“Whoever fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
November 25 2024 — “Silent Stars: The Fallen Heroes of the CIA” will be available as an eBook on Amazon Kindle next month, just in time for the Winter Solstice, which also marks the anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy. I am making this announcement today in memory of CIA paramilitary officer Mike Spann, a member of the CIA’s ALPHA Team, who was killed on November 25, 2001, during an uprising at Qali-Jangi prison in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. The title of my book is inspired by his nickname: “Silent Mike.” Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c2. The fact that the energy withdrawn from the body becomes energy of radiation evidently makes no difference, so that we are led to the more general conclusion that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content; if the energy changes by L, the mass changes in the same sense by L / 9 × 10^20, the energy being measured in ergs, and the mass in grammes. It is not impossible that with bodies whose energy content is variable to a high degree (e.g. with radium salts) the theory may be successfully put to the test.”
Albert Einstein “Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig?”
(Manuscript received on September 27 1905)
November 21 2024 — On this day in 1905, the physics journal Annalen der Physik published Albert Einstein’s paper “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?” Contrary to popular belief, the equation E = m c² does not appear in this paper. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“I will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
President John F. Kennedy following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion (April 1961)
The CIA coin was created anticipating a victory, but the operation was a “perfect failure.” The Bay of Pigs victory coin features an outline of Cuba with a rebel invader advancing past a fallen member of Castro’s military in the foreground.
November 20, 2024 — The CIA quickly blamed the lack of air cover for the Bay of Pigs invasion’s failure, and this explanation has been widely accepted, even by the families of the American volunteers who died during the mission.This is not the truth. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“The FBI didn’t want to hear about anything but a missile or a bomb, because otherwise there was no FBI case. Their conduct was disturbing from the very beginning.”
SenatorChuck Grassley Chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee onadministrative oversight
Washington Post (May 9 1999)
November 18 2024 — Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TWA 800) was a Boeing 747-100 which exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, on July 17, 1996. On November 17 1997, the FBI formally ended its 16-month investigation into the crash of TWA flight 800. FBI agents concluded there was no evidence it was a criminal act. Despite clear scientific evidence, many people still believe to this day that the plane was brought down by a terrorist bombing or a missile strike. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_Today
“And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.”
US President Richard Nixon (November 17 1973)
November 17 2024 — On this day, US President Richard Nixon famously stated that: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.” The rest is History. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“After writing about the ‘ravers’ who regularly turn up at lectures to claim that President Bush/the CIA/the Pentagon/Mossad etc perpetrated the crimes against humanity of 11 September, I received a letter this week from Marion Irvine, who feared that members of her family run the risk of being just such ‘ravers’ and ‘voices heard in the wilderness’. Far from it. For Mrs Irvine was writing about Lockerbie, and, like her, I believe there are many dark and sinister corners to this atrocity. I urge anyone who is aware of government lies over Flight 103 to come forward.”
Robert Fisk — Do you know the truth about Lockerbie?
November 14 2024 — On this day (November 14 1991), the Lord Advocate (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie) and the acting United States Attorney General (William P Barr) jointly announced that they had obtained warrants for the arrest of Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Donald Trump Presidential candidate July 27 2016
July 27 2023 — On July 27 2016, Donald Trump crossed the Rubicon when he called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. From that instant on, Trump was at war with the CIA. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“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 2024 — Today is the 110th 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.
A good idea never gets old, and the frequency-hopping system patented by Lamarr and Antheil continues to find new applications. Long before two documents from Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. Intelligence Community was still using Leon Theremin’s brilliant espionage technology, I thought that frequency hopping might offer a powerful way to conceal microwave-based espionage attacks. However, I chose not to speak out at the time for fear that it could inspire harmful uses of the idea by the wrong people. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_Today
“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)
November 3 2024 — 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
“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 2023 — Kryptos is a sculpture by the American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia. Of the four parts of the message, the first three have been solved. The last part of the message remains as one of the most famous unsolved code in the world. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
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