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AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #05-10 dated 9 February 2010
Section I - INTELLIGENCE HIGHLIGHTS
Senators Warned of Terror Attack on U.S. by July
Official Says Terrorism Suspect Is Cooperating
Ukraine Says Expels Four Russians For Spying
British Lawmakers Say UK Response to Terrorism is Slow, Confused
Google to Team with NSA
Judge Says Italian Spies Likely Knew of CIA Kidnap
Mongolian Spy Takes Refuge in Church
Mousavi Aide Arrested for "Espionage"
Iran Says Detained US Hikers May Be Swapped
CIA Workers Trained Wall Street Firms to Detect Lies
Iran Charges Seven With Overthrow Plot Ahead of Anniversary
Secretive Russia to Declassify Army Map
President Obama Honors 7 Slain Employees as Patriots
US Doing Scientific Research to Boost Interrogations
Section II - CONTEXT & PRECEDENCE
British School Trained Young Men to Spy on China
Section III - COMMENTARY
More Than Espionage, by Andrew M. Borene
Who Was Stepan Bandera? by Norman J.W. Goda
Section IV - OBITUARIES, BOOKS, RESEARCH REQUESTS AND COMING EVENTS
Vincent J. Heyman, Chief of 24-Hour CIA Operations Center
Johnny: A Spy's Life, by R. S. Rose and Gordon D. Scott
KPA Journal, by Joseph S. Bermudez Jr.
The Friedman Collection: An Analytical Guide by COL Rose Mary Sheldon, Ph.D.
Pakistani Needed for Research Project
Chinese Communist Intelligence History Project
Current Calendar New and/or Next Two Months ONLY
Tuesday, 09 February 2010, 1130 hrs - Tampa, FL - The AFIO Suncoast Chapter will hold its Spring meeting and luncheon on "Psychology of Terrorism" at the MacDill AFB Officer's Club.
Tuesday 9 February 2010, 11:45 a.m. - AFIO Hampton Roads Norman Forde Chapter meeting features FBI Agent Robert Hunter who Broke Walker Spy Ring
10 February 2010 - Scottsdale, AZ - The Arizona Chapter of AFIO meets to hear Randy Parsons, Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration Federal Security Director
13 February 2010 - Orange Park, FL - The North Florida Chapter will meet for its quarterly luncheon at the Country Club of Orange Park starting at 11:00 am.
15 - 17 February 2010 - Heidelberg, Germany - The United States European Command Director for Intelligence is using a special events firm to arrange an Intelligence Summit.
20 February 2010, 2:00 p.m. - Kennebunk, ME - The AFIO Maine Chapter Hosts LTC Duehring on U.S.-NATO-Afghan Relations."
23 February 2010 - Arlington, VA - The Defense Intelligence Forum meets to hear Jon Wiant on Fabricating Intelligence
24 February 2010, 9 am - 5 pm - Ft Lauderdale, FL - The FBI/INFRAGARD has invited AFIO Members to this Conference on Counterterrorism measures at NOVA Southeastern University.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010, 6:30 p.m. - Washington, DC - A "Weapons of Mass Disruption Program from Cold War to Cyber War" featuring Gail Harris, Naval Intelligence Officer at International Spy Museum
10 March 2010 - Scottsdale, AZ - The Arizona Chapter of AFIO meets to hear Robert Parrish on "Private/Public Partnership Protecting the Homeland"
Friday 12 March 2010 – San Francisco, CA – The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Michael Rinn, Vice President/Program Director for the Missile Defense Systems Division at The Boeing Company.
13 March 2010, 10 am to 1 pm - Coral Gables, FL - AFIO Miami Chapter hosts talk on FUTURE WARS by the impressive Dr. John Alexander.
18 March 2010, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter hears Bryan Cunningham on "National At Risk."
Events at the Spy Museum in January and February with full details
True Lies/True Lives: Famous Spies of the 20th Century - Wednesdays in February and the first Wednesday in March; 10:15 am
Location: International Spy Museum, Washington, DC
Wednesday, 17 February 2010; 10:15 am - Washington, DC - Oleg Penkovsky: The Heroic Spy
Thursday, 18 February 2010; 12 noon – 1 pm - Washington, DC - The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State at the International Spy Museum
Wednesday, 24 February 2010; 10:15 am- Washington, DC - Robert Hanssen: The Anonymous Spy
Wednesday, 3 March 2010; 10:15 am - Washington, DC - Ana Montes: Cuba's American Mole at the International Spy Museum
Hold these Dates
15-16 April 2010 - Austin, Texas - CIA/LBJ Library Co-Host Conference on The Czech Invasion. Reception follows event.
16 June 2010 - Independence, Missouri - CIA/Harry S. Truman Library/Woodrow Wilson Center Co-Host Conference "The Korean War, the Armistice, and the Search for Peace on the Korean Peninsula" Event falls on 60th Anniversary of The Korean War. Registration on AFIO website will open in mid-April. Announcement of CIA document release including special booklet/CD handouts to attendees, includes roundtable discussion – chaired by Clayton Laurie, with 3 other historians; Reception at Truman Library. CD-ROMs containing the newly released documents will be distributed at the press conference and the conference.
Late October 2010 - Fairfax, Virginia - CIA/George Mason University Co-Host a "Directors of Central Intelligence" Conference. Event will feature just released papers of the early DCIs, will include special panels, speakers, and special reception.
For all three events above, current AFIO members
will receive special invitations. Registration on AFIO website.
AFIO's U.S. Intelligence Officers'
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WIN CREDITS FOR THIS ISSUE: The WIN editors thank the following special contributors to this issue: pjk, and fwr.
They have contributed one or more stories used in this issue.
For Additional Events two+ months or more....
view our online Calendar of Events
Senators Warned of Terror Attack on U.S. by July. America's top intelligence official told lawmakers that Al Qaeda and its affiliates had made it a high priority to attempt a large-scale attack on American soil within the next six months.
The assessment by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, was much starker than his view last year, when he emphasized the considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda and said that the global economic meltdown, rather than the prospect of a major terrorist attack, was the "primary near-term security concern of the United States."
At the hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked Mr. Blair to assess the possibility of an attempted attack in the United States in the next three to six months.
He replied, "The priority is certain, I would say" - a response that was reaffirmed by the top officials of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I.
Citing a recent wave of terrorist plots, including the failed Dec. 25 attempt to blow up an airliner as it approached Detroit, Mr. Blair and other intelligence officials told a Senate panel that Al Qaeda had adjusted its tactics to more effectively strike American targets domestically and abroad.
"The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11," said Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director. "It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect."
As the C.I.A. continues its drone attacks aimed at Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, the officials also said that the network's splinter groups in Yemen and Somalia were taking on more importance.
But Mr. Blair began his annual threat testimony before Congress by saying that the threat of a crippling attack on telecommunications and other computer networks was growing, as an increasingly sophisticated group of enemies had "severely threatened" the sometimes fragile systems undergirding the country's information infrastructure.
"Malicious cyberactivity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication," he told the committee.
His emphasis on the threat points up the growing concerns among American intelligence officials about the potentially devastating results of a coordinated attack on the nation's technology apparatus, sometimes called a "cyber-Pearl Harbor."
He said that the surge in cyberattacks, including the penetration of Google's servers from inside China, was a "wake-up call" for those who dismissed the threat of computer warfare. "Sensitive information is stolen daily from both government and private-sector networks, undermining confidence in our information systems, and in the very information these systems were intended to convey," Mr. Blair said.
In another departure from last year's testimony, Mr. Blair appeared alongside other top intelligence officials, including the heads of the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Last year, the intelligence director sat alone before the committee, a partly symbolic gesture intended to demonstrate the authority of the director, whose office has been criticized for commanding little power over America's 16 intelligence agencies.
The intelligence chiefs also raised warnings about nuclear proliferation, particularly focusing on Iran and North Korea.
Mr. Blair said that Iran "has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons," and that the discovery of a secret enrichment plant near Qum heightened suspicions about Iran's intentions to build a nuclear bomb.
Still, he said that Tehran was following a "cost-benefit approach" to its nuclear decision-making and that it remained unclear whether Iran's leadership would make a political calculation to begin producing weapons-grade uranium, allowing other nations to "influence" that decision through diplomatic steps. [Mazetti/NYTimes/3February2010]
Official Says Terrorism Suspect Is Cooperating. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit on Dec. 25, started talking to investigators after two of his family members arrived in the United States and helped earn his cooperation, a senior administration official said. The officials declined to disclose what information was obtained from him, but said it was aiding in the investigation of the attempted terrorist attack.
"With the family, the F.B.I. approached the suspect," the senior administration official said, speaking to reporters at the White House on the condition of anonymity because of the pending legal case. "He has been cooperating for days."
The cooperation was first disclosed during a Congressional hearing, as the suspect's interrogation became the subject of an intense political debate over whether he initially stopped providing information after he was read his Miranda rights and received a lawyer. The administration was seeking to refute the notion that he was treated differently from any other terrorism suspects since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Two counterterrorism agents flew to Lagos, Nigeria, on Jan. 1. Before their departure, the agents spent days getting briefed on information in the case. In Lagos, the agents met with C.I.A. officers, who provided contacts among the suspect's family, friends and other associates.
