My story about Gina Haspel’s education, “The Girl Who Became Spymaster” has generated a furry of comments from Lakenheath alumni. Several took exception to some or all of my description of Haspel’s experience there as “insulated, demanding and militarized.” So let’s hear what they have to say. Was the school demanding, ie., did it have...
Category: Spies
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Maduro’s Ex-Spy Chief Details Role of NSC Official in ‘Homegrown’ Venezuela Uprising
The defection of Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera, the chief of the Venezuelan intelligence service, was key to a U.S.-backed plan to oust President Nicholas Maduro in April. But the coup failed and Figuera fled into exile in Columbia where he talked with Washington Post reporter Anthony Faiola. Faiola’s story provides new details about how the...
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Christopher Steele, Student Radical
Diana West, hard-right scribe for the anti-communist Epoch Times, unearths some details about Christopher Steele, author of the famous Steele Dossier, which alleged Russian government agents had targeted candidate Donald Trump to get influence over him. There’s a whole debate about whether the Steele Dossier has been partially confirmed (Lawfare blog) or whether some of...
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Rafi Eitan’s Two Nuclear Missions for Mossad
In an obituary of the late Rafi Eitan, Israeli journalist Yossi Melman notes that the legendary Mossad operative played a leading role in another operation obtaining uranium for Israel’s secret nuclear program. I reported last week on Eitan’s role in diverting several hundred pounds of fissile material from a uranium refining facility in Pennysylvania. Melman...
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RIP Rafi Eitan, Mastermind of Mossad’s Uranium Heist
On September 10, 1968 Raphael Eitan and three other Israeli nationals arrived in Apollo, Pennsylvania, a small city north of Pittsburgh that was home to a company called the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation. NUMEC packaged and stored enriched uranium, which it supplied to nuclear power plants in northeastern United States. Eitan, who died Saturday...