AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #28-11 dated 26 July 2011

[Editors' Note: The WIN editors attempt to include a wide range of articles and commentary in the Weekly Notes to inform and educate our readers. However, the views expressed in the articles are purely those of the authors, and in no way reflect support or endorsement from the WIN editors or the AFIO officers and staff. We welcome comments from the WIN readers on any and all articles and commentary.]
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CONTENTS

Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Section III - COMMENTARY

Section IV - Careers, Books, Obituaries Research Requests and Coming Events

Careers

Books

Obituaries

Research Requests

Coming Educational Events

Current Calendar New and/or Next Two Months ONLY
 

SPECIAL NEWS AND EVENT HIGHLIGHT

REGISTER NOW
FOR AFIO NATIONAL SUMMER LUNCHEON

FRIDAY, 12 August 2011

--

MORNING speaker [11 a.m.]

Mike Rogers


The Chairman of the
House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence

Rep. Michael J. Rogers (R-MI 8th District)
former FBI

Remarks are ON THE RECORD

3-course Beef or Vegetarian Lunch at Noon
1 p.m. speaker


Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
and Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command
for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JFCC-ISR)
for U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM)

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr.

Remarks are ON THE RECORD

Check in for badge pickup at 10:30 a.m.
Chairman Mike Rogers gives address at 11 a.m.
Lunch is served at noon.
DIA Director Ronald Burgess will give address at 1 p.m.

Event closes at 2 p.m.
--
EVENT LOCATION: The Crowne Plaza
1960 Chain Bridge Road • McLean, Virginia 22102
Driving directions here or use this link: http://tinyurl.com/8228kw

Register Now To Be Certain of Space

            Raleigh Spy Conference

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


Just announced! Thursday-Friday, 6 - 7 October 2011 - Laurel, MD - The NSA's Center for Cryptologic History hosts their Biennial Cryptologic History Symposium with theme: Cryptology in War and Peace: Crisis Points in History.

The National Security Agency’s Center for Cryptologic History sponsors the Cryptologic History Symposium every two years. The next one will be held 6-7 October 2011. Historians from the Center, the Intelligence Community, the defense establishment, and the military services, as well as distinguished scholars from American and foreign academic institutions, veterans of the profession, and the interested public all will gather for two days of reflection and debate on topics from the cryptologic past. The theme for the upcoming conference will be: “Cryptology in War and Peace: Crisis Points in History.” This topical approach is especially relevant as the year 2011 is an important anniversary marking the start of many seminal events in our nation’s military history. The events that can be commemorated are many. Participants will delve into the roles of signals intelligence and information assurance, and not just as these capabilities supported military operations. More cogently, observers will examine how these factors affected and shaped military tactics, operations, strategy, planning, and command and control throughout history. The role of cryptology in preventing conflict and supporting peaceful pursuits will also be examined. The panels will include presentations in a range of technological, operational, organizational, counterintelligence, policy, and international themes. Past symposia have featured scholarship that set out new ways to consider out cryptologic heritage, and this one will be no exception. The mix of practitioners, scholars, and the public precipitates a lively debate that promotes an enhanced appreciation for the context of past events. The Symposium will be held at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Center, in Laurel, Maryland, a location central to the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas. As has been the case with previous symposia, the conference will provide unparalleled opportunities for interaction with leading historians and distinguished experts. So please make plans to join us for either one or both days of this intellectually stimulating conference. Dr. Kent Sieg, the Center’s Symposium Executive Director, 301-688-2336 or via email at kgsieg@nsa.gov. Registration form is here.


Upcoming CIA Historical Collections Division Events:

Monday, 26 September 2011 - Boston, MA - CIA's Historical Collections Division Conference "Piercing the Iron Curtain: The Use of Technology to Resolve the Missile Gap" at JFK Presidential Library

Scope: The Missile Gap was an episode in American history that was in effect a misperception of the rate of soviet ICBM deployment relative to US ICBM deployment. The United States and USSR were in a race to develop long range missiles. Because of the tight Soviet security, the US had little evidence about the USSRs progress developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. At the outset, ignorance of the Soviet ICBM program abounded, projections of potential missile production became estimates, Soviet ICBM testing , Khrushchev's boasting, USAF mirror imaging, and setbacks in US ICBM development yielded wild estimates of a critical gap between US and the Soviet ICBM capabilities. CIA developed new collection, processing and analytic capabilities that ultimately solved the "Gap" issue—for all but the USAF. 185 documents. EVENT LOCATION: JFK Presidential Library, Boston, MA. Details about event to follow from AFIO as we get closer to event.

Thursday, 27 October 2011 - Washington, DC - CIA Historical Collections Division Conference: "A City Torn Apart; Building the Berlin Wall - 1961"

Scope: For nearly 50 years the German City of Berlin was the living symbol of the Cold War. The Soviets closed the Sector Border dividing East Berlin from West Berlin on August 13th, 1961, effectively establishing what become known as the Berlin Wall. This symposium focused on the events leading up to the establishment of the Berlin Wall. The period covered included the Vienna Conference on 3 June to the confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie on 27 October 1961. EVENT LOCATION: National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. Contributors will include NATO, ARMY, JFK & LBJ Presidential Libraries, SHAEF, and State Department. Details about event to follow from AFIO as we get closer to event.

2 November 2011 - Simi Valley, CA - CIA Historical Collections Division Conference: "Ronald Reagan, Intelligence, and the End of the Cold War"

Scope: President Reagan and his use of intelligence in the formulation of US-Soviet policy. The symposium will feature high-level former policymakers, intelligence practitioners, intelligence analysts, and historians discussing how the Reagan Administration used intelligence in making policies to end the Cold War. As part of this event, the CIA is releasing a collection of some 200 declassified documents, including intelligence assessments, research papers, National Intelligence Estimates, high-level memos, and briefing materials provided to the Administration during this period. The collection includes several video briefings prepared by the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence and delivered to policymakers on such varied topics as the Soviet space program, the Andropov succession, the Chernobyl disaster, and the Moscow summit. 200 documents. Event Location: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, CA. Event Partners: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Details about event to follow from AFIO as we get closer to event.


Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Two Charged In Pakistani Spy Services' Alleged Funneling of Money Via US Group. Pakistani intelligence services have secretly spent millions of dollars through a front group over the past 20 years to lobby Congress and the White House and funnel contributions to members of both parties, according to Justice Department charges unveiled Tuesday.

The center of the alleged scheme was the Kashmiri American Council and its executive director, Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, who is accused in federal court documents of acting under the direct supervision of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, Pakistan's spy agency.

The allegations come at a time of deteriorating relations between the Obama administration and the Pakistani government, which is angry about secret U.S. operations that led to the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Pakistan has kicked out more than 100 U.S. military advisers in recent weeks, while the Obama administration announced it is delaying $800 million in military aid.

A criminal complaint filed in Alexandria against Fai and a second defendant, Zaheer Ahmad, outlines a long-running and elaborate plot in which Pakistani intelligence officials exercised de facto control over the Kashmiri council, which sponsored well-attended conferences in Washington, organized congressional trips to Kashmir and met with State Department and White House officials. [Read more:  Eggers/WashingtonPost/19July2011]

Inside Darpa's Secret Afghan Spy Machine. The Pentagon's top researchers have rushed a classified and controversial intelligence program into Afghanistan. Known as "Nexus 7," and previously undisclosed as a war-zone surveillance effort, it ties together everything from spy radars to fruit prices in order to glean clues about Afghan instability.

The program has been pushed hard by the leadership of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They see Nexus 7 as both a breakthrough data-analysis tool and an opportunity to move beyond its traditional, long-range research role and into a more active wartime mission.

But those efforts are drawing fire from some frontline intel operators who see Nexus 7 as little more than a glorified grad-school project, wasting tens of millions on duplicative technology that has nothing to do with stopping the Taliban.

"There are no models and there are no algorithms," says one person familiar with the program, echoing numerous others who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the program publicly. Just "200 lines of buggy Python code to do what imagery analysts do every day."

During a decade of war, American forces have gathered exabytes of information on its enemies in Afghanistan. Nexus 7 aims to tap that data to find out more about the U.S.' alleged friends: the people of Afghanistan, and how they interact with their government and with one another.

Not that you'd be able to figure that out, examining the one public reference to Nexus 7. Tucked away in the Pentagon's gargantuan budget, it makes the program sound like an obscure computer-science project, using "cluster analysis" to find "social networks." There's no reference to its operational utility. [Read more:  Schatman/Wired/19July2011] 

Cuba's Top Court Schedules Appeal Hearing for Alleged US Spy. Cuba's Supreme Court scheduled an appeal hearing for Friday for convicted American Alan Gross, the final legal proceeding before the alleged spy could be pardoned or released.

The 61-year-old U.S. contractor was arrested in December 2009 and was found guilty in March of "spying and subversion" as well as "acts against the independence or territorial integrity of the state." He is serving a 15-year sentence at a Havana prison.

But Supreme Court President Ruben Remigio Ferro said in May that "it is being considered to grant a pardon or release on humanitarian grounds," since both Gross' daughter and mother are very ill.

The U.S. government has always insisted Gross' innocence and pressed for his release, claiming that he was just working for an American firm engaged in helping Cuban Jewish groups communicate with the outside world. [Read more:  Philstar/20July2011] 

2 Korean Spies 'Jailed in China.' Two National Intelligence Service agents operating in China have apparently been captured and jailed for more than 10 months after trials in Chinese courts. According to a diplomatic source familiar with China, two senior NIS agents were arrested in August last year while operating in Shenyang, Liaoning Province after hiring local operatives to gather intelligence on North Korea. In accordance with diplomatic protocol, the government demanded their deportation, but China demurred and put them on trial.

The two are apparently in a prison in Changchun, Jilin Province and South Korean officials are holding last-minute talks with Chinese officials over their release.

However, the NIS said the reports are "totally untrue," and a high-ranking Cheong Wa Dae official said, "No such incident happened." [Read more:  Chosun/21July2011]

Santokhi: Suriname intelligence service trained by CIA. According to ex-Justice and Police minister Chandrikapersad Santokhi, the Special Security and Intelligence Service (SBID) was among others, trained by the CIA and the Dutch and French police. The SBID was established almost immediately after Santokhi's taking office as he was threatened several times after Suriname announced it would deal both national and internationally with organized crime.

The SBID was composed of among others, members of the police force, the Arrest Team, the Central Intelligence and Security service (CIVD) and the Guarding and Security Service Suriname (BBS). The men were especially trained to protect Santokhi and not authorized to conduct other investigative work. Santokhi claims that current Justice and Police Minister Martin Misiedjan wanted to withdraw "all of his security". Intervention of the government has fortunately prevented him from doing so as Santokhi's current function of chairman of the CICAD grants him limited security. [Read more:  StarbroekNews/21July2011] 

EU Backs Release of Wanted Ex-KGB General. The European Union's justice commissioner is backing Austria's refusal to send a former KGB general to Lithuania where he is wanted for killings in 1991.

Viviane Reding said at a meeting of justice ministers in Poland that a European arrest warrant Lithuanian prosecutors had issued for Mikhail Golovatov is invalid because the warrants cover only crimes committed after 2002, the EUobserver reported Wednesday. [Read more:  UPI/20July2011] 

U.S. Intelligence Analysts Speculated on China's Use of Electromagnetic Radiation on Taiwan. Speaking of Taiwan, a newly disclosed U.S. intelligence assessment describes American concerns that China might be developing sophisticated weapons to zap the self-governing island's electronics, or perhaps to use against an American aircraft carrier in the Taiwan Strait.

