Remembering CIA Rachel A. Dean (April 10 1981 – September 30 2006) [2020]

Posted on September 30, 2020 by L

“Rachel was a warm and compassionate young woman, and an officer of unbounded potential. We miss her still and will remember her always. She is our 87th star.”

CIA Director General Michael V. Hayden — May 21 2007

“From the start, Rachel was a hard worker, with a warm and caring personality. Her colleagues described her as the glue that held the team together. She was always eager to volunteer for an extra task.”

CIA Website

The Memorial Wall is a memorial at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It honors CIA employees who died in the line of service. There are 135 stars carved into the white Alabama marble wall. At least eleven represent women.

September 30 2020 — Rachel Alexandra Dean was a support officer who joined CIA in January 2005. She died on September 30 2006 in a car accident while on temporary duty in Kazakhstan. She was 25. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today Continue reading →

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Bob Woodward : “Role Of Steele Dossier In Russia Probe Needs To Be Investigated” [UPDATE — WSJ : “The FBI’s Bad Intelligence”]

Posted on September 29, 2020 by L

“All of this underscores that the great scandal of 2016 wasn’t Russian collusion. It was the unleashing of America’s premier law enforcement agency against a presidential campaign based on Russian disinformation midwifed and financed by the Clinton campaign. The public is finally getting the truth about the FBI’s malfeasance, and Messrs. Barr and Durham deserve credit for exposing it.”

Wall Street Journal (September 26 2020)

“Had Orbis been given the opportunity to respond in a private session, the statements by the Primary Sub-Source would be put in a different light. The Primary Sub-Source’s debriefings by Orbis were meticulously documented and recorded.”

Counsel for Christopher Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence (December 10 2019)

Lawyer Hugh Tomlinson: “But none of these documents [mentioned in the rebuttal to the IG report] exist, so they have all been destroyed?”

Christopher Steele :“They no longer exist. That is my assertion, indeed my assertion under oath.”

British Court (March 18 2020)

“I think it was the CIA [John Brennan] pushing this, real intelligence experts looked at this and said no, this is not intelligence, this is garbage and they took it out. But in this process, the idea that they would include something like that in one of the great stellar intelligence assessments as Mueller also found out is highly questionable. Needs to be investigated.”

Bob Woodward (April 2019)

April 26 2019 — “Watergate” journalist Bob Woodward told this week’s edition of “Fox News Sunday” that the role the Steele dossier played in the origin of the Trump-Russia investigation is “highly questionable” and “needs to be investigated.” Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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One Year Ago — Former CIA Chief of Disguise : “No Priest, No Peace Corps & No Journalist”

Posted on September 29, 2020 by L

“Peter Kornbluh of the invaluable National Security Archive has called Posada [Luis Posada Carriles] a CIA-created Frankenstein, and the historical record indicates that Kornbluh may be low-balling it. This is a guy who disguised himself as a priest to break jail in Venezuela, where he was being held in connection with the Cubana [Cubana de Aviación Flight 455] bombing, and the first thing he did was go to El Salvador and help Ollie North run the re-supply program that eventually would become the Iran-Contra scandal.”

Thus Passed a True American-Made Terrorist — Esquire (May 23 2018)

“There is no essential difference between the work of a spy and a journalist; both collect information in the same way — just the end consumers are different. Journalists make the best spies; they have more freedom of access than diplomats. The Americans’ moral stand on not using journalists is artificial, and not a little duplicitous.”

Maj. Gen. Yury Kobaldze of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service

September 29 2019 — Jonna Mendez, former CIA Chief of Disguise, takes a look at spy scenes from a variety of television shows and movies and breaks down how accurate they really are. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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The KRYPTOS Sculpture — Jim Sanborn : “This is the third and to be sure final clue.” [UPDATE : And now, a 4th clue!?!]

