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INTELLIGENCER: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies

INTELLIGENCER JOURNAL - a feature of AFIO membership or available to subscribers.
Intelligencer features papers, book announcements and reviews by intelligence professionals, and analyses of important intelligence topics. The Journal, which runs 128-148 pages per issue, appears two times a year, and reaches over 3,000 members and subscribers of which are many government agencies and libraries, universities, and Congress.
To join AFIO and receive all publications, or to only subscribe to publications, start HERE.

Table of Contents of Intelligencers

PERISCOPE, an earlier AFIO member publication, was discontinued in 2006 and its coverage of association members and events was added to Intelligencer journal which was expanded by 40 pages.



Ordering back issues: some issues of our journal have sold out. Before ordering, view this PDF of available issues. The price is $15 per copy. Includes postage to a U.S.-based address. After viewing the PDF of available issues, send by email at afio@afio.com your list of issues wanted, quantity, credit card info and shipping address. If you wish to subscribe to the publication, do so at this link: SUBSCRIBE

Intelligencer - is not available online or in digital form. It is print, only. Cover images, L to R, are shown in descending order of date.

                                                                                       



NEW: Released in Summer-Fall 2023 Intelligencer:

Intelligence on the High Seas—Using Intelligence to Counter Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing - by Peter C. Oleson

NSA Was Right: CIA Was Not—Challenges in Understanding What Went Wrong before the 1973 Arab-Israeli War - by Gary B. Keeley

Review of former Under Secretary of State and MI5 & MI6's Legal Director David Bickford's remarkable new novel: "Katya: What Would You Risk for Half a Billion Dollars?" - reviewed by AFIO Chairman Stewart Baker


Released in Winter-Spring 2023 Intelligencer:

"U.S. Counterintelligence—One Team, One Plan, One Goal – or Not?" by Michelle Van Cleave

"The Mysteries—and Realities—of the Havana Syndrome. It's the Russians" - by Lewis Regenstein

"Snowden—Finally Revealed" - by Peter Oleson

"Pervasive Threats to U.S. National Security from Chinese Tech Companies" - by Jason A Harriman

• Opinion by Michael Sulick, Lucinda Webb, Mark Kelton Former CIA Counterintelligence Chiefs Weigh in on The Fourth Man—Alternative Perspectives

Released in Summer-Fall 2022 Intelligencer..."What's Old Is New Again: A Strategy of Re-Containment of Russia" - article by Christopher D. Thuma (winner AFIO-Rocca 2022 Counterintelligence Award at the National War College)

Released in Summer-Fall 2022 Intelligencer..."The Ghost of Angleton" - Review by Raymond J. Batvinis PhD of the book "The Fourth Man" by Robert Baer

Released in Summer-Fall 2022 Intelligencer..."Conquest Without War: The Threat of Chinese Political Influence Operations" by John Lenczowski PhD

Released in Winter-Spring 2022 Intelligencer... "The Imperative of Intelligence Services to Protect from Exposure the Sources and Methods of Intelligence Collection" by Gary B. Keeley

Published in the Winter-Spring 2021 edition and now available online: "Terror in Athens — Remembering CIA Station Chief Dick Welch" by Samantha Randazzo Childress and Carol "Rollie" Flynn. Also see: Spy Spots: Episode 7: The Assassination of CIA Chief of Station Richard Welch in Greece on YouTube.

Published in the Winter 2017-18 edition and now available online: "Climate Change and National Security" by Peter Oleson

Published in the Fall-Winter 2007 edition and now available online: Dysfunctional Information Restrictions by M.E. Spike Bowman, Capt USN-Ret, former NSA and FBI; former Chairman, AFIO


PROJECT: When Intelligence Made a Difference - a new series by editor Peter Oleson

• Project theme by Peter Oleson

See the "When Intelligence Made a Difference" articles released in the current and prior issues of Intelligencer at this link.

Other articles released by Senior Editor Peter Oleson are here.

Published in 2016...

AFIO's 788-page Guide to the Study of Intelligence. Peter C. Oleson, Editor.
View authors and table of contents here.

