GUTS OR NUTS? Late last week, NBC News got their hands on a memo sent by four-star Air Force General Mike Minihan to his subordinates telling them that his “gut” tells him that the U.S. will go to war with China in 2025. Minihan, in charge of the Air Mobility Command which handles transportation and refueling, sounded pretty bellicose in the missive. The former C-130 pilot ordered all his personnel to “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most. Aim for the head.” He also suggested that his troops consider getting their personal affairs in order. The Air Force confirmed that the note was legit but said it did not represent the service’s views on China. At last report, Minihan was still in his job, despite firing a clip into his foot at less than a 7-meter range. Not everyone thinks he should be. For example, retired four-star Army general Barry McCaffrey tweeted that “This General officer needs to be placed on terminal leave. Bad judgment. Cowboy aggression.” The last time we recall a similar self-own by a senior officer was in 1990, during the run up to Desert Storm when Air Force Chief of Staff General Mike Dugan took several reporters with him on a flight from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia when the U.S. was still trying to build a coalition to oust Iraq from Kuwait. Dugan told the reporters that the only way to do so was to “decapitate” senior Iraqi leadership and advocated bombing Saddam Hussein, his family and his mistresses. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney fired Dugan for poor judgment a day or two later. Dugan had been in his job for about two months at the time.
SHOW AND DON’T TELL: If you think senior officials misplacing classified documents is a new thing, Associated Press reminds us that it is not so. Turns out back in 1984, a 13-year-old girl took a stack of classified papers to her eighth-grade class for show and tell. Kristin Preble’s dad reportedly found them in his Cleveland hotel room several years earlier and kept them as a souvenir. Apparently, the papers were intended to be used by President Jimmy Carter and his team to prepare for a 1980 presidential debate with Ronald Reagan. Some of the documents went missing and ended up in the hands of Reagan’s team. But another 4-inch-thick stack of documents were apparently left behind in a hotel by Carter press secretary Jody Powell and found by Kristin’s dad a few days later. Years later, when Kristin took the docs to school, her teacher ratted her out to the FBI, but no special counsel was invoked.
KOMPROMAT THE MOVIE: We learned from Military.com that there is a French-made movie called “Kompromat” that is currently streaming. It’s about a French diplomat serving in Russia who is framed, arrested and imprisoned by the FSB. The thriller is now available for rent on Prime Video and according to IMDB, the movie was inspired by a true story about a French citizen (who was not a diplomat) who wrote a book about his ordeal. The filmmaker, it seems, elected not to acquire the rights to the book and instead fictionalized the story and turned it into an action thriller. If true – that seems kinda like a cheesy play by the French filmmakers. Watch the trailer and see what you think.
RT, PHONE HOME: Remember RT, the Putin-powered propaganda arm formerly known as “Russia Today”? It still exists elsewhere but the U.S. version went belly up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and after it was forced to register as a foreign agent. According to AXIOS, some of their former US employees are now opening a new media venture at the site of RT’s old Washington, DC operation. The new outfit is called GlobalTek LLC. They reportedly plan to offer broadcast services to clients but not produce their own stuff. As far as we know, they have not registered as a foreign agent – and may not have ties to Russia…today.
VERY LOOSELY BASED ON A REAL PROGRAM: There is a new TV series in production for Paramount+ called “Lioness.” It is said to be about a young female Marine who “loses her children, her lover and her freedom when she is framed for fraud committed by her late husband.” As a result, she becomes a prime recruit for the CIA (cause why not?) and is tasked with befriending the daughter of a drug kingpin. Taylor Sheridan, the showrunner for “Yellowstone” is behind the series. IMDB says Lioness is based on a “real-life CIA program” which, we are going to guess is kind of a stretch. Among those in the cast are Nicole Kidman who plays the woman’s senior supervisor at CIA, Morgan Freeman as the Secretary of State and others. No word on when it will first air or stream or whatever TV shows do these days.
EVERYBODY IS MAKING VIDEOS AND PODCASTS: Really. And they run the gamut. The Dead Drop has told you several times in the past, about former CIA officer Jason Hanson. We first heard of him in 2016, when he had a show at a Las Vegas hotel and casino called “Spy, Escape and Evasion.” Then he put a book out about how to use spy skills to “Persuade Anyone, Sell, Anything, and Build a Successful Business.” Perhaps writing books and putting on shows is too time consuming. We noticed that Hanson is now posting short YouTube videos including a 5-minute episode titled “I Met 2 Hookers in an Elevator and Here’s What Happened!” (Spoiler alert: nothing.) But we are assured that if one of the ladies of the evening had tried anything funny, they would have been in a world of hurt. Then, we discovered Andrew Bustamante who says he is an “ex-CIA Covert Intel Officer” and the founder of “EverydaySpy.” He has posted a 20-minute video titled “How to Become Irresistible” and provides “the ultimate life HACK to capture and keep someone's attention any time you want it. This is your chance to get into the mind of every client, customer, and date you want to win-over now and for the rest of your life.” (Warning: do not use Bustamante’s technique when on an elevator with hookers.) On the other end of the spectrum from Hanson and Bustamante’s short bursts is a video/podcast called the Shawn Ryan Show which recently featured a two-part discussion with Bob “Ninja” Poras discussing what goes on inside the CIA’s Global Response Staff. We’d like to tell you what was discussed – but the two segments combined come in at over eight hours in length. From what we sampled – it appears to be almost entirely the show host and Poras sitting in a very nice bar while Ninja tells war stories. We are sure they are great stories – but eight hours? Speaking of podcasts – have we told you about The Cipher Brief’s menu of news you can use? None approach eight hours in length – but listen to them and you will be irresistible and will have lots of fun facts to share with interesting people you meet in the elevator.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
SICK BURN: The Russian news organizations The Insider reports that not every part of the motherland’s economy is in the toilet due to Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. They say that Russian funeral services businesses are experiencing an unprecedented boom – thanks, in part to state support. Initially, crematoriums had difficulty keeping up as a result of certain supplies being sanctioned – but apparently, they have overcome that problem and are now operating at “an unprecedented speed.”
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