The Dead Drop

THE CURSE OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.  Several Dead Drop sources told us how surprised they were to see several news items recently about an Inspector General’s investigation into a salty tirade reportedly launched by Lieutenant General John Mulholland when he was Deputy Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command.  Army General Mulholland, who is now Associate Director for Military Affairs at the CIA, was reprimanded for cussing like a sailor when chewing out subordinates in April 2014. “The Army sure has changed since I served” said one grizzled veteran.  Mulholland is accused of suggesting to staffers who he thought did a lousy job that they should all “shoot themselves.”  “That’s mild compared to what my skipper suggested we do to ourselves,” a Navy alumna said.  Here at The Dead Drop we are (slowly) coming to terms with the requirement that other places of employment be “safe places” where never is heard a discouraging word – but SOCOM?  Give us a @#$@#$ break.

ASH CAN’T: Senior Pentagon officials are reportedly holding their breath waiting to see how big a deal the Senate Armed Services Committee makes out of the brouhaha over Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s use of personal email for official business.  Carter has (rightly) taken personal responsibility for ignoring DOD policy and improperly using his private email account at precisely the same time former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was being pummeled for doing the same thing. “I can almost guarantee you,” one Pentagon vet told us, “if the SASC wants to find something that should have been classified in Carter’s email – they will.”  Seemingly innocuous administrative items, it was explained, can, for example, give you insights into SECDEF’s upcoming travel schedule – which generally is classified SECRET.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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Categorized as:Perspectives & Culture

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