UNIMPEACHABLE SOURCES: Current and former intelligence officials tell us they have been getting lots of phone calls from members of the media in recent days trying to figure out who the mystery whistleblower is whose complaint about the president’s phone call with the Ukrainian leader launched an impeachment inquiry. Journalists have two things going against them in the search according to one CIA veteran we talked with, who said he and his friends are getting inundated with calls. “First, we are pretty good – and pretty serious about protecting sources,” he said. “And second – no one I know has a clue about who the whistleblower is.” Unfortunately, the media likely knows enough about them that it’s only a matter of time before the name comes out (perhaps by the time you read this). When it does – look for the person behind the complaint to be raised to sainthood by one sector of society – and demonized by the other. And more importantly, look to the media for their reasoning behind exposing the person’s identity (other than enhancing their own bottom lines with headline clicks). It will surely make the ‘anonymous’ whistleblower protection a non-starter in the future. And since we’re asking questions, the next one should be: ‘how will this damage future national security?’
NON-CAREER ENHANCING OPPORTUNITIES: For government officials, expert in things like foreign policy, defense and intelligence – service on the National Security Council staff has long been considered a golden ticket leading to career success. But perhaps no more. NPR says that recently “some of the government’s brightest minds are turning down high-powered NSC assignments” for fear such service will taint them.
FROM RUSSIA WITH HATE: A couple weeks after U.S. media reported about the exfiltration of a former Russian official who had been spying for the U.S. – the Kremlin now has declared the man missing and said that they are looking for him. Seems unlikely that Moscow would have only just now noticed the man, his wife and three children had disappeared in 2017 – but apparently the flurry of western media reporting has prompted them to make a show of searching for the former official. Reuters says RIA, the state-run Russian news agency reported that a notice of the missing man search appeared in an Interior Ministry database. They also say that the Interfax news agency reports that Russian bureaucrats who allowed the man to flee via Montenegro (or failed to stop him) were fired.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE: You can’t trust headlines. The website Business Insider recently posted a story called “5 celebrities who worked with the OSS, America’s forerunner to the CIA.” The association of some of these folks with the WWII spy agency is well known – for example, chef Julia Child and baseball player Moe Berg. But others were new to us – including John Wayne. It turns out there is no evidence that the Duke was an intelligence officer – the story hangs on the thin thread that after Wayne died there was a certificate found among his personal papers from General “Wild Bill” Donovan “thanking (Wayne) for his service to the office.” Turns out the article was based on a story first published in the website “We Are the Mighty.” The headline for that article? “5 Old-Time celebrity favorites who wanted to join the OSS.” (Emphasis ours.) The other prominent folks mentioned in both pieces were: Marlene Dietrich and John Steinbeck.
ANOTHER UNLIKELY STORY: Actor Jim Carrey is well known for his flexible mug which graced movies and TV shows like “Dumb and Dumber,” “Ace Ventura,” and “In Living Color.” But Carrey’s rubber face reportedly nearly met its match when he was cast in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” SOFREP.COM dug up a five-year-old appearance by Carrey on a BBC TV show in which the actor said that he almost quit the film after suffering through eight-and-a-half hours of makeup application on the first day. Carrey says the makeup and prosthetics made him feel claustrophobic. But producer Brian Grazer reportedly saved the day by calling in an old friend from the CIA who “specialized in teaching agents to withstand torture.” The theory was: “Maybe the CIA specialist could teach Jim Carrey to survive the green Grinch makeup the way he’d taught spies to survive hostile interrogation.” The unnamed CIA vet was flown in and allegedly taught Carrey “different methods CIA officers employ to frame their thinking, distract themselves from pain and discomfort, and how to develop the mindset required to overcome the panic Carrey felt inside the costume.”
BIG BANG THEORY: Forty years ago, on September 22, 1979, there was an unidentified flash in the South Atlantic which the CIA reportedly assessed with “90% plus” assurance was a nuclear test. The National Security Archive has recently released a batch of documents that were declassified and collected in the ensuing years. While Energy Department, DOD, DIA and CIA officials were pretty sure the flash was a nuke test – White House scientific advisors were dismissive but agreed to hear out intelligence officials “so that we can more safely ignore them.” If it was a nuke test – who was behind it? That too is a matter of debate. Some officials thought it was South Africa. Others believed Israel.
LONG (AND WRONG) ARM OF THE LAW: In June 1985, hijackers took control of TWA Flight 847 shortly after it took off from Athens, Greece. The plane made several stops around the Mediterranean. In images that shook the world, one of the passengers, Navy Petty Officer Robert Stethem, was beaten unconscious, shot and killed. Last week, police arrested a 65-year-old Lebanese man on the Greek island of Syros who they believed to be one of the hijackers. That would normally be an example of the long arm of the law, but in this case, it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.
ATTENTION PROCESS SERVERS: The International Spy Museum in Washington has announced an event to be held on October 17 in which former CIA officer Amaryllis Fox will talk about her new book Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA. As we have told you on several occasions, Fox is a very colorful lady – with some amazing stories to tell. Some of her tales, we hear, are “unbelievable” in every sense of the word. Whether true or not, the manuscript appears not to have been cleared by the CIA’s Publication Review Board. Former NSA and CIA officer Edward Snowden was recently slapped with a Department of Justice lawsuit seeking to seize all the proceeds from his recently published book which also evaded the clearance process. If DOJ is thinking about filing a similar suit against Fox – unlike Snowden (who is hiding out in Moscow) we can tell them where they can find her. By the way, a couple months ago, The Cipher Brief asked a highly respected former CIA officer to review Fox’s book for us. We got her an advance copy, she read the book and then submitted her review to the Publications Review Board as required. But the PRB refused to allow her to publish a single word of her review, which is highly unusual. What we want to know is: If the review is classified – what does that say about the book?
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
SEE YOU NEXT SEPTEMBER: DOD’s chief spokesman broke a 15-month-long streak last week by doing something unusual: he spoke. To reporters. On camera. Military.com noted that Jonathan Hoffman displayed a sense of humor about the lack of lectern presence by ending his 30-minute Q&A session by telling Pentagon reporters, “See you next September.”
BULLY PULPITS: Rightwingwatch.org has dug up another dire warning from another wacky conspiracy theorist. This one, a fellow by the name of Mark Taylor, is telling his followers that back in the 1950s, the CIA penetrated seminaries – and now you have CIA agents around the country posing as pastors. He says there is a “clergy response team” out there spying on congregations, ready to accompany the Feds when they come for your guns, and comfort you when you are taken to an internment camp where you will be separated from your family. We think that if these spooks went to the seminary in the 1950’s, they are likely very old spy-pastors today. You could likely out run em.
IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING: Got any tips for your friendly neighborhood Dead Drop? Shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
