STATE OF DISARRAY: For some reason, the number of Americans aspiring to a career as a diplomat is plunging. According to NBC News, between October 2017 and October 2018, only 8,685 people took the Foreign Service Officer Test – a 22-percent decline from the previous year. The drop in numbers is not a crisis – since only 300 people get in every year. But perhaps the folks at Foggy Bottom won’t be able to be quite as selective if the trend continues.
BUT THERE IS ROOM AT THE TOP: One good way to get into the State Department is to have a lot of money – and donate some of it to the president’s election campaign. Salon.com says that according to academic research from the Duke Law Journal – there is a record number of ambassadors being appointed in this administration with zero background in the foreign service. Less than 59 percent of nominees in this administration are experienced diplomats. The lowest percentage during the past five presidencies was 68 percent. Those appointed recently are also less likely to know the language of the country to which they are posted, than at any time in the past 40 years. But what this crowd lack in language and diplomatic skills, they make up in spare cash. On average, those appointed as a U.S. ambassador under President Trump contributed $96,900 to the president’s election campaign. It pays to know people.
AND YOU THOUGHT MARIA BUTINA WAS WELL-CONNECTED: Sure, the Russian access agent may have done a good job ingratiating herself with the NRA et al, but Butina is apparently a novice networker compared to Yelizaveta Peskova, the 21-year-old daughter of chief Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Ms. Peskova has landed an intern job with a French member of the European Parliament – someone who coincidentally has been supportive of the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Peskova is hardly a secret agent – she has nearly 80,000 followers on Instagram on which she describes a glamorous lifestyle and says she is based in Moscow, Paris and Brussels.
JIMINY CREEK-IT: Julia Davis, Russian media watcher extraordinaire, tweeted out this week that Dmitry Kiselyov, the host of a program on Russian State TV, was touting the benefits of Moscow’s new Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile. The newest arrow in the Russian quiver he says “won’t allow Americans to sit it out across the ocean.” To drive home the point, Kiselyov named potential targets including some obvious ones like the Pentagon and Camp David. And he threw in places like Fort Richie, Maryland and McClellan AFB in California. Wait. It gets weirder. He also threw in “Jim Creek.” According to Military Times, Fort Ritchie closed in 1998 and McClellan AFB has been out of use since 2001. “Jim Creek,” in case you are not familiar with it – is a U.S. Navy very-low frequency radio transmission facility in Washington state, used for communicating with submarines at sea.
HOLLY-WOULDN’T: This year's Oscars ceremony sparked lots of commentary (as it always does) as savvy communicators around the globe try to hijack the buzz a bit. That included the CIA’s social media team, who sent out a bunch of tweets during the award show tied to the fictional superhero “Black Panther.” The Agency asked its 2.5 million twitter followers questions like what fictional Wakandan technology they would like to see in the real world, or whether they thought “vibranium” is real. According to ABCNEWS.COM, not every reader was amused. “Too much time on your hands apparently,” one person responded. And while the biggest acceptance speech buzz came from Spike Lee’s remarks – which drew a rebuke the next morning from President Trump – Cipher Brief readers may have noticed the comments of Boots Riley, who accepted an Independent Spirit Award for “Best First Feature.” Mr. Riley, who, on Twitter, claims to be a “communist revolutionary” used his acceptance speech to say: “The CIA is trying to have a coup in Venezuela. I haven't been watching since I've been here, so they might be doing it right now. And we should all be putting our voices out to stop the U.S. from having regime change for oil in Venezuela.”
GOOGLE OOPS: In a move which will probably endear them to the Chinese government, Google Earth recently updated their online platform and revealed, in great detail, three-dimensional renditions of sensitive military facilities in Taiwan. ZDNET.COM says Patriot missile bases were rendered crystal clear with building structures and the locations of missile launchers readily identifiable. No doubt intelligence officials on the mainland have their own imagery that reveals the same detail – but now, thanks to Google, everyone on the planet can pinpoint the sites too.
MICROSOFT-IES: Meanwhile some woke folks at Microsoft have called on their company to cancel a $480 million contract to provide the U.S. Army with augmented reality headsets for training because they “do not want to become war profiteers.” Media accounts say more than 50 Microsoft employees signed a letter saying that they did not sign up to develop weapons, and demand a say in how their work is used. We recommend that Microsoft also give back all the money they made selling PowerPoint to the military – because a lot of the presentations created with their software are deadly, too.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
YOUR NAVY AT WORK: In the very first Dead Drop, more than three and a half years ago, we told you about then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who had made it his goal to throw out the first pitch at every stadium in major league baseball. We don’t know if that mission was accomplished before the end of the Obama administration – but we see that Mabus’ successors in the Trump administration continue their work in the field of baseball. At the Cleveland Indians spring training camp in Arizona, manager Terry “Tito” Francona christened a new “SwinEx” hydrotherapy spa. The facility was dubbed the “USS Tito” and just to make it official, the current Under Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly was on hand for the christening.
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
