Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

'Times' Reporter To Challenge Subpoena In Leak Case. Jim Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, will ask a court Tuesday to throw out a Justice Department subpoena. Risen says he doesn't want to testify against a CIA agent accused of leaking classified information.

Risen has a history of digging for government secrets and finding pay dirt. He helped expose the government's warrantless wiretapping program. And he ventured into the shadows again to write a history of the CIA during President George W. Bush's years.

That book has landed him in the Justice Department's cross hairs. Prosecutors say it includes material from former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, who is getting ready to go to trial for disclosing classified information.

"He's not going to identify his confidential sources, period," says Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. [Read more:  Johnson/NPR/21June2011] 

Iran Sets New Date for Hearing of American Hikers. Iranian authorities will hold a hearing next month in the case of the three American hikers who were charged with espionage, their lawyer said Tuesday.

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal have been detained since July 2009, while Bauer's fianc�, Sarah Shourd, was released last year on $500,000 bail.

They deny the charges and claim they were only hiking in a scenic area of northern Iraq near the Iranian border. Shourd has refused to return to Iran for trial.

Masoud Shafiei told The Associated Press he has been notified that there will be a hearing on July 31. Iran has said it expects to make a final decision in the case of three Americans by late August. [Read more:  Karimi/AP/21June2011] 

Tbilisi Creating Black List for Soviet Political Elite, KGB Collaborators. Georgia has become the first post-Soviet country outside of the Baltics to ban former KGB operatives and senior Communist Party and Komsomol officials from holding public office. While many Georgians welcome the move, some critics worry that the measure could easily lead to civil rights abuses.

Under the so-called Freedom Charter, approved by parliament on May 31, ex-officials and operatives will have six months to report themselves to a committee within the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The law differs from many of its European equivalents, however, by also targeting current collaborators of foreign intelligence services - largely interpreted as meaning Russia's military intelligence and foreign intelligence agencies.

Georgia's political establishment makes little distinction between the former Soviet Union and today's Russia; even less so after Tbilisi's 2008 war with Russia. Some observers believe that the charter targets the past as a way to contend with the security challenges of the present. [Read more:  EurasiaNet/22June2011] 

U.K. Police Arrest 19-Year-Old in Hacking Probe. London police arrested a 19-year-old man suspected of being involved in a hacking attack on Sony Corp. and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

The arrest was a "pre-planned intelligence-led operation" as part of an investigation into hacking of international business and intelligence agencies, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement today. Police called it "a significant arrest."

The police searched a residence in Essex, England, last night after the man's arrest, which "led to the examination of a significant amount of material." The man, who wasn't identified, is being questioned at a police station. [Read more:  Fortado/Bloomberg/21June2011] 

Senate Unanimously Confirms Leon Panetta to Serve as Defense Secretary. The Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta to serve as the next Secretary of Defense.

Panetta, who was tapped by Obama in April to succeed Robert Gates as head of the Pentagon, is expected to assume his new post early next month. Gates had earlier announced that he planned to step down this year after serving as defense secretary for 4 � years.

The Senate's 100-to-0 confirmation of Panetta comes amid other sweeping changes to Obama's national security team. On Thursday, Gen. David H. Petraeus, whom Obama has named as his choice to succeed Panetta at the CIA, faces a confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. The same day, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to vote on the nomination of Ryan Crocker, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to succeed Karl Eikenberry as ambassador to Afghanistan.

The confirmation of Panetta also comes on the eve of President Obama's expected announcement that the U.S. will begin its drawdown of U.S. forces from Afghanistan next month. [Read more:  WashingtonPost/21June2011] 

Top-Secret Clearance Checks Falsified. Federal authorities responsible for granting security clearances to government employees and contractors are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating the investigators.

Government inspectors say they have undertaken a broader campaign in recent years to root out fraud in background checks as more national security clearances are being sought than ever before.

Overall, court records reviewed by The Washington Times show at least 170 confirmed falsifications of interviews or record checks and more than 1,000 others that couldn't be verified. The background investigators, whose work helps determine who gets top-secret security clearance, were submitting forms saying they conducted interviews or verified official documents when they never did.

"The monetary loss sustained by the government does not, nor cannot, represent the cost associated with potential compromise of our nation's security and the trust of the American people in its government's workforce," Kathy L. Dillaman, associate director in charge of investigations at the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in a victim-impact statement for a recent court case involving a convicted investigator.

Douglas Shontz, a national security researcher at the Rand Corp. who had conducted back ground checks at the Defense Department, said background investigations used to be the purview of retired FBI agents and police detectives. That has changed as more and more contractors and employees require security clearances. Many of the background checks are now outsourced.

"You have a huge push to get people in the door," he said.

Mr. Shontz said that, in general, background interviews with neighbors, former employers, associates and others help determine whether someone could be more vulnerable to taking bribes or likely to talk too freely about sensitive government information. [Read more:  McElhatton /WashingtonTimes/21June2011] 

Bill Would Keep Intel Spending in Defense Budget. An intelligence reform proposal to establish a stand-alone budget appropriation for intelligence spending would be blocked if a provision in the House version of the Fiscal Year 2012 defense appropriations bill is enacted into law. Instead, intelligence spending would remain concealed in the defense budget.

"None of the funds appropriated in this or any other Act may be used to plan, prepare for, or otherwise take any action to undertake or implement the separation of the National Intelligence Program budget from the Department of Defense budget," the House Appropriations Committee said in section 8118 of the pending 2012 defense bill (H.R. 2219).

If adopted in the final version of the bill, this measure would scuttle the possibility of a separate budget appropriation for intelligence - a reform that was specifically advocated by the 9/11 Commission and embraced by the current Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper.