The 2005 assessment by the National Ground Intelligence Center, part of the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, details China's experimentation with electromagnetic pulse and high-power microwave weapons, either of which could theoretically be used to shut down the communications systems and other electronics in Taiwan.

The report, obtained by the National Security Archive, an independent non-governmental research group, said that Chinese researchers had been conducting tests on animals with the technology but that the "real purpose was to investigate potential human effects of exposure to these specific radiations." [Read more:  Ukman/WashingtonPost/21July2011] 

Intelligence Agency To Cut Data Center Power Usage. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), a defense and intelligence agency that provides imagery, geospatial, and targeting analysis, is planning to use new software to help it more efficiently manage power in its data centers.

The NGA is using Miserware's Granola Enterprise software through an agreement between In-Q-Tel and the company. In-Q-Tel is a CIA-based non-profit organization that identifies emerging technologies to support the U.S. intelligence community, and then makes strategic investments in those technologies. 

MiserWare's Granola Enterprise software allows agencies to reduce the environmental footprint of their data centers and track energy savings across the center's computers by automatically slowing down a processor when its workload is low, according to In-Q-Tel. Then when the workload requires, the software brings a system back up to its maximum speed.

In this way, servers are never wasting energy working at top processing speeds when that is required. By using the software, the NGA can save as much as 35% of total system energy without impacting a system's performance, according to In-Q-Tel. 

The NGA first plans to deploy the software at its new headquarters in Springfield, Va., as well as in two data centers in St. Louis. As part of the strategic partnership, other intelligence agencies also will eventually deploy the software, as well as confer with Miserware how to expand its capabilities for their use, according to In-Q-Tel. [Read more: Montalbano/InformationWeek/22July2011]

BND Destroys File on Nazi Criminal. The German intelligence agency BND admitted Monday to destroying the file of wanted Nazi criminal Alois Brunner in the 1990s and attempting to recruit him, Der Spiegel reported.

Brunner was responsible for the deportation of at least 130,000 Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust. Some reports claimed he had fled to Damascus after World War II and has been hiding there ever since. 

An email sent to a French news agency stated that the BND recently discovered secret files on Brunner which had mysteriously disappeared in the 1990s.

Brunner, who if still alive would be 99, worked alongside Adolf Eichmann and was commander at the Drancy internment camp north of Paris, where Jews were held prior to being sent to their deaths at Auschwitz. Before arriving in France, Brunner assisted in annihilating Jewish communities in Vienna and Salonica.

The Nazi criminal has been wanted for over 65 years. He was arrested in Vienna by the US army after the war, but managed to escape using a fake identity. Later he was able to reach Syria via Egypt, where he settled down in the 1960s. [Read more: YNet/25July2011]

U.S. Seeks to Contain 'Top Secret' Evidence in Mehanna Trial. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. is beseeching a federal judge in Boston not to release to an accused Sudbury terrorist's lawyers the evidence prosecutors that have amassed against him under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, warning the disclosure of "top secret" materials could "cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States."

Holder asserted in a sworn claim of executive privilege filed with U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole Jr. in the case of Tarek Mehanna, "The FISA materials contain sensitive and classified information concerning United States intelligence sources and methods and other information related to efforts of the United States to conduct counterterrorism investigations."

Mehanna, 28, a former pharmacist and 2000 Lincoln-Sudbury High School graduate, has been held without bail in solitary confinement since his 2009 indictment on charges he plotted to slaughter U.S. troops in Iraq on behalf of al-Qaeda. Prosecutors have also said Mehanna may have been planning to shoot up a local shopping mall. He faces life imprisonment if convicted. [Read more: Sweet/BostonHerald/25July2011]

Iran Accuses US, Israel of Killing Iranian Scientist. Iran has accused the U.S. and Israel for the assassination of an Iranian scientist on Saturday amid growing concerns of Iranian nuclear advancements.

Darioush Rezai-Nejad of Tehran was killed and his wife injured by motorcycle-riding gunmen in front of his home, according to the New York Times, marking the fourth Iranian killed possibly linked to the country's nuclear intelligence agency.

Though it is unclear if Rezai-Nejad was linked in any way to Iran's nuclear program, past reports that have since been backtracked have stated he was a physics professor involved in government nuclear projects. Current reports identify him as possibly a doctoral student at Khajeh Nasroldeen Toosi University or an electronics specialist working at the Iranian defense ministry, according to The Telegraph. 

his latest slaying comes during a time where western nations are growing concern a possible nuclear attack by Iran, who has denied allegations of building nuclear bombs.

American experts say the country is rapidly developing their nuclear strategy and has progressed to the near completion of bomb production. [Read more: InternationalBusinessTimes/24July2011]


Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

CIA Trains Covert Units of Afghans to Continue the Fight Against Taliban. Covert forces of CIA-trained Afghan paramilitaries are being built up to continue the US-led war on the Taliban as thousands of US troops prepare to leave the country.

Members of one shadowy group of some 400 men in southern Kandahar province have given The Independent a unique insight into their training and secret operations against militants as foreign troops prepare to quit Afghanistan by 2014.

Senior figures within one of the forces revealed that they were taught hand-to-hand combat by foreign military advisers, were delivered to targets by US Black Hawk helicopters and have received a letter of thanks from President Hamid Karzai for their work. [Read more:  Cavendish/Independent/19July2011] 

Sentiment Analysis in Government . Wouldn't it be great if you could tell what other people were thinking about you? Well, maybe. But if I were Colgate, Xerox or GE and about to announce a new product, I'd certainly like to gauge opinions as early as possible to direct and target key marketing campaigns.

