Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Authorities Warn Terrorists Increasingly Eyeing Attacks on Buses Over Other Transit Targets. In the lead-up to one of the busiest travel weeks of the year, a new intelligence bulletin obtained by Fox News warns that terrorists have targeted bus networks more than any other mode of surface transportation.

The two page assessment, sent to law enforcement in the nation's capital, says in part, "bus systems are considered attractive terrorist targets because they are relatively soft targets."

Earlier this week, Transportation Security Administration Director John Pistole underscored the threat to reporters in Washington.

"It's something that we've seen in reporting over time that terrorists around the world clearly are interested - because of the accessibility, the open architecture - both of buses and rail."

The bulletin, called "Terrorist Concerns Regarding Mass Transit Bus Systems," was sent to law enforcement in the nation's capital on Nov 3. It says bus attacks, similar to an attack by a suicide bomber using an explosive-laden backpack in 2005, are more widespread than attacks on the airline industry. The assessment says over 725 such attacks have been documented from 2004 through 2009.

While improvised explosive devices are common, the feds warn that the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, through its online magazine Inspire, "advocates the use of vehicle ramming attacks against crowds, buildings and other vehicles."

Pistole said the intelligence was sent to local partners to reinforce the view that terrorists are not fixated on aircraft.

"We actually reissued not just bus but mass transit [bulletins], just being cognizant of what goes on around the world as we enter the busy holiday season," he said.

Fox News has also learned that intelligence obtained from Usama bin Laden's compound shows he even considered using buses to attack Americans, by ramming the buses into buildings. [Read more: Herridge/FoxNews/11November2011]

Former Top CIA Lawyer Under Investigation. The Justice Department is investigating whether a former top U.S. intelligence official, John Rizzo, improperly disclosed classified information about the CIA's drone campaign, one of the spy agency's most secretive and politically sensitive programs.

People familiar with the matter say that the CIA's general counsel's office opened the probe in March, shortly after Newsweek published an article in which Rizzo - who had retired in 2009 after serving as the CIA's acting general counsel - outlined an array of specific details about how CIA officials choose terrorists for drone strikes and which American officials sign off on actually carrying them out.

The existence of the investigation hasn't previously been reported.

The House and Senate Intelligence Committees each received a formal "congressional notification" about the probe last spring, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Those sources said the notification signifies that the CIA general counsel concluded a crime may have been committed and had forwarded the evidence it collected to the Justice Department.

The probe is ongoing, and it's not clear when it will reach a conclusion about whether to recommend that Rizzo be disciplined for his participation in the Newsweek piece.

A spokesman for the Justice Department's National Security Division, Dean Boyd, declined to comment.

Rizzo, now a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution who is working on his memoirs, didn't respond to a detailed list of questions that had been e-mailed to a Hoover spokeswoman. The CIA declined to comment on the record, as did spokespersons for many of the lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence panels. Privately, though, aides said word of the investigation had been well-received on Capitol Hill, where many lawmakers had been stunned by how much detail Rizzo disclosed about the CIA's extensive Predator drone program - a covert effort the lawmakers themselves are barred from discussing. 

If prosecutors conclude that Rizzo disclosed classified information, they could decide to take the case to trial. Should they win a conviction, Rizzo - once one of the most powerful lawyers in the government - could face jail time. [Read more: Ambinder&Dreazen/NationalJournal/10November2011]

Federal Intelligence Agencies May Help Target Marijuana Growers. Lawmakers soon may enlist the nation's spymaster to help fight Mexican drug traffickers and others who use federal land in California and elsewhere to grow marijuana.

A provision of the 2012 intelligence authorization bill calls on the director of national intelligence to assess and report on how federal intelligence agencies can help park rangers, fish and wildlife wardens, and other U.S. land managers weed out pot gardens and other activities operated by foreign drug traffickers.

The bill, now before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also directs the top spy to consult with federal public land managers to identify intelligence and information-sharing gaps related to drug trafficking. The House passed its version of the bill, HR 1892, in September.

U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., who wrote the provision, said the nation's intelligence apparatus needs to address marijuana grown on public land because of the presence of foreign drug traffickers and the accompanying threat of violence. [Read more: Becker&Montgomery/CaliforniaWatch/9November2011]

Hackers Shut Down Israeli Military and Intelligence Websites. A group of hackers, calling itself Anonymous, managed to infiltrate sensitive Israeli websites that belong to the Israeli Army and security services, and was able to shut them down. The attacks are said to be an act of retaliation against Israel's interception of the two solidarity ships that were heading to Gaza last week.

Israeli sources reported that the websites of the army, the internal security agency, Shin Bet, and the foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, were totally offline Sunday until the evening.

The Australian online daily reported that the website of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was not hacked, and that it initially claimed that the outage of the websites "was caused by a technical failure, and not by hackers."

Spokesperson for Netanyahu, Ofir Gendelman, claimed on his twitter feed that the Websites went offline due to a malfunction in the servers.

A "hacktivist" group calling itself "Anonymous" claimed responsibility for the cyber-attacks. The group posted a Youtube a few days ago stating that it will retaliate against the Israeli government for intercepting the two ships that were heading to Gaza last week to deliver humanitarian supplies, and to challenge the illegal Israeli siege of the coastal enclave. [Read more: Bannoura/IMEMC/7November2011]

WC Wins High Honors at CIA Tri-State Intelligence Simulation. WC took home the top prize in the largest-ever Undergraduate Crisis Simulation organized by the Central Intelligence Agency Nov. 3 at Georgetown University. The team of four WC students won the Md bracket and beat out other finalists William & Mary (Virginia bracket) and American University (D.C. bracket). A total of 12 schools competed, including the University of Maryland, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Sweetbriar College.

The WC team consisted of senior International Studies majors John Preston Hildebrand and Kathleen Pattie; senior Political Science major Kelsey Newborn, and junior Economics major Alex Anbarcioglu. Dr. Andrew Oros, director of International Studies and associate professor of Political Science, recruited and advised the team. Also working with the students was a CIA mentor known only as "Kelci," an actual collections analyst at the Agency who was assigned to the Washington College team.

