The veteran investigative reporter writes that George H. Bush, as vice president, ran a covert operations team in the early 1980s that even the CIA didn’t know about. As a former CIA director, Bush had the experience to oversee activities. Hersh says the vice president’s team ran 35 counterterrorism, counternarcotics and assassination operations between 1981...
Category: Covert Action
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Washington’s Next Spy Museum to Glorify Covert Action
The proposed National Museum of Special Intelligence and Special Operations took a step closer to reality earlier this month with a $10 million contribution from a leading foundation Washington already has one spy museum. Run by former CIA spokesman Peter Earnest, the International Spy Museum presents a glamorized and sanitized portrait of the spy business,...
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The Six Worst Spies of 2018
It was a banner year for bad spies. The ideal covert operation, a CIA man once said, remains secret “from conception to eternity.” So too with the ideal spy. The true artists of espionage are those who are never detected or are detected too late to be harmed, humiliated, prosecuted or persecuted. The most famous...
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RIP William Blum: CIA Critic and Independent Journalist
When I first started reporting on the CIA in the 1980s, I learned early on Bill Blum was a good source for stories. He wrote for Covert Action Information Bulletin (later Covert Action), a notorious publication in Reagan’s Washington. The CAIB that had the feel of samizdat, the underground publications of dissidents in the Soviet Union....
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Do We Need Spies? For Counterproliferation, Yes
One of the most important–and least controversial–missions for the CIA and other intelligence agencies is counteproliferation: the detection and disruption networks of people seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Defense One reports Slovenia and other small European countries are offering help to develop counterproliferation technology.