Intelligence
Revisiting October 1962
American, Russian and Cuban participants in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis are meeting this week in Havana to talk about newly declassified documents. The discussions, which feature Robert McNamara and Fidel Castro, among others, are closed to the media but there have been daily press briefings. Today’s revealed that “the Soviet nuclear-armed tactical weapons in [...]
Middle East Reading
Kathleen Christison, a former Middle East political analyst for the CIA, did an interesting chat on washingtonpost.com on Monday. Some intelligent questions and answers.
Intel Failure
A 1997 article by a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst predicted “the coming intelligence failure,” saying that “at a time when the interrelationship among political, economic, military, social, and cultural factors had become increasingly complex, no agency was postured to conduct truly integrated analysis. From the vantage point of 2001, intelligence failure is inevitable.” A good [...]
James Bamford
James Bamford, the author of two books on the National Security Agency, spoke to a group in Berkeley on Feb. 11. A write-up of the session, including a Q&A with the audience, appears on LewRockwell.com. Bamford predicted new limits on encryption and the comeback of the Clipper Chip. When asked if the U.S. could stop [...]
The Real Ms. Moneypenny
I love reading obituaries; often the best stories are published when somebody dies. Consider Vera Atkins, a former “spymaster” for the British, as the NY Times called her. She was purported to be the model for Ms. Moneypenny of James Bond movie fame, but her real-life exploits during World War II seemed infinitely more exciting.
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