After years of painstaking research he has developed a new drug. The drug, he is convinced, ‘will make any person reveal their secrets.’ Even more importarly, compared to other substances, the drug gives no sense of intoxication and the patients have full memory of their confessions, hence creating a mix of shame and contrition. But the drug, Kall is convinced, will open additional doors. The super state where he lives, an authoritarian, all seeing regime, intent on establishing full control on the population, will certainly be able to put the drug to further use.

After all, if each citizen, each fellow soldier, is just part and parcel of the larger project of the state, shouldn’t the thoughts and feelings of each citizen be fully available to the government? As the first tests on humans succeed, Kall is taken to the capital to expand his tests and start mass producing the drug. While even some of his superior are sceptical, Kall is adamant. The drug is the future of the state. Everyone should be subjected to it, not just criminals. At one point, after a particular experiment - built on family members betraying each other - some doubts seem to creep even into Kall’s mind. By then, though, the genie is out of the bottle. The state adopts the drug and the following day, the first page of the state newpaper titles :

THOUGHTS CAN BE PUNISHED

It is the triumph of the state. The triumph of Kall and of his drug - Kallocain. A triumph that - as the novel draws to a close, is shortlived.

Kallocain is an unjustly overlooked classic of dystopian fiction. It was written by the Swedish author Karin Boye. While much of her work was poetry, Boye published Kallocain in 1940. The novel built on her experience travelling through Nazi Germany but also on the news stories coming our of Stalin’s Soviet Union and its purges. One year later, Boye committed suicide.

Situated between Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984, the novel shares several themes with the two giants of dystopia. These include, but are not limited to, the confrontation between totalitarian super states, the all-seeing/all-hearing government and permanent surveillance, scientists and their collaboration with totalitarianism, as well as what it means to remain human in such circumstances. And yet, the novel seems (to me) to have been largely ignored not only in scholarship on dystopia (it does not feature, for example, in Tom Moylan’s pathbreaking Scraps of the Untainted Sky) but it is also ignored by those scholars who have looked at the use of truth drugs, mind control, and brainwashing, as well as at their (pop)cultural and social representations.

Leo Kall, though, conflicted as he is towards the end of the novel, showcases perfectly the willingness of scientists to collude with authorities and do their bidding, even at the cost of unimaginable abuses. This is very much influenced, the reader is made aware from the start, by his ‘image of life’ while some see life as a road, or a battlefield, or a ‘rolling sea',’ Kall saw it as an (almost) endless staircase; one he has to climb rapidly, leaving behind his real (and imaginary rivals). Each new landing on this staircase, Kall was sure, would have come with external gratification: a passed test, an official message from higher authority, a promotion…all the way up to the wonderfuls things in the attic; and the victims of this climb be damned.

The novel and Kall’s attitude connect strongly to themes I have been finding in my recent research on the CIA and mind control experiments. In these experiments, a prominent role was played by both truth drugs (LSD above all) but also cruel and relentless scientists. Here, Dr Sidney Gottlieb and Dr Ewen Cameron embody features of Kall, the scientist willing to pursue his ambition and vision regardless of the consequences. Gottlieb led the CIA’s experiments with drugs, mind control, and - at times - assassination. Here, the ambition was to create the ultimate assassin, a Manchurian Candidate, someone able to both pull the treigger and have no recollection of it. These experiments continued long after evidence pointed to the fact that they - at least as envisioned by their creators - did not work.

Cameron headed, for years, the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal where he conducted cruel and imhuman experiments on (often) unwitting patience. Sensory deprivation, drugs, insulin-induced comas, the endless repetition of audio message, all happened in the search for ‘depatterning’ that is erasing a person’s brain, and ‘psyhic driving’ that is, rebuilding it with new information. While brains, and lives were destoryed, they were never put back together. This, however, did not prevent him from climbing the ladder of (professional) life. In quick succession he He served as president of the American Psychiatric Association, Canadian Psychiatric Association, American Psychopathological Association, and the World Psychiatric Association. In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, he died while climbing a mountain.