The two agents moved to Abuja, the capital, "to gain an understanding of the suspect," and ultimately located two family members of Mr. Abdulmutallab, the official said. The relatives, whom the official declined to identify, agreed to cooperate because they "disagreed with his efforts to blow up American targets."
The agents and the two family members flew back to the United States on Jan. 17. They met with the F.B.I. to discuss a way forward. After meeting with Mr. Abdulmutallab for several days, the official said, the family members persuaded him to talk to investigators.
"The intelligence gained has been disseminated throughout the intelligence community," the official said, adding, "The best way to get him to talk was working with his family."
Another federal official said Mr. Abdulmutallab had provided information about people he met in Yemen, where he is believed to have received training and explosives from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a branch of the terrorist network.
"He's retracing his activities over there," said the official, who would discuss the case only on the condition of anonymity. "You run to ground what he tells you, validate it and follow up. You build a relationship. It's a pretty standard process."
The official said that since Dec. 25, the F.B.I. had been in constant communication with the C.I.A., the National Counterterrorism Center and other agencies about Mr. Abdulmutallab's disclosures. He has been questioned about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric in Yemen whose radical sermons have been an influence in several terrorism cases, the official said.
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that Mr. Abdulmutallab had provided valuable intelligence, but did not elaborate.
Mr. Abdulmutallab has not been offered any specific plea bargain in exchange for his cooperation, a law enforcement official said. The suspect was indicted last month on charges that included attempted murder on an airplane.
A defense lawyer for Mr. Abdulmutallab has been at the interrogation sessions, the official said. Miriam L. Siefer, chief counsel for the federal defender office in Detroit, which is defending Mr. Abdulmutallab, did not respond to a request for comment. [Zeleny&Savage&Shane/NYTimes/3February2010]
Ukraine Says Expels Four Russians For Spying. Ukraine has expelled four Russians for spying and detained another on espionage charges, the head of Ukraine's main intelligence service said.
Spy chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said the Russians had been caught in southern Ukraine trying to obtain military secrets.
"We caught all five operatives red-handed who, with blackmail and threats, tried illegally to obtain Ukrainian state secrets from a Ukrainian citizen," he said in comments confirmed by a spokeswoman for the security service.
The spy scandal has broken between rounds of a tense election for president in Ukraine in which relations with the former Soviet master, Russia, is an issue.
It came hot on the heels of the arrival of Russia's new ambassador to Kyiv, Mikhail Zurabov, ending a five-month diplomatic rift.
Relations with Moscow had deteriorated under President Viktor Yushchenko but he failed to gain reelection in a first round of voting, prompting Moscow to finalize Zurabov's appointment which had been delayed.
Nalyvaychenko said the spy group - which included officers from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and a Russian soldier stationed in Moldova's breakaway region Transdniestria - had kidnapped a Ukrainian in an attempt to gain secrets.
He said four of the Russians had been expelled from Ukraine while an FSB colonel had been arrested on espionage charges.
Digital recorders, a video camera disguised as a fountain pen, flash cards, notebooks, instructions and $2,000 intended to bribe the Ukrainian were found, the security chief said.
A Moscow-based spokesman for the FSB declined to comment. [RadioFreeEurope/2February2010]
British Lawmakers Say UK Response to Terrorism is Slow, Confused. Britain needs a U.S.-style national security adviser to report to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on terrorist threats, a committee of lawmakers said Tuesday in a report that made unusually sharp criticisms of the country's approach to security.
Parliament's Home Affairs select committee said Britain's government had been too slow to adapt to an evolving threat from terrorism and complained that key strategic decisions are often made in informal meetings, rather than by a publicly accountable security panel.
The committee, led by governing Labour Party lawmaker Keith Vaz - a former minister, urged Brown to overturn a ban on the use of intercepted evidence and called for a house arrest-type regime used against some terrorism suspects to be abandoned.
It criticized how Britain's counterterrorism apparatus is structured, saying a confusing number of government committees and departments are responsible for making decisions - often with little public oversight. The committee has the "impression that a degree of institutional inertia has set in," inside the government, the report said.
"We are not confident that government institutions have the desire to constantly adapt to meet ever-changing threats," the committee said.
In 2005, Britain experienced a major terrorism attack in London when four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters on three subway trains and a bus; an almost identical attack two weeks later failed. In June 2007, terrorists left two explosives-laden cars in the heart of London's entertainment district but they failed to detonate, and the same group crashed a blazing sport utility vehicle into Glasgow Airport.
In its report, Vaz's committee said "prominent, publicly accountable national security advisers must be appointed," to provide Brown with expert advice and be available to explain threats to legislators.
In 2007, Brown appointed Alan West, a former head of military intelligence, as a House of Lords member and his government's security minister. However, Vaz's panel said that experts who are not legislators, like President Barack Obama's security adviser Gen. Jim Jones, should also be appointed.
The panel complained key security strategy was being set at an informal weekly meeting of ministers, intelligence service officials and police - and called for a formal national security committee to be established.
In its report, the committee said it had until recently been unaware of the weekly security meeting. "The lack of public awareness of its existence is troubling," the lawmakers said. "The public have a right to know who is protecting them from terrorist threats and in turn, those protecting the public should expect to be accountable."
Britain's system of control orders, a system of curfews used to curtail the movements of terror suspects who can't be brought to trial without revealing sensitive intelligence, is no longer appropriate, the committee said. "It is fundamentally wrong to deprive individuals of their liberty without revealing why," the panel's report added.
The committee recommended that intercept evidence should be permitted in British courts, which would allow more of those held under control orders to be prosecuted.
Britain is one of the few countries in the world to bar the use of evidence from intercepted personal phone calls, e-mails, letters and faxes. Intelligence agencies have resisted attempts to allow such evidence, fearing it would expose their surveillance techniques to public scrutiny.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the committee's criticisms were "unsubstantiated and wholly inaccurate," insisting Britain's government had the correct approach to security risks. [Stringer/WashingtonPost/2February2010]
Google to Team with NSA. Search engine giant Google and the largest electronic surveillance intelligence agency in the world, the National Security Agency, are teaming up to increase cyber security. Google is looking to finalize an agreement with the NSA, which would allow the agency to analyze the Aurora attacks that took place in December.
Once NSA analyzes the attacks, it will help Google to move forward on cyber security, enabling the search engine to better defend itself and its clients in the future. Both Google and NSA refused to comment on the alleged agreement, though sources with knowledge of the agreement claim that it will allow the two to share information without Google violating their own or federal policies protecting user privacy.
The sources further said that the NSA will not be able to read users emails or see their search queries.
Ellen McCarthy, president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, said "The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with NSA?" [TheNewNewInternet/4February2009]
Judge Says Italian Spies Likely Knew of CIA Kidnap. An Italian judge said it is likely that Italy's military intelligence agency was aware of, or maybe even complicit in, the CIA-led kidnapping of an Egyptian terrorism suspect from the streets of Milan.
The Milan judge said, however, that state secrecy drew "a sort of black curtain" around the role of Italy's secret services in the kidnapping, making it impossible to reach a legal decision regarding the responsibility of Italian agents.
Judge Oscar Magi made the comments in the 217-page reasoning for his November guilty verdicts against 23 Americans and two Italians in the 2003 kidnapping of the Egyptian cleric. The convictions remain the first legal convictions anywhere in the world involving the CIA's extraordinary renditions program.
Silvio Berlusconi, who was premier at the time and has since returned to office again, has always denied any Italian involvement in the abduction.
Magi also acquitted three American diplomats, citing diplomatic immunity, along with five Italian secret service agents, including the former chief, citing state secrecy.
In his reasoning, Magi was direct in his criticism of the use of state secrecy, saying it created "a logical and judicial paradox" when it came to evaluating the potential roles of Italian military intelligence in the kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003, from a Milan street.
The judge said the fact that the CIA ran the operation on Italian soil "allows the presumption" that Italian secret services were at least aware or "maybe even complicit." State secrecy, invoked by successive Italian governments and backed up by the nation's highest court, created "a zone where no decision could be made," the judge wrote.
The release of Magi's reasoning gives both sides 45 days to appeal the verdicts. Lawyers for the convicted Americans had indicated they would do so at the time of the conviction.
Prosecutor Armando Spataro also has said it is "highly probable" he will appeal the acquittals.
Former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady received the top sentence of eight years in prison. The other 22 convicted American defendants, including former Milan consular official Sabrina De Sousa and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph Romano, each received a five-year sentence. Two Italians got three years each as accessories for their role in trying to derail the prosecutors' investigation.
After being kidnapped in Milan, Nasr was transferred to U.S. bases in Italy and Germany. He was then moved to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. He has since been released, but was not been permitted to leave Egypt to attend the trial.
The convicted Americans, who were tried in absentia, cannot travel to Europe without risking arrest as long as the verdicts remain in place. [AP/4February2010]
Mongolian Spy Takes Refuge in Church. A Mongolian psychologist who admits to spying for China against his own country - and vice versa - has found sanctuary at a Toronto Anglican church.