Full no-cost, online version of Guide is here.

Perfect for professors, students, those considering careers in intelligence, and current/former officers seeking to see what changes are taking place across a wide spectrum of intelligence disciplines.

AFIO's Guide to the Study of Intelligence helps instructors teach about the large variety of subjects that make up the field of intelligence. This includes secondary school teachers of American History, Civics, or current events and undergraduate and graduate professors of History, Political Science, International Relations, Security Studies, and related topics, especially those with no or limited professional experience in the field. Even those who are former practitioners are likely to have only a limited knowledge of the very broad field of intelligence, as most spend their careers in one or two agencies at most and may have focused only on collection or analysis of intelligence or support to those activities.

The printed, bound edition has gone out-of-print. No copies remain for sale.

AVAILABLE ONLINE-ONLY: As an educational service to professors and students, AFIO provides the full 788-page Guide online here for free. This was made possible through the generosity of our foundation, corporate, and institutional members, coupled with the donations we received from our many individual members. We thank all of them.
Online version of the Guide. Or download this PDF version of the Guide to quickly search and use the publication offline.


AFIO Special Monographs are here

RELEASED SEPTEMBER 2022 is a Monograph on The Cuban Missile Crisis — Sixty Years Later — by CIA Historian/Analyst Regis Heitchue

"The Cuban Missile Crisis: When Intelligence Made a Difference.
"

In October 1962 the US and the world faced the most serious crisis and threat of nuclear war. A new 208-page monograph published for free on-line by the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) on the Cuban Missile Crisis is an insightful examination of US intelligence during the crisis.  Unlike most accounts of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which focus on the decision-making of President Kennedy and personal accounts of those involved, "The Cuban Missile Crisis — 60 Years Later — When Intelligence Made a Difference" provides an examination of how US intelligence functioned before, during, and after the crisis.  This is a unique treatment of the topic.

Former DCI Richard Helms once said "… the Cuban Missile Crisis was really an intelligence crisis. The threat appeared only through intelligence sources. Only those sources confirmed that the threat had gone away." The monograph is the story of what American intelligence knew, when it knew it, and how it knew what the Soviets were doing in Cuba prior to and during the crisis—and what we now know, 60 years later, quite accurately, of what the Soviets were actually doing in Cuba.

The monograph examines the critical questions that the president posed to the intelligence community and how the community responded.  It also includes interesting vignettes on principal intelligence officers involved in the crisis, including Juanita Moody, head of NSA's Cuba effort, and Arthur Lundahl, the chief of the new National Photographic Intelligence Center (NPIC), who briefed President Kennedy on a daily basis.

This is a well-researched and riveting monograph, with extensive notes, bibliography, charts and photos.   It is a valuable reference for any class on intelligence. — Peter Oleson, Senior Editor

The author is Reg Heitchue, a retired senior CIA scientific and technical officer. The book project was managed and edited by former DIA Assistant Deputy Director for Plans and Policy, Peter C. Oleson, who also serves as AFIO's Senior Editor, Intelligencer journal.

PDF version of publication here: "The Cuban Missile Crisis: When Intelligence Made a Difference."
A condensation of the PDF above which appeared in the Summer-Fall Intelligencer as "The Cuban Missile Crisis - When Intelligence Made a Difference."
For those interested in purchasing the paperback edition — a longer, more comprehensive version by Mr Heitchue — it is available here.



PROJECT: When Intelligence Made a Difference - a new series by editor Peter Oleson

• Project theme by Peter Oleson

NEW: Released in the Summer-Fall 2023 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually here as PDFs are:

When Intelligence Made a Difference – Part X Intro by Peter C. Oleson

The ‘Man Who Never Was’ – Operation Mincemeat by David T. Zabecki

FDR’s Female Secret Agent Wore Two Hats by Derek Leebaert

Tupaia, the Master Navigator by Peter von Buol

Across the Pacific — The Role of Intelligence in the Island-Hopping Campaign from Tarawa to Okinawa by Peter C. Oleson

Released in the Winter-Spring 2023 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually here as PDFs are:

When Intelligence Made a Difference – Part IX Intro by Peter C. Oleson

The St. Mihiel Offensive, September 1918 by Betsy Rohaly Smoot

The Impact of Herbert O. Yardley—A Glass Half Full by Gregory J. Nedved

Ultra Diplomacy and the Origin of the Five Eyes Alliance by Joshua Holzer & Tobias T. Gibson

Medical Intelligence Mission to North Korea, March 1951 by Jonathan D. Clemente, MD FACR

Intelligence in the Southwest Pacific Campaign by Peter C. Oleson

Released in the Summer-Fall 2022 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually here as PDFs are:

• When Intelligence Made a Difference - Part VIII Intro by Peter C. Oleson

HUMINT Reports Raised Suspicions about Soviet Missiles in Cuba by Gary B. Keeley

The Cuban Missile Crisis by Regis D. Heitchue

Released in the Winter-Spring 2022 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually here as PDFs are:

Released in the Summer-Fall 2021 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually online here as PDFs are:

• When Intelligence Made a Difference - Part VI Intro by Peter C. Oleson

Doctor Jameson's Raid by Alex Vermeulen

First Battle of Bull Run: A First in Many Ways by Greg Elder

The Karakol Organization and the Turkish War of Independence, 1919-1922 by Evren Altinkas PhD

Preparation for Operation Torch by Robert Girod JD PhD

Denial and Deception in the Indian Nuclear Test by Robert M. Clark JD PhD

Released in the Winter-Spring 2021 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually online here as PDFs are:

• When Intelligence Made a Difference - Part V Intro by Peter C. Oleson

Soviet Deception and the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert M. Clark

• Occasionem Cognosce — Francis Cabot Lowell by Joel Wickwire

• The Seizure of Danang City Hall by Jim Schnell PhD

• The Breaking of JN-25 and its Impact in the War Against Japan by Peter C. Oleson

• Developing a Cooperative Strategy in the El Salvador Civil War by John Fishel

Released in the Fall 2020 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually online here as PDFs are:

Released in Winter-Spring 2020 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually online as PDFs are:

• When Intelligence Made a Difference - Part III Intro by Peter C. Oleson

• Geospatial Intelligence at Gettysburg by Robert M. Clark

• The Genesis of the Incident at Sea Agreement by Bob Alden

• The British Tea Heist Industrial Intelligence, Circa 1847 by Joel Wickwire

• The Battle of Tannenberg by Quil Kibak

• Japanese Intelligence for the Attack on Pearl Harbor by Peter C. Oleson

Released in Fall 2019 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually online as PDFs are:

• When Intelligence Made a Difference - Part II Intro by Peter C. Oleson

• Deception in Teutoburg Forest by Robert M. Clark

• Stealing the Japanese Codebooks or One Peek is Worth Two Finesses by RADM T. A. Brooks, USN (Ret.)

• Dayton Peace Accords by Tim Walton

• Winning with Intelligence – The Inchon Landing by Gregory Elder

• The Destruction of Al-Kibar by Peter C. Oleson

• Operation Market Garden by Wim Klinkert

Released in Spring-Summer 2019 edition of Intelligencer and now available individually online as PDFs are:

George Washington, Spymaster Extraordinaire: A Master of Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and Military Deception by Gene Poteat

Lafayette and the French Intrigue to Lead the American Revolution by Gene Poteat

How Sweden Chose Sides by Michael Fredholm

George Washington's Attacks on Trenton and Princeton, 1776-77 by Ken Daigler


Other Articles by Senior Editor Peter Oleson

NEW: Intelligencer Summer-Fall 2023 - Reviews by Peter Oleson...available exclusively to AFIO WIN recipients as a PDF at this link.
The books reviewed are:

  • Hunting Nukes: A Fifty-Year Pursuit of Atomic Bomb Builders and Mischief Makers: Lawless
  • Afghanistan Beyond the Fog of War: Persistent Failure of a Rentier State: Fredholm
  • Spy Ships: One Hundred Years of Intelligence Collection by Ships and Submarines: Polmar and Mathers