The simulation was one of about 50 such competitions the CIA plans to host around the country this year. The half-day exercise requires speed-reading, quick thinking and cogent writing to provide timely advice to policymakers seeking to resolve an imagined but realistic international crisis.

The team, guided by their CIA mentor, had just two hours to sift through piles of information about an urgent development on the Korean peninsula and prepare a short memo and ten minute oral briefing for the Director of Central Agency, as played by a CIA staff member. "Instead of being stressed, we were all running on adrenaline and excitement," said Pattie. "We really benefited from our teamwork. Even though we had only just met the week prior, our ability to bond together, delegate tasks, and make seamless transitions along with quick decisions was a major asset."

The top teams from each state division advanced to a final round, where they delivered a five minute briefing to a panel of CIA staff members role-playing as the Director of Central Intelligence and other senior staff. The Washington College team divided labors according to each member's strengths: Pattie compiled pertinent questions for Anbarcioglu to ask at a briefing session that only one representative from each team could attend. Newborn wrote the written brief, and Hildebrand delivered the oral briefings. "Our team's greatest success came from knowing each other's strengths and encouraging each other," said Newborn.

"It was an incredible experience," said Hildebrand. "I was blown away by the level of realism that the CIA put together for us. Our analyst assured us it was very close to being the real thing."

The CIA sees the Undergraduate Crisis Simulations as a way to showcase the kind of work its analysts perform and to encourage undergraduates to consider careers in intelligence analysis. If the WC team is any indication, the Agency achieved its goal. "I had previously thought about a career in intelligence but had always associated it with movies and television depictions," said Pattie. "By participating in the simulation, I got a clear understanding of what the job entails and was not disappointed by the level of excitement. Now I have a more definitive idea of what the CIA contributes to the nation and am eager to learn more about possible careers there." [Read more: Hastings/WashingtonCollege/11November2011]

Top US Military Intelligence Official Visits S. Korea. The top U.S. military intelligence official has been in Seoul for annual consultations with his South Korean counterpart and other officials on North Korea and other issues, a Defense Ministry official said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, Jr., director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, visited the Defense Intelligence Command where he received a briefing on the situation in North Korea on Wednesday, the ministry official said.

He also met with the commander of the Defense Security Command and the top Defense Ministry intelligence official as well as Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of the U.S. Forces in South Korea, and other U.S. military officials.

The meetings focused on North Korea, the relocation of U.S. bases in South Korea and the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean troops, the ministry official said, without elaborating.

South Korea is scheduled to take over wartime operational control of its military from the United States in 2015. [Read more: Yonhap/10November2011]

At CIA, the Glass Ceiling Shows its Cracks. If there is a glass ceiling at the CIA, it appears to have moved up a few floors.

Women are still outnumbered by men in the suite of executive offices on the famed 7th floor of agency headquarters.

But, with the recent appointment of a woman as the head of public affairs, five of the agency's highest-ranking jobs are now held by women, a higher number than at any time in CIA history.

Among them are V. Sue Bromley, who took over day-to-day operations this year and holds the No. 3 job; Fran Moore, who leads the analytic branch; Meroe Park, head of human resources; Jeanne Tisinger, who oversees the agency's computer and information systems; and Cynthia Rapp, the new head of public affairs.

A decade ago, there were no women serving as the head of any of the agency's branches.

CIA veterans said the gender gap is closing largely because of the persistence of a group of women who joined the agency in the 1970s and 80s and made their way into its upper ranks.

"It is a generational thing," said Mary Margaret Graham, who was among the first women to crack into the senior levels of the CIA's operations directorate, and also served as a deputy to the director of national intelligence before retiring in 2008. The women in leadership posts at CIA now hit "all the career steps and had all the experiences," Graham said. "They proved they were ready for bigger and more important jobs."

Graham recalled that when she joined the CIA in 1979, she was among only five women in that year's training class for the clandestine service, which sends officers overseas to spy. "After two years there were only two of us - the other three left to get married," Graham said. "All of my mentors were men - there wasn't a woman to be found." [Read more: Miller/WashingtonPost/10November2011]

U.S. Government Turns to Crowdsourcing for Intelligence. The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence community spend billions of dollars each year trying, with mild success at best, to predict the future.

They organize elaborate wargames, develop computer algorithms to digest information and rely on old-fashioned aggregation of professional opinion.

Past intelligence failures have been costly and damaging to U.S. national security. Trying to avoid previous pitfalls, agencies are on a constant treasure hunt for new technologies that might give them an edge.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity in February solicited industry proposals for how to improve the accuracy of intelligence forecasting. Under the auspices of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, IARPA invests in research programs that provide an "overwhelming intelligence advantage over future adversaries."

Applied Research Associates, a New Mexico-based firm, has launched a program it hopes will improve upon the traditional methods of gathering expert opinion by using computer software that could make better-informed predictions. The system chooses the best sources of information from a huge pool of participants.

ARA won the bid and started working on its Aggregative Contingent Estimation System, or ACES, in May.

The firm's southeast division, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., has teamed with seven universities to devise a method of farming out global intelligence questions to the general public through the Internet. It began collecting crowdsourced opinions in early July.
Crowdsourcing is a method of problem solving where a task is doled out to an undefined group of people through an open call to participate.

"Anyone can sign up; the more the merrier," said Dirk Warnaar, ARA's principal investigator for the ACES project. Participants interested in a range of topics, including politics, military, economics, science, technology and social affairs are invited to register at: www.forecastingACE.com.

"You can look at the crowd as people who are on the ground in real-life situations who have the best information," Warnaar said. "Think of it like a large group of foot soldiers providing feedback."

The crowd should eventually be able to provide more accurate predictions on global conflict in a time of increased uncertainty, Warnaar said. [Read more: Parsons/NDIA/December2011]

Iraq Pullout Blinds U.S. Intel Operations. The U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq is cutting off vital intelligence bases and listening posts that have played a key role in clandestine operations that have scored major successes in the global counter-terrorism campaign.

The Central Intelligence Agency, which until recently operated outside the military establishment, is expected to stay on in various guises within the 17,000 U.S. personnel who will remain under State Department jurisdiction.