Gankhuyag Bumuutseren lives in the basement of Christ Church St. James. "I am terrified to return to Mongolia," Bumuutseren says in a court affidavit.
The Immigration Refugee Board has ordered him deported, but Christ Church pastor Rev. Murray Henderson says he is harboring the man on humanitarian grounds.
Bumuutseren is going blind, can't work, collects an Ontario disability pension and "does not represent a threat to national security," Henderson says.
Deportation would also split up a family, he says. Bumuutseren's wife and two of their three children were refused refugee status but have been granted a new hearing.
Bumuutseren, his wife and two children arrived in Canada in 2006. They have since had a third child - a Canadian.
In his affidavit, Bumuutseren says he went to China in 1992 to buy produce for resale in Mongolia.
A Mr. Hishige befriended him. Two years later, Hishige offered Bumuutseren money for information. Later, Bumuutseren realized he was spying for China. Mostly, he spied on activists with the independence movement for the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia.
When the Mongolians found out he was spying, they turned him into a double agent. When the Chinese discovered he was a double agent they jailed him for two years and tortured him, a claim undisputed by Canadian authorities. [TheStar/4February2010]
Mousavi Aide Arrested for "Espionage." Iranian intelligence officials said they arrested an unnamed aide to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi on charges he was in contact with Western officials.
Intelligence officials said a Mousavi adviser confessed to the "crime of espionage" in relation to his contact with Western intelligence agencies. [UPI/2February2010]
Iran Says Detained US Hikers May Be Swapped. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday three U.S. citizens detained in Iran and charged with spying may be swapped with jailed Iranians in the United States.
"We do not like to have any person in jail. Some discussions are going on to swap the three with jailed Iranians in America," Ahmadinejad told state television. He did not clarify whether the discussions were held with U.S. officials.
The three were detained after they strayed into Iran from northern Iraq at the end of July, further complicating relations between Tehran and Washington that were already deadlocked over Iran's nuclear program.
Iran said last year it believed 11 Iranians were being detained in the United States, including a missing nuclear scientist and a former deputy defense minister who disappeared in 2007.
Iran has said that the three Americans would be put on trial, without giving a date.
The United States, which cut diplomatic ties with Iran shortly after its 1979 Islamic revolution, says the charges are totally unfounded and the hikers should be released. Under Iran's Islamic law, espionage can be punishable by death.
Last year in November, Iran's judiciary announced espionage charges against the three - Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27. Their families said they were hiking and had strayed across the border accidentally.
The two countries are now embroiled in a row over Iran's nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at making bombs. Tehran denies this.
The case comes after Iranian officials accused foreign nations of fuelling unrest following a disputed presidential election last year.
Ahmadinejad's re-election in June sparked Iran's worst unrest since the revolution. Hardline authorities deny vote-rigging.
Clotilde Reiss, a French teaching assistant, was arrested in Iran on spying charges last year in July in connection with the post-vote unrest. She was released on bail in August but not allowed to leave the country. [Jaseb&Derakshi/Reuters/3February2010]
CIA Workers Trained Wall Street Firms to Detect Lies. It is hard to imagine two more distrusted and reviled professions. One has been accused of torturing detainees and failing to track down Islamist terror suspects; the other is widely perceived to be responsible for the worldwide recession.
Now, in a move likely to provoke a perfect storm of opprobrium, the two have joined forces: enterprising CIA officers who want to earn a little extra have been given the green light to moonlight for Wall Street firms.
According to a forthcoming book by US reporter Eamon Javers and confirmed by the CIA, financial firms have recruited spooks on active service to help determine if colleagues are telling the truth.
According to Javers, Business Intelligence Advisors (BIA), a Boston-based investment research firm that boasts links to the US intelligence apparatus, employed workers with backgrounds in interrogation and interviewing to train hedge fund managers in a technique called tactical behavior assessment. This purports to allow practitioners to tell if someone is being dishonest by reading verbal and behavioral clues, such as fidgeting or qualifying statements with words like "honestly" and "frankly".
One case described by Javers shows how veteran CIA workers helped hedge fund clients to make enormous investment decisions by assessing the veracity of a company's financial presentation.
In an episode described by Javers, BIA specialists listened in on a financial presentation by executives at a company called UTStarcom, a purveyor of internet and networking equipment. The BIA specialists had problems with an answer about the company's revenue recognition, finding in the response a "detour statement" intended to avoid commenting on the matter. The specialists said the statement indicated the executive was minimizing the accounting problems. The next quarter, UTStarcom's results shocked the market with revenues significantly below expectations. The reason? Problems with revenue recognition accounting. Shares declined and anyone who had sold the shares short would have reaped huge profits.
In a statement, BIA said it had not co-operated with Javers on the book, and described the depiction of its work in Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage as "inaccurate and misleading".
The company said: "There are no active-duty CIA personnel providing services to BIA's clients" - although it acknowledged that it had employed active-duty CIA officers in the past.
It is common for retired CIA officers to take lucrative jobs in security, defence and intelligence contracting, working for private clients as well as the federal government. But others take on extra work while still employed by the agency, doing everything from teaching at local colleges to training clients in lie-detection techniques.
Like other federal government workers, agents must get permission from their bosses for outside work.
"If any officer requests permission for outside employment, those requests are reviewed not just for legality, but for propriety," CIA spokesman George Little said. [Guardian/2February2010]
Iran Charges Seven With Overthrow Plot Ahead of Anniversary. Iran's intelligence agency said security forces arrested seven people linked to a U.S.-funded Farsi-language radio station, including several CIA agents, who were plotting to overthrow the Islamic government.
"Seven people tied with counter-revolutionary satellite networks and Zionist media and agents of sedition have been identified and arrested," the Intelligence Ministry said in a statement according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The Islamic Republic faced the largest anti-government protests in its 30-year history in June following the re- election victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which opposition leaders said was rigged. At least 44 people have been killed since the balloting, according to official figures.
Iranian authorities have rejected allegations of fraud and have accused western powers and their related media of fuelling the protests as part of a "plot" to undermine the regime. Opposition groups are planning further protests on Feb. 11, the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic.
The people who were arrested "had a major role in collecting information, transferring it abroad and provoking protesters," according to the statement. "They aimed to fuel more protests on Feb. 11 before leaving the country for the U.S." The protesters were not identified.
The government statement said they had "ties with Radio Farda and had been trained in Dubai and Istanbul and some were employed by the CIA." State-run Press TV said two of the people arrested were CIA agents.
"They were taught various techniques for a soft overthrow, which include disturbing the public order and creating propaganda," it said.
Radio Farda, which means 'tomorrow' in Farsi, is a U.S. government-funded Farsi-language service run jointly by RFE/RL and the Voice of America. [Nasseri/Bloomberg/7February2010]
Secretive Russia to Declassify Army Map. Russia may boast fewer secrets in the near future as the government prepares to declassify secret topographic maps used by the Russian military, an official said. Several environmental groups and businesses have in previous years found themselves in hot water with the Federal Security Service, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, for breaching secrecy laws by possessing what the service said were classified maps. Efforts to declassify secret maps were "in full swing" and the government was even prepared to make public its top secret large-scale map used by the Russian army, Yevgeny Dolgov, a research associate with the Russian defense ministry, said in rare comments on Russian radio. [DailyTimes/7February2010]
President Obama Honors 7 Slain Employees as Patriots. President Barack Obama paid somber tribute Friday to the seven CIA employees killed in one of the worst attacks in the history of the U.S. intelligence agency, calling them patriots who "served in the shadows and took pride in it" before paying the highest cost for freedom.
The White House released a transcript of Obama's remarks from a memorial service at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., which was closed to the media. More than 1,000 agency workers attended, as did family members of the employees who were killed during the suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan on Dec. 30.
"To their colleagues and all who served with them - those here today, those still recovering, those watching around the world - I say: Let their sacrifice be a summons," Obama said. "To carry on their work. To complete this mission. To win this war, and to keep our country safe."
The seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer were killed when a suicide bomber detonated his cache of explosives at Camp Chapman, a tightly secured CIA base in Khost province, a dangerous region southeast of the Afghan capital Kabul. The CIA had cultivated the bomber - a Jordanian doctor identified as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi - in hopes of obtaining information about al-Qaida's second in command. Al-Balawi turned out to be a double-agent.
In a video broadcast after his death, the bomber said the attack was meant to avenge the death of the former Pakistani Taliban leader in a CIA missile strike.
Obama offered words of comfort to the parents and spouses of those killed. And to their children, he said: "I know that this must be so hard and confusing, but please always remember this. It wasn't always easy for your mom or dad to leave home. But they went to another country to defend our country."
The names of those killed were blacked out from the transcript to preserve confidentiality. Obama said the work of the seven employees, like that of the CIA more broadly, is unknown to Americans but remains recorded forever in the terrorist attacks that were thwarted and the lives that were saved.
"They served in secrecy, but today every American can see their legacy," Obama said.
