STATECRAFT LEAKERS? Politico carried a recent story with the headline: “Spy world wary as Biden team keeps leaking Russia intel” which quoted an unnamed “former CIA officer with expertise on Russia” kvetching that the administration is showing too much leg in warning about Putin’s plans for Ukraine. General Michael Hayden, former CIA and NSA Director (with a ton of expertise on Russia) disagrees. Hayden noted that sharing with the public more information derived from intelligence is something he has advocated for years. A current (unnamed) senior intelligence official is also quoted in the piece stressing that the information coming out is not ‘leaks’ saying, “The cost-benefit analysis has so far weighed in favor of sharing as much as feasible given what’s at stake.” Among those who don’t think that too much intelligence is being put out – is Associated Press State Department correspondent Matt Lee who engaged in a very testy exchange with Foggy Bottom spokesman Ned Price last week. Lee demanded proof of the administration’s allegations that the Russians may be planning a false flag operation in Ukraine and was definitely not satisfied with a “we can’t say due to sources and methods” response. You can’t please everyone. (Or these days – almost anyone.)
STARSHIP TROOPERS: Last week’s Dead Drop mentioned that some airline ticket clerks had not heard of the U.S. Space Force. It seems to us like it’s not too big of an ask to not only hear the occasional “thank for your service” – but to also have fellow citizens know that your service exists. But some Space Force Guardians might be setting their expectations too high. Military.com says that Bill Woolf, the head of the “Space Force Association,” (which admittedly we didn’t know existed) is complaining that states that host Space Force bases do not yet offer special vehicle license plates commemorating the fledgling service. These special plates can be useful to show your pride in your service – and, with luck, help you get out of a speeding ticket if the cop who stops you likes vets. But be patient Guardians. We are pretty sure the Army, Navy and Marine Corps were around for a couple hundred years before they got specialty plates.
WATCH THIS SPACE: And while we are talking about the Space Force trying to get recognized – Stars and Stripes reports that the service is still finalizing their dress uniforms. According to “Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force” (which is a nifty title) Roger Towberman – the Guardians are going to take the U.S. Air Force uniform and “space it up a little bit.” If you ask us, some earlier Space Force uniform prototypes – which looked like Star Trek costumes – might have been spaced up a bit too much.
SPEAKING OF GETTING DISSED: Senator Todd Young (R, IN) ran into a bunch of journalists outside a Hill briefing room. Reporter Rebecca Kheel asked him: “You were just in a briefing about the threat, do we have enough to address the threat?” Young asked: “Who are you with?” And Kheel responded: “Military.com.” The Senator replied: “Okay, none of my constituents read it so I don’t feel like answering it.” Kheel said Young later called to apologize. This probably has nothing to do with the fact that Military.com claims to have 130K readers in Indiana.
YESPER, WE WERE RIGHT: In early January, The Dead Drop speculated that former Defense Secretary Mark Esper might be close to resolving his lawsuit against his old workplace for demanding unnecessary redactions of his forthcoming memoir, A Sacred Oath. Now The New York Times reports that Esper’s attorney has dropped the suit since DOD had reversed their decisions about an “overwhelming majority” of the previously blacked out portions of the book. While there still is some irksome black ink, the lawyer said the redactions are not central to the message of the book and so publication is going ahead. In his lawsuit, Esper had said some of the redactions “asked me to not quote former President Trump and others in meetings, to not describe conversations between the former president and me, and to not use certain verbs or nouns when describing historical events.” Those must have been some spicy verbs.
POST GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT: Not every personnel announcement from CNN this past week was about people leaving. On Monday, the network announced that they are bringing on long-time intelligence analyst (and Cipher Brief expert) Beth Sanner as a national security commentator. Sanner was the Deputy Director of National Intelligence and the President’s intelligence briefer during the Trump Administration.
JFK ASSASSINATION SOLVED? There was some ink in publications like the New York Post and The Times of London this past weekend suggesting that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency when he shot President Kennedy. Sez who? This comes from a (relatively) new book called “The JFK Assassination Dissected: An Analysis by Forensic Pathologist Cryil Wecht.” Dr. Wecht, who is 90, says the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman is: ‘bulls—t.” He speculates that the impetus to kill Kennedy might have come from as high as former CIA Director Allen Dulles, who had been fired following the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Dissecting the publication’s listing on Amazon – we found a couple interesting nuggets. The book has a foreword by conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone. Even better, Wecht has a co-author named Dawna Kaufmann who previously worked as a staff writer on “Saturday Night Live.” A past gig on SNL is a good qualification for a lot of positions – but we’re not sure about this hit job.
THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT: The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) released a mobile app called “aCTknowledge” designed “to share unclassified counterterrorism reports, analysis, training resources, and alerts.” The app is now available in the Apple App Store and is soon to be in Google Play. The bad news is that it is currently only open to federal and military NCTC partners. It will be made available to “state, local, tribal, territorial and other partners” in the near future. According to the announcement, you have to register for an account to use the “full functionality of the app.” We checked the Apple App Store and they the App is rated for those 12+ and up.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
ASKING THE MUSICAL QUESTION: Defense News posted a short video commemorating an incident from the Falklands War when the British warship HMS Sheffield was torpedoed and sinking. The crew, waiting for rescue, broke out singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” The headline for the Defense News item was “What do you sing as your ship is going down?” – which got us thinking about sinking singing. Unfortunately, all we could come up with were bad ideas like: “Yellow submarine,” and The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B” with its line: “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.” And a really bad idea would be “Baby Shark.” Send us your suggestions.
TRICK QUESTION? Politifact, which is a fact-checking arm of The Poynter Institute, just looked into the veracity of a rumor floating around on Facebook that “700 CIA agents (sic) were arrested.” Politifact has awarded the rumor “Pants on Fire!” status – and said there is no evidence to support the claim. We trust they would get the same answer if they looked into whether 700 CIA “officers” rather than “agents” had recently been arrested.
IF YOU RUN ACROSS SOME ARRESTING NEWS: Scribble it down in an email and send that nugget to us at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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