The CIA has become increasingly militarized since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and most of its establishment - including a heavily enlarged paramilitary division - is engaged in the counter-terrorism battle to one degree or another.

And with Gen. David Petraeus, the former military commander in Iraq and Afghanistan who wrote the army's counter-insurgency manual, now the director of the CIA, the agency can be expected to maintain some covert operations.

Even so, the loss of clandestine facilities means "there will be a considerable lapse in and degradation of the U.S. intelligence-gathering and situational awareness capabilities in Iraq," observed U.S.-based global intelligence consultancy Stratfor. [Read more: UPI/9November2011]

Soldier Charged in Alleged Spying Attempt. Formal charges were filed against a U.S. soldier for allegedly turning information that could be used by a foreign power over to what he thought was a spy.

Spc. William C. Millay, a military policeman at a base near Anchorage, Alaska, has been jailed since his Oct. 28 arrest, the Anchorage Daily News reported Tuesday.

An Army spokesman in Alaska provided a two-page statement with a summary of the charges but would not provide charging documents and did not say which foreign country Millay allegedly believed he was helping.

"Millay had access to the information through the course of his normal duties both stateside and on a previous deployment, and although the information was unclassified, Millay believed that it could be used to the advantage of a foreign nation," the Army statement said.

Millay, who had been deployed for combat duty in Iraq from December 2009 to July 2010, also was charged with five other criminal violations, including lying to investigators and asking another service member for classified information and objects he could give to the person he believed was a spy. [Read more: UPI/8November2011]

'Google Effect' Raised Bar for Spies to 'Produce Secret Intelligence': Ex-UK Intelligence Chief. The rise of the web and Google means that spies in the UK need to work really hard to produce genuinely secret intelligence, former director of the country's intelligence agency has said.

Former chief of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) Sir David Pepper pointed out that "the Google effect" of so much information being readily available online had "very substantially" raised the "threshold for producing intelligence" for MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

"Nobody wants the easy stuff anymore and there is no point spending effort and money collecting it," the Telegraph quoted Sir David, as saying.

"Many of the sort of things for which (officials) once would have turned to the intelligence agencies are now readily available to them online," he added.

Sir David said that with the help of technologies like Google Maps and Streeview anyone could now see photographic detail of far away countries, which hitherto would have been available only through secret and highly sophisticated national satellites.

"Intelligence producers have had to become very sensitive to this phenomenon and very careful not to put effort into producing intelligence that purports to be secret which is in fact not secret at all," he added. [Read more: ANI/13November2011]

Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE

Should Intelligence Agencies Chase Tax Evaders? Three years ago, Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, paid a whistle blower close to 5 million euros ($6.9 million) for DVDs containing information on thousands of secret accounts at a leading Liechtenstein bank.

The discs contained data on 4,527 Liechtenstein foundations and financial entities, 1,400 of which were owned by Germans, according to the magazine Der Spiegel.

They also contained information on accounts held by citizens of several other countries, including Britain, the U.S. and Australia. Leaks about the data led to hearings in the U.S. Congress and the naming and shaming of alleged tax cheats around the world.

But should a spy agency like the BND - which stands for Bundesnachrichtendienst, or Federal Intelligence Service - take part in the unglamorous and politically charged business of collecting information on tax cheats?

Tax investigations are not part of the BND's "core competence" and therefore not really matters that the agency should have got involved in, the German agency's former chief, August Hanning, said earlier this week.

In a speech at a conference commemorating the 10th anniversary of Liechtenstein's Financial Intelligence Unit, a specialised agency the alpine tax haven set up under pressure from Germany and other economic powers, Hanning said that agencies like the BND are not law enforcement authorities.

"The BND is an intelligence service and not a prosecuting authority," Hanning said.

"The (BND) is empowered by law to obtain information of a foreign and security-political nature for the Federal Republic (of Germany). It is not...an investigative authority abroad," Hanning said.

Intelligence agencies are also not tax collectors, Hanning added, noting that he hoped that "in future this issue won't come up any more" because Liechtenstein now has an agency with sufficient competence to aid law enforcement agencies in other countries. [Read more: Hosenball/Reuters/11November2011]

My Day with a True American Hero. I'm a veteran of the Army Security Agency. The ASA was a separate unit of the Army specializing in many covert operations, including radio signal intelligence gathering, analysis, codebreaking and other missions.

I served a year in Vietnam, doing short-range radio direction finding, locating enemy units' radio transmitters. Later I was assigned to a mountaintop Air Force Station in Taiwan, where the services worked at electronic snooping more distant targets. In late February 1968, days after the Naval spy ship, the Pueblo, was captured, volunteers were sought to go to Korea on temporary duty. I went that March.

Years ago, I created a website and database for former ASA members, now at more than 40,000 records, with members posting their name/numbers and then contacting each other for personal and unit reunions.

At one point I learned that one survivor, Charles "Joe" Sterling, had Nebraska roots. He invited me to stop by his house when I was in Lincoln, so I did. Joe took me to a spare bedroom of his mobile home and motioned for me to sit.

Exchanging stories of our intelligence jobs, he talked about his experience as a prisoner of war. I asked him about the torture he was subjected to, wondering how I would have sustained it. He said the physical punishment wasn't that bad and he blocked out the pain. Mentally they tried to hurt them also. He was in a prison room with two other men. In the room was a fearful youngster, barely out of high school. Joe had to do a lot of talking to keep him calm. Once, returning from a beating and interrogation, the young man said they told him if he didn't talk or sign a confession, they would "hang him from the highest hill at sunrise." Joe laughed, saying it sounded like a script from a grade B movie. They didn't even know if they had hills in the area. He made assurances that "we will go home someday," but with a smile said, "I never told him, it might be in a box!"

We continued to talk, in this dark room, the afternoon sun starting to wane. I wondered if these were the conditions he lived in. [Read more: Greunke/FreemontTribune/11November2011]

Spy Day Celebrations In Russia. In Russia, every November 5th is "Spy Day," and celebrates a century of Russian espionage. This special day is not a leftover from the Soviet Union. Spy Day was established in 2000, by Vladimir Putin, the recently elected president of Russia, whose professional experience was as a Soviet era spy. But this was not an effort to regain some respect for Soviet era spies (many of whom were out of work after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991). Rather, Putin was bringing attention to peace time spying. Like China, Russia has been very active in stealing foreign technology, and needs skilled spies to do it.