Of course, we're very much moving in this direction through the discipline of sentiment analysis, which is in vogue these days. Sentiment analysis is an integration of classic text analytics and new techniques that attempt to track feelings and emotions, and it's being very well received as firms strive to extract intelligence from the vast amounts of text posted in social media.

Sentiment analysis is used today not only to monitor and analyze blogs, Twitter streams and Facebook postings, but also to monitor conversations in IM and emails, mood analysis, or just to figure out what's hot and what is not.

But if Apple wants to track opinions regarding its upcoming iPhone 5, and Walmart wants to manage its brand reputation, there are just as many important applications in the public sector to warrant excitement about what these new tools may enable.

We certainly hear enough from the intelligence community about Al-Qaeda "chatter" on the Internet, and this certainly would provide a rich source of content for sentiment analysis. (We can only speculate at what is being done with the captured content from the Bin Laden raid.) But beyond terrorist surveillance, law enforcement officers also have access to websites belonging to the Bloods, the Crips, the MS 13 and other violent gangs and their many factions, as well as to the postings of individual gang members. The ability to analyze what they are saying about whom and track their feelings toward other gangs and their members, or other institutions, should yield potentially useful and actionable intelligence.

What exactly is sentiment analysis and how is it done? Think about it as tools and techniques that allow us to get a better sense of opinions or attitudes of a speaker or writer about a specific subject. This is generally done by semantic analysis of natural language and the use of computational linguistics. It provides a window into emotions and potential behavior. [Read more: Barquin/BEyeNetwork/18July2011]

Finding the Secret 11 Words. After all 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers were released last month, a parlor game was born: Find the 11 words that the government didn't want you to read.

Those 11 words, on a single page, were supposed to be redacted when the papers were made public in their entirety by the National Archives and Records Administration. But the National Declassification Center reversed that decision after the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library discovered that the full page - with all 11 words - had been released in the early 1970s by the House Armed Services Committee. Any effort to reclassify the words now would only call more attention to them.

That has not stopped policy wonks from trying to guess what they were. The answer may never be known, but John Prados, director of the Vietnam Project of the National Security Archive, a research institute at George Washington University, offered up (appropriately enough) 11 possibilities and zeroed in on two.

One confirmed that the National Security Agency could monitor Soviet leaders' encrypted telephone conversations - specifically, one in 1967 between top Soviet leaders about a Vietnam War peace feeler from the Johnson administration, conveyed by the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

Dr. Prados suggested that the following 11 italicized words may have been the sensitive ones: "At 9:30 A.M. today according to a telephone intercept Kosygin called Brezhnev and said [there was] a great possibility of achieving this aim."

But he was inclined to rule out those words as the redacted ones. One reason: the columnist Jack Anderson had written in 1971 about the security agency's intercepts. [Read more: Roberts/NYTimes/23July2011]

What Exactly Does an NSA Agent Do? At the National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Mead Maryland, there's a memorial carved into a plaque reading: "They Served in Silence."

Below that plaque, the names of at least 163 fallen NSA agents are listed.

Most of the agents died on top-secret missions, well beneath the radar of public consciousness.

Despite the occasional declassified report or piece of leaked information, most of us know very little about what goes on inside one of the most expansive intelligence-gathering operations on the planet.

Under the Department of Defense, the NSA is tasked with the collection, tracking and analysis of foreign communications, although the agency has also engaged in warrantless wiretapping on U.S. soil.

By law, the organization is only allowed to monitor foreign communications, but the agency's expanded scope went largely unchallenged following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

With agents all over the globe, most of us really have no idea what exactly those agents do. However, in a world where the constant threat of terror looms, one thing in clear: the NSA is always hiring.

According to the NSA website, the group "has exciting opportunities available in a wide variety of career fields." [Read more: Norris/TopSecretWriters/July2011]


Section III - COMMENTARY

A Pakistani Spy Among Us? Should we be surprised that federal authorities have arrested a Washington businessman who, we're told, was working on behalf of Pakistan's spy agency? Or that the Justice Department says it's part of a "long-term conspiracy" to influence U.S. officials? No.

Anyone who's unaware that nations, even friendly ones, spy on or try to influence each other, has no business offering an opinion on foreign policy, frankly. It is - or should be - common knowledge that this goes on.

Pop quiz: Leading up to and during World War II, who spied the most on the United States? Answer: our allies, the British and the Russians. Japan and Germany were rank amateurs in comparison.

In "The Irregulars," journalist Jennet Conant relates how the British established an "organization known as the Rumor Factory, which dated back to 1941...." They even manufactured evidence of German aggression that wound up in an FDR speech. As for the Russians, stealing the secrets to the atom bomb was just an average day at the office. 

It is particularly unsurprising to hear that Pakistani intelligence (known as the ISI) may be up to shady dealings. What they are doing over here is the least of our problems. [James Jay Carafano is Deputy Director, The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.] [Read more: Carafano/FoxNews/20July2011]

Just Another Day at The Breach. Aside from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security is the largest employer in the United States. According to the Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The FY 2012 budget is $57.0 billion in total funding, $47.4 billion in gross discretionary funding and $43.2 billion in net discretionary funding.

I have no issue with the amount of money requested or the fact that DHS has 230,000 employees; so long as they properly do what they were tasked to.

As explained on their website the DHS has gone through some changes over the past ten years,

Eleven days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge was appointed as the first Director of the Office of Homeland Security in the White House. The office oversaw and coordinated a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard the country against terrorism and respond to any future attacks.

With the passage of the Homeland Security Act by Congress in November 2002, the Department of Homeland Security formally came into being as a stand-alone, Cabinet-level department to further coordinate and unify national homeland security efforts, opening its doors on March 1, 2003.

