HOW I MISSPENT MY SUMMER VACATION: Earlier this month, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) chairman Devin Nunes undertook a secret mission. According to The Atlantic, Nunes traveled to London to dig up dirt on former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. But the chairman’s efforts to build a dossier on Steele were dashed when three different British intel outfits (MI5, MI6 and GCHQ) turned down requests for meetings. Nunes did score a meeting with the U.K.’s deputy national security adviser, Madeleine Alessandri, but no one from the intel services wanted to dish dirt for Nunes’ report on Steele. While the chairman may have been surprised and disappointed by the chilly reception on the other side of the pond, a veteran U.S. intelligence official tells The Dead Drop it was entirely predictable that the U.K. intel services would want nothing to do with a U.S. legislator wanting to investigate a British citizen. This “special relationship” stuff only goes so far. Hopefully Nunes' taxpayer-funded trans-Atlantic excursion wasn’t a complete bust. Perhaps he was able to take in a play while in London.
DON’T YOU TRUST MY NEIGHBOR: The former head of German intelligence, August Hanning, warned last week that western intelligence services should not share secrets with the government of Austria. Hanning, who formerly headed the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence arm, cited close links that have developed between senior Austrian government ministers and Russia as a reason for playing keep away. The Washington Post reported last week that other foreign intelligence services had already turned off the tap of secret information flowing to Vienna. What evidence is there that Russia is cozying up to Austria? Well, there is that video of Vladimir Putin gazing longingly into the eyes of Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl, as he danced with her at her wedding.
DON’T YOU SNATCH MY PRISONER: The usually unreliable Sputnik News reports that an Al Qaeda alumni named Mounir al-Motassadeq, who has spent the last 15 years in a German jail after being convicted of helping plot the 9-11 attacks, is about to finish his sentence and be sent home to Morocco. But Sputnik (citing German media) says he will be deporting using a chartered plane so that the CIA cannot 'intercept' him enroute and detain him for questioning.
IRONY IS DEAD: That same Sputnik News (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Putin Incorporated) attacked the newly re-branded U.S. Agency for Global Media (formerly the Broadcasting Board of Governors) for being propagandists and a CIA front. The “USAGM” (which is almost as clunky a name as the “BBG”) oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Liberty, Radio Marti etc. Anchoring their criticism, Sputnik cites documents that when Radio Free Europe was set up in the late 1940s (to combat the Soviet threat – although Sputnik is silent on that point) – the CIA’s forerunner, the OSS, proposed hiring ex-Nazis to assist in the effort.
IF YOU CAN’T SAY SOMETHING NICE – J. EDGAR HOOVER WAS ALL EARS: Mining the FOIA files again, the folks at Muckrock.com have come up with some notes from 1950, when Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who had just stepped down as the first Director of Central Intelligence, reached out to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to thank him for his past support and “confidentially advise the Director of various circumstances surrounding CIA’s ‘frequent blundering.’” The two reportedly met and made nice. Following that meeting, another FBI official, D. M. Ladd, wrote Hoover saying that after Hillenkoetter left Hoover’s office, the Admiral chatted with other FBI officials and talked about the new Deputy Director of the CIA, William Jackson’s “apparent stupidity” saying he should be replaced soon. (A CIA publication shows us Jackson lasted about ten months in the job and was succeeded by Allen W. Dulles who eventually moved up to the top job.) Ladd’s memo also added that Hillenkoetter was “relieved to know that (Hoover) fully “knew the score” about the blundering and corruption of OSS and certain elements of CIA.”
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
Dungeon World: Look at it as the Magic Kingdom without Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, or Mickey and Minnie. Some enterprising folks in Thailand are opening an abandoned U.S. military facility - that local residents think might have once been a CIA “black site” - as a new tourist attraction. Never mind that Thai military officials insist that the former U.S. Army 7th Radio Research Field Station was never used for that purpose, rumors to the contrary are enough to justify a small museum. The Bangkok Post says the Thai Army is opening up the compound specifically to demonstrate that it was NOT a secret prison. If this takes off, we’re thinking of opening a B&B and advertising it as “George Washington Did NOT Sleep Here.”
Eye Spy: Man, there must be a lot of money in video surveillance. Two weeks ago, The Dead Drop told you about a $25,000 a month contract that PR firm Burson-Marsteller landed representing “Hikvision” – the Chinese maker of video surveillance systems. Apparently, some folks have been worried that the security cameras used in U.S. airports, schools, businesses and prisons – might also be phoning home and sending data back to Beijing. Well, this week we learned that, in addition to Burson-Marsteller, Hikvision has added an outfit called “Mercury Public Affairs” to their communications team – and, according to O’Dwyer’s (a PR and marketing trade publication) Mercury is pulling down $840,000 for a year’s worth of spin and lobbying on behalf of Hikvision. For the math challenged, combine the two outfits and that comes to over $1 million a year for Hikvision spin. If “Mercury Public Affairs” sounds familiar, the outfit reportedly worked with Paul Manafort on behalf of the Putin-friendly president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.
Jack Ryan/PC: Last week, we told you that the techie website C/NET was not impressed with the forthcoming streaming Amazon series “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” which stars John Krasinski and debuts August 31. Well, this week PC magazine offers their view on the drama. While not giving an explicit thumbs up or down – PC sought out the showrunners Graham Roland and Carlton Cuse to find out how they sought to ground the show in realism. The answer: research. What were their biggest revelations after talking to current and former Agency officers? “No cell phones inside CIA HQ. It's not allowed and every show or movie gets this wrong. And people who work for the CIA are NOT called agents. Agents work at the FBI. CIA employees are analysts, case officers, assets, or operators, but NEVER agents.”
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.