CRUZ TO NOWHERE: Last week’s Dead Drop noted that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence unanimously approved Ambassador Bill Burns’ nomination to be the next Director of the CIA. At the time, it appeared the full Senate would endorse that soon. “Not so fast” says Senator Ted Cruz (R) Cancun, who took advantage of the power that Senators have allowing them to block nominations going to the floor. Cruz took to Twitter to explain that he would “…release my hold when the Biden admin meets its legal obligation to report and sanction the ships and companies building Putin’s pipeline.” What does the Nord Stream 2 pipeline have to do with Burns? Beats us.
GETTING INTO THE GAME: The Defense Department has been earning some negative ink lately about some of their former (and perhaps current) personnel having been involved in the January 6th unpleasantness on Capitol Hill and related matters. Apparently, the State Department didn’t want to be left out and have essentially said: “Hold my beer” (or perhaps “Hold my martini” would be more appropriate.) Diplopundit counted three Foggybottom denizens who have run afoul of the law lately. A Trump administration political appointee to State (with a TS security clearance) was recently arrested for taking part in the January 6th insurrection. In a court appearance, he complained to the Judge about the cockroaches in his detention cell but remains incarcerated. A career State official was reportedly removed from his role as a diplomatic security official in Afghanistan after declaring on Facebook that the November 2020 election meant “death to America” and making racist comments about then Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. And then there was a foreign service officer who reportedly may be under investigation for posting on social media sites that white people face “elimination,” and complaining about the Black Lives Matter movement and kvetching that “Jews killed Christ.”
COMPARED TO WHOM? A poll conducted by the Ronald Reagan Institute showed a significant drop in the number of Americans who had “a great deal of trust and confidence” in the military. Only 56 percent of those polled would sign up for that sentiment in February compared to 70 percent in 2018. Recent (unfounded) speculation about martial law and the like probably did not help the numbers. The silver lining for the military is that at least they are above 50 percent and are held in greater esteem these days than law enforcement (39 percent), public education (21 percent) and Congress (10 percent.)
“I REQUIRE YOU TO COME IN WITH THE SHERRY” – That is a quote from Alastair Denniston, then-head of Bletchley Park, the British WWII code-breaking outfit. A previously classified diary was just released by GCHQ. Denniston was chuffed (as they say) about the impending arrival of a team of Americans. The meeting (perhaps due to the sherry) was a success and was the precursor of the intelligence sharing alliance eventually known as “Five Eyes.” BBC correspondent (and Cipher Brief fav) Gordon Corera has all the details in this piece on BBC.COM.
LOOSE-LIPPED LAWYER: You may remember the tragic incident in August 2018, when American Anne Sacoolas temporarily forgot that she was in the UK, and started driving on the wrong side of the road. She collided with a 19-year-old motorcyclist, Harry Dunn, who later died. Sacoolas was quickly spirited out of the country and returned to the U.S. The American government said she had diplomatic immunity from prosecution. Dunn’s family is now suing her in civil court in the U.S. for wrongful death. According to BBC.com, in a hearing last month, Sacoolas’ lawyer, John McGavin, said that she worked for a US “intelligence agency” and that had been “a factor” in her decision to leave the UK after the accident. Then moments later, McGavin corrected himself saying she worked for the State Department.
ILLUSTRATING THEIR POINTS: The book, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, by retired Admiral (and Cipher Brief expert) Jim Stavridis and novelist and former Marine, Elliot Ackerman, has been getting a lot of attention. The book was favorably reviewed in The Cipher Brief on Tuesday – and in many other outlets as well. The book imagines a confrontation between the U.S. and China in the year 2034. Among the appearances the authors have made promoting their novel is a light-hearted 20-minute video done by Wired.com in which the two authors show scenes from various well-known movies and tv shows that mirror themes in their book – and in what is called a “technique critique,” they point out how close (or not) Hollywood has come to real world accuracy in national defense. Look for Stavridis to be interviewed soon for the State Secrets Podcast.
MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE: That’s the name of a forthcoming flick being directed by Guy Ritchie who is teaming up with producer Jerry Bruckheimer (of “Top Gun” fame) to make a movie about Britain’s WWII Special Operations Executive (SOE.) The concept behind the SOE was once explained by Winston Churchill who said: “It isn’t only the good boys who help to win wars,” adding “It is the sneaks and the stinkers as well.” No word on the cast or when the movie might be out. We think “Sneaks and Stinkers” would have been a good title too.
WHO COULD PREDICT THIS? The publicity materials that his publisher put out for author Joel Rosenberg’s latest book “The Beirut Protocol” says that he has been dubbed “a modern-day Nostradamus” because of his ability to predict future world events in his thrillers. Taking a shot at predictions ourselves – we foresee that people who know anything about the CIA, when they noticed that the book’s hero is referred to as “Special Agent Marcus Ryker” a stellar CIA operative, will put the book down and not pick it up again.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
PUT DOWN THE PHONE AND BACK AWAY: If you have ever visited any part of the intelligence community, you know that they really don’t like it when people try to bring their cell phones into the agencies. Mirroring that, Travis Cain, a 34-year-old Longview, TX man who claimed to be a CIA operative, is also not a fan of phones. According to police, Cain walked into a meeting at the “World of Wonders Museum” in Longview, claimed to be an employee of the CIA and confiscated everyone’s phones. Cain was reportedly wearing a tactical vest and pants and sporting an empty pistol holster. (The IC hates people bringing guns in, too.) Cain put the seized phones into what he described as a “faraday bag” to block signals from getting out. After checking and confirming that Cain is not a federal employee, local officials blocked him from getting out by putting him in the county jail.
NOT THE SAME OLD GRIND: You can learn lots of stuff on the internet – some of it true. Recently we learned from the U.S. Naval Institute that March 6th was National Dentist Day. That alone would not be worthy of mention, but they added that following World War II, Hideki Tojo was imprisoned, and a Navy dentist fitted him with dentures. The doc secretly drilled a Morse code message: “Remember Pearl Harbor” into the choppers. Alas, word got out about the prank and the dentist quickly retrieved the false teeth and removed the message with a grinding stone. Tojo reportedly never knew about the hidden message – but is said to have complained after the dots and dashes were removed that his dentures didn’t fit as well as before.
DON’T WORRY, WE WON’T BITE: If you have any news we can chew on, just send your tips to us at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com. Morse code not required.
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