CIA Memorial Wall — Three Stars, No Answers: Revisiting the 1978 CIA Plane Crash in Candor, North Carolina

“I have become so jaded about our government since all this happened. I have become very skeptical. They tell you what they want you to know whether there’s a grain of truth or not. A lot of times, they don’t tell you anything.”

Velma Waymire
(Sister of Berl King)

July 13, 2025 — On July 13, 1978, at approximately 9:30 PM, a de Havilland Canada DHC‑6 Twin Otter (tail number N‑76214) crashed near Candor, a remote area of North Carolina. The aircraft, officially registered to Coastal Air Services, was reportedly conducting a CIA mission of undisclosed nature. Nearly five decades later, the circumstances surrounding the flight remain classified. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today

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On This Day — French Captain Alfred Dreyfus Is Convicted of Treason (January 5 1895) [Politicization of Intelligence] UPDATE — Honoring Truth and Justice: France Adds July 12 to National Commemorations

“Officers new to counterintelligence and overwhelmed by the scope of what they need to learn often ask the same question: ‘Where do I start?’ The best place might be the Dreyfus affair.”

The Lessons for Counter-Intelligence
of the Dreyfus Affair

CIA Website

Alfred Dreyfus (January 9, 1859 — July 12, 1935)

January 5 2023 — On January 5 1895, Dreyfus was summarily convicted in a secret court-martial, publicly stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island in French Guiana. Following French military custom of the time, Dreyfus was formally degraded by having the rank insignia, buttons and braid cut from his uniform and his sword broken, all in the courtyard of the École Militaire before silent ranks of soldiers, while a large crowd of onlookers shouted abuse from behind railings. Follow us on twitter: @Intel_Today

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Revisiting Havana Syndrome: Moscow Death Ray vs. CIA Hoax [UPDATE : Brennan to Face Justice? FBI Investigates Former CIA Chief Over Russiagate Deception]

“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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1975: The Year of Intelligence [What the Church and Pike Investigations Revealed — and Why Their Warnings Still Matter]

“If this government ever became a tyranny… the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.”

Senator Frank Church
1975

July 8, 2025 — The year 1975 marked a watershed moment in the history of American governance. For the first time, the covert operations and unchecked authority of the U.S. intelligence community were subjected to sweeping public and legislative scrutiny. Through the landmark investigations of the Church Committee, the Pike Committee, and the Rockefeller Commission, the veil was lifted on decades of clandestine activity—revealing a pattern of surveillance, manipulation, and covert intervention both at home and abroad. Often referred to as “The Year of Intelligence,” this extraordinary period triggered a fundamental re-examination of how democratic societies should balance national security with civil liberties. It laid the foundation for modern intelligence oversight—and raised questions that remain urgent to this day. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today

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Revisiting Havana Syndrome: Moscow Death Ray vs. CIA Hoax [New Revelations on John Brennan & Russiagate]

“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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Poetry as a Lens for Intelligence Work [What Intel Analysts Could Learn from Madsen’s Poetry?]

“If you stare into the smoke long enough,
you start to see a better life
burning on the other side.
I’ve been clean, but never clear.”

Venice Poets Night
Michael Madsen

(1957 – 2025)

July 5, 2025 — As I have explained many times before, the worlds of poetry and intelligence overlap far more often than one might naively believe. The poetry of Michael Madsen offers surprising and poignant lessons for an intelligence analyst. Searching for the truth matters. But doing it for the right reason matters even more. There is a profound difference between having a clear mind — being objective, methodical, by-the-book — and possessing a clean spirit — being emotionally or morally grounded. One must strive to do the right thing for the right reason. If you aim to please your masters, you will find evidence of WMDs in Iraq. You will ignore the obvious clues — as the FBI did in the Lockerbie case. You will find evil hiding in the smoke — as some have claimed in the Havana Syndrome. Let us now read together one of Madsen’s beautiful, unpublished poems. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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On This Day — Remembering Iran Flight 655 (July 3 1988) [UPDATE : FBI Feared Iranian Retaliation After Flight 655 — But Found No Evidence]

“I will never apologize for the United States — I don’t care what the facts are… I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.”

George H. W. Bush
August 7 1988

July 3 2019 — On July 3 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by a missile cruiser fired from the USS Vincennes under the command of William C. Rogers III. The shoot-down of Iran Air flight 655 may have been an “accident”, but Tehran saw it otherwise. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today

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On This Day — Hounded by the FBI, Nobel Prize Ernest Hemingway Ends His Life (July 2, 1961)

“The FBI’s surveillance substantially contributed to his anguish and his suicide.”

A. E. Hotchner — Hemingway’s friend and collaborator over the last 13 years of his life

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)

July 2 2021 — 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.” On July 2 1961, Ernest Hemingway was found dead of a shotgun wound in the head. 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

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On This Day — Kim Philby Revealed as Cambridge Five Member (July 1 1963) [UPDATE : The Hunt for the Seventh Man: Operation Wedlock]

“Tell them Jesus Christ only had twelve, and one of them was a double agent.”

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
— Upon learning that Philby was a spy for the Russians

Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby (January 1 1912 – May 11 1988)

January 23 2021 — On January 23 1963, Kim Philby vanished from Beirut, failing to meet his wife for a dinner party at the home of Glencairn Balfour Paul, First Secretary at the British Embassy. On July 1 1963:, the British Government admitted that the former MI6 officer, still described at the time as a former diplomat, had spied for the Soviet Union before defecting to Moscow. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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Lockerbie DNA Evidence Turns Upcoming Trial into a Soap Opera

“All but one of the DNA components which make up that profile are present in [RARDE Forensic Expert] Allen Feraday’s DNA profile. (…) This component is unsuitable for interpretation purposes since a large number of individuals from any population might be expected to match it.”

SCCRC
Report on Lockerbie

Lockerbie evidence: PI/449 and PK/206

July 1, 2025 — Some so-called “Lockerbie experts” — including former FBI officials — have hailed the recent DNA evidence as a major forensic breakthrough. In reality, it is nothing of the sort. In CIA parlance, this case has just gone from SNAFU to full-blown FUBAR — and fast. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today

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