Posted on September 28, 2020 by L

“I really do want Kryptos to remain secret – the plain text, the final section of Kryptos, I would prefer for it to remain secret indefinitely. (…) I would think that every artist would aspire to making an artwork that is not transient. It’s a permanent visual, auditory, conceptual statement. And I did Kryptos with all those things in mind. And one – as an artist, one would prefer to have that piece continue giving rather than have it understood right off the bat and then more or less ignored. And so this has lived way beyond all of my expectations, you know, at 30 years in retaining a secret that it has, and that’s the magic.”

Jim Sanborn (January 30 2020)

February 6 2020 — NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Jim Sanborn, creator of a cryptographic puzzle sculpture called “Kryptos” located at CIA headquarters, about his decision to release a third and final clue. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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Obituary — James Bond Villain Michael Lonsdale [Hugo Drax] dies aged 89

Posted on September 27, 2020 by L

“It was her [Delphine Seyrig] or nothing, and that’s why at 85 I’m still unmarried.”

Le Dictionnaire de Ma Vie — 2016 Memoir

“At the end of the day we are likely to be punished for our kindnesses.”

RONIN (1988)

“I feel sometimes so out of it [the actor’s milieu] … to the point of feeling very uncomfortable.”

Le Monde — Interview

“We are very sad to learn of the passing of Michael Lonsdale, who played Hugo Drax in Moonraker. He was an extraordinarily talented actor and a very dear friend. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time”

Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli

September 27 2020 — Michael Lonsdale, the French-British actor whose best known role was the villain Hugo Drax in Moonraker, died on September 21 2020. He was born on May 24 1931. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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On This Day — Stanislav Petrov Saves the World from Nuclear War (September 26 1983) [2020]

Posted on September 26, 2020 by L

“The siren howled. But I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word ‘LAUNCH’ on it.”

Colonel Stanislav Petrov

Stanislav Petrov, a former lieutenant colonel for the Soviet Air Defence Forces, is credited with correctly recognizing a false alarm while manning an early-warning missile defense system, thereby averting a Soviet retaliatory strike and nuclear war.

September 26 2020 — On September 26 1983 — just three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 — Stanislav Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more.

Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm and his decision is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in large-scale nuclear war. Investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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Belgium — Bpost CEO Investigated by FBI

Posted on September 25, 2020 by L

“According to the most recent report of  the Council of Europe anti-corruption group, Belgium is close to the bottom of the class in terms of preventing corruption among legislators, judges and prosecutors. An Ernst & Young 2019 study indicates that the level of corruption in Belgium has doubled in the last 6 years. Among the countries investigated, only Ukraine and Kenya are doing worse. The level of corruption in Belgium appears to be about twice higher than the European average.”

Intel Today (February 16 2020)

Bpost CEO Jean-Paul Van Avermaet

September 25 2020 — The CEO of Bpost — Jean-Paul Van Avermaet — is investigated by the US Justice Department for his role in an affair of price-fixing related to the private security sector. Mr Van Avermaet can no longer travel to the US as he would certainly be arrested and questioned by the FBI. This is a serious problem as Bpost’s biggest subsidiary, e-commerce provider Radial, is based in Pennsylvania. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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One Year Ago — Havana Syndrome : Pesticide may have caused diplomats’ illness. Really? [Comments from Dr James Giordano]

Posted on September 25, 2020 by L

“We report the clinical, imaging and biochemical evidence consistent with the hypothesis of over-exposure to cholinesterase inhibitors as the cause of brain injury.”

Canadian Study (September 2019)

“It took us many months to get to this conclusion, and there is lots of research to be done still, but this is the beginning of an answer to what happened, we think. There is a lot we don’t know about how much we can expose people to these chemicals and what are toxic levels, or if the damage in the brain is reversible. But it’s not called a neurotoxin for nothing. The hint is in the name.”

Dr. Alon Friedman — Professor of neuroscience at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia

“Do the results known to me fully support that the signs / symptoms occurring in US embassy personnel were solely due to cholinergic neurotoxicity? No, not completely.”