While Putin is a veteran of the Soviet era KGB (the Soviet CIA), most senior government officials are not. Of the top hundred officials in the Russian government, only twelve percent had worked for the KGB. But the KGB influence in the Russian government is real, although far less than dominating. Most KGB officials have found better paying jobs in the booming civilian sector. The KGB was always known as where the "best and brightest" of Soviet society went. These guys are smart enough to avoid getting tied down in a government job, no matter how high up in the food chain.

But Putin has made a major effort to revive the huge Soviet era espionage capability. Five years ago a new, $300 million, headquarters for GRU (similar to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency) was opened. This was but one of many examples of Russia's increased interest in espionage. [Read more: StrategyPage/11November2011]

World War II Veteran Recounts Missions as a 'Spy Catcher'. John Nisley was a World War II veteran who was in both Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. Then he became a spy catcher.

It may sound a lot like a movie script but it was real life for Nisley, who is now 90 years old and lives with his wife, Marion, in Longview.

As an Army soldier he spent more than 150 days in combat during some of the biggest battles, which included landing in Normandy on D-Day assigned to the 79th Infantry Division.

And six months of combat through the Battle of the Bulge earned him two Bronze Star Medals and a Purple Heart. 

Then, tired of bullets, he went on to join the secret Army Counterintelligence Corps. Throughout the Cold War he had missions in Europe and Korea and once he even had to spy on Hollywood filmmakers. It was during the McCarthy era - the Red Scare in America - and many of the filmmakers were thought to be Communists. Nisley's job was to tail them.

"They had a brand new DeSoto. Keeping up with this brand new car was like diving out of an airplane," he recalled Friday. "So I cranked up my car. I'm screaming down the road, and I made my right turn and there they were right in the middle of the damn road. And it was either hit them or hit the ditch."

He said he was ripped off that mission for being seen and being too reckless.

Will he get in trouble with the government for talking about his secret missions? No, he said, what's the government going to do at his age?

"They might be after me for any number of things, but I don't think they'll be after me for that," he said. [Read more: Kiss�e/KATU/11November2011]

Bermuda's WWII Espionage Role. It's been said Bermuda was "Britain's number-one listening post" during World War II [1939-1945] - and if that's true, then the Princess Hotel was its headset.

The waterfront hotel in Hamilton was transformed into the island's counterintelligence headquarters for the British, which monitored the transatlantic mail passing through the island aboard flying boats [a Pan American World Airways Clipper is pictured here moored off the Darrell's Island air station in the Great Sound during the war years. Bermuda was a staging point for the US-European flights operated by Pan Am and Britain's Imperial Airways].

"A thousand people worked in the basement, checking to see if letters contained messages in invisible ink or if an extra period, when magnified, might reveal a hidden message," former hotel manager Ian Powell has said.

Ultimately some 1,500 British intelligence officers, academics and code-breakers descended on Bermuda to man the Imperial Censorship station shortly after the outbreak of the war. Many of the censors were attractive young women - largely university students - who became known as the "Censorettes".

Though the schedule could be grueling, with thousands of letters to slog through each day, the censors found time to swim and play tennis and golf, and they even had a debate team and amateur dramatics society.

But it was hardly all sun, surf and a sybaretic lifestyle for the Bermuda censors - they were also responsible for exposing up some of the most notorious Nazi spies active in North America before the US entered World War II in 1941. [Read more: BerNews/11November2011]

Section III - COMMENTARY

The Internet's Iron Curtain Moment. You might have missed it, but there was a pivotal moment last week in the history of the Internet. On Thursday, in a speech at the National Press Club, the United States' top spy hunter released a frank and alarming report about Chinese and Russian industrial espionage against US companies.

The report marks the first time the United States government has unequivocally stated, in emphatic and highly publicized fashion, that China and Russia are responsible for a pervasive electronic campaign to steal American intellectual property, trade secrets, negotiating strategies, and sensitive military technology. This is not the first time sitting US officials have singled out Chinese and Russian cyber theft. But those complaints were largely off the record and carefully calibrated not to be read as a shot across the bow of America's strategic adversaries. This report, however, is that shot.

In clear, mostly nontechnical language, the report characterizes cyber espionage as part of China and Russia's broad national strategy of military, technological, and economic domination of the West, and the United States in particular. It may seem a lofty, unachievable ambition. But the report argues that the costs to American competitiveness and innovation have been great, if difficult to pinpoint with a dollar figure.

Said costs are high enough - and the threat sufficiently pervasive - for the intelligence community to issue its clearest condemnation to date, pointing the finger at the two countries that have long been believed to house the biggest dens of thieves.

The report puts in the official record what many in Washington policy circles and among its legions of defense contractors have known for several years. China conducts a relentless campaign of cyber spying largely aimed at building its military into a modern superpower and lifting its emerging economy into first-world status. Russia, while a distant second in terms of the number of operations launched against the United States, shows remarkable technical skill. The country is especially keen to obtain intelligence on scarce energy resources and economic policy strategy of the US government - as is China, for obvious reasons.

The growing community of journalists, wonks, and corporate executives who closely follow cyber security had been waiting for this moment, when the Obama administration - or really, any administration - would name and try to shame its opponents. But it was never clear when the moment might come or what event might precipitate it. There may be no single reason. Since taking office, President Obama and top members of his administration have been increasingly forceful about how they view the Internet as both a strategic asset and a liability. In that sense, it was inevitable that the administration finally put names in the broad, vague indictments it has been issuing.

