Intelligence
Being There
Robert Steele on the new edition of World’s Most Dangerous Places by Ronald Robert Young Pelton:
I have learned two important lessons from this book, and from its author Robert Young Pelton: First, trust no source that has not actually been there. He is not the first to point out that most journalists are “hotel warriors”, [...]
TIA Advisory Board
The next meeting of the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee that advises the Pentagon on its Total Terrorism Information Awareness program is June 19 at the Hyatt Arlington, 1325 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va. The TAPAC got a new member today: George Mason law professor John O. Marsh Jr., a former Secretary of the Army and [...]
Failing to Keep Up
In what should be a surprise to absolutely no one familiar with the history of American intelligence, Bruce Berkowitz writes that the CIA lags behind organizations with similar tasks when it comes to using technology. “Despite what one sees on TV, there is not much ‘gee wiz’ software at the typical DI analyst’s desk. A [...]
Bugging FDR
Gary Kern, a CIA operative for 35 years, writes a great story about how Stalin was able to eavesdrop on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s private conversations at their two WWII summits in Teheran and Yalta. “He had the American President pinned, examined, and analyzed like a specimen [...]
Predicting the Soviet-Afghan War
Douglas MacEachin, who served as CIA’s Deputy Director for Intelligence from 1993 to 1995, has an article analyzing the U.S. intelligence community’s performance in forecasting the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. “The military intervention the Soviets carried out in the last week of December 1979 - particularly its timing and scope - came as a [...]
