READY FOR HILLARY – The Dead Drop is very reliably informed that optimism in the Hillary Clinton camp is reaching epidemic proportions. Why? Because the Republicans are fixated on this Trump fellow you may have heard about. While general election voting is about 11 months away – some on Team Hillary are well along in dividing up the spoils…and talking about who will get what position postJanuary 20th. Among those we hear in the running for national security positions are Michele Flournoy, an odds-on favorite for Secretary of Defense. Anne-Marie Slaughter, a prime candidate for Secretary of State and Dr. Evelyn Farkas as a potential Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. (Farkas left the Obama administration not long ago reportedly feeling that the current crowd were too soft on Russia, Ukraine etc). To be fair, some boys are under consideration for national security jobs too. Jim Steinberg, Hillary’s former deputy at State, could be a potential Secretary of State or National Security Advisor and Clinton campaign advisor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan could be one of the youngest National Security Advisors ever. Clinton staffers are also busily calling around to retired flag and general officers fishing for endorsements and finding out who would like to be considered a player in staffing positions for POTUS 45.
PETRAEUS – NOT QUITE OUT OF THE WOODS YET. The Washington Post and others reported this week that the Secretary of the Army has recommended no further punishment for General David Petraeus regarding the fact that he shared more than his opinions with his biographer. Most folks probably figured that this chapter was already closed – but The Dead Drop hears that there was a vigorous debate among senior uniformed Army personnel about whether Petraeus should be recalled to active duty to face charges for conduct unbecoming while he was in uniform. (Petraeus says his affair with Paula Broadwell began after his time on active duty – but some suspect that may not be the case.) The final decision has to be made by Defense Secretary Ash Carter. The betting here is that Carter will elect to skip any further Petraeus sanctions – everybody just wants to move on.
RED ALL OVER. Dang, we missed an important international conference on media and politics. Just found the invitation to an event held Dec 10 in Moscow about the “shape-shifting powers of today’s world.” The session was hosted by the Putin-powered 24-hour TV network formerly known as “Russia Today” – but now going only by its initials “RT.” Seems RT is celebrating its ten-year anniversary. Speakers and panelists at the event were said to include an odd assortment of folks like “Red Ken” Livingstone – the former mayor of London, elderly CIA alum and gadfly Ray McGovern, and oddly – former DIA Director LTG Mike Flynn – who may have missed the intelligence about who is pulling the editorial strings at RT. The hosts claim they beam their news to over 700 million people worldwide. No word on how many actually watch. RT says it is the winner of the “Monte-Carlo TV Festival for Best 24-Hour Newscast.” We’ve never heard of it – but it sounds like they probably have a great after party.
THE SPYMASTERS FALLOUT - Don’t know whether Showtime’s documentary “The Spymasters” a couple weeks ago (featuring interviews with every living CIA Director) will change any minds…but it DID have some impact. Books authored by almost every person interviewed (some of these tomes go back nearly a decade) – got a spike in their Amazon.com sales rankings. The e-book version of George Tenet’s 2007 “At the Center of the Storm” jumped from a ranking in the 300,000’s before the program aired…to the low 40,000’s a few days later. Books by Leon Panetta, Michael Morell and Jose Rodriguez enjoyed similar boosts. Even advance sales of former director General Michael Hayden’s book “Playing to the Edge” (which does not hit bookstores until February 23rd) also shot up.
HOMELAND RECAP – “THE NEW NORMAL.” First, the obligatory spoiler alert – if you don’t want to know what happened on Homeland last Sunday, stop reading. If you want to know what happens NEXT Sunday, your guess is as good as ours. But for the latest edition: the episode opens with CIA officials trying to figure out whether to believe Allison’s frankly unbelievable excuse for why she was hanging around with Ivan, the Russian SVR station chief. She tells Dar Adal that Ivan was HER agent – not the other way around – and that she had previously shared this info with CIA Deputy David Estes – who had the misfortune of getting killed two or three seasons ago. Dar tells Saul that a Russian penetration at this level (if true) would be a scandal from which the Agency might never recover.
Saul takes a crack at interrogating his old flame Allison which devolved into his slamming her into a wall and choking her – unsurprisingly, it did not produce a confession.
German billionaire Otto During’s folks interview a Syrian who was among the prisoners held in a German jail. They guy lets slip that while in the pokey he overheard fellow prisoners talking about a possible terrorist attack on Berlin. The During dudes struggle with the ethics of sharing that info with authorities. During tries to work a deal with Saul to protect the fellow…but somehow that German BND doesn’t get the message and snatches the ex-prisoner.
Meanwhile, Ivan tells the CIA that ISIS got their hands on a half dozen or so drums of a sarin precursor, raising the possibility that the band in Berling can in fact pull off a large-scale attack.
Carrie starts to search for Quinn who has been missing for 9 days. He surfaces when the Syrian terrorists release video of him convulsing and seemingly dying from exposure to sarin. Carrie and Astrid, her BND pal (who has a romantic history with Quinn) watch the full unexpurgated video of Quinn being gassed. Unique floor tiles in the background allow the Germans to narrow the location down to one of perhaps 1,500 places...and then through some handy map overlays, down to just 39.
One of the terrorists figures out that Quinn ain’t quite dead yet – and that someone has injected him with an antidote. He sets up another in the group to take the fall for it, however, because the guy who did it, Qasim, is his cousin and blood is thicker than atropine, apparently.
Carrie and Astrid miraculously find the place where Quinn is being held, but the terrorists have left. Quinn is barely breathing in the glass-enclosed gas chamber and is taken to a hospital where docs try to revive him. We’re betting they do – since there are still two episodes left this season.
NAILED IT – German officials start rounding up Muslim men based on the threat. Sounds kinda familiar. Intense focus on the background in the sarin video rings true. Often small clues lead to big discoveries.
FAILED IT – White House officials say not to alert the public that Berlin is the target of the possible sarin attack. In reality the government has what it calls a “duty to warn.” With that much specific intelligence it is hard to believe they would try to keep it from those in the crosshairs. Also hard to believe the specific target wouldn’t leak. Also, the Germans raid the 39 possible sites where the bad guys may be hiding out…but the place where they were – is raided by just Carrie and Astrid. With all the counterterrorism folks in Germany – they could only spare these two lightly-armed people for the job?