The topic of MKULTRA (see John Marks’s pioneering work here), its related experiments, and brainwashing (sometimes understood as dark persuasion) more broadly have been treated extensively. Its reverberations continue to this day, in the trials and tragedies of the families of the victims. A topic of interest (to me at least), is the ‘image of life’ of the people involved. How did they see their work? How did they justify to themselves and to other their cruelty? How can we judge these visions?

In all honesty, the main reason for the silence has been that I have been very busy and quite stressed in my role as head of department (to paraphrase Nancy Reagan, if somebody asks you ‘just say no’). Anyway, as often the case when I am stressed, I tend to go back to my comfort readings and - in my case - comfort readings are primarily dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction.

This time, though, more than readings, I have gone back to listening. I have started listening to an excellent podcast called Utopian and Dystopian Fictions.

The podcast now in its third seasons interviews scholars working on utopia, dystopian, and post-apocalyptic fiction from various disciplines including literature, politics, and social sciences. I have been listening to the podcast religiously in the last few days and I have been using it to add books and articles to my ever expanding folder on the topic and to my implausibly long reading list.

In the podcasts, the hosts often ask guests how they became interested and/or started working in the area. Very often, these are very erudite answers and, at times, they reflect incredibly adventurous life paths. To be honest, I have never worked in the area of dystopia and post-apocalypse. With the exception of a short-lived effort to establish a research network on the topic early in my career, it has always been a side passion. And yet, I have been thinking about where the passion for the genre might come from.

Although, inevitably, when it comes to these things, there is always an element of ex-post rationalization, I think my interest comes from a particular piece of 1980s pop culture.

Throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s, the decade of my childhood, Italy was awash with Japanese anime. And, for better or worse, I tended to watch a lot of them. In a very Italian tradition, all of them were dubbed and very often, their titles eneded up being very different from both the Japanese original and how they have been translated in English. A non-exhaustive list would certainly include Sampei (a fisherman catching preposterously big fishes with a very tiny rod), Captain Tsubasa (‘Holly e Benji’ in Italian), Tiger Mask (‘L’Uomo Tigre’ or Tiger Man in Italian).

And yet, there was one that, for me, reigned above all others. The English name is ‘The Fist of the Norther Star,’ but for Italians, ‘Ken il Guerriero’ or Ken the Warrior.

This was an incredibly violent anime based on the idea that Kenshiro, a lone, but righteous warrior from an ancient martial art school fights off a series of thugs and rivals (from other martial arts schools) in a series of encounters that pin good versus evil, all in a effort to rescue his beloved Yuria. There is probably a lot to be said about the incredibly masculine, muscular, violent, and bloody nature of the whole anime; a short piece I read today suggested that such an approach showed the hegemonic role of Western culture on Japan. There might also be a separate conversation as to whether that was something for kids to watch, but anyway. The main point here is that these fights and these adventures happened in a post-apocalyptic world.

In the anime, a worldwide nuclear conflict sometimes in the 1990s has turned the world into a Mad Max or The Road-style wasteland, populated by thugs, criminals, and violence. Here, the population fights to have access to basic resources, often under the ‘Iron Heel’ (see what I did there) of local warlords, if not brutal emperors of darkness.

Now in my 40s, I find myself still remembering the words of the Italian opening credits of the first season, and they are as post-apocalyptic as it gets:

Mai, mai, scorderai,

l’attimo, la terra che tremó.

L’aria s’incendió, e poi,

Silenzio

Which translates roughly to: You will never forget the moment, how the earth shook. The air caught fire and then…silence.

So, yes, a nuclear post-apocalypse set the stage for my favourite anime. More importantly, only a few years later, it also helped me find a passion for reading. I wasn’t much of a reader as a kid (or a reader at all). Reading was really a struggle; something imposed by the school, not something I did for pleasure. Until I discovered Japanese manga comics and ‘Ken il guerriero’ was there again (as well as Battle Angel Alita, another post-apocalyptic story, this time with a cyberpunk twist).

