CIA Memorial Wall — Star 31 : John W. Kearns (Laos – December 15, 1972)

Posted on December 15, 2025 by L

“As a paramilitary operations officer, John’s role was to work behind enemy lines, supporting local pro-government forces and engaging in special missions to disrupt the activities of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Vietcong.”

CIA website

Earliest known photo of the Book of Honor (33 stars)

December 15, 2024 — John Wesley Kearns III was a CIA officer who served as a paramilitary operations officer on contract in Laos during the Vietnam War. He was killed in action on December 15, 1972, at the age of 30. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY.

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On This Day — Pan Am Flight 214 Crashes (December 8 1963) Lesson Learned? [Update : Was the story of Air India Flight 301 used to write the Lockerbie script?]

Posted on December 8, 2025 by L

“Aviation investigations are replete with accident scenarios that couldn’t happen. And given the lack of bomb evidence so far, neither scenario has been ruled out, officials said. First is the possibility that the doomed plane’s front section, which has a history of structural fatigue cracks and must undergo regular inspections, simply unzipped from the rest of the plane as weakened structural frames gave way.”

TWA 800
Washington Post
(August 1 1996)

December 8 2025 — Pan Am Flight 214 was a scheduled flight of Pan American World Airways from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Baltimore, Maryland, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On December 8, 1963, the Boeing 707 serving the flight crashed near Elkton, Maryland, while en route from Baltimore to Philadelphia, after being hit by lightning, killing all 81 on board. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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On This Day — Western Union Cable Announces Armistice to North Americans [UPDATE : The Sound of Silence : November 11, 1918 – 11 a.m.]

Posted on November 11, 2025 by L

“There had never been a known leak from the Western Union telegraph office on Court Street before that day, but this news was simply too good to keep quiet. As you might guess, they were overjoyed, so that word very quickly leaked into the community and the party was on.”

Richard Rose — Chair of the November 10 commemoration committee with the North Sydney Historical Society

 

The North Sydney Historical Museum houses the telegraph machine that received the oversea message announcing an armistice would be signed on November 11, 1918.

November 11 2025 — On November 10 1918, the Western Union Cable Office in North Sydney, Nova Scotia received a Morse coded message from Europe stating that all fighting — on land, sea and in the air — would cease the next day. On November 11, 1918 — at precisely 11 a.m. — the guns fell silent, marking the end of the war. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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Remembering Actress and Inventor Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000) [UPDATE : From Ecstasy to Havana Syndrome]

Posted on November 9, 2025 by L

“We began talking about the war, which, in the late summer of 1940, was looking most extremely black. Hedy said that she did not feel very comfortable, sitting there in Hollywood and making lots of money when things were in such a state. She said that she knew a good deal about munitions and various secret weapons … and that she was thinking seriously of quitting MGM and going to Washington, DC, to offer her services to the newly established Inventors’ Council.”
 
George Antheil
Composer, pianist, inventor

Hedy Lamarr, ‘the most beautiful woman in the world.’ (ca 1940)

November 9 2025 — Today is the 111th anniversary of Hedy Lamarr’s birth! Often called “The Most Beautiful Woman in Films,” Hedy Lamarr’s beauty and screen presence made her one of the most popular actresses of her time. However, it is less well-known that Lamarr was also an inventor. Along with composer George Antheil, she patented a frequency-hopping system during World War II that later paved the way for technologies like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_Today

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Revisiting Havana Syndrome: Moscow Death Ray vs. CIA Hoax [UPDATE — Brennan and Ex-FBI Officials Subpoenaed]

Posted on November 8, 2025 by L

“Agency heads at the time created a politically charged environment that triggered an atypical analytic process around an issue essential to our democracy.”

CIA Director John Ratcliffe
(July 2, 2025)

July 6, 2025 — This week, the CIA concluded a critical internal review casting serious doubts on the integrity of past intelligence narratives—highlighting strong circumstantial evidence that former CIA Director John Brennan played a central role in shaping, and possibly fabricating, key political allegations. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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On This Day — Able Archer 1983 : The Brink of Apocalypse (November 7-11, 1983) [UPDATE : “NATO is a leftover Cold War relic doing more harm than good.”]

Posted on November 7, 2025 by L

“The US intelligence had failed to grasp the true extent of their anxiety.”

Robert Gates
CIA Deputy Director
for Intelligence
during Able Archer 83

November 7 2025 — Able Archer 83 is the codename for a command post exercise carried out in November 1983 by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Coordinated from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Casteau, Belgium, it involved NATO forces throughout Western Europe. This exercise began on November 7, 1983 and ended on November 11, 1983. Today, many historians believe that the world almost came to a nuclear war on that week. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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On This Day — Robert Gates Becomes 15th CIA Director (November 6 1991) [Test your “Spy Knowledge” with our CIA Directors Quiz!]

Posted on November 6, 2025 by L

“If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of.”

Robert Gates
Former CIA Director

cia-logo-floor
“A people always ends by resembling its shadow.” – Rudyard Kipling

November 6 2025 — Robert Gates was nominated to become the Director of Central Intelligence (head of the CIA) in early 1987. He withdrew his name after it became clear the Senate would reject the nomination due to controversy about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Gates was nominated again for the position by President George H. W. Bush on May 14, 1991. This time, he was confirmed by the Senate on November 5, and sworn in on November 6 1991. How much do you know about spy agencies? Take this quiz to find out your knowledge of the CIA Directors. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today

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On This Day — The Iran-Contra Scandal Revealed (November 3, 1986)

Posted on November 4, 2025 by L

“My purpose was… to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship… At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there.”

US President Ronald Reagan
(November 13 1986)

 

libya_bombing_reagan_meeting_14_march_1986

November 3 2025 — On November 3 1986, the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa exposed the Iran–Contra scandal. Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. They hoped, thereby, to fund the Contras in Nicaragua while at the same time negotiating the release of several U.S. hostages. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress. This affair is usually regarded as one of the most important scandals in US modern history. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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On This Day — KRYPTOS Sculpture Dedication Ceremony at the CIA (November 3 1990) [UPDATE : And Then Came a ‘Gigantic Mistake’… As Always!]

Posted on November 3, 2025 by L

“Maybe you’re mistaken–maybe this first part of the Kryptos code is really not a polyalphabetic Vigenere Tableau after all — maybe it’s a different type of code entirely. Or maybe it is a Vigenere code, but it’s been double or triple encoded — or maybe it was encoded backwards.”

David Stein
CIA analyst
Directorate of Intelligence

 

November 3 2025 — Kryptos, the sculpture by American artist Jim Sanborn on the grounds of the CIA in Langley, Virginia, has revealed a major surprise. Of its four encrypted sections, the first three had long been solved. The final section, one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes, has now been uncovered — thanks to an unexpected “gigantic mistake.” Always expect the unexpected! Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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From Wikipedia to Grokipedia, From Chomsky to Sarkozy… [Is Wikipedia left-leaning?]

Posted on November 2, 2025 by L

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on…”

Noam Chomsky
The Common Good, 1998

November 2, 2025 — On July 26, 2007, I published an article highlighting suspicious edits made to certain Wikipedia entries. The date was not chosen at random. Exactly sixty years earlier, on July 26, 1947, President Harry S. Truman had signed the National Security Act, which established the Central Intelligence Agency. Two decades later, the questions raised by that story remain just as urgent. In an era globally defined by disinformation, this moment marked an early warning. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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