The new International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. is, not surprisingly, an institution in disguise, an undercover operation executed in plain sight. The museum’s beveled glassy front is more stylish than its neighbors–the bland façade of the Post Office to the west, the neo-expressionist face of the General Services Administration to the north. Yet the...
Category: Articles
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Did the CIA’s Notorious Mind Control Program Create an Infamous Killer?
One of the best books about the world of secret intelligence in the past year is Stephen Kinzer’s Poisoner in Chief, a biography of Sidney Gottlieb, the countercultural chemist who ran the CIA’s notorious MKULTRA program that experimented on unwitting subjects in search of ways to manipulate human behavior. Kinzer recently spoke to Michael Isikoff...
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U.S. Indicts for Maduro Leading a Fictional ‘Cartel of the Suns’
The U.S. government has a long history of manipulating drug trafficking charges to advance geopolitical agenda. From 1975 to the late 1980s, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was on the CIA payroll. U.S. intelligence knew that Noriega permitted the Colombian cartels to ship cocaine through his country in return for huge cash payments. His drug activities...
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Biden Briefer Defended Israeli Spyware Firm Implicated in Abuses
After last night’s Democratic presidential debate, Anita Dunn, senior adviser to the Biden campaign, spun reporters on the Vice President’s performance. Last years, Dunn, who served as communications director in Barack Obama’s White House, did similar duty for NSO, the spyware firm founded by former Israeli intelligence officers. NSO created the infamous Pegasus intrusion tool,...
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Does Trump’s Purge of the Intelligence Community Make Us Less Safe?
Last month, Trump replaced the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) with the lightly-qualified Stephen Grenell, former ambassodr to Germany. Grenell proceeded to fire the head of the DNI’s counterterrorism center. This prompted some wailing from the national security establishment and predictable praise for Loras Shiao, the career official whom Grennell chose to replace Travers. Top...