In 2003 22 different agencies and departments were integrated, all or in part, into the single agency now known as DHS. From The U.S. Customs Service (Treasury) to the U.S. Secret Service, all were now tasked with the following mission,

The Department of Homeland Security has a vital mission: to secure the nation from the many threats we face. This requires the dedication of more than 230,000 employees in jobs that range from aviation and border security to emergency response, from cybersecurity analyst to chemical facility inspector. Our duties are wide-ranging, but our goal is clear - keeping America safe.

I have written numerous articles about the lack of National Security we have here in the U.S. and how departments like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are nothing more than window dressing designed to make the traveler feel safe.

This is not just opinion, this comes from years of study in the counter terror field long before this country was familiar with the term, interviews with law enforcement officials as well as those working the streets to TSA employees and pilots.

We are just as vulnerable today, if not more so, than we were on 9/11 2001. [Read more: Adelman/FamilySecurityMatters/18July2011]

Here, There Be Dragons. Leon Panetta was blunt, even for a guy who is known to speak his mind. In the heady aftermath of the Osama bin Laden mission, Panetta's authority on Capitol Hill was all but unquestioned. Despite an atmosphere of bitter partisanship, the longtime Democrat was about to be confirmed as Defense secretary by a vote of 100-0, a rare feat in any era. Now Panetta, the outgoing CIA director, was telling a rapt audience of senators at his confirmation hearing that America's national-security defense apparatus was underestimating the gravest danger out there. "We talk about nuclear. We talk about conventional warfare. We don't spend enough time talking about the threat of cyberwar," he said. "There's a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a cyberattack."

Whoa. Really? You mean, thousands of people could die in a cyberattack? How exactly would this happen? Could it be like some sort of monstrous video game run amok? Or the 1980s classic War Games, in which a teenage Matthew Broderick almost hacks his way into starting a nuclear war? One thing is certain: Panetta is hardly alone in his alarm; indeed, he is channeling the fears of the nation's top generals and spooks.

On July 14, the Pentagon rolled out its first-ever "cyberspace strategy" -a critical need for the United States because, as Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn declared with alliterative flair that day, "bits and bytes can be as threatening as bullets and bombs." The U.S. government is now spending about $12 billion a year to wage both offense and defense in cyberspace, and it has set up a Cyber Command at Fort Meade in Maryland. The Homeland Security Department conducts regular war games that it calls "cyberstorming." A new multibillion-dollar military-industrial complex is emerging, with giant defense contractors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman transforming themselves into part-time cybersecurity contractors.

In truth, cyberskeptics abound. They include many independent analysts as well as some of Panetta's high-level colleagues in the Obama administration. These skeptics say that much of the alarm stems from a fear of the unknown rather than from concrete evidence of life-and-death threats. It is, they suggest, a 21st-century version of the medieval mapmakers who would mark the boundaries of the known world and then draw mythical beasts on the other side conveying the message: "Here, there be dragons." [Read more: Hirsh/NationalJournal/21July2011]

The bin Laden Operation: What's Not To Like? In May, shortly after the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, I was on a panel on BFM Radio in Paris. One of the panelists, a leading journalist for L'Express magazine, Vincent Hugueux, began the conversation by stating flatly that "Justice has not been done" in the case of bin Laden. His view was certainly representative of dissenting opinion at the time: bin Laden had not been brought to trial, and the simulacrum of an Islamic "burial at sea" was considered offensive to Muslim public opinion.

But this summary execution, weighed against the enormity of bin Laden's publicly admitted sponsorship of the 9/11 attacks, in which he disclosed that they had exceeded even his own expectations, evoked generally in Western public opinion emotions of vengeful satisfaction and pride in a job spectacularly well done.

The contrast with the failed operation thirty years earlier, aimed at rescuing American hostages in Tehran, by stealth and without a declaration of war, comes vividly to mind, as does the realization that coordination between the CIA and the American military has vastly improved.

The front-page photo of the White House Situation Room at the climax of the Abbottabad operation is instructive. The missing personality in the photo is Leon Panetta, the then chief of the CIA. It was that the White House was in touch with Panetta at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va. Panetta was receiving messages about the unfolding of the operation from CIA officers in Afghanistan. The operation was being run by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and executed by the Navy's Seal Team Six, along with the support of the CIA, in terms of intelligence and communications. [Charles Cogan was the chief of the Near East-South Asia Division in the Directorate of Operations of the CIA from August 1979 to August 1984. It was this Division that directed the covert action operation against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He is now a historian and an associate of the Belfer Center's International Security Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School.]  [Read more: Cogan/Huffpost/22July2011]


Section IV - Careers, Books, Obituaries, Research Requests and Coming Events

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Careers

Investigative Journalist sought for Judicial Watch: Judicial Watch is seeking an experienced investigative reporter to start and direct an investigative journalism program for our conservative government watchdog group. The reporter will pursue stories that advance our mission of promoting integrity, accountability, and transparency in government, politics, and the law. The ideal candidate will have 10-12 years of journalism experience, especially covering Congress and the Executive Branch. Benefits include employer-funded health insurance (medical, dental, vision, and prescription), life insurance, long- and short-term disability insurance, and eligibility to participate in our 403(b) retirement program. Salary commensurate with experience. Please send resume, cover letter, and writing samples to careers@judicialwatch.org with job title in subject line.