James Giordano PhD — Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry Georgetown University — Email to Intel Today (September 20 2019)

September 25 2019 — According to a new study commissioned by the Canadian government, fumigation against mosquitoes may have caused Canadian diplomats — and family members — to fall ill. Neither the diplomats nor the federal government consider the just-released report from Dalhousie University’s Brain Repair Centre as a conclusive answer. I am skeptical. On one hand,  the Dalhousie report confirms that Canadian diplomats suffered brain injuries while posted in Havana. But in many ways, it brings more questions than answers. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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On This Day — The Lockerbie DIA Memo (September 24 1989) [The Legend of The Iranian Payment]

Posted on September 24, 2020 by L

“The bombing of the Pan Am flight [103] was conceived, authorised and financed by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur, Iran’s former interior minister. The execution of the operation was contracted to Ahmad [Jibril], Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command [PFLP-GC] leader, for a sum of $1million. $100,000 of this money was given to Jibril up front in Damascus by the Iranian ambassador to Sy [Syria], Muhammed Hussan [Akhari] for initial expenses. The remainder of the money was to be paid after successful completion of the mission.”

US Defense Intelligence Agency Memo (September 24 1989)

“I asked de Villiers about his next novel, and his eyes lighted up. ‘It goes back to an old story,’he said. Lockerbie. The book is based on the premise that it was Iran — not Libya — that carried out the notorious 1988 airliner bombing. The Iranians went to great lengths to persuade Muammar el-Qaddafi to take the fall for the attack, which was carried out in revenge for the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by American missiles six months earlier, de Villiers said. This has long been an unverified conspiracy theory, but when I returned to the United States, I learned that de Villiers was onto something. I spoke to a former C.I.A. operative who told me that ‘the best intelligence’ on the Lockerbie bombing points to an Iranian role. It is a subject of intense controversy at the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., he said, in part because the evidence against Iran is classified and cannot be used in court, but many at the agency believe Iran directed the bombing.”

The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much — Robert F. Worthjan

September 24 2019 — There has been a persistent “rumor” that Iran paid a large amount of money — possibly up to US$ 10 million — to the PFLP-GC terrorist organization of Ahmed Jibril in the immediate aftermath of the Lockerbie tragedy. This is simply a piece of disinformation. Although the CIA and the DIA have often claimed to have evidence of such ‘payment’, a quick look at the source document will easily convince you that this legend was built around a suspicious transaction that has nothing to do with the Lockerbie tragedy. The SCCRC came to the same conclusion. Although Richard Marquise (FBI) is not willing to discuss the issue (the information is still classified), I believe that he agrees with my findings. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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Havana Syndrome : Neuro-Weapons Behind Cuba Attacks? U.S. Intel Agencies Suspect Russia [UPDATE : CIA Director Rules Out Russia]

Posted on September 24, 2020 by L

“I got a call from the State Department in February of 2017, and literally, the call was, ‘This is the State Department, we have a problem.’ They spoke to me about individuals who began experiencing symptoms late in 2016 with ear pain, ringing in the ear, dizziness and cognitive issues.”

Michael Hoffer — Otolaryngologist at the University of Miami

“I don’t know if there’s a definitive answer yet to what’s going on. Somebody needs to get the bottom of it.”

Justin Sanchez — DARPA Director of the Biological Technologies Office

“Is it possible and probable that electromagnetic pulse devices that would then be propagated either directly or vectored could do this? Yes, it’s very, very possible and very probable.”

James Giordano — Professor of neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown University

September 13 2018 — According to three unidentified U.S. officials and two other people briefed on the probe, Russia is the main suspect in the U.S. agencies’ investigation of mysterious illnesses in American personnel in Cuba and China. According to NBC, the U.S. military is trying to reverse-engineer the weapon used to harm the diplomats. I was the first person to suggest that the mysterious illness may have been caused by “microwave attacks” and I still believe it to be plausible. But I also think that the US investigators are on the wrong track. In my opinion, they have the wrong suspect and the wrong motive. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY Continue reading →

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