"To combat the secrecy and complexity we have described," the 9/11 Commission wrote in chapter 13 of its final report, "the overall amounts of money being appropriated for national intelligence and to its component agencies should no longer be kept secret. Congress should pass a separate appropriations act for intelligence, defending the broad allocation of how these tens of billions of dollars have been assigned among the varieties of intelligence work."

A separate appropriation for intelligence has also been advocated by public interest groups since it would increase the transparency and the integrity of the budget process. In particular, it would eliminate the deception involved in presenting non-DoD intelligence spending (such as the CIA budget) as if it were part of the defense budget, while also misrepresenting the actual amount of the DoD budget.

For his own reasons, DNI Clapper initiated a process of removing the national intelligence budget from its concealment in the defense budget over a year ago. "I would support and I've also been working [on] actually taking the National Intelligence Program [NIP] out of the DoD budget," he said at his July 2010 confirmation hearing. Doing so would "serve to strengthen the DNI's hand in managing the money in the intelligence community," he explained. [Read more:  Aftergood/SecrecyNews/21June2011] 

Bulgarian Parliament Halfway to Banning Ex Spies from Serving as Ambassadors. Bulgaria's 35 ambassadors proven to have been collaborators of the communist regime's secret service will be removed from their posts, according to amendments of the Diplomatic Service Act adopted by the Parliament.

The much anticipated but still controversial "diplomatic lustration" legislation championed by Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov was adopted Thursday with 92 votes in favor - cast by MPs from the ruling center-right party GERB and the rightist Blue Coalition, 21 votes against - cast by the Bulgarian Socialist Party, and 13 abstaining - from the ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) and the nationalist party Ataka.

The amendments initiated by Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov are also designed to prohibit any collaborators - including intelligence officers and secret informers - of the so called State Security (DS), the intelligence and secret police service of the Bulgarian communist regime before 1989. [Read more:  Novinite/06232011] 

Iran Reports Arrest of U.S. Spy Ring. Iran's state-run Press TV announced on Wednesday that the government of the Islamic Republic had arrested 30 people in May on suspicion of spying for the United States.

The report quoted Haida Moslehi, the director of Iranian intelligence, as saying that that an additional 42 people had been identified as C.I.A. operatives in various countries.

Operatives working in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Malaysia, among others, were used to make contact with Iranians who could provide important information on everything from key infrastructure elements to the oil and gas industry to the nuclear program, it said.

The alleged espionage operation used various companies, including a job-finding center, for its work, said the English-language report. It suggested that there were double agents involved, and that at least one of those arrested had already been convicted.

The report identified Jamshid Sadegh Hosseini as a "convicted U.S. nuclear spy" who had handed over "valuable information" about the nuclear program from work at the Kalaye Electric Company. [Read more:  Farquar/NYTimes/23June2011] 

Egypt Sentences 3 to Life for Spying for Israel. An Egyptian court sentenced a businessman, and two Israelis who were tried in absentia, to life in prison on Thursday for spying for Israel.

Egypt arrested businessman Tarek Abdel Rezek Hussein, 37, the owner of an import-export firm, in August for involvement in the recruitment of operatives working for telecoms firms in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.

The two Israelis, who have not been arrested but were accused of being part of the spy ring, were also convicted and sentenced by the emergency state security court.

Hussein was accused of accepting $37,000 (23,129 pounds) to provide Israel with information about Egyptians working in telecoms companies who could be recruited to spy in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.

The rulings were issued by judge Gamal el-Din Safwat Rushdi, witnesses in court said. [Read more:  Reuters/23June2011] 

In Show of Good Will, Pakistan Issues More than 3 Dozen Visas to CIA Officers. Pakistan has issued more than three dozen visas to CIA officers as part of confidence-building measures following the U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and humiliated Pakistan, officials from both countries said Wednesday.

U.S. officials confirmed the move, saying it was viewed as a positive sign after weeks of what the U.S. had perceived as foot-dragging by Pakistan. The U.S. officials added that not all the visas requested by the Americans have yet been handed out.

U.S. and Pakistani officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

The visas are part of an agreement to rebuild counterterrorism efforts damaged by fallout from the secret bin Laden raid in Pakistan. The CIA officers would be part of an expanded joint counterterrorism force in Pakistan focused on hunting terrorism suspects. [Read more:  570News/23June2011] 

NSA Wants Bulletproof Smart Phone, Tablet Security. The National Security Agency, America's high-tech spy agency which also plays a key role in approving hardware and software for use by the Department of Defense, wants to be able to outfit military personnel with commercial smart phones and tablets - but based on an NSA security design.

The forces in the Department of Defense, including the U.S. Army and Air Force, today are piloting several different commercially available smart phones and tablets which the NSA is working to harden and secure, said Debora Plunkett, director of the NSA's information assurance directorate, speaking at the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit 2011 here today. "It's not our intention to rely on any one platform," she said. The goal is to have perhaps four main devices, plus a couple of infrastructure support services, and let U.S. forces pick the one they like best, she said.

Finding a way to bring commercially available smartphones and tablets into the classified security environment is "our No. 1 challenge today," Plunkett said.

Right now, commercial smart phones and tablets are seen as carrying considerable risks from a national-security perspective, but the NSA is working to figure out how to add its own security to compensate for the risks.

"We are not saying there are no vulnerabilities in COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] products," Plunkett said. "The intention is to be able to layer the commercial products and alleviate and obviate the vulnerabilities." [Read more:  Messmer/ITWorldCanada/23June2011] 

Norway PST Conducts Terrorist Interrogations. PST spokesperson Trond Hugubakken confirms some of his colleagues will travel to New York this week to get testimonies from the three terrorist collaborators, but refused to expand on the topic, reports The Associated Press.

