“In this revolution, the Great Satan is America that gathers around other devils blatantly… If we see the US, this great Satan, raising chain and bringing the devils together around him, it is because the US grip over our country and our resources curtailed.”
Ayatollah Khomeini (November 5 1979)
November 5 2023 — In a speech delivered on November 5 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini used the term “Great Satan” to describe the United States. 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
“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 2023 — 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
“Armed hostilities between Jews and Arabs will break out if the UN Genral Assembly accepts the plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab States as recommended by the UN Special Committee on Palestine.”
CIA (November 28 1947)
November 02 2023 — This CIA report assesses the situation in Palestine following the UN vote in favor of partition. The report concludes that the U.S. lost prestige in the region by supporting partition. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
Gordon Dean Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission summarizing the events to President Eisenhower
Ivy Mike (yield 10.4 mt) — an atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the U.S. at Enewetak Atoll on November 1st 1952 — was the world’s first successful hydrogen bomb.
November 1st 2023 — On November 1st 1952, the United States detonated the first full-scale thermonuclear device on the island of Elugelab in Enewetak Atoll, in the Pacific Ocean, as part of Operation Ivy. It was the first full test of the Teller–Ulam design, a staged fusion device. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“Governments lie. They do it all the time. And, much as we’d like to believe otherwise, the US government is no exception.”
Ted Koppel “The USS Vincennes: Public War, Secret War.” ABC News July 1, 1992
October 31 2023 — Time really flies when you are having fun… On this day seven years ago, I announced that I would start a rather long series regarding Suspicious Aviation Tragedies. I will take this opportunity to look back and reflect on what we have learned during these years. I will also speculate on what we may hope to find out in the near future. Finally, I will provide a few words of advice regarding the matters that still need additional work. Remember: Truth never dies. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“Hemingway may have said ‘yes’ to the Soviet recruitment pitch, but unless there is some additional trove of material in the NKVD archives that argues otherwise, it is clear Hemingway was never a productive Soviet agent.”
Intelligence in Literature and Media CIA website
American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961) working at a portable table while on a big game hunt in Kenya, September 1952. (Photo by Earl Theisen/Getty Images)
October 28 2023 — On October 28 1954, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Ernest Miller Hemingway “for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style.” Hemingway was aware of his long surveillance by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, who were suspicious of his links with Cuba, and it has been argued that this surveillance may have pushed him to the brink. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“The bravery of these two men cannot be overstated. Chris and Chief put the lives of others ahead of their own. That is heroism defined.”
George J. Tenet Director of Central Intelligence (May 2004)
October 27 2023 — Mueller and Carlson were paramilitary contractors from Special Activities Division, killed in an ambush in Afghanistan on October 25, 2003. On May 21, 2004, these officers’ stars were dedicated at the CIA memorial ceremony. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“I was aware that during the ‘Autumn Leaves’ operation, the Police in Germany had recovered four fully constructed improvised explosive devices and a partially constructed improvised explosive device.”
Inspector John McGowan
October 26 2023 — On this date in 1988, the German police arrested seventeen men at Neuss in operation “Autumn Leaves” (Herbstlaub). The bomb-maker of this terrorist cell had prepared several IEDs, including one hidden inside a Toshiba radio-cassette, which — according to various authors — has never been recovered.
Some journalists — such as the late Private Eye’s Paul Foot — and several PA 103 relatives — including Dr Jim Swire — believe that it is too stark a coincidence for a Toshiba cassette radio IED to have downed Pan Am 103 just eight weeks after the arrest of the PFLP-GC cell in Frankfurt.
Here is a timeline of this operation which I compiled long ago to mark the 20th anniversary of the Lockerbie tragedy. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
“The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over. We’ve got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn’t there.”
Robert Sapolsky Stanford University neurobiologist
Intel Today 