That doesn't detract from the significance of the event. And one is tempted to draw parallels to pivotal moments of the last cold war, which were underappreciated at the time, or even ridiculed. The release of this report may turn out to be the Internet's Iron Curtain moment. Though it landed with much less ceremony and eloquence than Sir Winston Churchill's fateful 1946 address, it nevertheless does the same job: It makes clear the stakes as the United States intelligence community sees them, and it throws down a challenge against Russia and China, which are judged to be the two greatest strategic threats to American prosperity and influence. [Read more: Harris/Washingtonian/7November2011]

The Biggest Little Diplomatic Crisis You've Never Heard of. Next week, President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard are set to announce a new U.S. military presence at Robertson Barracks, an Australian base in Darwin. This will require a major expansion of the facility, and according to Mike Green, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, allow U.S. Marines "to be able to fly helicopters, drop out of planes and shoot at things." Max Fisher has listed several reasons why this is a smart move for everyone involved, and the Obama administration deserves credit for anticipating distant threats in the region both obvious and abstruse. Australia is a stalwart ally of the United States, and has fought alongside U.S. troops in every major military campaign of modern times. Because of the UK-USA Agreement, the ANZUS Treaty, and fundamentally aligned goals in defense and foreign policy, setting up shop in Australia must have been as easy, diplomatically, as building a Walmart in Arkansas. The real question might be why it didn't happen sooner, but that question is offset by the relief that it didn't happen too late.

It's a smart move for reasons beyond some hypothetical conflict with Beijing. An economically beneficial base and an American regional presence friendlier than the quiet and ongoing U.S. commando operations in the Philippines might well mend edges frayed by an exhausting decade of war. It might also bring neighboring New Zealand back into the full comity of ANZUS. Like a well-played game of Risk, this would solidify Western military interests in the Pacific. 

ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-United States) has long been dysfunctional to the detriment of everyone involved. In the 1980's, New Zealand declared itself nuclear-free - an understandable reaction to France testing nuclear bombs in the South Pacific. This policy, however, essentially precluded the U.S. Navy from docking at New Zealand harbors or passing though New Zealand territorial waters - no small frustration at the height of the Cold War. The U.S. retaliated by withholding imagery intelligence from New Zealand, something to which the island nation was essentially entitled under UK-USA. (The basic message from the United States: You don't like nuclear weapons? Then you don't need intelligence used for nuclear weapons.) ANZUS, a three-nation defense treaty, didn't collapse, but rather splintered into twin alliances between the U.S. and Australia, and New Zealand and Australia. [Read more: Grady/TheAtlantic/11November2011]

If Iran Gets the Bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency this week released its most detailed assessment to date about Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, and if "Paranormal Activity 3" wasn't enough to keep you awake at night, the report's 14-page annex detailing the state of Iran's weapons work should do the trick. It lays to rest the fantasies that an Iranian bomb is many years off, or that the intelligence is riddled with holes and doubts, or that the regime's intentions can't be guessed by their activities.

So much, then, for the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which asserted "with high confidence" that Iran had abandoned its nuclear-weapons work in 2003 and ended any chance that the Bush Administration would take action against Iran. So much, too, for the Obama Administration's attempts to move Iran away from its nuclear course, first with diplomatic offers and then with sanctions and covert operations. 

The serious choice now before the Administration is between military strikes and more of the same. As the IAEA report makes painfully clear, more of the same means a nuclear Iran, possibly within a year.

It's time, then, to consider carefully what that choice means for the United States. In the run-up to the war in Iraq, we wrote that "the law of unintended consequences hasn't been repealed," and that "no war ever goes precisely as planned." That was obviously true of a boots-on-the-ground invasion, but it would also be true of an aerial campaign to demolish or substantially degrade Iran's nuclear facilities. [Read more: WallStreetJournal/11November2011]

What Made the Spooks Disappear. America doesn't make spies like Jim Thompson anymore - if that's what he was. No one could ever be quite sure. But CIA operatives and U.S. Army commanders were prominent among the steady stream of dinner guests at his sprawling teakwood house on Bangkok's central canal in the early 1960s, together with European counts and countesses and such A-list celebrities as the Du Ponts and Truman Capote. People who came to Thompson's house could often remember every detail of the evening years later, down to the crab soup and the type of mangoes that were served. Once you met Jim Thompson, visitors said, you never forgot him.

Everyone at the dinner table would know his basic life story, from all the press coverage and gossip he attracted. He had arrived in Bangkok at the end of World War II, working for the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services. Even after his official resignation from government employment, he kept on as a freelance intelligence operative, his antiques-filled home a hub of vital information and even arms trafficking, according to a U.S. government investigation, as America became entangled in Vietnam. His legitimate business, the Thai Silk Co., was in itself enough to make him an international figure. "The Silk King," the newspapers called him - the man who had built Thai silk from a cottage industry into a global fashion powerhouse, displayed at fashion capitals in Europe and America, and brought glamour to the Thai capital.

Thompson belonged to a now practically vanished breed: the larger-than-life American expatriates, often connected to U.S. intelligence, who held sway in odd corners of the globe back in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, and up until the end of the Cold War. For better or worse, many of them have become legends. There was Anthony Poshepny, remembered these days as Tony Poe, a veteran of the secret war in Tibet who ended up living among the Hmong tribespeople in Laos - he married into one Hmong family - and collected the ears (and sometimes the heads, it's said) of his slain enemies. He's often said to have been the model for Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, although its producer-director, Francis Ford Coppola, denies it. There were the flamboyant, cigar-chomping Duane (Dewey) Clarridge, a CIA operations officer during the contra war in Nicaragua; Gustav (Gust) Avrakotos, who ran Operation Cyclone against the Soviets in Afghanistan, one of the largest covert operations in the agency's history; and many others. [Read more: Kurlantzick/TheDailyBeast/14November2011]

Section IV - Obituaries, Books and Coming Events

Obituaries

Ace Rosner. The first time I met Ace Rosner he said to me, "I've had the best life and the most interesting life of anyone in the world."

I doubt that anyone will ever make me think otherwise.

But now that most interesting of lives is over. The man I called my favorite one-armed, race-car-driving ex-CIA officer died Sunday at the age of 94.

Adolph Charles "Ace" Rosner Jr. was born in 1917 in Birmingham, Ala., the seventh of eight children. His father was a serial entrepreneur, and the family lived all over the country.

For a while after high school, Ace was a photo stringer in Baltimore for the New York Times. Then he joined the Army. As an officer in the 3rd Division, 30th Infantry, 1st Battalion, Ace participated in four invasions: Morocco, Sicily, Salerno and Anzio.