Two of the Al-Qaida members, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, admitted their involvement in the plot to bomb a New York subway and a shopping mall in Manchester, UK, in 2009.

The PST will now question Mr. Zazi, who is believed to have tipped the FBI about these potential attacks, as well as Mr. Ahmedzay. [Read more:  TheForeigner/23June2011] 

Cellphone links Osama bin Laden to Pakistan Spies. A cellphone of Osama bin Laden's trusted courier seized by U.S. forces shows links between the former Al Qaeda leader and a militant group connected to Pakistan's intelligence agency, the New York Times reports.

U.S. forces recovered the phone during a raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, last month. Bin Laden and his courier were killed during the raid, which was conducted by a Navy SEALS team.

The phone reportedly shows that bin Laden used the militant group Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen as part of his support network when he lived in Pakistan. The group has been mentored by Pakistan's spy agency, which allowed it to continue operating in Pakistan for 20 years. [Read more:  GlobalPost/24June2011] 

Petraeus Named in Bin Laden Documents. Gen. David Petraeus, the president's nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, was the only person Osama bin Laden targeted by name in materials seized in the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader last month.

Gen. Petraeus was "the only named person" in documents that Navy SEALS took from the bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr said Thursday at the general's Senate confirmation hearing.

The senator, a member of the intelligence committee, didn't say whether the bin Laden documents specified that al Qaeda had a plan to try to kill Gen. Petraeus. But Mr. Burr suggested the general would be wise to bring a security detail with him to Langley.

"There will be agency-provided security," Gen. Petraeus responded. [Read more:  Gorman/WSJ/06232011] 

Ex-officer Convicted of Betraying Russian Spy Ring. A former senior Russian intelligence officer was convicted in absentia Monday of betraying a ring of 10 Russian spies in the United States.

The Moscow District Military Court found Col. Alexander Poteyev guilty of high treason and desertion and sentenced him to 25 years in prison after a trial that was closed to the public. Russian news agencies cited the court's verdict as saying that Poteyev fled to the United States shortly before U.S. authorities announced the spy bust last summer, leaving his wife behind.

Anna Chapman and her fellow deep-cover agents had testified during the trial that only Poteyev could have provided the information that led to their arrest last year, according to the excerpts of the verdict carried by Russian newswires. They were deported in exchange for four suspected Western agents who had been imprisoned in Russia. It was the biggest spy swap since the Cold War.

The court said that the 59-year-old Poteyev had overseen the Russian sleeper agents in the U.S. as a deputy head of the "S" department of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service.

Chapman, the pinup girl for the agents, has testified that she was caught after an undercover U.S. agent contacted her using a code that only Poteyev and her personal handler knew, Russian news reports quoted the verdict as saying. She said she immediately felt that something was wrong and called her handler in Moscow who confirmed her suspicions. Chapman and others were arrested shortly after.

RIA Novosti news also quoted the testimony of other agents who confirmed that only Poteyev had access to the sensitive information that allowed the U.S. authorities to apprehend them.

The ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agencies quoted the verdict as saying that Poteyev had fled to Belarus and then move on to Germany and, finally, the United States using a passport belonging to another person.

It said that Poteyev was in such a hurry to leave the country that he rushed out of a business meeting at the intelligence headquarters, Interfax reported.

According to the verdict, he sent a farewell message to his wife that was cited by Interfax: "Mary, try to take it calmly. I'm leaving not for some time, but forever. I didn't want to, but I had to. I will start my life from scratch and will try to help the children." [Read more: Isachenkov/AP/27June2011]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Analysis: Growing Radical Ties in Pakistani Military. The arrest of a brigadier general for ties to a radical Islamic group renews questions about the Pakistani armed forces loyalty to the government and support of US counter-terrorism operations in the region. The Pakistani military announced last week that it had detained Brigadier General Ali Khan a few days after the US operation against Osama Bin Laden for ties to Hizbul Tehrir (HuT), an Islamic militant group. Khan has spent 25 years in the military and served with UN peacekeepers in Bosnia.

There are other indications of Islamic support in the military. AP and other media sources reported statements by US officials last week that Pakistan again warned militants in its tribal areas of imminent attacks, giving the terror suspects time to flee, after U.S. intelligence shared the locations with the Pakistani government. Pakistani pilots have refused to bomb militant strongholds, and some units choose to surrender to militant groups rather than to fight them. Last month, Pakistani Taliban insurgents stormed the Naval Air Station in Karachi and destroyed two surveillance aircraft supplied by the US. According to CNN and other sources, they acted with inside information on the layout and security of the station.

Pakistani journalist Syed Shahzad was found murdered on 31 May after he investigated military ties to radical Islam. Shahzad had described the attack on the Naval air station as "the violent beginning of an internal ideological struggle between Islamist elements in the Pakistani armed forces and their secular and liberal top brass." He also quoted unnamed sources in the Pakistan military intelligence service, as saying: "It was shown several months ago that the Pakistan navy is vulnerable to Islamists when a marine commando unit official was arrested.....Now, they (Pakistani intelligence) realize how the organization (the Pakistan Navy) is riddled and vulnerable to the influence of militant organizations." [Read more: Ruth/Newsmax/27June/2011]

The Strange Story of an Iranian "Defector". The Iranian regime is alleging that the United States cozied up to a former Iranian intelligence agent who was sent on a clandestine mission to infiltrate American government agencies. Last week, Iranian State television broadcasted a half hour-long program relating the accounts of Mohammad Madhi, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards and clerical leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's right-hand man, who claims he was sent out on a secret mission by the Iranian government. In the film, Madhi explains in great detail his purported dealings with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute based in Washington D.C., with all collaborations leading up to an alleged State Department proposal asking Madhi to lead an opposition group in toppling the Iranian regime and replacing it with a democratic governing body created by the United States.