A recent event to pay tribute to the employees raised about $3.4 million to support the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation, more than doubling its net worth. The Washington-based foundation provides benefits to the families of CIA officers killed in the line of duty. It primarily helps pay college expenses for children of fallen officers.
The Jan. 29 fundraiser in Washington attracted hundreds of former and current agency officials, including former CIA directors George Tenet, President George H.W. Bush and Stansfield Turner, along with current CIA director Leon Panetta. [Feller/WashingtonPost/5February2010]
US Doing Scientific Research to Boost Interrogations. An elite US interrogation unit will conduct "scientific research" to find better ways of questioning top suspected terrorists, US intelligence director Dennis Blair said.
"It is going to do scientific research on that long-neglected area," Blair told the House Intelligence Committee, without elaborating on the nature of the techniques being tested.
A spokesman for Blair, Ross Feinstein, also declined to detail "specific research projects" but stressed that any such projects would follow US law, which forbids torture, and abide by internal review safeguards.
Blair said the task would fall to an interagency group of top US interrogators from across the intelligence community dubbed the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG).
"We've given it the responsibility of doing the scientific research to determine if there are better ways to get information from people that are consistent with our values," he said.
Blair said the HIG charter required it to abide by the US Army Field Manual, which forbids abusive interrogation techniques.
US interrogation tactics in the global war on terrorism have drawn heavy scrutiny in the United States and overseas because of the past use of techniques like waterboarding that meet international definitions of torture.
Obama formally abolished such methods shortly after taking office, drawing fire from former vice president Dick Cheney, who described them as critical to thwarting terrorist attacks in the wake of the September 11, 2001 strikes.
Asked to detail the research, Feinstein replied: "We are not going to discuss specific research projects, but Intelligence Community-sponsored research is performed in accordance with the law and institutional review board processes." [AP/6February2010]
British School Trained Young Men to Spy on China. It's the sort of adventure most ambitious school leavers could only dream about. You get called in, sworn to secrecy and tutored in a foreign language before being shipped off to exotic climes.
Yet this was no comic book adventure for about 300 National Service recruits in 1950s Britain.
Not only was it a life-changing experience for men who are now in or approaching their 70s - but as a spin-off it provided universities in Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, Edinburgh, the US, Canada and New Zealand with a generation of lecturers in Chinese.
The story starts at a time when the world was split between capitalism and communism. The rise to power of Chairman Mao in China put the British territory of Hong Kong in a highly vulnerable, yet also suddenly strategic position.
The British government decided it needed a reliable group of men, based there, who could listen in to the radio broadcasts emanating from the closed off People's Republic, next door. The problem was, how many Brits could actually speak Chinese?
Rupert Allason, who writes about intelligence history under the name Nigel West, says the decision was taken to train people and National Service, which every fit man of 18 and over had to do, "represented a gigantic virtually free resource... these were young men who had a commitment, whether they liked it or not, for two years".
While some National Servicemen were sent to fight in places like Malaya, Korea, Kenya and Cyprus the languages courses, most commonly Russian, provided a different route for some of the brighter recruits.
But how to sift for potentially gifted Chinese speakers? The selection process was a bit of a guessing game, with no-one seemingly sure which talent would be best for learning this alien language - so classics scholars bound for Cambridge mixed with trainee accountants and those in the arts.
For many their selection came as a bolt from the blue. One found himself on the course after putting his hand up when the recruits on parade were asked if any of them had done French O level.
Reg Hunt recalls how he and two others were preparing to study Russian when they were marched in to see the education officer and asked if they would transfer to the embryonic Chinese course. "'Yes Sir!', we replied without a moment's thought. And that moment changed our lives."
Mike Wallace actively chose the course - although only because it meant staying closer to his then sweetheart (and later wife) in Cheltenham.
The new recruits knew almost nothing of China. Few had even heard the language. But after being sworn to strict secrecy the lessons began at often out-of-the-way RAF camps including Wythall in the Midlands, Pucklechurch near Bristol and Worth Matravers in Dorset.
David McMullen, who went on to became a professor of Chinese at Cambridge and whose twin brother James lectured in Japanese at Oxford, says the regimented way in which they were taught, he now knows, was a "language instructor's dream".
"The first two weeks were spent chanting out the sounds accurately and the tones accurately. You can't do that with undergraduates, you can't regiment them in the same way - it was a very good way of doing it."
But discipline is all relative. One of the course instructors, 87-year-old Flight Lieutenant Paddy Raine, a veteran of Bomber Command in World War II, said the academically bright bunch on the course "were very different from your normal" National Serviceman and enjoyed a more relaxed regime.
The lessons continued for a full year before the members of each course flew out to Hong Kong, stopping at an enviable range of locations including Tripoli, Rome, Iraq, Karachi and Singapore.
Hong Kong was a revelation for young men from 1950s Britain. "It never seemed to close. Any time of night and day the streets seemed to be crowded. You'd go down an alley looking for a restaurant and you'd see signs up for curing the most horrific diseases, all illustrated with gory colour pictures. Everything was different - it was a wonderful exciting time," is how Mike Wallace recalls it.
They were introduced to their work; sitting at radio sets with headphones on jotting down whatever they heard in Chinese. With the need for 24-hour cover the shifts were long and sometimes dull, especially as they did not know the significance of what they were listening to.
But thanks to papers released at the Public Records Office - and other research by those involved - they now know that as well as recording Chinese Air Force movements and monitoring the Chinese flights into and out of Hong Kong, each of the frequent bursts of four Chinese numbers represented a character.
And while they never knew what happened to their work when they handed it in at the end of each shift, it now seems it was assessed in Hong Kong and shared with Australian and US intelligence.
Thanks to the intensive lessons focusing on technical language and numbers, most were pleasantly surprised to find the work not too tough. As Mike Wallace says "some of the Chinese was so slow and clear that it appeared to be being said purely for our benefit".
John Norrish was pretty sure the Chinese knew what was going on given that they were based right on the top of the highest peak in Hong Kong alongside a huge radio mast. And experiences in the plentiful bars of Hong Kong seemed to confirm that view.
None of those I spoke to makes grand claims about their role in the cold war but Nigel West says their work was vital in recording the day-to-day activities of the Chinese - building up a pattern so that any change to it, such as might occur before mobilization, could be spotted.
So while it is impossible to gauge the servicemen's contribution to the vast mass of intelligence on the Communist bloc there is little doubt about the impact it had on their own lives.
The bonds formed have lasted all these years and with the help of the internet many of those involved have remained or been able to get back in touch. Reunions have been gaining in numbers as the years go by - the fifth course for instance expects more than 30 of their number to gather later this year.
Many went on to study or lecture in the language, others found their Chinese useful in business years later while still more ended up moving officially into the intelligence field.
And even those who never uttered another word of Mandarin have the sort of tale to tell about their "gap year" that wouldn't look out of place on the pages of an Ian Fleming novel. [Buchanan/BBC/2February2010]
More Than Espionage, by Andrew M. Borene. Al Qaeda's Christmas Day "underpants bomber" has again put discussions of intelligence policy and national security organizations, once relegated to obscure academic journals, squarely at dining room tables across Middle America.
Here's some food for thought: White House policymakers and Congress can help develop an increasingly robust national intelligence capacity by investing new money in the pursuit of a centralized open-source intelligence (OSINT) infrastructure.
Investment in centralized, programmatically managed open-source intelligence has been recommended by two major independent commissions as a needed area of doctrinal development and increased capacity for the U.S. national security community.
Among the top 10 recommendations of the Robb-Silberman Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction was that the director of national intelligence (DNI) "should create an Open Source Directorate in the CIA to use the Internet and modern information processing tools to greatly enhance the availability of open source information to analysts, collectors, and users of intelligence."
Earlier, the Sept. 11 Commission report already had gone so far as to advocate creation of a new "Open Source Agency" to lie closely alongside the CIA's National Clandestine Service and all-source analysis efforts.
In 2005, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced the creation of an Open Source Center in Northern Virginia around the framework of what formerly was the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. This existing center is a perfect point from which to create a national OSINT program management enterprise.
The Open Source Center is staffed with seasoned intelligence professionals and appropriate resources to serve as a central hub for open-source intelligence management within the national security apparatus. Major offerings of the Open Source Center include OSINT analysis, exploitation, translation, doctrinal development and education.
The Open Source Center houses an Open Source Academy, which trains intelligence professionals from throughout the U.S. Intelligence Community in cutting-edge tradecraft and reach-back capacity to support their home agencies and units.
The center also has developed an unclassified, secure Internet portal for the Intelligence Community called OpenSource.gov, which is becoming a one-stop shop for research and dissemination. OpenSource.gov also functions as a sort of "basic cable" for national security professionals, providing comprehensive, unclassified, commercial research tools and services from recognized tier leaders such as LexisNexis for aggregated content and search, Jane's industry publications, and Oxford Analytica analysis.
The benefits of an unclassified, yet secure, analytical and communication platform for intelligence professionals support two major initiatives of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in both open-source intelligence and creation of an information-sharing environment with the flexibility to support federal, state, local and private-sector partners.
