SATELLITE PHOTOS DETECT SECOND CSS-7 SITE OPPOSITE TAIWAN
- A front page story in today's Washington Times by Bill Gertz reports that a second Chinese ballistic missile site has recently been discovered opposite Taiwan. The leak comes as the Bush Administration is debating whether or not to sell arms, including missile defenses, to Taiwan, USCINCPAC ADM Blair is visiting Beijing, and Chinese Vice Prime Minister Qian Qichen is set to visit Washington next week, is expected to lobby against U.S. arms sales to Taiwan among other issues.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001315232019.htm
STRATFOR'S CRITIQUE OF US INTELLIGENCE
- In one of the better critiques of US intelligence, Stratfor says that the CIA (and other US intelligence agencies) focus too much on capabilities and intentions and thereby often miss the big picture. Also, too much emphasis is put on collection and not enough on analysis. Knowing intentions, Stratfor writes, may not help much because many of history's important events were not intended. For example, they say, Gorbachev did not intend to destroy the Soviet Union, so no penetration of his inner circle or thinking could have foretold that. Instead, analysts would have had to focus on big picture things like economics and nationalism. Unfortunately, you must be a Stratfor subscriber to read this critique.
http://www.stratfor.com/CIS/commentary/0103122030.htm
RUSSIAN SPY DEFECTED IN CANADA LAST DECEMBER
CBS STARTING TO PRODUCE A FILM ON HANSSEN CASE
HOW MUCH DID HANSSEN DAMAGE THE US?
- I was asked that question at a recent academic forum. Of course, I only know what I have read in the papers and don't know what the final answer will be, but here's how I responded to the question:
From the standpoint of FBI counterintelligence officers, I said, I am sure the damage was a real disaster. However, if one considers that the only purpose of US intelligence is to support US foreign policy by providing information to policymakers, then one has to ask if Hanssen ruined (or even damaged) US foreign policy during the time he was active. Perhaps he did some damage to foreign policy but, in my view, only at the margins and very little at that. Sure, it was a counterintelligence disaster and a terrible tragedy for compromised agents and operations. But, after all, we won the Cold War. What would of or should of the US done differently policy-wise in the 1980's and 90's that Hanssen's treachery ruined or prevented? DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT HOW THEY WOULD ANSWER THAT QUESTION?
FBI MAY RESIST POLYGRAPHS
SHOULD SECURITY CHECKS INCLUDE PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINATIONS?
- This op-ed piece argues that Hanssen would probably have been detected much earlier if the FBI had made regular psychological evaluations of its agents (presumably along with polygraphs and financial statement reviews). The author, who formerly was medical director of the Bureau's Psychiatric Emergency Response Team, says that the FBI now uses psychological profiling in initial hiring of agents as well as to understand and identify criminals. Psychiatrists are also called in for FBI agents who are in crisis — who seem to be going off the deep end. But psychological evaluations are not part of regular and routine security clearance renewals. [The idea that regular psychological evaluations should be part of getting or keeping a security clearance is a new idea to me. And if it's a good idea for the FBI, it obviously would also be a good idea for everyone with a sensitive security clearance. A big undertaking.]
