Dead Drop: May 14


LEAD THE NAVY, SEE THE WORLD:  On July 31, 2015 – the very first edition of The Dead Drop was published.  Among the items that day was a piece about the then-Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, who made it his mission to travel around the United States throwing out the first pitch at as many Major League baseball stadiums as possible.  So, it seems entirely appropriate, in this, our 300th edition of The Dead Drop, to report how far the Navy has gone. No, they are not still focused on first pitches, but the most recent Navy Secretary, Kenneth Braithwaite, is in the news for aggressively building up frequent flyer miles during his brief time in office at the end of the Trump administration. USA Today was first to report that Braithwaite spent about $2.4 million on travel to 22 destinations during his eight months in office, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Navy secretary outdistanced every other senior Pentagon official during that period. Among his excursions was a $24,000 field trip to the Army/Navy game in December 2020 and a $232,000 jaunt to Wake Island in the South Pacific in January when Braithwaite had just days left in office. What is odd – is that the Navy says there are no sailors or Marines stationed on Wake. Braithwaite told USA Today that “…it’s impossible to lead men and women deployed around the world from behind a desk in Washington.” How much leading you can do when you are on your way out of office and there are no sailors or Marines around is unclear.  But Braithwaite has certainly left quite a record in his Wake.

THE SPY MASTER’S SPOKESPERSON:  CIA Director Bill Burns has sent a message by bringing onboard a new top spokesperson. This week the CIA announced that Burns has brought in Tammy Kupperman Thorp to be Director of the agency’s Office of Public Affairs.  Thorp, who is highly regarded by intelligence and media types with whom we checked, brings a remarkable resume that reflects several distinct past careers.  Most recently, she was Director of Media Relations for BAE Systems.  Before that she served in senior positions with the National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of Naval Intelligence. But those IC jobs were bracketed with long tenured jobs as a producer for NBC News and CNN. Much of that media time was spent covering the Pentagon, Intelligence Community, State Department and White House.  So, Thorp knows the challenge communicating a national security message from both sides of the equation. She is also no stranger to The Cipher Brief.  Last September she penned a book review for us – critiquing Chris Whipple’s The Spy Masters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future.   Little did she (or we) know then, that nine months later, Thorp would be helping a new CIA director shape history.  Congratulations, Tammy.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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