Additionally, OpenSource.gov enables the intelligence community to leverage economies of scale on the basics of these vital unclassified, commercial intelligence resources while retaining flexibility to meet specific agency needs.
Importantly, the Open Source Center is becoming a site for a growing body of corporate knowledge on best practices in open-source intelligence at the national and tactical levels. Experts at the Open Source Center receive constant feedback from national agencies and troops in the field, supporting combat elements with a need for real-time tactical intelligence and decision support tools.
While all of these resources are valuable and should be developed further, they are not free and are forced to compete with espionage programs in the intelligence budget for funding. New money is needed from Congress to fund greatly enhanced development of OSINT sources and methods. Our intelligence professionals should all have access to the same kinds of tools and information on which American private businesses, law firms and corporations rely for information advantage.
There is a difference between intelligence and espionage. Intelligence is a process that drives decisions and operations by answering important questions with relevant, actionable information. Espionage is a means of acquiring certain information surreptitiously.
American intelligence consumers can be agnostic about where their answers come from, so long as the answers are accurate, timely and relevant. A centralized, well-funded OSINT enterprise would conserve covert and clandestine collection capabilities for their best, highest use.
OSINT is not in competition with traditional espionage but instead is a logical and needed complement. Unfortunately, in the current political and budgetary framework, Intelligence Community agencies are faced with a dilemma in which they might be forced to choose between continuing a traditional collection program or investing in open sources and methods. The point should not be to reduce clandestine collection capacity but to conserve those assets for intelligence requirements that cannot be met with open sources.
OSINT tools and sources are considerably less expensive than traditional means of collecting intelligence, such as covert human sources, satellite collection and signals exploitation. OSINT also does not raise the specter of foreign and domestic political risk that can accompany other means of intelligence-gathering. The result could be a nonlinear increase in the effectiveness and efficiency of Intelligence Community operations.
We should not deliver our intelligence policymakers a dilemma of choosing between funding existing covert collection programs and significantly enhanced investment in OSINT capacity. In this time of unconventional war, no rational American would argue for any reduction in the $49.8 billion being spent on traditional intelligence, yet significant new investment in open-source intelligence is vital for our national information advantage.
Our nation's security and competitive advantage should be top priority for Congress. If a congressional champion exists, additional money in future intelligence budgets might wisely be dedicated for open-source centralization. [Andrew M. Borene is a manager with LexisNexis in Washington. He is a former associate deputy general counsel at the Department of Defense and teaches courses on intelligence policy at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.] [Borene/WashingtonTimes/27January2010]
Who Was Stepan Bandera? by Norman J.W. Goda. On January 22, 2010 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko honored Stepan Bandera by posthumously bestowing on him the state honor, "Hero of Ukraine." The Soviet KGB assassinated Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist-in-exile, in 1959. Many Ukrainians, including Ukrainian �migr� groups in Canada, pressed Yushchenko to grant the honor, which, according to one statement, "would restore justice and truth about the Bandera and the...struggle for liberation that he headed." To this day, many Ukrainians view Bandera as a martyred freedom fighter.
As an uncompromising leader of the militant, terrorist branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Bandera became a Nazi collaborator who lived with his deputies under German protection after World War II began. In preparation for the attack on the USSR, the Nazis recruited Bandera's followers to act as Ukrainian-speaking policemen and to serve in two Ukrainian volunteer army battalions. By working with the Nazis, Bandera hoped to free Ukraine from Soviet rule and establish his own government there. An independent Ukraine, Bandera promised, would remain friendly to Germany.
Historian Karel Berkhoff, among others, has shown that Bandera, his deputies, and the Nazis shared a key obsession, namely the notion that the Jews in Ukraine were behind Communism and Stalinist imperialism and must be destroyed. "The Jews of the Soviet Union," read a Banderist statement, "are the most loyal supporters of the Bolshevik Regime and the vanguard of Muscovite imperialism in the Ukraine." When the Germans invaded the USSR in June 1941 and captured the East Galician capital of Lvov, Bandera's lieutenants issued a declaration of independence in his name. They further promised to work closely with Hitler, then helped to launch a pogrom that killed four thousand Lvov Jews in a few days, using weapons ranging from guns to metal poles. "We will lay your heads at Hitler's feet," a Banderist pamphlet proclaimed to Ukrainian Jews.
The Germans intended to keep Ukraine for themselves. They arrested Bandera for his intransigence on the issue of independence, but released him in 1944 when it appeared that his popularity with Ukrainians might help stem the Soviet advance. But whatever their disappointment with the Germans, the Banderists never disagreed with their Jewish policy in Ukraine, which eventually killed over 1 million Ukrainian Jews.
This is a truth that many in Ukraine, particularly in its western parts, deny. In his book Erased (2007), Omer Bartov discusses the large bronze statue of Bandera that stands in a park in the east Galician town of Drohobych, most of whose 15,000 Jews were murdered. The park stands on the site of the town's former Jewish ghetto, but there is not so much as a plaque in the park to memorialize the Jewish dead. This and other examples like it make a condemnation of Yushchenko's step necessary.
But the rest of the story, much of which is revealed in CIA records released in 2007, reveals irony in Yushchenko's award. After the war Bandera lived in Munich. British intelligence used him to help run agents into Ukraine to gather intelligence and to help the Ukrainian underground against the Soviets. The CIA used some of Bandera's former cronies for similar reasons, but never used Bandera himself, owing to Bandera's infatuation with his own legend. "Bandera," said one CIA report from 1948, "is by nature a political intransigent of great personal ambition [who] has opposed all political organizations in the emigration which favor a representative form of government in the Ukraine, as opposed to a mono-party, OUN/Bandera regime."
Ukrainian sources confirmed that "fighting people in the homeland [were] not prepared to accept [Bandera] as a dictator," and that Bandera's program "was unacceptable to the resistance movement inside [Ukraine]." In 1952 Bandera temporarily resigned as head of the OUN, pressured "by the growing opposition to his leadership among top-ranking nationalist leaders who opposed him on the grounds of his totalitarian tactics." Bandera's subsequent petulance and his insistence on directing all facets of the Ukrainian underground at home and abroad led the British to drop him in 1953. With no high level contacts to listen to him, Bandera was now on the outside looking in.
Owing to his self-promotion in print and on West German radio, Bandera remained popular with thousands of Ukrainian �migr�s in West Germany. His superficial effectiveness prompted West German intelligence (the BND) to establish contact in 1956. By 1959 the BND was helping Bandera to run a new generation of Ukrainian agents from West Germany into the USSR. General Reinhard Gehlen, the head of the BND, had lead German Army intelligence in the USSR during the war. He and his subordinates were surely familiar with Bandera's wartime record. They were less familiar with the fact that the BND was by now thoroughly penetrated with Soviet agents. On October 14, 1959, Bandera had lunch with senior BND officials to discuss the expansion of operations in Ukraine. The next day the KGB assassinated Bandera in his apartment building.
Because Bandera effectively promoted his own legend, and because the Soviets were behind his death, �migr�s who did not know any better labeled him as the martyred leader of Ukrainians abroad. Fifteen hundred attended his funeral in Munich. US officials, on the other hand, noted that Bandera's "strong arm tactics" and "competition with other �migr� groups" meant that "many �migr� figures clearly do not personally lament his passing." His death meant nothing for CIA operations against Soviet rule in Ukraine, which depended on the very same �migr� leaders who, though followers of Bandera during the war, had dumped their former chief as a self-promoting caricature. They continued their work under CIA tutelage until the USSR collapsed. Such is another story.
It is a sad comment on Ukrainian memory that the man declared a Hero of Ukraine in January headed a movement that was deeply involved in the Holocaust. It is more gratifying to know that by the time of Stepan Bandera's death, most Ukrainian leaders had long rejected him as a dangerous charlatan who harmed his own cause. By the time of his death, Bandera was reduced to dancing with the Cold War's most compromised intelligence agency, where the Soviets could watch his every move. Those who label him a hero today, in other words, are as foolish as they are offensive. Norman J.W. Goda is Braman Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Florida. His most recent book is Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War (2007), and is co-author of US Intelligence and the Nazis (2005). [Goda/HistoryNewsNetwork/8February2010]
Vincent J. Heyman, Chief of 24-Hour CIA Operations Center. Vincent J. Heyman, 89, a Central Intelligence Agency official for 27 years, died Jan. 16 at a hospital on Hilton Head, S.C., of congestive heart failure. He moved to Hilton Head Island from Potomac in 1984.
Mr. Heyman's most senior position at the agency was chief of the 24-hour Operations Center, which monitors world events and provides alerts to CIA officers and Washington policymakers. He held the post from 1974 until retiring in 1979.
Mr. Heyman's career included several overseas assignments. During a posting in Paris in the early 1960s, he worked in the office of the senior war planner at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Mr. Heyman later went to Vietnam and advised President Lyndon B. Johnson's National Security Council on issues related to the war there.
Vincent Joseph Heyman was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. During World War II, he served in the Navy in the Pacific on an aircraft carrier and in the Atlantic on a submarine chaser.
He was a 1949 business administration graduate of St. John's University in New York. He received a master's degree in international affairs from George Washington University in 1965 and was a graduate of the U.S. Army War College.