Books

Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy: Reforming the Structure and Culture of U.S. Foreign Policy by John Lenczowski. [New York: Lexington Books, 2011, 213 pp, notes on sources, bibliography, index.]
An insightful, overdue, top-to-bottom assessment of changes America needs to make to regain its international standing of yesteryear. The author considers all the instruments and elements of statecraft used or employed by America to maintain its national security and safety, while at the same time protecting the interest we have with allies and adversaries alike. While there is no shortage of books dealing with one or another of them, Dr. Lenczowski brings an insider's knowledge [he an expert on European and Soviet affairs, is founder/director of The Institute of World Politics, and served in State Dept as Special Advisor to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, and was Director of European and Soviet Affairs at the NSC and as principal Soviet affairs adviser to President Reagan] and bravely prescribes the only medicine that will bring lasting results: deep, structural changes. These many instruments include public diplomacy, foreign policy, military policy, intelligence, counterintelligence, economic policy; which too often function with minimum coordination with other instruments. Lenczowski dares to suggest the unthinkable, i.e., America must use all these instruments of statecraft in a carefully integrated way using a well-planned, national-level strategy, or full-spectrum diplomacy.
The author’s ideas are not revolutionary since this concept was evident in the Declaration of Independence but the complexities of the modern world have overtaken the simplicities and benefits of small size enjoyed by the new nation. Too often others who have covered similar grand strategies employ them only as nice-to-hear political rhetoric at election time, and then count on the plans being quickly forgotten. But Lenczowski takes these ideas beyond the political rhetoric to an impressive number of specifics necessary for implementation, showing considerable analysis and comprehension of what can only be a twenty-level chess board.
The weakness and deteriorating standing of America in the world today is attributed to the absence of an influential and positive culture in U.S. foreign policy, rendering the government unable to influence foreign public opinion—by failing to take into account the role of information, disinformation, ideas, values, culture, and religion plays in the influence and conduct of foreign and national security policy. Those agencies created to help solve this problem, such as the U.S. Information Agency, Agency for International Development, political action component of the CIA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Peace Corp, and others, were allowed to wither without State Department’s integration of their capabilities. The War on Terror which is being countered by an effective propaganda campaign to mollify a distracted American populace only demonstrates the continuing problem, compounded by a lack of understanding of the all the instruments involved in full-spectrum diplomacy.
Full Spectrum makes it easy for readers to readily recognize the author’s solution: build a new, versatile State Department with competence in all the instruments of statecraft; develop an integrated strategy; and develop the capability to influence adversaries and allies alike. It is the 'getting that done' part of the equation that rests on the similar understanding of the solution by others, and that is what worries this reviewer.
For those policymakers in the Congress and State Department who should read this fine analysis are not likely to do so for many are too burned out or overtasked to think about fixing America’s real problems. However, AFIO members and readers with their power of the vote would be in a better position to identify those seeking office that are more likely to be interested in real change, in whose hands you should plop a copy of this fine book. -- Gene Poteat

Secrets of Somali Pirates Revealed in New Book. The pirates were nervous. A rookie author - a white man from Canada - had unexpectedly arrived in their cliff-top Somali village to ask about the captured ship anchored offshore.

Locals fearing a showdown quietly melted away into a small collection of shacks.

The encounter with the deadly gang forms the final chapter of "The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World," a first-of-its kind book that saw author Jay Bahadur live among the pirates. Bahadur's book is being released Tuesday in the U.S.

"They were paranoid beyond belief. They thought I was a CIA agent," the tall, soft-spoken writer told The Associated Press. "I thought they were going to shoot us."

Sweating with heat and nerves, Bahadur questioned the pirates and secretly filmed them before being whisked off by his own gang of armed bodyguards.

Bahadur spent months in Somalia at a time when pirate attacks were skyrocketing in both frequency and violence. His book takes readers through the evolution of the pirate groups from garrulous, self-proclaimed vigilantes who claimed they were protecting Somalia's waters from illegal fishing vessels to the deadly criminal gangs they are today.

The author, now 27, was living with his parents and writing marketing reports about pet food and napkins when he began planning his trip to Somalia. He had never been to Africa before.

"I was thinking I better get picked up at the airport because if I hadn't I would have been kidnapped in 30 minutes," he said. "I was frantically making friends on the plane and I was going to beg one to take me home if no one was there."

But the bodyguards he had arranged for did indeed pick him up, and after a few shaky starts Bahadur was calling on pirates at home, wearing local robes and indulging in local pastimes such as chewing on narcotic khat leaves and gossiping about women and guns.  [Read more: Houreld/AP/18July2011]

Knopf Lands Two Books from Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Robert Gates, United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011, has signed with Knopf to write two books; the first book will be a memoir and is tentatively scheduled for 2013, while the second book will focus on leadership and is expected to be published the following year.

Gates served as Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush, replacing Donald Rumsfeld, and continued in that capacity once President Obama took office until his official retirement last month. Prior to his role as the Secretary of Defense, Gates was in the C.I.A. for 26 years and on the National Security Council.

Gates's memoir, which is currently untitled, will offer his reflections on his role as Secretary of Defense, and will detail many of the events that occurred during his tenure there - his review of the U.S. policy and strategy in Afghanistan, the withdrawal of troops in Iraq, his decision to replace Gen. David D. McKiernan with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as commander in Afghanistan, and the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The second book will focus on Gates's philosophy about leadership, his views about great leaders he has admired, and his thoughts about effective leadership, even in the face of adversity and difficulty. Gates was named one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report in 2008, and he was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by President Obama at his retirement ceremony. [Read more: PublishersWeekly/19July2011]

'Area 51' Book Stretches Truth, Ex-Workers Say. Is it nonfiction or science fiction?

For the most part, the new book "Area 51 - An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base" portrays real accounts of work by CIA contractors testing high-flying Cold War spy planes at the classified Groom Lake installation.

But former workers at the base, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, say some stories in the book - such as the genetically engineered Soviet aviators whose flying saucer crashed in Roswell, N.M. - never happened.

Three of Area 51's former CIA contractors - T.D. Barnes, Roger Anderson and Harry Martin - discussed their concerns about the book by Annie Jacobsen with the Las Vegas Review-Journal to "set the record straight."