With in-depth knowledge about the regime and its operations, Madhi claimed he became Washington's winning ticket on Iran policy while secretly infiltrating and outing the long-established opposition networks abroad, mentioning many of the Iranian-American opposition leaders by name and association in the film.

Madhi left Iran in 2008 and lived in Bangkok, working as a diamond distributor. He passed himself off as a disenchanted defector who would be interested in joining the opposition abroad. That is how he attracted policy makers who approached him, he claimed, and set up these alleged, sensitive meetings with policy makers and politicians. [Read more:  Daftari/FrontPageMag/21June20111] 

Military Feared Hitler Would Use Bombs Filled with Poison Gas for UK Invasion. British authorities feared the Nazis would use poison gas as part of an attempt to invade the UK, newly disclosed files show.

Intelligence suggested Germany had stockpiled large amounts of chemical weapons and carried out tests using anthrax-infected mortar shells and a foot-and-mouth disease spray.

An unconfirmed report even suggested that the Nazis had developed a gas which could stop car engines from working, previously secret documents released by the National Archives reveal.

In January 1941, when a German invasion was feared to be imminent, British military intelligence concluded that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's forces were likely to use poison gas against the UK.

"If Germany attempts to invade this country she will be undertaking a most hazardous operation for which the prize will be world domination," officers wrote in a report.   [Read more:  Mardsen/Scotsman/23June2011] 

How to Break an Information Bottleneck? "All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure," the president wrote in a memorandum about the Freedom of Information Act.

FOIA (pronounced "FOY-a") basically requires government agencies to divulge information when people ask for it. Corporations use it to learn about how their industries are regulated. Journalists use it to dig up all sorts of things. Ordinary Americans use it to find out how Washington operates and how tax dollars are spent.

"It is one of the best tools to make sure your government stays open and honest," Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, says of the law.

But two and a half years after the president's call for openness, only 49 of 90 federal agencies have reported making concrete changes to their FOIA procedures, according to a recent analysis by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which collects and publishes declassified government documents. Long backlogs of requests for information, along with responses that take a year or more, are common.

"At this rate, it will be four years before the agencies do what the president asked them to do on Day One," says Thomas S. Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive. "The challenge now is to focus on the agencies that are dragging their feet or actively resisting." [Read more:  Sanger/NYTimes/26June2011] 

Decades After Duty in the OSS and CIA, "Spy Girls" Find Each Other in Retirement. To her, it looked like a harmless piece of coal, about the size of her fist. She remembers passing it to a Chinese secret agent. She remembers later learning about the train, the bridge, the explosion. Sometimes she thinks she has suppressed many wartime memories, but even after almost 70 years, they can creep back.

Betty McIntosh, 96, says that is part of being a spy: the doubts about whether you did the right thing, and hearing about those who died because of what you did, and whether you had alternatives. But it was a war.

Her friend Doris Bohrer would understand, but even so, McIntosh still hasn't divulged everything about every World War II mission. Even though it turns out that Bohrer, 88, was an operative in the war, too: OSS, then CIA, just like McIntosh.

To most other residents of the retirement community in Northern Virginia, these two elegant, well-coiffed widows, Betty and Doris to everyone, are just part of the anonymous parade of aged men and women who play mixed bridge, talk about the brand-new heart and vascular center down the road, the day's menu at the dining hall, and their pets.

What a curious resolution to it all: that although their paths never crossed during their undercover careers, McIntosh and Bohrer would find each other here, neighbors on the same street in the Westminster at Lake Ridge seniors' village in Prince William County. Two women who wear the wedding rings of their dead husbands. Two women who laugh like girls when they reminisce, who are nearly inseparable.

McIntosh says she calls Bohrer almost every morning, just to make sure she's still alive. Bohrer, for her part, can still drive and runs errands for her friend, who is, after all, eight years older and finds it less easy to get around.

"How's it doing today, Betty?" Bohrer asked one recent weekday, stepping inside McIntosh's living room, where paintings by a Japanese prisoner of war hang on the wall. Bohrer was bringing some medication for McIntosh, who had just had two teeth pulled.

"You've got the temperature setting in here at 'off.' You need it on 'cool,' " Bohrer instructed McIntosh. "I've done that. Easy to do." She adjusted the thermostat.

"What would I do without you, dear?" McIntosh said.

It was the early 1940s when Bohrer and McIntosh fell into jobs at the Office of Strategic Services, the nation's first intelligence agency, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and led by William "Wild Bill" Donovan, a Wall Street lawyer and World War I veteran. They were among the rarest of operatives, women working overseas during World War II.

In China, McIntosh, a "black propaganda" specialist, whipped up fake news stories to undermine the morale of the enemy - including an effort to convince the Japanese emperor's soldiers that their wives were procreating with other men back home. Stationed in Italy, Bohrer analyzed aerial photographs of Germany, helping select sites to air drop and rescue OSS officers behind enemy lines.

Bohrer, a Montgomery Blair High School graduate who yearned to fly airplanes, wanted to defend the country from another Pearl Harbor attack. So in 1942, she took the civil service exam. [Read more: Shapira/WashingtonPost/26June2011]

Section III - COMMENTARY

Faulty Intelligence. David Petraeus will be the next CIA chief. But is he the right man for the job? This week, the U.S. Senate will hold confirmation hearings for Gen. David Petraeus's nomination to take the helm at the Central Intelligence Agency. Petraeus is widely praised on Capitol Hill, and no one seriously believes his confirmation is in jeopardy. But it will be unfortunate if the hearing turns into a pro forma exercise, because there are reasons to doubt that he is right for the job.