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50038-2001Mar10.html
DAVID SZADY TO BE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE CZAR
NAVY DROPS SPY CHARGES AGAINST PETTY OFFICER
- The Navy decided to drop charges against Daniel King who has been jailed at Quantico since Oct 1999. As I recall, King had showed deception on a polygraph he received upon reporting for duty at NSA Hq. He subsequently confessed to having provided information to the Russians while assigned several years earlier at NSA. However, the military judge, Cmdr James Winthrop, decided the confession was of doubtful validity and there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/11/national/11NATI.html?searchpv=site01
ANOTHER NEW CENTER
- Last week, DCI George Tenet created
the "Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center,"
a unit with 500 analysts, scientists and support personnel to focus on
nonproliferation and arms control issues. The new center will be headed by Alan Foley, a veteran Soviet military analyst, who has been head of the Arms Control Intelligence Staff.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55503-2001Mar11.html
CIA USING SOFTWARE TO MINE DATA
- "One called Oasis not only transcribes TV and radio broadcasts on the fly, it makes them searchable. Another called FLUENT allows a CIA analyst to search documents in languages he or she doesn't understand. You plug in a search term — like, oh, let's say, "nuclear bomb"— and the computer turns up hits, along with a rough translation."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2692457,00.html
SILENTRUNNER SOFTWARE DETECTS COMPUTER SNOOPS
EAST GERMAN AGENT HANDLED BY PUTIN
NOW IT'S THE FBI'S TURN
- Remembering the shame, anguish and wrath the Aldrich Ames spy scandal brought down on the CIA 5 or 6 years ago, perhaps CIA officers can be pardoned if they gloat a bit at the FBI, so righteous then but humbled now by the Hanssen scandal.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/spy11.html
JAPANESE NAVAL OFFICER WHO SPIED FOR RUSSIA
TALIBAN'S STATUE DESTRUCTION: INTELLIGENCE FAILURE?
- Since the Taliban announced they were destroying ancient statuary in Afghanistan and began immediately to do so, the world has been in an uproar of protest. To no avail — partly because the destruction was essentially a fait accompli. Perhaps if there had been some advance warning, the Taliban could have been restrained. Or perhaps foreign archeologists could have been permitted to remove the statues. Because there was no warning, none of that was possible. Could the destruction have been foreseen? Should the fact that it came as a surprise be counted as a failure on the part of western (and other) intelligence services?
FLIR IMAGE
CORD MEYER, Jr DIES
BOOKS & OTHER SOURCES
POW / MIA's: IG REVIEW OF 1998 ESTIMATE
- In 1997, Sandy Berger, Clinton's National Security Adviser, tasked the Intelligence Community to do a National Estimate on Vietnamese cooperation on POW/MIA matters. The resulting study, NIE 98-03, was issued in May 1998. It drew a torrent of criticism from some members of the POW/MIA community and in particular from Senator Robert Smith (R-NH) who issued "A Critical Assessment" of the NIE which, among other things, charged the Clinton Administration with "politicizing intelligence" in order to facilitate renewal of diplomatic relations with Hanoi. That led to a 178 page joint DOD-CIA IG Review of the 33 page NIE, which was issued a year ago, 29Feb2000. [Basically, the NIE said that Vietnam was cooperating more or less, that no live POW's remained, and that probably no POW's were transferred to China or the USSR during the Vietnam War. The IG Report found errors in the NIE but no politicization or bias and basically concurred in its findings.] The two documents, the May 1998 NIE and the Feb 2000 Review of the NIE, are now declassified and were recently posted on the CIA web page. Both are posted one page at a time — making them difficult to read. Recommend starting with page 5 (Key Judgments) of the NIE and page 10 (Exec Summary) of the Joint IG Review.
http://www.foia.cia.gov/scripts/doc.asp?docRawURL=/docs/doc_000444036
/asc_000444036.txt
http://www.foia.cia.gov/scripts/doc.asp?docRawURL=/docs/doc_000500308
/asc_000500308.txt
CIA CONFERENCE AT PRINCETON
OVER 19,000 PAGES OF DECLASSIFIED CIA DOCUMENTS
- were released and distributed at the conference. A bound volume contained about 300 pages and the rest were on two CD-ROM's handed out at the conference. All available on-line at the address below.
