CHECK YOUR SOURCES/DIVERSITY OF OPINIONS: On Wednesday October 27, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) held an open hearing with the Director of National Intelligence, CIA Director, and other IC leaders on “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Intelligence Community.” We were pleased to hear Congressman Mike Quigley read a lengthy excerpt from an opinion piece in The Cipher Brief (though he failed to mention his source) titled, “How Immigration Makes the CIA Better at its Job.” The piece was penned by TCB expert and former Agency station chief Daniel Hoffman. You can catch that portion of the hearing here – along with CIA Director Bill Burns’ agreement with and praise of Hoffman. Taking a noticeably different approach, Rep. Devin Nunes said in his remarks that the IC’s focus on diversity was all wrong. “Unfortunately, we can’t counter a hypersonic missile launch [by China] with better pronoun usage,” he said. “And a deeper understanding of White rage won’t rescue Americans stranded in Afghanistan. As we learned in Afghanistan, America is not unbeatable.”
SECRETS OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS: Back in July, we heard that former CIA Director Gina Haspel had gotten a post-government gig with the law firm King & Spalding. But the details were kind of obscure. Now the firm has put out word on what Haspel will be doing for them. According to Bloomberg.com, Haspel will be advising the world’s ultra-wealthy on how to avoid risk. The firm’s risk-advisory service will work with banks and institutions “to help clients assess risk to family wealth from such issues as countries of origin, regulations and cryptocurrencies.” And just like at CIA, Haspel will be surrounded by a team of experts. King & Spalding partners Zack Harmon and Sally Yates, the former U.S. deputy attorney general, will also be on the team. Former Credit Suisse Group AG Chairman Urs Rohner, Peter Charrington, ex-global head of Citigroup Inc.’s private bank, and former Merrill Lynch banker Allen Vine will serve as advisers, according to a spokesman. “Global family offices, entrepreneurs, and business leaders face unprecedented challenges stemming from an expanding range of risks,” King & Spalding Chairman Robert Hays said in a statement. Somehow, we figure these billionaires will find a way to soldier on.
TOO SOON? For those of you who have been sitting at the edge of your seats waiting for the mandated public release of documents relating to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy – you can sit back and relax some. On Friday October 22, President Biden sent a memo to the heads of various executive departments and agencies saying that the Congressionally ordered declassification and release expected this year won’t happen until late 2022 at the earliest. (At least that is the current estimate.) The memo said: “Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.” Politico was among the news organizations guessing what might be in the documents and how documents from nearly sixty years ago can cause current identifiable harm. On the plus side, the president also directed the National Archives to digitize the more than 250,000 records already released but heretofore only viewable if you wanted to travel to College Park, MD. Now the Archivist has to come up with a plan to scan them and make them available online. We can hardly wait.
HIGH RISK OCCUPATION: Recent studies have shown that U.S. Air Force fighter pilots and crewmembers are far more likely to suffer from certain types of cancer that other airmen. Defense One reports on a troubling Air Force Research Laboratory study completed this year determining that “compared to their non-fighter peers…fighter pilots and their crew were 29 percent more likely to be diagnosed with testicular cancer; 24 percent more likely to be diagnosed with melanoma; and 23 percent more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer.” Another Congressionally-ordered investigation is looking into the prevalence of cancer among pilots from all the services. The initial Air Force investigation might be a disincentive to some folks to seek or continue aviation careers although as one observer pointed out to us – “by definition fighter pilots think they are immortal anyway – they have to in order to do their jobs.”
LAST SHOT: You almost certainly saw the eerie and evocative night vision image of Major General Chris Donahue of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division as he boarded the last C-17 out of Afghanistan on August 31. Task & Purpose tracked down Army Master Sgt. Alex Burnett who took the iconic photo and find out more about how it came about. Turns out Burnett simply placed his night observation devices (or NODs) in front of his cell phone camera and the rest is history. Burnett had deployed to Afghanistan three times and is the son of an Army special operations aviator who himself had deployed there when Alex was a teenager.
WHO PUT THE DRAB IN THE SKY LAB? Not since some genius came up with the name “Air Bus” for a modern passenger airplane has a more mundane moniker been applied to a flying machine. The Hillsays that Jeff Bezos is planning on launching a commercial space station that officially called “Orbital Reef” but that others have dubbed a “business park” in space. Bezos’ Blue Origin, teaming up with Boeing and Sierra Space, plan to launch by the second half of this decade a kind of zero gravity WeWork, where industrial and commercial customers can rent space in their “mixed use business park.” Initially the business park will only be big enough to host ten people – which puts a kibosh on our first thought – of opening a greasy spoon diner in the business park.
BOOK REPORT: Erica Armstrong Dunbar (a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award) has landed a deal with Simon & Schuster to write A Spy in Richmond, about a woman named Mary Richards Bowser – who was born a slave and ended up serving as a spy for the Union Army. No publication date has been announced.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
MEDIA OPPORTUNITY: JANUARY IN THE CARIBBEAN: The Pentagon is accepting applications from members of news organizations who want to spend a couple weeks in the balmy Caribbean in January. Those selected will jet off from Joint Base Andrews and fly to the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Cuba. They’ll get to spend up to two weeks on site – where pre-trial proceedings are scheduled to take place in the matter of United Staves v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed et al. Media not wishing to make the trip may be able to view the proceedings on closed circuit TV from Fort George G. Meade – but are unlikely to be able to work on their tans from Maryland.
BUY A VET A DRINK: With Veteran’s Day fast approaching, many organizations are finding ways to thank former servicemen and women for their service. And some vets are not shy about seeking a tip of the hat. For example, at the October 24th NFL game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium the Ravens’ radio broadcast was covering a play when analyst Obafemi Ayanbadejo could be heard saying: “What – what, what, what are you doing?!” It turns out a fan was trying to climb into the broadcast booth and she announced: “I’m a veteran and I’m looking for a drink.” You can hear the exchange here. Given the 41-17 thumping the home team suffered, we can understand why she was seeking some liquid comfort.
SHARE SOME LOVE WITH THE DEAD DROP: We aren’t asking for any free drinks, but a news tip to your veteran Dead Drop would be nice. Pour out your hearts in an email and send it to us at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