In addition to espionage and covert action, the CIA director is responsible for the agency's analytical wing. He is also the official voice of the CIA at the White House, charged with delivering the agency's views to the president and the National Security Council. This requires satisfying legitimate policy requests while simultaneously protecting analysts from policy biases. Intelligence chiefs - from Allen Dulles to George Tenet to everyone in between - have long struggled to remain relevant to the policy process without losing their ability to remain objective. It is not an easy job.

Petraeus clearly has the political acumen to stay in the administration's good graces, but senators should ask how he can remain objective about current U.S. foreign policy, given that he is deeply vested in the current strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus has been the champion of a doctrinal transformation in the military, arguing that the key to success in counterinsurgency is the ability to make the government legitimate in the eyes of the people. This is an increasingly controversial position, not least because it requires an enormous long-term investment in the political and economic development of war-torn countries.

Petraeus is also deeply involved in the ongoing policy debate about the upcoming troop drawdown in Afghanistan. According to news reports, he has sided with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in trying to slow the pace of the withdrawal. Petraeus recently described success in the war as "fragile and reversible," which suggests that some kind of victory is still possible but that it will require much more time, money, and manpower. (News releases from Petraeus's command have supported his public statements, though critics have charged that these announcements seem allergic to bad news about the Taliban.) [Read more:  Rovner/ForeignPolicy/22June2011] 

Intelligence Spending Still Buried Deep in Budget. Don't hold your breath waiting for Congress to follow up on a recommendation from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to separate the budget for the National Intelligence Program - which funds the CIA and other intelligence agencies - from the Defense Department budget.

Intelligence spending has always been hidden in the Defense Department. Clapper's plan would, at a minimum, reduce the defense budget and provide a measure of transparency into the country's real defense costs. The plan could also strengthen Clapper's hand as director of national intelligence.

While he effectively has statutory authority over all intelligence spending, he has somewhat less control over spending in the Defense Department's Military Intelligence Program, and even over spending in the Pentagon's intelligence collection agencies, such as the National Security Agency, that do work for the National Intelligence Program. But with Clapper's notion hanging out there, the House Appropriations Committee recently made its sentiments known by adding into the current fiscal 2012 Defense Appropriations bill legislative language aimed at prohibiting the budget separation from taking place. [Read more:  Pincus/WashingtonPost/24June2011] 

Gates Defies All Odds With Successful Second Act: Albert Hunt. There rarely are second acts, to borrow a phrase from F. Scott Fitzgerald, in American politics.

Larry Summers, lauded as President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary, made a comeback to government two and half years ago as President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser with expectations he would become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. Instead, he returned to Harvard University, his reputation not enhanced.

More striking was Donald Rumsfeld, a powerful figure in the Gerald Ford administration, including a stint as defense secretary, and an influential Republican national security voice for the next quarter century. Surprisingly, he came back to his old Cabinet job under President George W. Bush in 2001.

Five and half years later, Rumsfeld was forced out, an embarrassment to his party. You are unlikely to ever hear the current Republican presidential candidates invoke his name.

This history makes Robert Gates all the more remarkable. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President George H.W. Bush, he was summoned by George W. Bush to succeed Rumsfeld, the Pentagon in disarray. He then acceded to Obama's request to stay on.

He is retiring this week, highly respected by politicians of both parties, military officers and rank and file, and the public. His first act was good; the second act off the charts. [Read more:  Hunt/Bloomberg/26June2011] 

How Safe are Britain's Cyber Borders? Deep beneath the palatial headquarters of the Ministry of State Security in central Beijing, a plot is being hatched - and the target is Britain.

Ranked in front of banks of computer screens in the large, fluorescent-lit offices of the Tenth Bureau, the highly secret department responsible for science and technology, thousands of cyber spies are at work. The hackers, mainly graduates in their twenties, work in eight-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as part of an unrelenting Blitzkrieg against Britain and other Western countries.

This is warfare without boundaries, and its tactics will dictate the way in which future conflicts are fought.

Chinese cyber spies are under strict orders to target any organisation, from government departments to hedge funds, whose secrets may benefit the communist state, launching as many as 1,000 attacks every day against the UK alone.

Britain's Ministry of Defence, one of the prime targets, was alone the victim of more than 1,000 cyber attacks last year, and although no official will admit it publicly, the Chinese are the main culprits. [Read more:  Rayment/Telegraph/26June2011] 

Metal Allies. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has developed an air force of drones to fight its new enemies. Faced with terrorists willing to take any life, we built machines that hunt and kill but don't bleed.

In the next decade, our reliance on drones and the spies who support them may increase for a different reason: We're losing friends.

Since Sept. 11, the U.S. drone fleet has grown from a few dozen to 7,000. The Air Force now trains more pilots to operate drones than to fly bombers or fighter jets. Spy drones have flown extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we've fought ground wars. But killer drones have been particularly useful in Pakistan, where we can't send troops.

Every time U.S. ground forces have entered its territory - most recently in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden - Pakistan has freaked out. But Pakistani leaders have tolerated U.S. drone strikes that killed nearly 2,000 insurgents in the country's frontier provinces over the past five years. In fact, since the Bin Laden raid, the drone strikes have escalated and spread.

Hand in hand with the drone war, the CIA's role has expanded. Like the drones, the CIA is invisible. It can hunt and kill in a country without officially being there. So while the military operates our drones in Afghanistan, the CIA operates them in Pakistan. Apparently, we've been allowed to launch some of our drone missions over Pakistan from bases within the country.