Intelligencer Winter-Spring 2023 - Reviews by Peter Oleson...available exclusively to AFIO WIN recipients as a PDF at this link.
The books reviewed are:

  • Decision Advantage: Intelligence in International Politics from the Spanish Armada to Cyberwar - Jennifer Sims
  • Spies Who Changed History: The Greatest Spies & Agents of the 20th Century - Nigel West
  • Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage - Nathalia Holt
  • Intelligence and the State: Analysts and Decision Makers - Jonathan M. House
  • China Vs Democracy: The Greatest Game, China Handbook - Robin Shepherd
  • Improving the Intelligence Community’s Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem - National Academies
  • Cyberspace in Peace and War (Second Edition) - Martin Libicki
  • CIA Paramilitary Operations in Tibet, 1957-1975 - Ken Conboy
  • Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 - Sir Max Hastings
  • Active Measures, A Graduate Research Journal on Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and Information Operations - Sebastian Smeureanu, Editor
  • Covert Legions: U.S. Army Intelligence in Germany, 1944-1949 - Thomas Boghardt
  • Terrorist Events Worldwide 2021 - Edward Mickolus

Intelligencer Summer-Fall 2022 - Reviews by Peter Oleson...available exclusively to AFIO WIN recipients as a PDF at this link.
The books reviewed are:

  • An Inconvenient Apocalypse by Jackson, Jensen
  • The Able Archers by Morra
  • The Bin Laden Papers by Lahoud
  • Russian Intelligence by Riehle
  • Soviet Defectors by Riehle

Intelligencer Winter-Spring 2022 - Reviews by Peter Oleson...available exclusively to AFIO WIN recipients as a PDF at this link.
The books reviewed are:

  • Pioneers of Irregular Warfare: Secrets of the Military Intelligence Research Department in the Second World War by Malcolm Atkin
  • Spycraft for Thriller Writers – How to Write Spy Novels, TV Shows and Movies Accurately and Not Be Laughed at by Real-Life Spies by Edward Mickolus
  • Top Secret Canada: Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community by Stephanie Carvin, Thomas Juneau and Craig Forcese (Editors)
  • The Cold War: Wilderness of Mirrors. Counterintelligence, and the U.S. and Soviet Military Liaison Missions 1947-1990 by Aden C. Magee
  • More Stories from Langley: Another Glimpse Inside the CIA by Edward Mickolus (editor)
  • Spies on the Mekong: CIA Clandestine Operations in Laos by Ken Conboy
  • Spy Swap: The Humiliation of Russia's Intelligence Services by Nigel West
  • First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11 by Toby Harnden
  • The Sailor's Bookshelf: Fifty Books to Know the Sea by Adm. James Stavridis, USN (Ret.)
  • Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America by Rebekah Koffler
  • Spy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the R.A.W. and the I.S.I. by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark
  • Revolutionary Monsters: Five Men Who Turned Liberation into Tyranny by Donald T. Critchlow
  • The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock

Reassessing Edward Snowden: Whistleblower, Traitor, or Spy?

Assessing Edward Snowden: Whistleblower, Traitor, or Spy? (from Intelligencer Vol 21, No. 2, Summer 2015)

Chinese Offensive Intelligence Operations by Peter C. Oleson, released in the Fall 2020 issue of Intelligencer

Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West by Catherine Belton - Review by Peter Oleson [PDF includes additional reviews], released in the Fall 2020 issue of Intelligencer

Cyber Intelligence by Robert M. Clark and Peter C. Oleson

Series on "Wet Affairs" - Unusual Deaths, Fatal Accidents, Poisonings, and Other Lethal Events to Those in the Circle of Vladimir Putin

Wet Affairs, Part I: Stalin's Disciple: Vladimir Putin and Russia's Newest "Wet Affairs" by Peter Oleson

Wet Affairs, Part II: Significant Murders or Attacks Related to Putin's Regime by Peter Oleson

NEW   • Wet Affairs, Part III: Russia's Assassination Pandemic by Peter Oleson


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