Mr. Heyman worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency and as a consultant with the Planning Research Corp. after his CIA retirement. After he and his wife moved to Hilton Head, he taught government and international studies at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort.
Survivors include his wife of 61 years, Irene Heyman of Hilton Head; three children, Susan Heyman of Falls Church, Daniel J. Heyman of Brookeville and Peter J. Heyman of Santa Barbara, Calif.; and two grandsons. [Langer/WashingtonPost/2February2010]
Johnny: A Spy's Life, by R. S. Rose and Gordon D. Scott. Johnny X Was a Global Spy Who Became a Canuck. Johnny X is Canada's spy who came in from the cold.
An enigmatic secret agent, he spent a lifetime covertly battling Nazis and Communists on several continents while living under a death sentence.
Johnny X, one of his many shadowy aliases, appears only sporadically in the historical record of 20th-century espionage. And he ended his days in obscurity in Brockville, Ont., as a proud new Canadian running a shabby waterfront hotel to earn a modest retirement income.
His remarkable life, which included dangerous undercover work in wartime Canada, has eluded historians partly because espionage archives have remained largely under lock and key. But a new book for the first time lays bare the story of Johann Heinrich Amadeus de Graaf, as he was christened at his birth in 1894 in Nordenham, Germany.
"The tale you are about to read is an incredible one," authors Gordon D. Scott and R.S. (Bob) Rose write in their introduction to "Johnny: A Spy's Life" (Penn State University Press).
"It is the adventure of a man considered a hero by some and an adversary by others."
The book is a strange hybrid of memoir and scholarship.
Scott was a boyhood neighbor of de Graaf during the Second World War, when Johnny and his wife Gerti lived briefly in Montreal's Westmount. He was friends with the couple through his parents, who often played cards with them.
As an adult, Scott became more familiar with de Graaf's exploits and persuaded the retired spy to record his memoirs on tape in 1975-76, five years before Johnny's death. Scott transcribed the tapes before they were discarded, and the transcriptions form the backbone of the new book.
Rose, a multilingual scholar who teaches criminology at Northern Arizona University in Yuma, then did 14 years of fact-checking in 13 countries, painstakingly testing Johnny's often self-serving recollections against the facts.
Britain's Secret Intelligence Service MI6, for whom Johnny X worked as a double-agent beginning in 1933, refused to open its archives for the project. The government of Argentina, the scene of some of Johnny's exploits, was similarly unhelpful.
Even so, Rose extracted much compelling material from the FBI, the RCMP and others to put meat on the bones of the memoir, often using freedom-of-information laws.
The result is a sweeping tale of a courageous agent who pretended to work for the Russian intelligence service, which trained him in Moscow in 1930, and even for the Nazis, while actually serving Britain and Canada. His globe-trotting operations took him to Britain, Germany, the Far East, South America and Canada.
Canadian readers will be especially drawn to the final chapters, as Johnny is hired by the RCMP to infiltrate Nazi groups in Montreal during the Second World War.
Special Agent 235, the identity assigned to him by the Mounties, successfully set himself up as an emissary of Hitler and forbade any sabotage in Canada until the Fuehrer authorized it. The order to bomb factories and other strategic assets, of course, never came.
Johnny X also played a vital role in Canada's first double-agent case, in which a spy landed by U-boat on the Gaspe coast in 1942 was captured and forced to send controlled short-wave radio messages back to Nazi Germany. The cellar of Johnny X's house in Westmount became the base for Operation Watchdog.
De Graaf eventually retired to Brockville, without a pension, and successfully applied for Canadian citizenship in the 1950s.
A virulent anti-Communist, he gave lectures in eastern Ontario and western Quebec on the Red menace in Canada. He often spiced up his presentations by setting off small explosions using readily available ingredients - just as Soviet agents were trained to do, he warned his spellbound audiences.
Johnny X was no saint. The book presents evidence that he killed a common-law wife partly because he couldn't trust her to keep his secrets, and that he was anti-Semitic.
But Rose is generally laudatory: "Johnny had a big heart," he said in an email. "He was very generous."
"He was a calm individual under stress who could compartmentalize the evil things the British Crown asked or required him to do." [Beeby/CanadianPress/8February2010]
KPA Journal, by Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. Hello and welcome to the inaugural issue of KPA Journal.
The goals of this modest publication are to allow me to freely share with readers new, interesting or updated information concerning: all aspects of the Korean People's Army (KPA, more commonly known as the North Korean Army) from its birth until present; ballistic missile development; intelligence operations (e.g., seaborne infiltration operations, etc.); and other defense and intelligence issues concerning the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, more commonly known as North Korea).
As I have researched, written and lectured on these subjects during the past 25+ years I've frequently come upon fragments or collections of interesting information that either didn't fit into then current projects or that was deleted by editors in order to save space. Recently, while conducting research for three book projects - Combat History of the Korean People's Army, DPRK Intelligence Services 1945-1975, and an update to my earlier North Korean Special Forces: Second Edition - I once again encountered numerous examples of these fragments and collections. Rather than let this information remain in my files unused I've decided to use it for KPA Journal.
Additionally, as I have written reports and articles concerning recent DPRK related issues new information has subsequently come to light. It is my hope to utilize KPA Journal to share such updated information with readers.
While it is my hope that KPA Journal will eventually be a monthly publication, initially it will be distributed on an irregular basis until the time arrives when I can dedicate more energy to it.
A KPA Journal website is under construction and should be online later this year at www.kpajournal.com. It will eventually serve as a repository for issues of KPA Journal, declassified documents, longer research projects, previously authored articles and more.
Should readers find any of this information of interest or value, and decide to use it in your own research efforts, I would greatly appreciate your citing KPA Journal as your source.
Readers are encouraged to share KPA Journal with friends and colleagues. If they wish to be added to the mailing list, or should you not desire to be on the mailing list, please contact me at kpajournal@gmail.com.
Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., [January2010/ www.kpajournal.com]
The Friedman Collection: An Analytical Guide by COL Rose Mary Sheldon, Ph.D., Professor of History, Virginia Military Institute has been published in PDF format on the Foundation's website at: http://marshallfoundation.org/library/documents/FreidmanCollectionGuide.pdf.
Pakistani Needed for Research Project. AFIO seeking well educated Pakistani for research project in Washington, DC area. U.S. citizenship not required. If any of our members know of a candidate, send Email to afio@afio.com or telephone AFIO office at 703-790-0320.
Chinese Communist Intelligence History Project. Former US Army MI officer Matthew Brazil, now working as a corporate investigator in Asia, is also a doctoral student at the University of Sydney. He is completing a thesis on the history of CCP Intelligence, 1926-1949. This paper covers organizational history of the Zhongyang Te�ke and the Shehuibu, their operations, and the specific roles of major personalities such as Zhou Enlai, Kang Sheng, Chen Yun, Kong Yuan, Ling Yun, Li Kenong, Pan Hannian, Chen Geng, and Luo Qingchang. He has reviewed Western and Chinese language literature on this topic and done some interviews in China, but is seeking additional interviews and exchanges with persons well versed with the topic. Matt.brazil@intel.com
EVENTS IN COMING TWO MONTHS....
MANY Spy Museum Events in January and February with full details are listed on the AFIO Website at www.afio.com. The titles for some of these are as follows:
Dr. Borum topic is "Psychology of Terrorism and Radicalization". Randy Borum, Psy. D., serves on the Defense Science Board Task Force on Understanding Human Dynamics in Military Operations; provides support for US Special Operations Command and the Joint Special Operations University (combating terrorist networks); and served on the NSF Review Panel for Social/Behavioral Research on National Security. Additional background information can be found on the USF web site, http://www.usf.edu/Faculty-Staff/.
A full Luncheon, Lasagna and fresh garlic bread, with normal salad, rolls, dressing of choice, coffee and tea -- and in preparation for everyone enjoying forthcoming Valentine Day, dessert will be Red Velvet Cake, will be served for the usual $15, all inclusive. We will have the wine and soda bar open at 1100 for those that wish to come early for our social time.
Check-in registration will commence at 1130 hours, opening ceremonies and lunch at noon, followed by our distinguished speaker Randy Borum from the College of Behavioral Sciences at USF.Reply ASAP, with your name and any guests accompanying you, to: Bill Brown at billbrown1@tampabay.rr.com; Donwhite@tampabay.rr.com; or Gary Gorsline at garyg@x-link.info
Your check payable to 'Suncoast Chapter, AFIO' (or cash) should be presented at time of check-in for the luncheon. Additionally, just a reminder that this years dues, $10, are do from those who have not already paid. Should you not have 'bumper stickers' or ID card for access to MacDill AFB, please so state in your response. Be sure to include your license number, name on drivers license and state of issue for yourself and for any guests you are bringing on base. And don't forget, all of you needing special roster gate access should proceed to the Bayshore Gate entrance to MacDill AFB (need directions, let us know). The main gate will send you to the visitors center and they will not be able to help you get past security, unless you are just asking for directions to the Bayshore Gate.