It was at Anzio in 1944 that a German mortar shell tore his right arm to ribbons. "When I was in Europe, shot up and injured, I decided that anything that I want that I can afford, I'm going to have," said Ace, who received four Purple Hearts and three Bronze Stars for valor.

Cars became an obsession, not surprising for someone who learned to drive at age 8, sitting on his father's lap in the family's Packard Twin Six. Over the years, Ace owned more than 200, up to 44 at any one time: Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars, Austin-Healeys, Lincolns... Last year he let me drive his brand-new $200,000 Mercedes SLS AMG Gullwing.

Ace kept his collection in the parking garage of the Woodley Road NW apartment building he moved to in 1961. He was working for the CIA then, a job that took him to London and Vienna during the height of the Cold War.

Ace never said exactly what he did in the CIA. His niece Susan Parker remembers Ace showing her a letter of commendation from the agency. It was totally devoid of details as to how he'd earned it. He would know what they were talking about, and that was good enough.

Whatever it was, it afforded Ace the opportunity to hobnob. While in Europe, he befriended the Greek royal family, endearing himself to the queen because of his ability to procure American peanut butter. He shared his love of cars with the king. Once, Ace was driving his black Ford Thunderbird to visit the monarch at the palace when he noticed that pedestrians stopped to cheer and wave as he sped past. He waved back, curious about the accolades.

When he parked his car at the palace, he saw why. The king had an identical T-Bird. Ace had been mistaken for royalty.

While living in Austria, Ace bought a 1949 Ferrari Barchetta and raced against the likes of Wolfgang von Trips. In Washington, he was a founding member of the Lavender Hill Mob, a group of rabid sports car enthusiasts who helped build the Marlboro race track in Maryland. He invested in a racing-themed bar in Georgetown called the Pit Stop that featured bucket seats as bar stools.

Ace's cars were not the pampered sort you find at the show at Pebble Beach, Calif. He drove them, filling them with wrappers from his beloved McDonald's. Sometimes he would just go down to the parking garage to wash them or move a battery charger from vehicle to vehicle. Wherever he was - in the garage, at a car show, driving celebrities in the Cherry Blossom Parade - Ace was always natty, with a driving cap perched atop his head and a scarf knotted around his neck.

His love of cars was infectious, and he had a cadre of younger friends from the local car club scene. Jaime Steve met Ace after moving into his building in 1993. At the time, Jaime owned one car. Today, Jaime owns 19, including a vintage Jeep painted to resemble the kind Ace drove at Anzio.

Ace could have that effect on you.

People would inevitably ask Ace how he could race with just one arm. He was good at steering with his knees, he explained, and at shifting through the steering wheel. Ace was also a great believer in the spinner knob - a little contraption that attaches to the wheel - and he bought them in bulk from Pep Boys. He gave me one, promising that it would enhance any driving experience.

Ace had a loyalty for Walter Reed Army Medical Center that dated back to the year he spent there after losing his arm. Once, when visiting a sister in Baltimore, he was attacked by a knife-wielding mugger, who stabbed Ace in his left hand. Rather than risking an unfamiliar emergency room, Ace wrapped his bleeding hand in towels and drove to Walter Reed in the District.

It was at Walter Reed - now in Bethesda - that Maj. A.C. Rosner passed away from congestive heart failure. He had no immediate survivors.

"I remember everything," Ace used to tell me before launching into a story. I certainly won't ever forget him. [Kelly/WashingtonPost/9November2011]

Books

The Grey Line: Modern Corporate Espionage and Counterintelligence. Andrew Brown is a leading expert on covert corporate intelligence/counterintelligence activity both in the United States and abroad. His new book, The Grey Line: Modern Corporate Espionage and Counterintelligence is the summation of vast international experience on these subjects.

Every year corporate espionage, data theft and private cyber-attacks cost US companies and individual citizens hundreds of billions of dollars and the threat is growing. This new book is the most up-to-date and complete account of modern private sector intelligence practice available. The Grey Line covers in exacting detail how corporate spies operate, how they turn human sources within target companies, how modern hacking and cyber-intelligence is gathered and secured systems compromised. The author provides in-depth analysis of the rapidly growing field of corporate and industrial espionage and its impact on companies and individuals. The book covers how companies and private citizens can and must defend themselves against the massively expanded threat of modern, unrestrained for-profit intelligence. Recent cases, such as, the cyber attacks on Sony, the Hollywood hacker and the rise of Chinese intelligence groups targeting the US, have brought the subject of industrial espionage, cyber attack and for-profit intelligence to the forefront of national attention. People across the country are clamoring for more information on this imminent threat. The Grey Line: Modern Corporate Espionage and Counterintelligence provides both insight into how spies operate in the real world and practical solutions and tips on how to protect yourself and your business.

Now available in print and ebook. [Read more: PRWeb/11November2011]

Spies and Commissars: Bolshevik Russia and the West, by Robert Service. A couple of weeks ago I was returning from a wedding in the Caucasus in the company of a Russian. He loved history, and thought Winston Churchill only the greatest Briton of all time, but the only one to have been a true friend of the Soviet Union. With a drunkard's insistence, he made me recite phrases from Churchill's speeches, which he replied to in the manner of Joseph Stalin. He delighted in this intimate conversation between the leaders, and insisted on our continuing until he passed out.

The contrast between this idea of a pro-Soviet Churchill and the facts presented by Robert Service in his fascinating book, which recounts the fraught relationship between the young communist state and the West, made me smile. Service's Churchill was the most virulent of all enemies of the Bolsheviks. He schemed and plotted and referred to the anti-Soviet forces as "my army". David Lloyd George, then prime minister to Churchill's minister of war, had to warn his colleague against "this obsession... upsetting your balance".

An upset balance is something that distinguishes most of the characters in this book. Service gives a detailed account of the years after 1917. He tells how the Bolsheviks went from being revolutionaries to being a government; and how Westerners abandoned their frantic opposition to the Reds and embraced trade and political alliances with them. At first, the Bolsheviks believed the world would follow them into the bright communist future. This severely complicated ties with neighbouring countries. Trotsky, Service drily observes, "had to admit that any diplomatic relations would be of an unusual kind since the Bolsheviks remained open enemies of every state in the world".

