NOVEL IDEA: Over the past several years, The Dead Drop, has written on numerous occasions about the exploits of Amaryllis Fox, a colorful former CIA officer (now married to RFK III.) Now, her new book Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA is a great novel, we’re told. Unfortunately, the book it’s billed as non-fiction, but according to former officers we spoke with, there are a lot of scenes that seem highly-unrealistic. Advance readers will tell you the book is beautifully written but full of stuff that is either (a) unlikely or (b) unlikely to have been cleared by the CIA. An early review posted on Amazon.com says she “writes about how, in the most high-stakes meeting imaginable, with a terrorist cell ready to unleash a nuclear bomb, the presence of clove oil in her backpack ending up being the prop that turned the tide.” But despite having an obligation to do so, Fox did not secure clearance by the CIA’s Publication Review Board to publish the book. What is unclear is what, if anything, the CIA is going to do about it. A national security lawyer in D.C. tweeted about it, calling the case a “GUARANTEED WIN by CIA”, and bragging about how many similar cases he’s handled. It must have been good business because he announced in a following tweet that Fox had hired him to represent her. One school of thought is that by going after Fox legally, the CIA will only help her sell more books. But in the past, the government has aggressively taken on authors who skipped their required PRB commitments. An author who called himself “Ishmael Jones,” for example, was ordered by the courts to forfeit all proceeds from his book The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture. If Fox is somehow given a pass, however, other former intelligence community authors are likely to ask themselves: “Why should I submit my books in the future?” As of now, the book is still scheduled to come out October 15.
IT WAS CRAZY, JUST ASK MY LAWYERS: Former CIA officer Joshua Schulte is in the Federal lockup in New York facing charges of having leaked what is called the Vault7 files to Wikileaks. He also faces separate charges for trying to leak additional classified information from jail. In his defense, Schulte recently petitioned the court to appoint new lawyers to represent him so that his current lawyers can testify about his mindset when he was allegedly sending classified info from the hoosegow.
SACHA BARON COHEN GOES UNDERCOVER: With all his experience pretending to be Ali G and Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen probably did not find it much of a stretch to take on a legitimate dramatic role. Cohen stars in a six-part limited series on Netflix called The Spy. Cohen plays Eli Cohen (no relation, we presume) an Israeli Mossad spy who goes undercover as “a member of the Syrian social elite who befriends an influential sheik in order to learn about the Syrian government’s anti-Israeli machinations.” Watch the Dead Drop for a no-kidding review of the series shortly.
AGENT OF INFLUENCE: The Dead Drop has mentioned Jason Hanson a couple of times in recent years. Hanson has turned his seven years as a CIA officer into a business – selling advice on how to escape from the trunk of a car and things like that. Now, we see he as a book out called: Agent of Influence: How to Use Spy Skills to Persuade Anyone, Sell Anything, and Build a Successful Business. Apparently he persuaded the website “Fansided” to interview him. The Q&A includes this gem: “Q: What is your writing process? A: I’m not a real writer. What I mean by that is I write a bunch of novels, but I’m not trained in it.” Gosh Jason, that’s not very persuasive.
10 FUN FACTS ON AREA 51: The website Mental Floss recently provided a list of “10 Out of This World Facts About Area 51.” Among them: It was officially secret until 2013, we don’t know why it is called “area 51,” and the best place for UFO-spotting in the area is a mailbox out in the bester marked “alien.” In a perfect world, we’re sure the editors of Mental Floss would have liked to have an article with “51 Facts” about Area 51 but we suspect ten was about all they could come up with.
ALIENS ARE HOT: (At least space aliens.) Salon reports that best-selling romance novelist Jennifer Armentrout’s latest novel in her “Lux” series features a main character from outer space who can freeze time. about the “Storm Area 51” Facebook page which has inspired millions of earthlings to say they want to visit the secret site. Salon also reports that within days of the “Storm Area 51” mania happening searched for “Area 51” on Pornhub surged from zero to 160,000; the most popular search term being “alien impregnation.”
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
CHICKEN CAPER CLUCK UP: We can always count on the fine folks at Muckrock.com to cook up some interesting morsels for us. They recently provided a declassified document from the CIA’s archives of formerly secret stuff that makes for good reading. The document dates back to the Bi-Centennial year of 1976. There was a lengthy discussion of a portion of the Agency cafeteria known as “the Rendezvous Room.” It was a “fairly quiet, unhurried, and uncrowded atmosphere” valued by employees. But the contractor was complaining because it was operating at a massive deficit averaging $84.16 a day. So, the contractor wanted to shut it down. The Agency fought that – but admitted there were abuses committed in the room. For example, this nugget. One woman “after consuming 12 pieces of chicken, attempted to conceal an additional 5 pieces in her handbag.” After realizing that she was being surveilled, however, the woman returned the chicken to her plate and departed hastily.
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