Tuesday 09 February 2010, 11:45 a.m. - AFIO Hampton Roads Norman Forde Chapter meeting features FBI Agent who Broke Walker Spy Ring in 1985.
Robert W. Hunter, retired FBI agent who in 1985 broke the spy ring of John Walker, one of the Soviet Union's most dangerous and damaging spies, addresses AFIO Hampton Roads/Norman Forde Chapter members at this Buffet Luncheon at the Breezy Point Officers' Club, Norfolk Naval Station.
Hunter was a special agent for the FBI in Norfolk from 1967 until his retirement in 1989. The last 10 years of his career were spent in the field of foreign counterintelligence.
In that decade, he was the case agent and lead investigator on cases that resulted in 5 espionage convictions, the most successful counterintelligence career on record in the history of the FBI.
Within the intelligence community, Bob Hunter is known as the agent who caught master spy John Walker and brought an end to what many top officials call the most damaging espionage ring in U.S. history.
John Walker was one of the Soviet Union's most successful agents for nearly 20 years before he was finally caught in May 1985. Walker and his ring probably provided over a million pages of classified documents to the Soviets over two decades and seriously compromised U.S. defense capabilities. Bob Hunter's book, "Spy Hunter" is about the famed Walker case and is available for sale on Amazon.com.
Registration/Questions to Melissa at MWSaunders@cox.net or call her at 757-897-6268
10 February 2010 - Scottsdale, AZ - The Arizona Chapter of AFIO meets to hear Randy Parsons, Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration Federal Security Director Randy D. Parsons was appointed as the Federal Security Director overseeing Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and seven other Arizona airports in 2009.
Mr. Parsons retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2005 after twenty years of service. His last assignment was as the Special Agent in Charge for the Counterterrorism Program in the Los Angeles office. Mr. Parsons led four Joint Terrorism Task Forces and directed the operational readiness of personnel and systems for crisis preparedness and response. He practiced law prior to entering the FBI, is a former university professor and police officer.
He was a Vice President for the AECOM global consortium of companies providing architectural, design and engineering services to diverse critical infrastructure clients. Mr. Parsons founded Global Strategic Solutions, LLC in 2007, providing consultation and guidance for strategic policy, planning and development within a variety of risk environments to governmental and private sector clientele.
This event is being held at: McCormick Ranch Golf Club (7505 McCormick Parkway, Scottsdale AZ 85258 ~ Phone 480.948.0260) Our meeting fees will be as follows: • $20.00 for AFIO members• $22.00 for guests. For reservations or questions, please email Simone sl@4smartphone.net or simone@afioaz.org or call and leave a message on 602.570.6016.
Arthur Kerns, President of the AFIO AZ Chapter, president@afioaz.org.
13 February 2010 - Orange Park, FL - The North Florida Chapter will meet for its quarterly luncheon at the Country Club of Orange Park starting at 11:00 am.Guest speaker will be Dr. Christopher Stubbs, whose unique subject will be "Spooks & Geeks: The Perspective of an Interested Citizen Scientist." For further information about the Chapter or the upcoming meetings, please contact Chapter Secretary Quiel Begonia at qbegonia@comcast.net or 904-545-9549.
15 - 17 February 2010 - Heidelberg, Germany - The United States European Command Director for Intelligence is using this convention outfit to arrange an Intelligence Summit.
The website for this event managers is https://www.ncsi.com/eucom09/index.shtml
20 February 2010, 2:00 p.m. - Kennebunk, ME - The AFIO Maine Chapter Hosts Duehring on U.S.-NATO-Afghan Relations." AFGHANISTAN UP CLOSE will be he subject of the February 20, 2010 meeting of the Maine Chapter of the Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO/ME) with guest LTC (Ret) David M. Duehring.
LTC Duehring served as the Forward Tactical Operations Officer for the 240th Engineer Group in Afghanistan during a one-year deployment there in 2006-2007. The Group was assigned to an area near the Pakistan border currently the focus of operations against the Taliban and Al Qaida and was engaged in clearing mines and IEDs, and building roads and bridges under combat conditions.
LTC Duehring will speak about the relations between the Afghan people and the U.S. and other NATO forces. His personal experience and stories will help answer the question of why we are in Afghanistan.
Originally from Wisconsin, LTC Duehring came to Maine in 1970 after enlisting in the U.S. Navy with an assignment to the Brunswick Naval Air Station. After leaving the Navy to return to college, he enlisted in the Maine Army National Guard in 1980, attended Officer Candidate School, and obtained his commission as a Combat Engineer in 1981. LTC Duehring retired from the Maine Army National Guard in 2007 and currently serves as the Military One Source Consultant with the Joint Family Support Assistance Program for the State of Maine.
TIME / LOCATION: At 2:00 p.m. at the Kennebunk Free Library. 112 Main St., Kennebunk, and is open to the public. For further information contact 207-985-2392.
23 February 2010 - Arlington, VA - The Defense Intelligence Forum meets at the Alpine Restaurant, 4770 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22207. Jon Wiant will speak on Imaginative Writing - The World of Fabricating Intelligence. Dr. Wiant is Adjunct Professor of Intelligence Studies at The George Washington University and lectures at the Intelligence and Security Academy. He has held the Department of State chair at the National Defense Intelligence College. He has served as Assistant Inspector General for Security and Intelligence Oversight, Chairman of the National HUMINT Requirements Tasking Center, Senior Advisor for Policy to ASD (C3I), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and Director for Intelligence Policy on the National Security Council. This forum will follow a modified Chatham House Rule. You may use the information, but with the exception of the subject and speaker's name, you may make no attribution.
Make reservations for you and your guests by 16 February by email to diforum@verizon.net. Pay at the door with a check for $29 per person payable to DIAA, Inc. Registration starts at 1130, lunch at 1200. Give names, telephone numbers, email addresses, and choices of chicken, veal, or salmon. Pay with a check. The Forum Doesn't Take Cash.
24 February 2010, 9 am - 5 pm - Ft Lauderdale, FL - The FBI/INFRAGARD has invited AFIO Members to the FEBRUARY 24, 2010 Conference on Counterterrorism measures at Nova Southeastern University.
If you plan to attend, please RSVP to AFIO Miami Chapter President, Tom Spencer, at TRSMIAMI@aol.com. Provide your AFIO National member number, address, phone number. Your information will be provided to the FBI for assessment. Their decision of which members can attend is final. AFIO bears no responsibility for costs or arrangements made in anticipation of attending this Infragard/FBI event based on the decisions of their security personnel. If available, bring your government issued ID. Infragard is the public/private partnership of the FBI. You can get more information on Infragard at www.infragard.net.
Please respond to Tom Spencer no later than February 10, 2010 via email.
Location: NOVA Southeastern University , Knight Lecture Hall, Room # 1124
3301 College Ave, Ft. Lauderdale, Fl 33314
Abbreviated AGENDA
09:00 - 09:30 AM - Registration and coffee
09:30 - 10:00 AM Welcoming Remarks - Carlos "Freddy" Kasprzykowski, InfraGard South Florida Chapter President; Eric S. Ackerman, Ph.D., NSU Assistant Dean and Director of Graduate Programs; SA Nelson J. Barbosa, InfraGard Coordinator/FBI Miami
10:00 - 11:00 AM - Stephanie M. Viegas, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Coordinator, Miami FBI Field Division Will give an overview on how the FBI responds and coordinates WMD threats and related cases.
11:00 - 11:15 AM - Break
11:15 -11:30 AM - FBI employment needs - SA Kathleen J. Cymbaluk, Miami FBI Recruiter. This presentation will discuss current hiring needs of the FBI and
requirements on how to qualify and apply.
11:30 - 12:30 PM - Christopher L. Eddy, Supervisory Intelligence Analyst. The use of Intelligence Information in the FBI. This presentation will discuss how intelligence is collected, analyzed, and pushed to the right people at the right time and place and how vitally important it is to the security of our nation and its interests.
12:30 - 01:45 PM - LUNCH (Food court available on campus)
01:45 - 02:45 PM - Gun Running from Broward and Palm Beaches Counties
SSA Mark A. Hastbacka; This presentation will touch on IRA gun running operation in the above counties from a Counter terrorism investigation point-of-view.
02:15 - 03:15 PM - FBI Extraterritorial Responsibilities: Focus Iraq ASAC Scott A. Gilbert, FBI Miami. This presentation will focus on FBI activities in the International
Terrorism Organizations (ITO) and in the Middle East in general, with specific focus on IT and kidnapping investigations.
03:15 - 03:30 PM - BREAK
03:30 - 04:30 PM - Overview of Current Terrorism Trends: South Florida
SIA Vincent J. Rowe. This presentation will focus on terrorism trends in the South Florida
territory.
