KEEPING BOTH HATS -- After years of hand-wringing over whether to pry apart U.S. Cyber Command and the NSA, the Trump administration has decided… nah. The grand plan to end the “dual-hat” leadership arrangement quietly died on the vine once officials realized the split would be messy, slow, and distracting from other national security projects. Instead of producing a tidy White House memo, officials basically shrugged and agreed to keep things as-is. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of State/National Security Adviser Marco Rubio (yes, he’s wearing all the hats) have all lined up behind the status quo. Not everyone’s thrilled: some intel veterans think Cyber Command hogs resources, others hate the idea of a general running the world’s biggest spy shop, and plenty just think no one human can possibly juggle both jobs. But as of now, Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman is getting the nod to stay in charge of both organizations. Congress, meanwhile, is split along predictable lines: Republicans are sighing in relief that Trump won’t blow up the arrangement, while Democrats are warning him not to get cute with it again — especially with China and Russia sharpening their cyber claws. Bottom line: what was once billed as a signature “Project 2025” goal is now just another example of Washington discovering that rearranging the intelligence community is harder than talking about rearranging it.
PLAYING PUTIN ISN’T SO SCARY -- Jude Law has officially gone method, sort of. At last month’s Venice Film Festival, the British actor shrugged off the idea that starring as Russian President Vladimir Putin in the new movie, The Wizard of the Kremlin might earn him a scary late-night knock at the door. “I hope not, naively,” he said, before noting that, honestly, a good wig does most of the heavy lifting anyway. The film, directed by Olivier Assayas and based on Giuliano da Empoli’s bestseller, paints Putin’s rise as a mix of ruthless ambition and carefully engineered propaganda, seen through the eyes of a fictional Kremlin spin doctor (played by Paul Dano). Translation: power, lies, and a lot of brooding office shots. Law claims he avoided a dead-on Putin impersonation and instead tried to channel the Russian leader’s “essence.” Assayas insists the film isn’t just about Russia, but about politics everywhere sliding into something darker, scarier, and less democratic by the day. Why can’t Hollywood ever stick to things that are actually feasible in the real world?
MOONLIGHTING AS A SPY? The Czech Republic just told a Belarusian diplomat to pack their bags, according to Reuters, and not because of bad beer etiquette. Prague says the envoy was actually moonlighting as a spy, part of a Belarusian intelligence network that Czech, Romanian, and Hungarian services claim they’ve just exposed. The Czechs wasted no time blasting it out on X: diplomatic immunity is one thing, but turning your embassy badge into a spy pass? Nyet, thanks. Romania, for its part, is investigating a Moldovan ex–intel boss for treason, which sounds like the setup for a Cold War reboot nobody asked for. Hungary, naturally, is staying cozy with Minsk and Moscow, making for some awkward small talk at regional summits. As for the Belarusian embassy in Prague? Radio silence — maybe they’re too busy drafting a very frosty press release.
WASHINGTON FOOD FIGHT: Rand Paul and JD Vance just staged a live-action version of To Kill a Mockingbird meets Twitter slap-fight. After Vice President Vance proudly declared that blowing up alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers was “the highest and best use of the military,” Paul fired back with Harper Lee in hand, essentially asking: “Ever heard of due process, champ?” Paul’s X-post dripped with sarcasm, accusing Vance of cheerleading executions without trials - not exactly a core tenet of American justice. His literary flex wasn’t subtle: if Atticus Finch wouldn’t stand for this, why should Congress? Meanwhile, the White House insists the strike - which Trump himself bragged about, saying 11 traffickers were killed, is just the opening move in a bigger crackdown on Venezuela and the Tren de Aragua gang. Critics in D.C. aren’t so sure, raising pesky questions about legality, presidential war powers, and whether the targeted boat really was what the administration claimed. Vance, however, appears unfazed. He’s sticking to the “kill bad guys first, ask questions never” line, while Paul is clearly determined to remind him that American civics comes with more nuance than a Call of Duty cutscene.
WHO IS WRITING THIS SCRIPT? In one of the most retro Beltway plot twists imaginable, Oliver North and Fawn Hall — yes, that Oliver North and that Fawn Hall — are now Mr. and Mrs. The couple tied the knot on August 27 in Arlington, Virginia, proving that sometimes love just needs a few decades, a high-profile scandal, and a couple of widowhoods to really blossom. According to SpyTalk, the pair reconnected at the funeral of North’s wife, Betsy, late last year. For those who weren’t glued to their TVs in the late ’80s, North was the Marine Corps officer turned National Security Council cowboy who became the face of the Iran-Contra scandal, while Hall was his glamorous secretary, famous for smuggling documents out of the White House in her boots — and legend has it, her underwear. Their dynamic sparked endless tabloid speculation, which North once tried to quash with a memorable line: “Ollie North has been loyal to his wife since the day he married her.” Neither North nor Hall has commented on their wedding, but the Washington Post, tongue in cheek, speculated that they might be honeymooning in some place like Nicaragua. Which, to mine Ollie’s phrase from back in the day, would be a “Neat idea.”
STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE: An article in a Turkish academic journal has recommended that the thousands of state-funded graduate students who are studying abroad be given intelligence training before traveling out of the country. The article declares that “Students must be seen not merely as recipients of educational opportunities but as diplomatic investments,” and it proposes mandatory preparation in cultural diplomacy, social media communication, diaspora networking and intelligence. A website called “Nordic Monitor” picked up on the Turkish publication. It is a little unclear whether the intelligence training would be focused on teaching the young scholars how to collect intelligence – or how to avoid being recruited while overseas by foreign intelligence services (or both.) Of course, using college students abroad as intelligence collectors has long been a feature of some countries. China has been particularly aggressive in that regard. Recent decisions by the Trump administration to allow 600,000 Chinese students to attend American universities has caused quite a stir.
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.
GIMME SOME SPACE: After nearly six years at the helm of the Space Development Agency, Derek Tournear is making an exit, leaving behind projects like satellite mega-constellations and laser links. The SDA isn’t saying why, just that he’s off to a “new opportunity.” In the meantime, Deputy Director Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo gets to keep the chair warm as acting director.
BRING ON THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR: On Friday afternoon – as had been rumored for a while, President Trump rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War. That old name was just too “woke” he said. We’re gonna be honest - we’re not really seeing the logic here but SECDEF…err…SECWAR Pete Hegseth defended the change by saying the U.S. hasn’t won a major war since the Defense moniker was stuck on the Pentagon in 1947. (Huh?) With President Trump itching for a Nobel Peace Prize, we kinda think the timing could have been better, eh? But now that the U.S. is returning to more ‘warlike’ branding – we wonder if some U.S. allies will follow suit. The U.K., for example, apparently got ‘woke’ (see what we did there) long after the U.S. when in 1964, they merged their War Office (responsible for the Army) Admiralty (Navy) and Air Ministry (RAF) into the Ministry of Defence.
YOU KNOW WHO ELSE IS “WOKE” ON BRANDING? Overseeing all branches of the Russian Armed Forces is the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (which reports directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin.) In China, there is a Ministry of Defense although they are subordinate to the Central Military Commission. And managing day-to-day military operations in North Korea is their “Ministry of Defence.”In Iran, the closest equivalent to the U.S. Department of War (nee: Defense) is the “Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.” Note: the Russian and North Korean conventions for translating spell it “defence” with a C like the Brits – which sounds kinda ‘woke’ to us.
SPEAKING OF ‘WOKE’ – Sources tell us that Air Force General Ken Wilsbach’s staff was on a high-priority mission last week to remove a Facebook video that had been posted to the PACAF page a while back, that featured the general promoting the previous administration’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. We can see why having that video out there might not be such a good idea for someone who is in the running to serve as the next Air Force chief of staff. What if Laura Loomer got a hold of that thing? Now, we hear that there more changes underway with the nomination of Gen. Thomas Bussiere to serve as vice chief being pulled on Friday so that the White House can decide whether Bussiere should be nominated for the chief role or asked to retire. We’d love to understand how these decisions are being made. But then, we bet both Wilsbach and Bussiere would, too.
ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS: If you get your news fix by reading The Cipher Brief’s Open Source Report, you learned last week about a rather explosive New York Times story headlined: “How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart.” Our Pentagon insiders tell us that if you get your news fix by reading the internal-military publication “Navy and Marine Corps Daily Media Report” thought - which is not available to us civilians - you wouldn’t have even known the story had been published. We’re not necessarily suggesting the Navy was burying the story or anything. In fairness to them – maybe The Cipher Brief’s Open Source team just sees the world from a much broader perspective.
SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS (OF COMMON SENSE): Despite our trying – we can’t give up mentioning the wacky mummerings being spouted by Tucker Carlson. We mean – how can you ignore what he said on Friday’s edition of “The Tucker Carlson Show” saying that given the opportunity, he would have apologized to Osama bin Laden’s family after the terrorist leader was deep sixed through the efforts of SEAL Team 6. It’s not that Tucker admired the fellow but Carlson’s condolences are just the decent thing to do - or so he says.
LIGHTING A CIGARETTE & WAITING FOR THE SMOKE TO CLEAR: Questions continue to float around about the U.S. sinking of a boat off Venezuela on Tuesday. During a press event at the White House President Trump said: “We just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat. … These came out of Venezuela.” Adding “The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. …” The grainy video that was released showed what appeared to be a boat often called a “Go-Fast” or “Cigarette” boat. It is impossible to count the number of people onboard from that video, but the number looks fewer than 11. Subsequent administration statements said that the boat was operated by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua which had been designated a “foreign terrorist organization.” In remarks to reporters, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the boat was “probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean” - which doesn’t exactly sound like an imminent threat. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared that the U.S. has “absolute and complete authority” to kill suspected drug traffickers. Other legal and military experts question that. So far the Pentagon seems to have provided almost no details about where the attack happened, what methods were used, or what the underlying intelligence might be. But in their defense, they have probably been busy changing signs outside headquarters from “Defense” to “War.”[Ed Note: The Dead Drop is now updating throughout the week cause well, there's a lot of gossip out there.]
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