But as revolutions failed in Germany and Hungary, and Red Army soldiers were seen in Poland not as proletarian liberators but as Russian invaders, the Kremlin began to accept a more nuanced view. It was a change helped by a shifting cast of conmen, chancers and double agents, who form the focus of Service's book. Men like Arthur Ransome - better known as the author of Swallows and Amazons - shuttled between Moscow and the West, sometimes as a communist sympathiser, sometimes as a hostile spy. 

Service has a wonderful eye for the telling detail. British agent George Hill helped Trotsky set up the Soviet air force, while running a network of agents collecting information on the Bolsheviks.  [Read more: Bullough/TheIndependent/11November2011]

Coming Educational Events

EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....

MANY Spy Museum Events in November, December, and beyond, 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.

Thursday, 17 November 2011, 11:30 am Colorado Springs, CO – The Rocky Mountain Chapter presents Sheriff Terry Maketa speaking about his official visits to Israel and Trinidad.  This should be an interesting talk as El Paso County Sheriff’s rarely travel this far from home.  Dick Durham will lead the meeting as the President will be in London on his own fact finding and gathering mission.  To 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

17 November 2011 - San Francisco, CA - The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Richard W. Held, former Special Agent in Charge, San Francisco Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Topic: The Cyber Threat: Changing the Nature of Future Conflict.

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) no later than October 29, 2011 at afiosf@aol.com and mail a check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578, Burlingame, CA 94011

SORRY - THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT: Thursday, 17 November 2011, 11:30 am - Mount Vernon, VA - Defense Intel Alumni Association Fall Luncheon and Meeting

LTG Michael T. Flynn, USA, keynote speaker. Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Partner Engagement
Views of a Leading Intelligence Officer. Hear the latest from DIA. Following the luncheon DIAA will hold their annual business meeting and elections.
RSVP: DIAA, Inc., Attn: Luncheon, 256 Morris Creek Road, Cullen, Virginia 23934 Checks payable to DIAA, Inc., by 10 November 2011 $30.00 for current members/guests
$35.00 for non members/guests Location: Mount Vernon Inn, 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Hwy, Mount Vernon, VA. Questions to: Don Mathis, DIAA Membership/Outreach, 703-619-1630 or email him at dlmathis@gmail.com SORRY BUT THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT.

Friday, 18 November 2011, 4:30 pm - Washington, DC - "Stalin's Spies: From Paris to the Gulag" at the International Spy Museum

The Soviet Union’s very own James Bond, Dimitri Bystrolyotov, was one of the greatest Soviet Spies of all time. Dimitri was a sailor, doctor, lawyer and artist recruited by Stalin for his dashing good looks and ease with languages to seduce secrets from willing targets during the 1920s and 30s. However, after falling out of Stalin’s favor, Dimitri was sentenced to the Gulag for 16 years. In this behind-the-scenes event you will see powerful artifacts from Bystrolyotov’s life in the Gulag donated by his family, meet the Museum’s Historian and Collections Manager, and hear from a panel of top experts on the subject of Stalin’s spies: Prof. Emil Draitser, author of Stalin’s Romeo Spy, on Bystrolyotov; journalist and author Stephen Schwartz on NKVD Recruitment of intellectuals; and Prof. Susan Weissman on Marc Zborowski, who spied on Trotskyites in France and the United States. Finally, hear commentary from Peter Katel of Congressional Quarterly who will recount his parents’ encounter with one of these spies. This special afternoon concludes as speakers, staff, and guests continue the discussion over drinks with complementary light appetizers just around the corner at Riot Act Comedy Theater.

Tickets: Free. Space is limited. Register online at www.spymuseum.org

19 November 2011 - Melbourne, FL - The AFIO Florida Satellite Chapter luncheon features Gen John Cleland on "Radical Islam."

Major General John Cleland (Ret.) speaks on "Radical Islam." Lunch will be at the Eau Gallie Yacht Club. For further information, contact Donna Czarnecki at donnacz@aol.com.

19 November 2011, 2 pm - Kennebunk, ME - Espionage 101: Richard L. Holm, CIA operations officer with 32 years experience in the field and at CIA headquarters, will be guest speaker at this meeting of the Maine Chapter of AFIO. After mastering a number of mentally and physically challenging training courses including the Army's Jungle Operations Training School at Fort Sheridan, he was sent to Laos where he worked with the Hmong disrupting traffic on the Ho Chi Minh trail. While assigned to the Republic of Congo in 1965, Holm's plane crashed on a reconnaisance mission resulting in burns over 35 percent of his body, leaving him helpless and temporarily blinded with his eyelids seared shut. Holm credits his survival to care he received from a native tribesman who cleaned off burned skin and insects before applying a mysterious poultice which prevented dehydration and infection. Meanwhile a rescue team walked 100 miles through enemy territory to extricate him and bring him back to the U.S. for treatment.
After a lengthy hospitalization and rehabilitation, Holm resumed his CIA career going on to serve in Kuala Lampur and running agents into China from Hong Kong. In 1982 Holm was asked to take charge of the Counter Terrorist Group. As he continued to rise through the ranks his travels took him to seven countries and three continents in wide ranging assignments before ending his distinguished career in Paris.
Holm is the recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, CIA's highest award, and author of "The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA".
To learn more you need to be at the Brick Store Museum Program Center, 2 Dane St, Kennebunk, ME at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 19, 2011. Bring a friend. For information call 207-967-4298

30 November - 1 December 2011 - Fairfax, VA - NMIA Fall 2011 National Intelligence Symposium

The theme of this event is: "Intelligence / Information For Small Unit Operations". Small units have been and may increasingly be the foremost U.S. National Security direct action tool. Taking down high-profile terrorists, conducting counterinsurgency engagements, SWAT Team deployments, first responders and fighting fires - - small units have unique and dynamic intelligence / information needs. Yet while they are at the pointy-end of the spear; they are also at the end of the last mile. What do they need? Are they getting it? How can it be improved? The NMIA Symposium features an array of distinguished experts; let by the invited Keynote, LTG Michael Flynn, US Army; who recently led U.S. intelligence efforts in Afghanistan. Location: Northrup Grumman, Fairfax, Virginia
Register at https://nmia.site-ym.com/events/register.asp?id=186505

