OH, SO SOCIAL SEASON: The annual OSS Society dinner was held in Washington on October 21, and by all accounts, a smashing time was had. According to the Washington Times “Each guest received a complimentary crystal martini glass, and the official libation of the night was the “Fighting 69th Regimental Cocktail” consisting of “one-part Irish whiskey and three-parts chilled champagne.” The dinner menu of seared scallops, beef tenderloin and passion fruit savarin all came from recipes created by OSS Veteran Julia Child. The Times says: “the evening ended with the presentation of the William J. Donovan Award to CIA Director Gina Haspel, whose acceptance speech was punctuated by several standing ovations — and moments of hushed, close attention.”
CROWDED ISLAND: A forthcoming study by the Henry Jackson Society think tank, reported in The Times newspaper of London, says that Russia now has “up to 200 intelligence officers in Britain, more than five times as many as during the Cold War.” And that is just the trained intelligence officers. According to the study, there are “at least 500 agents who provide information” to the Russians. Looks like the 23 suspected intelligence officers the Brits threw out of the country after the botched attack on Sergei Skripal only put a small dent in Team Putin. The Times quotes Oleg Gordievsky, the MI6 double agent who ran the KGB station in London in 1985, as saying there were only 39 Soviet intelligence officers in the UK at the time, made up of both KGB and GRU (Russian Military intelligence) assets.
SEARCH ME: Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats expressed some bewilderment at a public event last week, saying that “some companies are reluctant to partner with (the U.S. government) because they believe that it could hurt their brand name.” While Coats didn’t name names, it does not take a seasoned intelligence analyst to figure out that he was talking about Google. That became more clear when he added: “Nevertheless, some of these very same companies turn right around and pursue access and production opportunities in China.” Google has turned up its nose at competing for the Pentagon’s cloud contract – while expressing interest in helping China create a “censored search engine.”
UP CLOSE AND TOO PERSONAL: We learned from the Australian Financial Review that former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell was recently down under consulting with the Magellan Financial Group and making some public remarks. Among the insights that Morell shared with an audience is that having a personal security team follow you around constantly is “fun for about a week.” After that, not so much. Morell joked that on the few occasions he and his wife had an argument, they did it via text message, so as not to air their laundry in front of their security detail. "She always won, because she's faster than me," Morell explained. Morell also told the audience that if he had to lay down a bet today on the 2020 election – he would put his money on President Trump winning a second term.
VOTES FOR VETS? The Military Times has scanned the midterm election ballots across the country and come up with 172 veterans who will be running for Hill seats this year. That number includes some fairly well-known names and races – like Congresswoman Martha McSally, a combat tested former Air Force A-10 pilot who is running for the Senate in Arizona, and others like Matthew Corey a GOP Senate candidate from Connecticut. Corey is a Navy veteran and according to Military Times “has worked as a window washer for the last 29 years.” Well, that would certainly give him a unique perspective on things in Washington.
JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN: Wired.com posted a pretty neat, 9-minute-long video featuring the former chief of disguise at CIA, Jonna Mendez, explaining how Agency officers use disguises to carry out their missions.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
- Flying Chai: Who knew they had such things? The U.S. Air Force has smart coffee cups that plug directly into onboard outlets aboard cargo aircraft to reheat water, coffee, tea, and soup. Sounds pretty neat. But the price tag of $1,280 each has members of Congress, and others, steamed. Apparently, the cup handles break easily. When that happens, airborne baristas have simply been ordering replacement cups. Air Force Times on October 23rd quoted a letter from Senator Chuck Grassley, (R-IA) to Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, complaining that the service has spent roughly $32,000 on 25 coffee cups this year. A day later, Air Force Times added to their report, saying that the USAF has called a temporary halt on buying the gizmos until it gets a better handle on the matter. One possible solution is a 3D-printed replacement handle, which reportedly costs about 50 cents.
- That’s a new one: There is an Indianapolis Colt-related fan site that specializes in conspiracy theories. Why? We don’t know. But last week’s edition touted a theory (we think tongue-in-cheek) that New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was inserted into his job by the CIA. We’re doubtful. If the Agency were THAT good – they would have been more successful with regime change in places like Iran and Iraq.
- FOIA Paranoia: Muckrock.com has a story showing how the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was once used to save FOIA. According to the piece, back in 1983, Rear Admiral Edward Burkhalter, the head of CIA’s Intelligence Community Staff, made a speech before the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association in which he claimed that Russian intelligence was using FOIA to “pull from federal government files, reams of technical data not otherwise available to the public, much of it only recently declassified.” Well someone followed up by FOIA-ing copies of requests fielded by Soviet agents. That request eventually went to court and eventually the government was forced to admit that it was “unable to recover a single FOIA request by the Soviet Union and only a single request by the Polish Embassy for a memorandum on Agency-Academic relations.”
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