http://www.foia.ucia.gov/princeton_collection.htm
US DECEPTION OPERATION GONE AWRY
- At the Princeton conference last Saturday, Raymond Garthoff, a distinguished historian now with the Brookings Institute and a former CIA analyst, mentioned that we had recently learned of an FBI-Army double agent operation that may have spurred the Soviets to produce more lethal chemical and biological agents. He was referring to David Wise's book, "Cassidy's Run: The Secret Spy War Over Nerve Gas." [Cassidy was a US Army sergeant who the FBI "dangled" before a Soviet naval attaché in 1959 and who then served as a double agent for the FBI for the next two decades. The operation's main goal was counterintelligence — it was hoped Soviet illegals and/or "sleeper agents" working in this country would be exposed, and, in fact, it did do exactly that, although there were no prosecutions. During part of his "run" as a double agent, Sgt Cassidy was assigned to the Army chemical weapons research facility at the Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. During that time, in addition to it's counterintelligence goals, the Cassidy operation was used in a strategic deception effort. Cassidy fed his Soviet handlers with false information designed make them believe the US had a large chemical weapons program and to lead their chemical weapons scientists down a deadend research path.] Garthoff summarizes the Cassidy affair in the 4-page article below from the Sep/Oct 2000 issue of the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists," and then he goes on to write that the CBW deception operation continued through other means for years after Cassidy was reassigned from the Arsenal. Furthermore, he writes, the deception ultimately worked against US interests by spurring the Soviets to develop more lethal chemical and biological agents and may also have heightened Cold War tensions by leading them to falsely believe that the US was secretly violating the Biological Weapons Convention, thus encouraging them to do so.
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/2000/so00/so00garthoff.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=004531650823310&pg=/et/01/3/12/
weap12.html
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wise-run.html
STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE
- The latest unclassified issue of the CIA's in-house journal, "Studies in Intelligence," dated Fall 2000 came out last month. It's the 45th Anniversary Issue and contains reprints of classic articles, beginning with one written by Sherman Kent for the first issue of "Studies" in 1955. Although it is not yet posted on the web, you can expect to find it on the CSI website in the near future.
http://www.cia.gov/csi/index.html
BOOK ABOUT MAGIC DECRYPTS AND WW2 INTERMENT
- David Lowman, "MAGIC: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents From the West Coast During WWII," (Athena Press, $29.95, 400 pages).
Lowman uses Magic decrypts to argue in favor of the controversial FDR order to intern Japanese-American civilians during the war.
http://www.latimes.com/living/20010306/t000019944.html
- RICHARD TOMLINSON, "The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security," Narodny Variant Publishers, Moscow, 2001.
Tomlinson is a former, and apparently disgruntled, British MI6 intelligence officer. His book, "Big Breach," is now available on the web for free. (very large file) [I have not followed this case or read the book. I have noted several not so favorable comments on the net by persons who say they have read all or part of the book. Also, there have been rumors, denied by Tomlinson, that Russian intelligence had a hand in writing or publishing the book.]
http://www.thebigbreach.com/news/
http://cryptome.org/bigbreach-posts.htm
TRAILING A SOVIET YANKEE SUBMARINE
PAPER ON HIGH RESOLUTION COMMERCIAL IMAGERY
WERE THE DUTCH READING JAPANESE NAVAL CODES BEFORE PEARL HARBOR?
AREA 51
SOVIETSKI dot COM
- On-line catalog of Russian and Soviet items — some of it spy gear such as night vision scopes ($169).
http://secure.sovietski.com/cgi-bin/Sovietski.storefront/
UPCOMING EVENTS
MAR 15, Thursday, Washington, DC
MAR 15, Thursday, Upper Darby, PA
[Sorry that Verizon ISP server problems prevented this Stuff from going out in advance of the above 2 functions]
MAR 17, St Augustine FL
- AFIO North Florida Chapter will convene at the St Augustine Ponce De Leon Radisson Fairway Grill at 1100 for refreshments and 1200
luncheon/program. Cost is $10.00. Speaker will be Major General Jack Leide, USA Ret. AFIO members and guests are invited to join us for his unique professional insights. For additional information, please contact Bill Webb at genweb@polaris.net or Quiel Begonia at begonia@coj.net
MAR 21, Washington, DC
- DIA Alumni Assoc (DIAA) luncheon meeting, Ft Myer O'Club, 1130 social, 1215 luncheon. Speaker: RADM Tom Brooks, USN-ret, "Life After DIA." Also Mark Ewing, DepDirector DIA, will give an update on the Agency.
http://www.dialumni.org/flyer.html
MAY 4, Washington, DC
