THE CABINET OF SECRETS: President Joe Biden surprised a lot of people last Friday, when he announced that he had elevated CIA Director Bill Burns to cabinet-level status. Biden praised Burns for giving him “…clear, straightforward analysis that prioritizes the safety and security of the American people, reflecting the integral role the CIA plays in our national security decision-making at this critical time.” While the move was unexpected, it was well received since Burns is one of the most widely-respected members of the administration – both in the U.S. and internationally. As near as we can determine, only three previous CIA directors (William Casey during the Reagan administration, John Deutch, and George Tenet in the Clinton administration) held cabinet rank. Significantly, no CIA leader has had that status following the creation of the position of Director of National Intelligence. So the change means that now, both Burns and DNI Avril Haines get a seat at the cabinet table. The Intelligence Community will be represented in force. While spies tell us that being given cabinet status is largely honorific, Burns gets to attend more meetings now. That sounds like a win. But here’s an usual perk: when he leaves his position, he’ll also have the opportunity to purchase (at his own expense) the chair he will use in the cabinet room. We understand the first official to start the practice of buying their cabinet chair was Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Since Kissinger is still going strong, he clearly has gotten a lot of use out of it. For purely personal reasons, Burns status as a cabinet official is yet another reason why we're guessing The Cipher Brief is looking forward to welcoming him as the opening speaker at The Cipher Brief Threat Conference this year.
OK, WE WERE WRONG ABOUT BEING WRONG: Back in April, we told you that everyone (including The Dead Drop) was predicting that Admiral Lisa Franchetti was likely to be the first woman nominated to be Chief of Naval Operations (and the first female member of the JCS). And then, in mid-June, word came out that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had recommended to President Biden that Admiral Samuel Paparo, the current head of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, be selected to be CNO. Generally, when SECDEF’s recommend admirals (and generals) for slots, the POTUS says aye-aye. But last Friday, the White House announced that we were right all along (well, they didn’t phrase it that way) but the President indicated his intention to nominate Franchetti for the CNO job. The consolation prize for Paparo is being nominated to take over the joint Indo-Pacific Command. So, if confirmed, he gets to stay in Hawaii for another tour and Franchetti gets another gig in the Pentagon. Reasonable people might debate over which officer got the best deal. Of course, all of this depends on Senate confirmation as Senator Tommy Tuberville (R, Al) continues to hold the promotion process for all flag and general officers hostage. Honestly, couldn’t the good senator find a smarter way to govern? Just askin’.
The Cipher Brief Threat Conference is taking place October 7-10 in Sea Island, Georgia. This is the nation’s premiere conference for professionals working in the field of national security and cybersecurity. Space is limited. Apply today for your seat at the table.
GOOD POINT SENATOR! There have been a lot of emotional arguments about DOD’s policy regarding granting leave and paying travel costs for service members and dependents who are unable to obtain abortion services because of the laws in the states where they may be serving. (Remember that many states are taking away that right.) One of the arguments against that policy was put forward by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark), a veteran himself. Cotton said he was against using taxpayer funds for this purpose because ‘we don’t even pay for travel expenses for troops’ “when they have a parent die or a sibling die, or a beloved grandparent dies.” Normally, at The Cipher Brief, we try to stay out of disputes like this one – but inspired by Cotton’s comments – we have decided to alter that policy and take a stance. Therefore, we recommend to DOD that they change their policy. Going forward, we recommend the Pentagon also pay travel costs for troops who lose a loved one while deployed or assigned away from home. How about that?
VICE REVERSAL: The U.S. Air Force is dropping the word “Vice” from the title of many of its number twos. What does that mean? It means “Vice commanders” will now be called “deputy commanders” – except in the case of the service Vice Chief – who will maintain a vice-like hold on that title. Air Force Chief of Staff, General C.Q. Brown, announced the move in a memo last week, saying it “is one of the several changes in motion to ensure we can execute our missions to ‘Fly, Fight, and Win…Airpower Anytime, Anywhere,” Exactly how changing “vice” to “deputy” achieves that, went unexplained. The move is somewhat reminiscent of when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed the titles of some unified commands a couple decades ago from “Commander in Chief” to just “Commander.” He did so, he said because there was only one “commander in chief” and that person was in the White House. Rumsfeld left office before anyone pointed out that the military also had positions labeled as “President of the National War College” or president of the garden club, etc.
WERE ALL THE WINDOWS TAKEN? Russian tech mogul and gamer Anton Andreyevich Cherepennikov, 40, was found dead in his Moscow office recently. Initially, the cause of death was said to be cardiac arrest, but some Russian media are claiming their sources say he overdosed on “medical gas.” Cherepennikov was the founder of a company that helped build a surveillance network. One news outlet claimed he was “owner of most systems for wiretapping phones and storing Internet traffic in Russia.” He had previously been on the U.S. sanctions list. One wonders what he might have learned in that wiretapping process that gave Kremlin officials gas.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
HONEST TO A FAULT: CNN Pentagon correspondent Haley Britzky tweeted last week, (they were still called tweets back then) that the CIA’s associate director for military affairs, USAF Lieutenant General Dan Caine, ended his opening remarks at the National Guard’s State Partnership Program conference by saying “I’d be happy to take some questions and hopefully not get fired.” When last we checked – Caine still had his job.
SURE, WE BELIEVE THAT: The Daily Star tabloid says that former U.S. Marine Michael Herrera, who previously claimed that his unit had stumbled across a secret military rendezvous with an alien spacecraft in Indonesia in 2009, now says he is being threatened by “men in black.” Apparently, Herrera thinks the threat is coming not from aliens – but from U.S. military personnel who are unhappy with him talking about extraterrestrials. He says black helicopters keep buzzing his house and he fears he may be killed by sinister forces. The claim came the same week that the House Oversight subcommittee on national security held open hearings to “explore firsthand accounts of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and assess the federal government’s transparency.” From what we can tell, nothing was resolved in that session. Subsequent hearings may explore the possibility of the existence of intelligent life in Congress.
HARD TO BELIEVE: You’d think that the worst day of the war for propagandist and fundraiser Russian Mikhail Luchin would have been last March. That was when Ukrainian hacktivists somehow stole his credit card number and used the money that he had earmarked to buy Chinese drones for his Kremlin comrades to instead order and ship about $25,000 worth of sex toys. Luchin has become the butt of a lot of jokes since then. But things got worse for him last week, when he was reportedly commanding a UAV platoon near Krasnogorovka in eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainians dropped something more deadly on him than sex toys. He has subsequently been reported “demilitarized.”
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