04:30 - 05:00 PM - Conclusion
Wednesday, 10 March 2010, 6:30 p.m. - Washington, DC - A "Weapons of Mass Disruption Program from Cold War to Cyber War" featuring Gail Harris, Naval Intelligence Officer - at the International Spy Museum
WHAT: "I decided to be unorthodox."—Gail Harris
When Gail Harris was assigned by the U.S. Navy to a combat intelligence job in 1973, she became the first woman to hold such a position. By the time of her retirement, she was the highest ranking African American female in the Navy. Her 28-year career included hands-on leadership in the intelligence community during every major conflict from the Cold War to Desert Storm to Kosovo. Captain Harris was at the forefront of one of the newest challenges: cyber warfare, developing intelligence policy for the Computer Network Defense and Computer Network Attack for the Department of Defense. Harris, author of A Woman's War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navy's First African American Female Intelligence Officer, will share her unique experience providing intelligence support to military operations while also battling the status quo, office bullies, and politics. She'll also offer her perspective on the way intelligence is used and sometimes misused.
WHERE: International Spy Museum, 800 F St NW, Washington, DC, Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station. TICKETS: $12.50. Advance Registration required. Tickets are non-refundable. To register: order online; or purchase tickets in person at the International Spy Museum.
10 March 2010 - Scottsdale, AZ - The Arizona Chapter of AFIO meets to hear Robert Parrish on "Private/Public Partnership Protecting the Homeland." Robert Parrish, Director of Corporate Security, the Arizona Public Service, will speak on "Private and Public Partnership in Protecting the Homeland."
Parrish is responsible for all APS physical security (except PaloVerde), all investigations including power diversions, site assessments,threat assessments response plans, security installations, security monitoring, and workplace violence. He is a retired Commander from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Phoenix AZ. Dates of service: 1983 to 2005.
Friday, 12 March 2010 – San Francisco, CA – The AFIO Jim Quesada Chapter hosts Michael Rinn, Vice President/Program Director for the Missile Defense Systems Division at The Boeing Company. He will be discussing the Airborne Laser Program. RSVP required. The meeting will be held at United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco (between Sloat and Wawona). 11:30 AM no host cocktails; noon - luncheon. $25 member rate with advance reservation and payment; $35 non-member. E-mail RSVP to Mariko Kawaguchi (please indicate chicken or fish): afiosf@aol.com and mail check made out to "AFIO" to: Mariko Kawaguchi, P.O. Box 117578 Burlingame, CA 94011
13 March 2010, 10 am to 1 pm - Coral Gables, FL - AFIO Miami Chapter hosts talk on FUTURE WARS by Dr. John Alexander.
Please save the date. Dr. John Alexander, author of Future Wars, will be leading a presentation and discussion.
Event to be held at the Hyatt Coral Gables. For further information contact chapter president Tom Spencer at trsmiami@aol.com
18 March 2010, 11:30 am - Colorado Springs, CO - AFIO Rocky Mountain Chapter hears Bryan Cunningham on "National At Risk." Talk to occur at the Air Force Academy, Falcon Club. Markle Foundation's Bryan Cunningham speaks on "Nation at Risk." Cunningham is with the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. RSVP to Tom Van Wormer at robsmom@pcisys.net
For Additional Events two+ months or greater....view our online Calendar of Events
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Time may be running out on the people of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Last minute pleas have been made to the Rhode Island General Assembly to fund a new baseball stadium—the Ballpark At Slater Mill in Pawtucket. Without the new stadium commitment, the AAA franchise of the Red Sox will likely move to Worcester, Massachusetts—a community poised to make a commitment for a stadium (with at least the nominal support of Governor Charlie Baker). Said Pawtucket Mayor Donald R. Grebien, "Rhode Island's leaders must act and approve this proposal in January. Our PawSox are going to end up in Worcester if we do not act. We cannot afford to watch the tax dollars go to another city and another state." Hello, WooSox!


Rhondi Shigemura-Webster is a food scientist and animal lover who lives in Encinitas.
Rhondi Shigemura-Webster stumbled onto the path of food science by accident. As an undergrad studying medical research, she needed a summer job to help pay tuition and was hired to work with her best friend's father at Conagra Brands. She had so much fun developing new products based on science and nutrition that she went to graduate school to study food science.
For more than 20 years, she's been using various science disciplines to address the way food is processed and helping develop products that taste good and improve their nutritional value. Ultimately, her work involves improving food for people and pets.
Before her summer working at Conagra, "I never knew that food science and developing new products existed," she says.
Shigemura-Webster, 55, lives in Encinitas with her husband, John, and they have two boys. She's the vice president of research and development for Raybern Foods, and she also makes time for her passion for animals as an owner and operator, with her husband, of a dog daycare center in San Marcos. She took some time to talk about her work in food science, caring for and raising money for animals and animal organizations, and her love of surfing in her free time.
Q: What, exactly, is food science?
A: It is a combination of multiple science disciplines from biochemistry, nutrition, food engineering, microbiology, chemistry to better understand food processing and ultimately improving food products for people.
Q: What are some issues you've worked on, or products you've created, that people may recognize?
A: That's a secret, but I've worked on famous secret sauces and seasonings for a well-known taco chain with a bell, a well-known pizza chain, a large smoothie company that rhymes with "bamba," a large coffee company, and other retail brands that include Hot Pockets, Lean Cuisine, Purina and others. I've also worked with Jenny Craig products to make weight-loss products taste delicious while losing weight. These are awesome tasting products, healthy, nutritious and helps people maintain or get to their ideal weight, but they're very challenging to formulate.
Dog products are difficult to formulate because your consumer can't tell you if they like it or not. Various breeds will chow down on the entire bowl of food whether it tastes good or not; others are picky and can't tell you why they don't like the flavor or texture of the treat. So, there are special tests especially for dogs and cats that help us develop great tasting and nutritious products for animals.
Q: Has working with food in this way affected your relationship with food?
A: Yes, I once worked on a chicken and beef fajita project, working with more than six chicken manufacturing plants and four beef processing plants. After that project, I became a vegetarian for five years. I can eat chicken now; no red meat, though. When you see more than 200 big 18-wheeler trucks lined up at a beef manufacturing plant, cranking out 12,000 heads of cattle in a day (and there are hundreds of beef manufacturers in the U.S.), it shows you how much meat we eat and export, and the impact on our environment concerning our water supply, air quality, the ozone layer, CO2 emissions, ecosystems, and our health. The amount of land and resources it takes to supply one pound of meat vs. vegetables or grains is not even comparable.
Q: What do you love about Encinitas?
A: I love that we have access to so many surf spots (Beacons, Grandview, D Street, Swami's) that we can walk to so many great restaurants, wine bars, and pubs from our house. Everyone here in our community is laidback, not pretentious, and very down-to-earth. We know and love all of our neighbors. We have a really tight neighborhood.
Q: You also work with animals with your husband, organizing events and fundraisers for local animal rescue groups and animal charities? What are some of the fundraisers and events that you've organized?
A: We believe charity starts in our community, and we hold charity dog washes and other events like "yappy hours" (and) adoption events. We set up donations during Thanksgiving and Christmas, collecting food, blankets, treats, first-aid kits for the San Diego Humane Society, and either (contribute) to or (raise) money for Paws with a Cause, Shelter to Soldier, Ridgebacks and Friends, the Helen Woodward Animal Center, the Escondido Humane Society, local schools and more. I think, since 2014, we've raised and contributed more than $34,000 to these local and national causes. It is very important to us that we give back to our communities. If we can touch and impact someone or some pup, they in turn will impact others, and so on and so on.
Q: Why do you feel compelled to support these groups in this way?
A: Not everyone is as fortunate as us or our dogs. We see so many shelter dogs or rescue dogs that are neglected and or need loving homes. We have schools and communities that are short of funds for extracurricular activities such as computer science classes, visual arts, sports, liberal arts and other needs. We have to help support our communities. It starts with us and getting the word out. We need to all help promote and raise funds for these non-profits, schools, and for our communities. It starts with one dog at a time, one family at a time, one business at a time, one community at a time.
Q: You're also coordinating pet safety education for the holidays? What are some tips on keeping pets safe during the holidays?
A: People forget about dog and pet safety during the holidays. For the upcoming holidays, people should remember to watch out for loud noises like door bells or opening and closing doors, which can scare pets and they can dart out the front door with visitors. Make sure your dog has an up-to-date tag with address and phone number, and if possible, board them or put them in a separate room when having company over. Watch out for snow globes or potpourri because they can have poisonous additives. Keep holiday plants — poinsettias, lilies, holly, mistletoe — away from pets. Also, keep tinsel and holiday ornaments away from pets because they can chew on them and choke. And always keep the pet poison helpline number handy (800-213-6680).
Q: Why is your work in food science important to you?
A: I love the creative side of developing and launching new products, mentoring and teaching new food scientists, and ensuring that there are healthy and nutritious options for people. We are an obese nation, yet we still have malnutrition in our nation; I don't understand that. We have to continue to change that with child and school nutrition programs.
A: To lead by example, never ask your team to do anything that you would not do yourself, and to create and foster a team environment. You hire smart people so they can tell you what to do, and not for you to tell them what to do.
A: I surf when I can. And, I have 2.5 tattoos.
A: Hmm, my husband and I both work two jobs, but we love working at Dogtown Resort and working with our team, our clients, and their wonderful dogs. It just helps me unwind. Our ideal San Diego weekend would be to take a Saturday off to go for the walk on the beach and hang with the surfers and our family.