1-2 December 2011 - Washington, DC - 21st Annual Review of the Field of National Security Law
Event is co-sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security, the Center for National Security Law, Univ of VA Sch of Law; Center on Law, Ethics, and National Security, Duke Univ Sch of Law; and the Center on National Security and the Law, Georgetown Law.
Location: Ritz Carlton Hotel, 1150 22nd St NW, Washington DC.
NOTE: You must reserve your room by November 18 to receive the special ABA Conference Rate of $269 Single/Double/or
prevailing Government Rate. Please be advised that after November 18, hotel rates go up significantly. Contact the Hotel
directly by calling 202/974-5570 or 1-800/558-9994 and mention the "ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security
21st Annual Review of the Field of National Security."
EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION – REGISTER BY NOVEMBER 18 AND SAVE!!
www.americanbar.org/natsecurity

Thursday, 8 December 2011, 10:30 am - 2 pm - Tysons Corner, VA - AFIO Winter Luncheon - Speaker: John D. Bennett, Director, National Clandestine Service, CIA and J.M. Berger, author of JIHAD JOE: Americans Who Go To War In The Name of Islam

Speaker: John D. Bennett, Director, National Clandestine Service, CIA, OFF THE RECORD, and morning speaker J.M. Berger, author of JIHAD JOE: Americans Who Go To War In The Name of Islam. Location: Crowne Plaza, Tysons Corner, VA Register here.

8 December 2011, 6 - 9 pm - New York, NY - The AFIO NY Metro Chapter meeting features Jim Rasenberger on "The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs"

Jim Rasenberger, Author: The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Ccastro and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs, April 17, 1961 "How could we have been so stupid" remarked one administration official. Did this "doomed invasion" contribute to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and the assassination of President Kennedy? LOCATION: "3 West Club" 3 West 51st Street, Manhattan.
6:00 PM Registration 6:30 PM Meeting Start Please Note this Time Change from our usual start. Buffet Dinner Cash Bar COST: $40/person. Cash or Check, payable at the door only.
REGISTER: Strongly suggested, not required. Seating is limited.
Email: afiometro@yahoo.com or telephone Jerry Goodwin 347-334-1503.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011 - MacDill AFB, FL - The AFIO Florida Suncoast Chapter luncheon features Karla Stevenson on Afghanistan-Pakistan.

Stevenson is Coordinator, Analytic Outreach & Strategic Relationships Afghanistan-Pakistan Center, U.S. Central Command
Location: MacDill AFB Surf's Edge Club, 7315 Bayshore Blvd, MacDill AFB, FL 33621. Please RSVP no later than Tuesday, December 6, for
yourself and include the names of any guests. Email or call the Chapter Secretary at Michael F. Shapiro mfshapiro@att.net

Wednesday, 11 January 2012, 6:30–8:30 pm - Washington, DC 2011 Espionage Debrief: Year in Review at the International Spy Museum

How did 2011 measure up intel-wise? What was 2011 like for intelligence agencies and operatives around the world? Which service was penetrated? Who was caught? Which covert action operations flew under the media's radar? David Major knows. As a retired Supervisory Special Agent and Director of Counterintelligence, Intelligence and Security Programs for the FBI and Spy Museum Board Member, he understands the cases and knows their implications. As the founder of the CI Centre which provides counterintelligence and security studies and training, Major tracks the most important spy cases from around the globe and has the most up-to-date information on their status. Learn about defector on defector violence in North Korea and discover the critical information that was sought by Libya's intelligence mastermind, Abdullah Senussi. You'll learn the hottest targets and who's been attacked by cyberespionage and why. Major will also include key economic espionage cases and their outcome in this essential international update. Tickets: $15 Visit www.spymuseum.org to register or more information

Thursday, 12 January 2012, Noon-1 pm – Washington, DC - SMERSH: Stalin's Secret Weapon: Soviet Military Counterintelligence in WWII at the International Spy Museum

In the early James Bond novels, the hero battled the villainous forces of SMERSH, a shadowy Soviet intelligence organization. While Bond was fictional, SMERSH really existed. Drawing its name from the Russian phrase smert shpionam or "death to spies," it was Stalin's wartime terror apparatus—a collection of torturers and killers unleashed with brutal effect in 1943 to cut a bloody swath across Eastern Europe. Its job was to "filter" the Red Army for spies and, as a result, it was responsible for the arrest, torture, and execution of many thousands of innocent servicemen and citizens of countries occupied by the Red Army. Join historian and human rights activist Vadim J. Birstein as he discusses this ruthless organization and reveals new evidence suggesting that Raoul Wallenberg was one of its victims.
Free! No Registration Required! Visit www.spymuseum.org for more information

Thursday, 19 January 2012, 6:30–8:30 pm - Washington, DC – Vienna, City of My Dreams: An Evening with Oleg Kalugin at the International Spy Museum

"More than a century of spying history makes this romantic city a place where…agents and informants still feel at ease."—Sigrun Rottman, BBC News, July 8, 2010
Vienna is famous for waltzing, coffee houses, pastries, and the Prater, but for Spy Museum Board Member Oleg Kalugin, the city is all about intrigue. Kalugin, the youngest Major General in KGB history, operated clandestinely in the Austrian capital throughout the 1970s and 1980s, where he developed a passion for the history of this city of spies. From Alfred Redl, the chief of Austrian-Hungarian Intelligence, who was recruited by the Russian Imperial Secret Service in 1907, to Norwegian diplomat Arne Treholt's KGB meetings caught on film in the 80s, Vienna has served as a legendary setting for espionage. Join General Kalugin for this evocative evening of music, film, history, and his own personal experiences as a spy in this elegant European crossroads. While guests enjoy Austrian delicacies, he'll address unanswered questions such as whether one-time Viennese resident Felix Bloch was truly a spy. Come celebrate Vienna's glorious ball season and the confidential information that can be exchanged…in the course of a waltz.
Tickets: $20 Visit www.spymuseum.org to register or more information

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

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