That may change. The Bin Laden raid, coupled with a lethal incident involving a U.S. agent inside Pakistan, has frayed the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Instead of investigating Pakistani officials who may have helped shelter Bin Laden, Pakistan has rounded up people it suspects of helping the CIA set up the raid. Pakistan has also snuffed out a U.S. program to train Pakistani troops to fight al-Qaida. And the CIA has caught insurgents being tipped off when the U.S. shares intelligence with Pakistan. [Read more:  Saletan/Slate/22June2011] 

Section IV - Books, Obituaries and Coming Events

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Books

China's Espionage Threat. When we think of espionage we tend to think in terms of Europe, Central Europe in particular, the bleak, dark cityscapes of Berlin and Vienna, the border cities of the Cold War. The Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, clandestine meets in the shadow of the Prater or the Brandenburg Gate.

David Wise thinks we desperately need to add an Eastern perspective to our thinking on espionage. Judging from the evidence presented in his new book, Tiger Trap:America's Secret Spy War with China, he's far from mistaken.

China is undoubtedly the biggest espionage threat this country now faces. The Chinese, for cultural and historical reasons, don't view espionage, either purpose or technique, the way we do. Whereas Americans (and Russians too) think in terms of targets against which distinct operations are planned and carried out, the Chinese, according to Wise, view the process as putting together a mosaic, of gathering small pieces of information to construct an overall picture. What the Chinese do is send out thousands of tourists, officials, and agents to pick up whatever they can (Wise compares the process to analyzing the sands of a beach - each returns to China with a single grain of sand). 

Needless to say, the PRC does not overlook ethnic Chinese who have settled in foreign countries, particularly the United States. The Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) constantly recruits in overseas Chinese communities, often pleading with potential recruits to "help" the mother country, which remains poor and vulnerable. These requests often don't match our preconceptions concerning "espionage" as such, comprising as they do the search for that one single sand-grain of information that will fill out the overall mosaic.

Misunderstanding of the Chinese intelligence mindset has led to serious failings in U.S. counterintelligence efforts. Wise recounts disaster after disaster in the recent decades. [Read more:  Dunn/AmericanThinker/23June2011] 

Obituaries

Donald L. Creacey. Donald L. Creacey, 81, a senior Russian analyst for the CIA, where he worked from 1965 to 1996, died May 15 at his home in Arlington. He had coronary artery disease.

Mr. Creacey served in the Air Force from 1951 to 1962, attaining the rank of major and becoming fluent in Russian.

Donald Lee Creacey was a native of Mentone, Calif., and a 1951 graduate of the University of Redlands in California. He received a master�s degree in government economics from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Survivors include three brothers. [Bernstein/WashingtonPost/20June2011]

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in July, August, and September with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are in detail below and online.

Friday, 8 July 2011, 6 pm - Washington DC - David Wise discusses his book "Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China" at the Institute of World Politics

For decades, America obsessed over Soviet spies, while China quietly penetrated the highest levels of government. Now, for the first time, based on innumerable interviews with key insiders at the FBI and CIA as well as with Chinese agents and people close to them, David Wise tells the full story of China's many victories and defeats in its American spy wars.

Two key cases interweave throughout: Katrina Leung, codenamed Parlor Maid, worked for the FBI for years, even after she became a secret double agent for China, aided by love affairs with both of her FBI handlers. Here, too, is the inside story of the case, codenamed Tiger Trap, of a key Chinese-American scientist suspected of stealing nuclear weapons secrets. These two cases lead to many others, involving famous names from Wen Ho Lee to Richard Nixon, stunning national security leaks, and sophisticated cyberspying. The story leads right up to the present, with a West Coast spy ring whose members were sentenced in 2010-but it surely will continue for years to come, as China faces off against America. David Wise's history of China's spy wars in America is packed with eye-popping revelations.

David Wise is America's leading writer on intelligence and espionage. He is the coauthor of The Invisible Government, a number one bestseller about the CIA. He is also the author of Nightmover, Molehunt, The Spy Who Got Away, and The Politics of Lying, and the coauthor, with Thomas B. Ross, of The Espionage Establishment and The U-2 Affair. He was a commentator on intelligence issues for CNN for six years. A native New Yorker and graduate of Columbia College, he is the former chief of the Washington bureau of the New York Herald Tribune and has contributed articles on government and politics to many national magazines. He lives in Washington, D.C
Location: The Institute of World Politics, 1521 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20036
RSVP Required for admission: kbridges@iwp.edu.

11 - 13 July 2011 - Dungarvan, IRELAND. 2nd Annual Global Intelligence Forum by Mercyhurst College's Institute for Intelligence Studies
Last July in Dungarvan, Ireland the Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies (MCIIS) hosted this event which explored the nature of analysis and its application in various disciplines, including law enforcement, national security and competitive intelligence, building bridges between analytic practitioners and scholars within those disciplines, and exploring best practices in terms of teaching analytic methodologies. Takeaways for attendees were a deeper and broader appreciation of the value of different analytic methods, which can be borrowed as ―best practices from other disciplines, as well as instruction on the application. Attended by 180 people from 17 countries the forum was very well received.
This year's July 11-13 forum theme will be the relationship between intelligence and the decision-maker and we've gathered an outstanding group of international speakers and panelists (http://globalintelligenceforum.com). In addition we will be offering two proven training courses following the forum one designed for decision-makers in various disciplines and the other for analysts .
Five or more AFIO members that attend will be given a 10% discount on registration. It's a wonderful excuse for a July vacation in Ireland and Dungarvan is a perfect venue (www.dungarvan.com).

