It is plausible to argue that no single neighbhorhood anywhere on the planet has such a rich history of espionage, spying, and treachery as Georgetown in Washington’s DC. From the War for Independence to the War Between the States to the Cold War and the War on Terror, covert action has been a favorite pastime...
Tag: CIA
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Haspel Urged Trump to Release Ukraine Aid
CIA director Gina Haspel has managed to avoid alienating President Trump, even as he turns his wrath on former director John Brennan and the still-anonymous CIA whistleblower who called attention to Trump’s Ukraine deals. But Haspel crossed Trump during his bid to enlist the Ukaine government in his 2020 reelection campaign, the Daily Beast reports....
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Fact Check: The El Paso-MKULTRA Conspiracy Theory
A reader asked me to check out a story on the internet about the possible connection between the El Paso shootings and the CIA’s notorious MKULTRA mind control program. So I did. I doubted there was any connection between MKULTRA (which was shut down in 1971) and the El Paso shootings 48 years later. But...
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Sunshine Week: Freedom of Information and Its Enemies
It’s Sunshine Week in Washington, a week to celebrate the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other open government laws that enable the public to see what their government is doing. The FOIA, passed in 1966, is a powerful tool for the public interest. Even our most secret agency, the CIA, has provided online access to...
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Charles McCarry, prescient spy novelist, dead at 88
Charles McCarry wrote “Tears of Autumn,” one of the best fictional treatments of the assassination of President Kennedy. Coming from a former CIA officer, the depiction of a plot against JFK as revenge for his Vietnam policy had a credibility. Charles McCarry didn’t write many best-sellers, but among aficionados he was regarded as “the dean”...