"To her credit, I think she provided a lot of accurate information in her book, but there are areas that are completely foreign to me," said Anderson, 81, of Las Vegas, a retired Air Force pilot who worked at Area 51's command post in the 1960s.

He said the part that puzzled him most "had to do with human engineering, that sort of thing. When you start talking about (Josef) Mengele and Hitler and Stalin, and you tie these things all together with an incident in New Mexico, to tie all that together it just didn't make any sense to us at all."

Barnes, 74, a retired CIA radar expert who lives in Henderson, said the trio opened doors for Jacobsen by giving her access to once-classified information and putting her in touch with their CIA colleagues.

They thought she was documenting the history of Area 51 and the top-secret development of the A-12 spy plane, known as the Oxcart Project.

Instead, she exaggerated the boundaries of the secret location and changed history by writing that it became the home of the Roswell aliens in 1951, four years before any facilities were built at Area 51, Barnes said.

"They threw us under the bus just to make a story," he said of Jacobsen and the book's publisher, Little, Brown and Company. [Read more: Rogers/LasVegasReviewJournal/24July2011]


Obituaries

Warren Carroll. Warren H. Carroll, a Catholic historian and founder of Christendom College, died on July 17 at the age of 79.

"Catholics praying for a renewal of Catholic life in America had a real hero in Dr. Carroll, and there is so much to be grateful for," said Patrick J. Reilly, president of Front Royal, Virginia-based Cardinal Newman Society. "We now pray that he is resting joyfully in the light of his great love, Jesus Christ."

Carroll, a Maine native, received a master's degree and a doctorate in history from Columbia University. He served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency between 1955 and 1961. He also served as a historian for the Second Air Force's Strategic Air Command.

He served on the California State Senate staff from 1967 to 1970 and was a staff member for the U.S. Congress from 1970 to 1972.

Carroll was a convert to Catholicism in 1968 under the influence of his wife Anne, according to Christendom. [CatholicNewsAgency/18July2011] 

Warren D. Magnusson. Warren D. Magnusson, 89, whose CIA career as a finance specialist involved the covert payment of foreign agents, the recovery of buried gold in postwar Germany and handling top-secret ledgers for stealth-plane development, died July 15 at the Greenspring Village retirement community in Springfield. He had congestive heart failure.

Mr. Magnusson retired in 1979 as deputy director of finance, where he held the agency's purse strings.

As a comptroller, Mr. Magnusson took part in funding the development of the U2 spy plane and its supersonic successors, Lockheed's A-12 and the SR-71 Blackbird. [Read more:  WashingtonPost/21July2011] 

Cordelia Dodson Hood. Cordelia Dodson Hood, 98, of Damariscotta, passed away peacefully at home on July 14. Cordelia retired from her career at the OSS and CIA in Washington, DC in 1980 to Pemaquid Point where she had summered since 1970. She moved to Damariscotta in 1998 and has lived there ever since, joined by her beloved sister, Lisbeth Fisher, in 1999, who lived next door.

Cordelia was born in Portland, Ore. in 1913, to William Daniel Boone Dodson and Besse Ellen Krum. She received her BA from Reed College in Oregon in 1936 and followed a love of languages to Europe, where she studied French and German in Grenoble and Vienna. She and her two siblings who had joined her in Europe, had to leave Vienna after the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938 and Cordelia finished her language studies with an MA in German from Reed College. She was hired prior to the beginning of WWII by the Office of Facts and Figures, subsequently the OSS, and, following WWII, the CIA. She served in counter intelligence in Switzerland, Vienna, Munich, Frankfurt, and back in Switzerland with stints in Washington, DC in between. Her early professional career was filled with what seem now to be highly romantic espionage activities, with work on "ultra" material using the Enigma Cryptographic Machine outside London and with risky trips across the border into Switzerland during WWII accompanying individuals important to the Allied war effort through occupied territory. In 1950 she married William J. Hood of Portland, an OSS and CIA colleague.

In her retirement years she traveled extensively with friends and family, taking tours to New Zealand, British gardens, Ireland, Wales, Italy and France. She was an avid reader and follower of cultural developments and a strong supporter of charitable causes both locally in Maine and nationally.

She was predeceased by her brother, Daniel Boone Dodson.

She is survived by her sister; nieces, Cordelia Fisher of Damariscotta, Sarah Fisher of Bethesda, Md., Dorian Dodson of Columbus, N.M. and Lisa Dodson of Auburndale, Mass.; and two grand-nieces.

There will be a memorial celebration of her life in mid-October in Damariscotta, which will be announced closer to the time. [Read more: LincolnCountyNews/24July2011]

Navy Adm. Noel A.M. Gayler. Navy Adm. Noel A.M. Gayler, 96, an ace combat pilot during World War II who served as President Richard M. Nixon's first director of the National Security Agency and retired as commander of all forces in the Pacific at the drawdown of the Vietnam War, died July 14 at the Woodbine nursing home in Alexandria. He had congestive heart failure.

Adm. Gayler (pronounced GUY-ler), the son of a Navy officer, was one of the most highly decorated Navy pilots of World War II.

He went on to hold many distinguished posts, including service in the office of the chief of naval operations and as a senior aide to the secretary of the Navy. During the late 1960s, his job was to pick strategic targets in Russia in the event of a possible nuclear attack.

From 1969 to 1972, he was director of the National Security Agency, the country's code-making and code-breaking apparatus based at Fort Meade.

Although Adm. Gayler had no prior intelligence experience, he was considered a trusted aide of then-Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, according to the 2009 book "The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency."

Adm. Gayler was among many top security and intelligence officials who reportedly endorsed a Nixon-led initiative permitting the NSA to eavesdrop on the phone conversations of American citizens at a time of violent campus uprisings.

During court proceedings against The Washington Post for publishing the Pentagon Papers - the Defense Department's secret history of the war in Vietnam - Adm. Gayler assisted the prosecution by providing expert testimony on the classified nature of the documents.

