisor Tom Donilon’s name came up as the likely nominee. Donilon was leading the rumor mill until November 29 when word came out that he did not want to come back into government. Apparently he had trouble initially getting this word across – which seems odd since his brother was chief strategist for the Biden campaign and will be a senior White House advisor and Tom’s wife, Cathy Russell, is slated to be head of White House personnel. In addition to Morell, other names that popped up include former Principal Deputy DNI Sue Gordon, former senior CIA clandestine service officers Justin Jackson and Darrell Blocker, and retired Marine Lieutenant General (former DIA Director and Cipher Brief expert) Vincent Stewart. Blocker, is the least known of the group, but he is not entirely unknown to Dead Drop readers – we noted back in September 2019 an ABC News story about how he used his singing talents as a front man for one of Uganda’s top bands as cover. On December 2nd, The New York Times reported that another former CIA deputy (and Cipher Brief expert,) David Cohen is now the leading contender. Cipher Brief readers will remember Cohen’s other claim to fame – as a walk on in HBO’s Game of Thrones. By the end of the day on Thursday, December 3rd, sources inside the building were hearing Susan Rice's name being thrown into the mix. This is all starting to feel like a real Game of Thrones, no?
WEIRDEST STORY OF THE WEEK (WSWC) NOMINEE: Reuters posted a “fact check” this week which would seem unnecessary – but apparently some folks actually believed a whacky story circulating on the internet. Rest easy, Reuters assures us, there is no truth to the rumor that former President Barack Obama was arrested on November 28 for espionage. The bogus story lifted segments of an actual Department of Justice press release from August 17th about the arrest of Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a former CIA officer. In the phony story, the fake DOJ alleges that Obama conspired with his business partner (Ma.) You must wonder about the people who see these items on obscure websites – and whether they ask themselves how come Fox News and OANN forgot to report this story?
RUNNER UP IN THE WSWC: Retired Lt. Gen Thomas McInerney was once a highly respected member of the USAF. Today, not so much. Army Times reports that McInerney is running around saying that a number of U.S. special operations forces died in an attack on a CIA computer facility in Frankfurt, Germany that was hiding information about how votes were stolen from President Trump, giving the election to Joe Biden. We had a hint of this story in the November 20 Dead Drop – but it gets crazier. Army leadership in the Pentagon and the Army Special Operations Command have assured the media there was no such attack – but McInerney is sticking with his story. Oh, and he has now added a claim that the five soldiers who died in a helicopter crash in the Sinai on November 12 were actually killed in a firefight with the CIA.
HONORABLE MENTION IN THE WSCW: Well, that explains it. Former presidential advisor Roger Stone revealed this week why President Trump did not do as well as expected at the polls. "I just learned of absolute incontrovertible evidence of North Korean boats delivering ballots through a harbor in Maine, the state of Maine," Stone said. "If this checks out, if law enforcement looked into that and it turned out to be true, it would be proof of foreign involvement in the election." We are not sure how the words “absolute incontrovertible evidence” fit with “if this checks out” but at least “Little Rocket Man” didn’t deliver those ballots via ICBM.
HAIRBRAINED IDEA? The U.S. Army is conducting research that allegedly “could be the first step toward soldiers communication without having to speak aloud during military operations.” Sounds kinda crazy to us. Maybe it could also introduce a new-fangled way of getting hit with insubordination charges: thinking bad stuff about the boss.
LAB WORK: The Washingtonian just published a short item on an innovation from the fine folks who brought you exploding cigars and robotic catfish. Dawn Meyerriecks, the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at Langley talked about the creation of “CIA Labs” an incubator designed to identify Agency developed technology which might be useful in the public sector. CIA Labs is said to be a resource for Agency employees and can help them apply for patents and partner with businesses that can bring ideas to the marketplace. “Should profits ensure”, the employee can personally earn up to $150,000.
WHAT DO YOU GET SOMEONE FOR THEIR 75th ANNIVERSARY? Historian Rhodri Jeffrey-Jones has landed a deal with Oxford University Press to publish a book titled: A Question of Standing: The History of the CIA, 1947-2022. The book is timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Agency’s creation. It is described as a “revisionist history” of the Agency. Maybe Jeffrey-Jones will get to the bottom of those Sinai shootouts and secret server battles in Germany.
BECAUSE IT IS SECRET? CBS News recently ran a lengthy story on their website asking the question: “What is Area 51? And why is it so secretive?” Being the site of CIA clandestine testing does have its advantages according to folks who live and work nearby. For example, all the contractors working there in the 1960s attracted lots of creature comforts. Professional chefs were reportedly trucked in and “Day or night, you could get a steak,” one ex-employee said. Beyond that – we didn’t learn much in the piece. Apparently, the government is hiding something there. Hey, maybe it is one of those election servers General McInerney was talking about!
LEAVING YOUR MARK: It seems outgoing Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite is determined to leave his mark on his way out the door. This week, he announced a name change for the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command returning it to its previous moniker the “U.S. Atlantic Fleet” which makes a lot of sense since it operates mostly – well, in the Atlantic. Then, on Wednesday in testimony before Congress, Braithwaite announced that he was naming the next ship in the Constellation class of frigates USS Congress. While that may seem like a gratuitous suck up – rumor has it that the USS Congress narrowly beat out two runners up: USS Rudy Giuliani and USS My Pillow.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
SOLE MAN: Ronald Smith knows how to make a job last. He just retired from his job as the U.S. Naval Academy’s official cobbler after more than 50 years on the job. He tells midshipmen to remember to unlace their shoes before shining them – it makes them last longer. We’d follow that advice too – if we still wore shoes with laces or needed to shine flip flops.
EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES: A headline on the France24 website caught our eye this week: “Debbie Harry on her life in rock ‘n’ roll, an ex-CIA chief on Trump & the question of French hygiene.” For a minute we thought Debbie had thoughts on all those issues – but turns out it was just a “Week in Review” summary of unconnected stories – so – never mind.
LSD, LOVE, AND THE CIA: Showtime premiered a documentary on November 29th about the late Joanna Harcourt-Smith. “My Psychedelic Love Story” examines Harcourt-Smith’s relationship with her boyfriend Dr. Timothy Leary and looks into allegations that she was “a kind of flower child Mata Hari who helped the feds capture her fugitive boyfriend.” We haven’t screened the documentary yet – but it sounds like the filmmakers didn’t get to the bottom of whether her boyfriend should have been leery of Joanna. They say they went to the CIA and asked and were simply told: ‘We can neither confirm nor deny that we have any material on Joanna Harcourt-Smith.”
PROFESSOR WHODUNIT: We spotted a press release the other day about a former CIA officer publishing “a new and exciting memoir about life at the Agency.” The author modestly describes it as “the first book about what it’s really like to work at the CIA.” According to the release the author: “…served six tours as an Agency Case Officer, spent twenty years overseas, and worked in a dozen different countries, including all the modern major war zones. He recruited and handled secret agents in far-off, forbidden lands, from terrorists to traffickers, bombers to bureaucrats, liars, thieves, and con artists.” Who is this hero? According to the press release: “Professor Millick” – no first name. We thought it might be a typo in the press release and looked on Amazon and their listing (saying the book was independently published) also only identifies the author as Professor Millick. C’mon Prof! Use some imagination – make up a first name.
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