WAXING POWER OF DIPLOMACY: It was with a sigh of relief when we read that the U.S. and Russia may have quietly agreed to quit making each other’s lives miserable by slashing the number of employees they allow to work in their respective embassies. We’ve written before about how the two sides have engaged in a (cold) war of kicking each other’s diplomats out of the country. The U.S. diplomatic presence in Russia five years ago, stood at 1,200 personnel and is now around 120. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are reportedly working on finding a way to get things back to normal. That cannot come too soon for some – perhaps no one more than U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan, who reportedly, “learned how to mix solutions to clean the restrooms and also how to work a floor buffer in case staff support further diminished during the pandemic.” Mixing solutions sounds tough – but running a buffer is a skill we expect our diplomats to be able to polish off without much training.
HOW ABOUT A GASTRONOMIC TOUR OF NORTH KOREA? Veteran British intelligence officers may be looking for new places to go for their holidays. According to The Mirror,the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has sent letters to retired spies warning them not to go to China or Russia on holiday for fear of being “aggressively” targeted by hostile intelligence services. The letter reportedly says: “The Chinese service are becoming increasingly proactive and aggressive in approaching former members of HMG (Her Majesty’s Government), including security and intelligence agencies. We advise former staff to avoid travel there for business or other reasons.” If the fact that the Chinese are targeting former intelligence officials comes as a surprise to those officials – they might have been in the wrong line of work in the first place.
WE DON’T THINK THAT WAS WHAT HE MEANT: CIA Director William Burns took part in The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Summit this week, and told interviewer Jerry Seib that the CIA has “a number of different projects focused on cryptocurrency” in the works. This set off a crypto chorus on Twitter, joking (we think) about whether Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were the invention of the Agency. On the other hand, if Bitcoin and the like (a favorite of hackers and international criminals) was an invention of the Agency – well played, CIA.
“IT USED TO TAKE FOREVER, BUT NOW IT HAS BEEN CUT IN HALF” That is an old punchline about how long it takes to get into U.S. intelligence jobs – like those in the CIA. Some say the process for getting a security clearance has improved in recent years but don’t tell that to the unnamed candidate mentioned in ClearanceJobs.com, who reportedly spent six years in security clearance limbo before finally being told – “no thanks.” The aspiring spook first applied in December 2015, and was rejected this month. He wonders if having spent time in Russia as a student was the ultimate cause for getting a “nyet”. You would think, whatever the reason, it wouldn’t take so long to get a decision. Hopefully, while waiting for the hiring call, the candidate found other employment or perhaps invested in cryptocurrency.
BAD TRADECRAFT: The New York City-based Spyscape museum has an online storytelling site called “Tradecraft.” We recently stumbled across an undated posting called, Spy School Confidential: CIA Officers Spill Secrets About ‘The Farm’. The piece contains nuggets from a number of former CIA officers – many of whom are familiar to Cipher Brief readers. The interviewees discuss some of what they learned at the Agency’s clandestine training facility. Tradecraft informs us that the “Farm is believed to be at Camp Peary, Virginia” although none of the former CIA officials say that. What got our attention, however, is that Tradecraft, a site supposedly in the know about how things work, refers to CIA officers as “agents” four times. Now, that’s just bad tradecraft.
AIN’T IT FUNKY? The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, who died 15 years ago, is still making news. In his 2004 autobiography “I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul,” Brown claimed that during the late 1960s, the CIA spied on him. Seems kind of unlikely, since the Agency is not supposed to track Americans. Now, CNN reports that the claim received little notice when it was first made because it was quickly followed in the book by Brown’s claim that "they were able to see me through TV" with "some kind of special reverse X-rays or something." But here’s the odd part: CNN filed a FOIA lawsuit against the CIA in March 2021, and is anticipating a ruling next year. Meanwhile, the Agency followed their normal practice and “Glomared” – saying they could neither confirm nor deny they have any records on Brown. But in October, the Agency reportedly said in a court filing that disclosing whether it has records on Brown could “cause serious damage to U.S. national security.” We assume they are talking about written records – not LPs.
MUST BE BOARD: Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer and another former Trump administration official went to court to try to overturn President Biden’s decision to remove them and 16 other officials from DOD service academies boards of visitors. Spicer and his co-plaintiff, former OMB budget director Russell Vought, argued that there is nothing in the law that says a new president can boot nominees from these boards. The judge in the case, however, (a Trump appointee) essentially said there was nothing in the law that prevents a president from doing that either. We are not sure what special expertise Spicer wants to bring to Annapolis – but hopefully it would not include neon green frilly uniforms to match his outfit on “Dancing with the Stars.”
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
AT EASE: The U.S. Air Force announced a bunch of new uniform regulations and policies this week. Stars and Stripes reports that among them is a rule that allows airmen to put their hands in their pockets and talk on cellphones while walking. If you don’t understand why hands in pockets is a big deal, you haven’t served in the military. If the airman, with one hand on a cellphone and the other in their pocket, encounters a more senior officer while walking, they still have to free up one hand for a salute, however.
WHO OWNS IT NOW? Admiral Daryl Caudle, new head of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, confused us a bit in his change of command speech aboard USS George H. W. Bush. Caudle promised his audience that under his leadership “We will own the Atlantic.” Hope he gets it for a good price.
LOST IN TRANSLATION: Unfortunately, this appears to be not true. Floating around on Twitter is a report that an Army specialist in the Pacific was in trouble for misleading an Army major. According to the account, the major - reportedly a U.S. Army Pacific public officer - asked the soldier who was fluent in Mandarin to translate the command’s motto “One Team.” The specialist supposedly came back with the Mandarin symbols spelling out “Chi Wo Di PiGu” and those symbols were said to have been posted on multiple social media platforms. Turns out they don’t exactly mean “One Team” but translate to something closer to “Eat My A*#.” Sadly, U.S. Army Pacific Public Affairs reports that “this does not seem to be an accurate report.” If it were true, we suspect the Army specialist would have been subject to an ass chewing.
GIVE IT TO US STRAIGHT: If you have any news tips why not send them (in plain English) to The Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
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