“Nothing is more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
Arthur Conan Doyle
June 22, 2026 — Over the last three decades, I have devoted much time to several distinct stories: the CIA Memorial Wall (and the associated Book of Honor), the KRYPTOS sculpture, and the Lockerbie tragedy. In my wildest dreams, I never expected that these stories would one day come together. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
RELATED POST : Lockerbie 30th Anniversary — PT/35(b) : MEBO TELECOM and the Story of the MST-13 Timers
RELATED POST : CIA Annual Ceremony — 50th Anniversary of the Memorial Wall (May 17, 2024) [UPDATE — Earliest known photo of the CIA Memorial Wall]
And yet, a CIA document dated June 1991 and declassified in 2014 links the Book of Honor to the KRYPTOS sculpture, and consequently provides information about the Pan Am 103 tragedy over Lockerbie.
Life is really stranger than fiction!
In 1957, John Nash (Nobel Prize 1994 in Economics) wrote a letter to J. Robert Oppenheimer (then director of the Institute for Advanced Study) in which he reflects on Werner Heisenberg’s 1925 matrix formulation of quantum mechanics.
The letter outlines recurring themes in his philosophy of mathematics and physics: a preference for original derivations and a distrust of over-elegantized reformulations.
Nash is pointing to a common tendency in the presentation of scientific breakthroughs: the original path of discovery is gradually reformulated into smoother and more elegant explanations.
This process is not deceptive, but it can still alter how the result is understood, sometimes obscuring the structure of the original derivation even as it is intended to make the outcome easier to present and learn.
In the spirit of Nash’s philosophy, I will focus on telling this story as closely as I uncovered the facts, avoiding both unnecessary simplifications and embellishments.
I will present each step in a separate post:
Getting started — The story of William Francis Buckley (May 30, 1928 – June 3, 1985)
Too many known unknowns — Bill Clinton visits the CIA Headquarters (January 4, 1994)
Hitting the jackpot — A CIA message to crypto-amateurs
Back to Lockerbie — The story of Matthew Kevin Gannon (August 11, 1954 – December 21, 1988)
Blast from the past — The first 78 Stars
Whether you are interested in the CIA Memorial Wall (and the associated Book of Honor), the KRYPTOS sculpture, or the Lockerbie tragedy, you are likely to discover something new in this series.
Stay tuned!
REFERENCES
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple” is one of Oscar Wilde’s most famous lines, from his 1895 play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Actress and filmmaker Olivia Wilde was born Olivia Jane Cockburn and adopted “Wilde” as a school-age pen name in tribute to her Irish heritage and literary family.
Her mother, Leslie Cockburn, is a journalist and former 60 Minutes producer. Her grandfather, Claud Cockburn, and her uncles, Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, were prominent journalists. I corresponded with both Alexander and Patrick regarding Lockerbie; neither accepted the official account.
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The Holy Grail — The CIA Wall, The KRYPTOS Sculpture, & The Lockerbie Tragedy
“Chance favors the prepared mind.”
Louis Pasteur
Intel Today 