Tuesday, 19 July 2011, 7 - 9pm - Washington, DC - "The Lincoln Assassination Conspiracies " - Spy Seminar Series on Civil War Spies at the International Spy Museum

Spy Seminar Series: Civil War Spies - A Three-Part Exploration of Union and Confederate Intelligence Operations.
The North and the South both had their share of intelligence successes (and failures); neither the Blue nor the Gray were strangers to intrigue and espionage. Society ladies carried secret messages, runaway slaves re-crossed the Mason-Dixon Line as undercover agents, and couriers worked covert operations in the life or death climate of wartime. In this series, a distinguished group of historians and espionage experts will introduce you to some of the most amazing spies and spy cases of the conflict.
Location: Ford's Theatre - Join renowned experts Michael Kauffman, author of American Brutus; Frank J. Williams, Chairman of The Lincoln Forum and Chief Justice (ret) of Rhode Island; and H. Donald Winkler, author of Stealing Secrets and Lincoln and Booth: More Light on the Conspiracy; for a rounded view of the conspiracies and realities of the horrific events of April 14th, 1865.
International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW Washington, DC. Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
Tickets: Series Tickets: $60; Individual Tickets: $25
Register at: www.spymuseum.org

Wednesday, 20 July 2011, 12 noon - Washington, DC - "The Triple Agent: The Al Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA" a book event at the International Spy Museum

For more than a decade, the United States has been hunting Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two man in Al Qaeda. In 2009, the Agency was finally getting close to bagging this "High-Value Target"—its partners in the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate had a source named Humam Khalil al-Balawi working inside Al Qaeda and he knew where Zawahiri was. Or so Jordanian intelligence and the CIA thought. In fact, Al Qaeda was running a sophisticated deception against them. In December 2009 al-Balawi came to Forward Operating Base Chapman, a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan and detonated a thirty-pound bomb strapped to his chest, instantly killing seven CIA officers and one Jordanian intelligence officer. It was the CIA's greatest loss of life in decades. In The Triple Agent, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Joby Warrick takes us deep inside the CIA's secret war against Al Qaeda, a war that pits robotic planes and laser-guided missiles against a low-tech but cunning enemy. Join the author for this gripping true story of miscalculation, deception, and revenge, learn how Al Qaeda fooled the world's greatest intelligence service.
Tickets: Free! No Registration Required!

Thursday, 21 July 2011, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO – The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Joan Papke an Attorney and Private Investigator on Using Social Network and Social Media as an Intelligence Tool.

Attorney Papke will also discuss the potential legal and ethical issues associated with using social media and social networking sites in the course of an investigation or as a tool for gathering Intelligence. This event will be held at a new location The Inn at Palmer Divide, 443 S. Highway 105 Palmer Lake, CO, Exit 161 westbound off I-25, West on Highway 105. Please RSVP to Tom VanWormer at robsmom@pcisys.net

24 July 2011, 11:30 am - Cleveland, OH - "Indentification, Assessment, Monitoring and Minimizing of Risk at the Local Level" at AFIO N Ohio Chapter hosts Patrick Shaw, Dept of Homeland Security

Speaker: Patrick M. Shaw -- Protective Security Advisor (PSA). Shaw is Protective Security Advisor (PSA) for the Cleveland, Ohio District, Department of Homeland Security
Topic: Identification, Assessment, Monitoring and Minimizing of Risk at the Local Level

WHERE: Cleveland Yachting Club, 200 Yacht Club Dr., Cleveland, OH 44116-1736, (440) 333-1155
Get directions: Near Clifton Blvd. and Lake Road in Rocky River. Click on "Get directions, above, for Google Map directions from your point of origin.

COST: Chapter and AFIO National Members and their guests $28.00; National AFIO Members and their guests $30.00; Non-Members $35.00

RSVP: Email to mgoldstein@msglpa.com or phone the names of those attending to 440-424-4071
RSVP's will be considered firm. Then mail check with reservation form, to be received by July 15, 2011

Patrick M. (Pat) Shaw currently serves as the Protective Security Advisor (PSA) for the DHS Cleveland, Ohio District. Mr. Shaw supports homeland security efforts, serving in an advising and reach-back capacity to the Homeland Security Advisors. He contributes to the development of the national risk picture by assisting with the identification, assessment, monitoring, and minimizing of risk to critical assets at the local level. As a PSA, Mr. Shaw facilitates, coordinates, and performs vulnerability assessments for local infrastructure and assets, and acts as a physical and technical advisor to Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.

Tuesday, 26 July 2011, 7 - 9pm - Washington, DC - " Civil War Sisterhood of Spies" - Spy Seminar Series on Civil War Spies at the International Spy Museum
Spy Seminar Series: Civil War Spies - A Three-Part Exploration of Union and Confederate Intelligence Operations.
The North and the South both had their share of intelligence successes (and failures); neither the Blue nor the Gray were strangers to intrigue and espionage. Society ladies carried secret messages, runaway slaves re-crossed the Mason-Dixon Line as undercover agents, and couriers worked covert operations in the life or death climate of wartime. In this series, a distinguished group of historians and espionage experts will introduce you to some of the most amazing spies and spy cases of the conflict.
Location: the Willard Intercontinental Hotel - Ann Blackman author of Wild Rose will describe Wild Rose Greenhow's exploits in the nation's capitol, Amanda Ohlke, director of adult education at the International Spy Museum will trace Elizabeth Van Lew's colorful espionage career, and historical impersonator Emily Lapisardi will portray lively Confederate spy Antonia Ford.
International Spy Museum: 800 F Street, NW Washington, DC. Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station
Tickets: Series Tickets: $60; Individual Tickets: $25
Register at: www.spymuseum.org

4 August 2011 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Akiva Tor, Consul General of Israel for the Pacific Northwest Region.