James Bamford, who wrote the 1982 NSA history "The Puzzle Palace," said Adm. Gayler was the agency's first director to use the position as a ladder rung to higher military office.

Upon his promotion to chief of U.S. Pacific Command - succeeding Adm. John S. McCain Jr. - Adm. Gayler supervised all combat operations based in the Pacific, including naval air strikes in Vietnam. [Read more: Shapiro/WashingtonPost/20July2011]


Research Requests

British Feature Film Research Request.  I'm conducting background research on a feature film project based in Iran during the 1950s and developed in conjunction with the British company Film Four (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours).

We are focusing on events leading upto the 1953 coup that led to the removal of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and the return of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne. We would like to get in touch with any US Intelligence Personnel who witnessed and/or were involved in the events leading upto these tumultuous events.

Were you there when these events took place? Would you be willing to be informally interviewed about your experiences?

If so, please contact Faisal A. Qureshi.

Email: faisal_a_qureshi@hotmail.com Cellphone: +44(0)7747604814. 


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.

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

Friday, 12 August 2011 - McLean, VA - AFIO National Summer Luncheon features Michael Rogers, the Chairman of the HPSCI, and DIA Director Ronald Burgess

REGISTER NOW for the AFIO National Summer Luncheon. MORNING speaker [11 a.m.] will be the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Rep. Michael J. Rogers (R-MI 8th District) former FBI Remarks are ON THE RECORD. The 1 p.m. speaker is the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, Jr., USA. Check in for badge pickup at 10:30 a.m. Chairman Mike Rogers gives address at 11 a.m. DIA Director Burgess will give his talk at 1 p.m. Lunch is served at noon. Event closes at 2 p.m. -- EVENT LOCATION: The Crowne Plaza 1960 Chain Bridge Road • McLean, Virginia 22102 Driving directions here or use this link: http://tinyurl.com/8228kw Register HERE To Be Certain of Space

13 August 2011 - Orange Park / Gainesville, FL - The AFIO North Florida Chapter meets at the Country Club to hear Colonel Will G. Merrill, Jr., U.S. Army (Retired), USMA graduate.

This meeting’s special guest and speaker will be Colonel Will G. Merrill, Jr., U.S. Army (Retired). A native of Ashland, Wisconsin, he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in the Class of 1958. After graduation, he was assigned as a platoon leader with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC from 1959 to 1961. Following that assignment, he commanded a Hawk surface-to-air missile battery at Fort Bliss, TX and Bad Aibling, Germany from 1961- 64. In 1966-67, he was an advisor to a Vietnamese Army 155 mm Artillery Battalion in Pleiku, Vietnam. During 1969-70, he served as Operations Officer for the 2nd Infantry Division on the Demilitarized Zone in the Republic of Korea during a period of intense crisis. From 1974-75 he was Battalion Commander of the 1/7th Air Defense Artillery at Fort Bliss, TX. From 1983-1989 he was the NATO Liaison Officer to Greece, stationed at the Greek Pentagon in Athens, during which time he narrowly escaped two assassination plots. He retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of Colonel in 1989. He is a graduate of the Artillery Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Army Ranger Course, the Army Airborne Course, the Armed Forces Staff College and the DOD Language School courses in Spanish and Greek. He has also earned a Master’s Degree in Business from Webster College. Following his retirement from military service he became Vice President of a nationwide Home Inspection Service and later Vice President of a Wireless Communications Company. His personal decorations include the Department of Defense Superior Service Award, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Four Meritorious Service Medals, Army Commendation Medal and Vietnamese Honor Medal. His sons Bill and Michael are also West Point graduates. Bill, also an Army Colonel, has completed two tours of duty in Iraq and extensive duty in other Mid-East countries. His granddaughter, Jeanell, is an Army 1st Lieutenant who has also served in Iraq. Will is married to the former Barbara Michel, of Brooklyn, New York. His daughters Mary Merrill Quinn and Susan Tsantes, live in Minneapolis and Framingham, MA. His son, Michael, lives in Jacksonville and is the founder of Smartphones Technologies. He will be speaking about his many and diverse Army experiences, and has recently authored a book on the Heros of 9/11.
Please RSVP right away for the 13 August 2011 meeting to Quiel at qbegonia@comcast.net or 904-545-9549.The cost will be $16 each, pay the Country Club at the event.

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

12 September 2011 - Washington, DC - DACOR-DIAA Forum hosts speaker on Islamic Doctrine of Shariah.

LTG Harry E. Soyster, USA (Ret.) and John Guandolo will speak on the Islamic Doctrine of Shariah. The speakers were on the team that wrote Shariah: The Threat to America. General Soyster was a director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and INSCOM CG. John Guandolo advises internationally on the Global Islamic Movement and created the FBI Counterterrorism Training and Education Course. This Forum will be open to members of all Intelligence Community associations and their guests.
Location: DACOR Bacon House, downtown Washington, DC
AFIO will announce time and full address in a week or two. It will provide registration details as well.

27 September 2011, 5:30 - 8 pm - New York, NY - AFIO New York Metro features Dr. Draitser on "Stalin's Romeo Spy."

SPEAKER: Emil Draitser, Ph.D., Professor Russian Studies, Hunter College of the City of New York.
TOPIC: "STALIN'S ROMEO SPY" - His book about the remarkable rise and fall of the KGB's most daring operative Dmitri Bystrolyotov. Details at www.stalinsromeospy.com

Event location: "3 West Club" 3 West 51st St, New York City. Buffet dinner. Cash bar. $40/person. 5:30 PM Registration 6:00 PM Meeting Start

Reservations: Strongly Suggested, Not Required: Seating is limited. Replies/RSVP to afiometro@yahoo.com


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

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