WHAT HAPPENED TO VLAD: CIA Director Bill Burns turned up last week for The Cipher Brief Threat Conference in Sea Island, GA. As you may know, Sea Island was the site of the 2004 G8 summit. Yep, G8 – (as opposed to G7 today) back when Russia and Putin were still somewhat friendly with the West and invited to the get togethers. Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly, who interviewed Burns onstage during the conference, showed a photo from the 2004 summit of all of the G8 members at the time walking along the beach and asked the director, “What happened to Vladimir Putin?” Burns, (who as it turns out, has a somewhat wicked sense of humor) responded “Well, he's gotten a little puffier since that picture,” and went on to say, “ I think - while I'm not a fatalist - about the way in which US-Russian relations have worsened, certainly since that photo.” It turns out the director had a few other good one-liners and secrets to share. You can see the full interview on The Cipher Brief’s YouTube channel (and if you subscribe while you’re there, you’ll get alerts for the great new content TCB produces).
BELATED BIRTHDAY: We forgot to send a card to Vladimir Putin on the occasion of his 72nd birthday on Monday. But apparently, we were not alone. Ukrainian observer Anton Gerashchenko noted on X that he could find only 12 world leaders who wished Vlad many happy returns this year. They included Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Bellarus’ Alexandr Lukashenko, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Quite a crowd of admirers. Putin purportedly used to get lots more acknowledgement commemorating his annual trips around the sun – but his “special military activity” in Ukraine seems to have damped the enthusiasm of many fellow world leaders.
BELATED ANNIVERSARY: Somehow, we missed the fact that Friday, October 5, was “James Bond Day.” Marking 62 years since the premiere of the first Bond film, Dr. No. We are going to have to make a note on our calendar to pay special attention in 2027 when the film franchise will be old enough to qualify for Social Security. This year though, Prime Video was celebrating early by making all 25 of the Bond films available for streaming. The folks at TV Insider went to the trouble of listing all 25 films ranked in ascending order by their Rotten Tomatoes scores. You will most likely disagree with some of the flicks deemed best – and worst in the Tomato patch. But most surprising to us was how many of the Bond films we had completely forgotten. Coming in dead last on the Bond 25 list was the 1985 clunker – “A View to A Kill” starring Roger Moore. The critics consensus was that it was “Absurd even by Bond standards” and “weighted down by campy jokes and a noticeable lack of energy.” Another one we had forgotten was #18, the 2015 “Spectre” with Daniel Craig in the Bond role. Some of the Bond films may have had more memorable theme songs than plots – like #15 “Live and Let Die” The film that comes in in first place with Rotten Tomatoes (and we’d argue in the theme song competition was “Goldfinger.” If you have a different personal favorite as 007’s 001st best film – let us know.
IN LOO OF INTELLIGENCE: Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson published a new book this week called Unleashed. Some explosive allegations leaked early, however. Among them, the claim that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have planted a listening device in Johnson’s office bathroom during a 2017 visit. This sparked lots colorful of headlines – such as: “Bibi Bugged My Bathroom” and “Ex-UK PM claims bug found in toilet after Netanyahu ‘visit’” in the Kremlin-run RT. Exactly why the Israelis would want to eavesdrop on Johnson’s WC, and why Bibi would be the one bearing the bug – have so far gone unanswered. At least Johnson can rest easy that Netanyahu didn’t leave a pager behind.
FSB #2 ID’d: The Kyiv Independent has uncovered some heretofore hidden facts about Sergey Korolev, the deputy head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB.) While his name has (sort of) been known before – the Independent has figured out that sanctions levied against Korolev by the European Union and others may have been compromised because the West has been working with faulty spellings of his first and last names, and incorrect dates of birth. And the Russian official has been passing around an “official” photo of himself – which turns out to be of someone else. But the Kyiv publication found what they think is a photo of the real Korolev and says it is using archival data to track his professional career. Looks like an excellent bit of sleuthing.
MYSTERIES OF THE DEEP: Apparently, we still haven’t gotten to the bottom of the suspicious maritime death of fugitive Russian spywhale Hvaldimir whose body was found in Norwegian waters on August 31. There were reports that the whale had been shot to death – but an autopsy of the beluga showed those reports to be bogus. New speculation is that Hvladimir may have died of an infection, or it might have been something he ate. Who among us hasn’t run into some bad sea food at one time or another? We are still ready to believe that Team Putin had some animus for the animal which according to some sources, had been trained to conduct underwater surveillance. Hvladimir had been on the run since 2019.
THE RESTLESS WAVE: Cipher Brief Expert Admiral Jim Stavridis is on the move this week, doing a lot of press for his new book, The Restless Wave, an historical novel about the sea, love, war and leadership. While it’s not the Admiral’s first novel, it is the first time he’s sailed solo into the fiction world. The admiral popped in virtually to this year’s Cipher Brief Threat Conference where CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly had a surprise for the audience: signed copied of the book. For those who weren’t in the room when it happened, Kelly also announced that Stavridis will be the guest author for The Cipher Brief’s very first lunchtime book club meeting on October 22, so there’s still time to grab a copy and join the book club virtually to go deep on the storyline with the author. Save your seat today.
THE BUTLER DID IT: We hear that a former CIA officer named Brittany Butler has landed a book deal to publish a novel called The Patriots Daughter which is described as a thriller about a young American woman recruited by the CIA to infiltrate the Russian SVR. The heroine’s motive is to protect U.S. democracy – but she has to deal with her mother’s past as a Russian double agent. The publisher is “Crooked Lane” but no publication date was released. This is not Butler’s first novel – she previously wrote The Syndicate Spy.
SHAMELESS (Self-promotion): A look at what's going on behind-the-scenes at The Cipher Brief:
NOT JUST THE CIA DIRECTOR: This year's Cipher Brief Threat Conference welcomed a literal 'Who's Who' of the national security world, including leaders from the private sector. Also taking the stage this year: NSA Director General Timothy Haugh, former PDDNI The Hon. Susan Gordon, former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Michael Vickers, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Doug Lute, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Intelligence, Shannon Corless, Acting Chief of the National Intelligence Council Michael Collins, Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency VADM Frank Whitworth, Director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency David Cattler and about three dozen others. It was quite literally the best gathering of public, private and former government leaders anywhere. Request your seat for next year now, cause the conference will absolutely sell out early.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
BARREL OF FUN: The military services have lots of rather interesting traditions that the general public rarely hears about. For example – thanks to the folks at Task & Purpose, we recently learned that some Army unit bid a fond farewell to a tank platoon leader by duct taping and cargo strapping him to the barrel of an M1 Abrams. The story comes with a photo in case you have trouble picturing the platoon leader’s predicament. Getting such treatment we are told is considered a high complement. As far as we know, the platoon members eventually let their leader go on to his next assignment. If they really wanted him to stick around – they might have used super glue.
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