The topic will be on the evolving unrest in the Middle East to include events that started in Tunisia, moved to Egypt, Libya, Yemen and more recently Syria and the resulting ramifications regarding the security of Israel. The presentation will touch on cooperation between US and Israeli intelligence. The meeting location will be confirmed upon receipt of registration. 11:30AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-members accompanied by a member. No walk-ins allowed. Seating is limited. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate meat or fish) at afiosf@aol.com and mail a check made out to "AFIO" by 7/27/11 to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578, Burlingame, CA 94011

Saturday, 6 August 2011, 11:30 am -- Melbourne, FL -- the AFIO Satellite Chapter luncheon followed by General Bud O'Connor's talk, "To the Moon." 

This luncheon will be held at the At Ease Club in the Indian River Colony Club, Melbourne, FL.  Check-in and cash bar at 11:30 am, lunch ($18) at 12:30 pm, followed by speaker. To register or for more information, contact Donna Czarnecki at donnacz@aol.com

Saturday, 6 August 2011, 7:00 pm - Washington, DC - "The ESP in Espionage: An Evening with Alain Nu, the Man Who Knows" at the International Spy Museum

“To watch him is to throw out all the rules of physics. Time and space are malleable in Nu's deft hands.” — Eric Brace, The Washington Post

When the U.S. Government began their Star Gate program in the 1970s, they were focused on the possibility of using psychic channels to gather intelligence. Psychics, in a clinically controlled setting, were asked to perform “remote viewing”—attempting to sense targeted information about people, places and events. Reports of the program’s success run from the eerie to the off-base, but the intelligence world’s pursuit of the mind’s power has captured the imagination of Alain Nu. The Man Who Knows™, who has long been obsessed with the strange, the unknown, and unexplained. His exploration of the unusual has led him to the field of mentalism and developing his untold powers. Nu’s uncanny demonstrations blur the line between science and the mysteries of unexplained phenomena and have been featured in his own TLC Network television specials The Mysterious World of Alain Nu and his book Picture Your ESP! And now he is turning his ESPecially entertaining powers to the world of ESPionage. Join us for an evening with Nu inspired by Star Gate, the trickery of spies, and other top secret projects.

Tickets:  $25 – Complimentary light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. To register visit www.spymuseum.org

Tuesday, 9 August 2011 - Tampa, FL - The AFIO Suncoast FL Chapter features Hon. Gus M. Bilirakis, Republican from Palm Harbor.

Gus Bilirakis was first elected to Congress on November 7, 2006, to represent Florida's Ninth Congressional District, which includes portions of Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough counties. He is currently serving his third term in the United States House of Representatives. Gus currently serves on the Committees on Homeland Security, Veterans' Affairs and Foreign Affairs. Gus has been appointed Chairman of the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and
Communication, a vital post for the state of Florida. In this role he will oversee the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and will work to enhance emergency preparedness across the nation. He has also been named Vice Chairman of the Veteran's Affairs Committee, where he will advocate for veterans and oversee the Department of Veterans Affairs. Additionally, Gus is a member of the Republican Party's Whip Team, is Chair of the Veterans' Affairs Task Force for the Republican Policy Committee, and is Co-Chairman of the Military Veterans Caucus.
Please RSVP no later than August 5th with the names of any guests. Refer to the information "To attend our Meeting" in the chapter newsletter for important details. Check-in at 1130 hours; opening ceremonies, lunch and business meeting at noon, followed by our speaker, the Hon. Gus Bilirakis. We have maintained the all-inclusive cost at $15. The cash wine and soda bar will open at 1100 hours for those that wish to come early to socialize. Further info at www.suncoastafio.org or contact Wallace S. Bruschweiler, Sr. at afiosuncoastvp@aol.com

13 August 2011 - Orange Park / Gainesville, FL - The AFIO North Florida Chapter meets at the Country Club for speaker luncheon.

Speaker TBA. To inquire or sign up, contact Quiel at qbegonia@comcast.net or 904-545-9549.

24 - 26 August 2011 - Raleigh, NC - "Spies Among Us - The Secret World of Illegals" - theme of the 7th Raleigh Spy Conference

Special guests/speakers: Michael Hayden, former DCIA and DIRNSA; Michael Sulick, former Director of the National Clandestine Service, CiA
Returning presenters:
Brian Kelley, CIA & Professor at Institute of World Politics;
Nigel West - world-famous intelligence author/speaker - former Member of Parliament;
Dan Mulvenna - RCMP/CASIS
Writer's Roundtable to feature Douglas Waller, author of Wild Bill Donovan, about the founder of the Office of Strategic Services — the World War 11 forerunner of the CIA — will serve as anchor. Other authors on the roundtable are David Wise, often called 'the dean of intelligence authors,' to discuss his new book Tiger Trap: America’s Secret Spy War With America, and Kent Clizbe, author of Willing Accomplices, a book concerning the continuing influence of Soviet propaganda on Western academia and media and other noted writers in the field.

New to the conference this year: The Historical Collections Division of the Office of Information Services of the Central Intelligence Agency will present a few booklets of recently declassified secret documents, ranging from the Korean War, the Warsaw Pact, Air America, martial law in Poland, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the papers of controversial CIA director Richard Helms. Officials from CIA’s Historical Division will be on hand in Raleigh to discuss their work and answer individual questions.

For more information: www.raleighspyconference.com
email: cyndi@metromagazine.com
Location: North Carolina Museum of History, Downtown Raleigh, NC

For Additional Events two+ months or greater....view our online Calendar of Events

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