Many years later, the post-apocalyptic genre (and, I should say, nuclear post-apocalypse in particular) remains a source of comfort as well as an interest of mine. I am very excited that colleagues in my Department have decided to create a new module called ‘Utopia and Dystopia.’ Although, quite rightly, they might be reluctant to include Hokuto no Ken. Perhaps in the future, I will still be able to turn it into a more professional endeavour. Who knows.

I then read an article in the New York Times. The article described a rediscovery of Modotti’s photography based on a series of (then) recent exhibitions. Her work, the authors stressed, helped make photography politically and socially relevant. The article also provided some details on Modotti’s political affiliations and her work in communist circles, both in Mexico and in other countries. Again, the paragraph on her death raised questions:

Modotti died on Jan. 6, 1942, while riding in a taxi in Mexico City. She was 45. An autopsy report cited cardiac arrest, but given her age and her political affiliations, there was, and still is, speculation that she was murdered.

As you do, I ended up buying two biographies of Modotti. One is Tina by the Italian Pino Cacucci. The other is Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti by Patricia Albers. I’m no expert on her life, but I thought it was a sufficiently interesting story to share some of it.

Actress and photographer

Born in the Northern Italian city of Udine in 1896, she emigrated to San Francisco in 1913. She quickly joined local Italian theatre companies, appearing in several plays in the 1910s. In 1916, she moved to Los Angeles with Roubaix "Robo" de l'Abrie Richey, a bohemian artist and poet. She continued her career acting in popular (silent) movies. Her acting phase, though, was about to end. Through Robo, she met a other bohemian artists. She also met the American photographer Edward Weston, one of the leading photographers of the 20th century. Initially acting as a model for Weston (including for some artistic nudes), Modotti quickly developed her own photography and her own style.

In 1923, Modotti moved to Mexico City with Weston (she had previously been in the city after Robo had been invited to the country by the Ministry of Education; Robo, though had died of smallpox in 1922 and she had arrived too late). At the time, Mexico City was a hub for cultural and artistic ferment. Modotti and Weston interacted with other legendary characters like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Between 1924 and 1928 as her photography expanded and matured (including politically), she also became the official photographer of Mexican murals, in which she often also features as a subject.

Modotti’s early activism

At about this time, her political activism intensified. In 1925, she joined International Red Aid, a communist organization founded in 1922 as a political version of the Red Cross. She would quickly rise in the organisation. Two years later, she joined the Mexican Communist Party. She also started to freelance for the Communist newspaper El Machete and, according to Cacucci, to work with the Antifascist Committee for Italian Exiles in Mexico. This increased activism was reflected in her photography, which became more political and more attentive to societal woes (see for example the difference between Telephone Wires, Mexico of 1925 and Worker’s Hands of 1927, let alone Woman with flag of 1928).

This political activism, again according to Cacucci, made her a subject of great interest for the OVRA, the Italian Fascist regime’s secret police, which opened a file on her in 1926. The Italian secret police also conducted a campaign of transnational repression, including targeting her family to convince ‘the dangerous communist Modotti’ to come back to Italy. Such a fervent communist activity in Mexico was also followed and fostered by the Soviet Union which saw the Mexican Communist Party as the strongest communist force in the Western Hemisphere. Hoping to avoid the rise of components more aligned with Trockij, Stalin sent to Mexico a group of loyal allies and cadres. These included the Italian Vittorio Vidali, a leading agent of the Comintern (we will come back to him).

In the meantime, Modotti’s political activism was accompanied by romantic relationships, initially with Mexican Communist Party leader Xavier Guerrero, later with Cuban Communist exile Julio Antonio Mella, and eventually with Vidali himsels. These relationships - at times - tended to overlap. Mella, beyond an interest in launching his own campaign in Cuba, was also very interested in the guerrilla then ongoing in Nicaragua. The revolutionary Augusto Cesar Sandino had been conducting a campaign against US interests and US forces in Nicaragua.

Sandino’s campaign would end in betrayal and in his execution. Interestingly, though, during a tour in Central America to fund his guerrilla, Sandino travelled to Mexico. Based on Soviet (and Vidali’s) opposition to Sandino’s venture, the degree of support from the Mexican Communist part was minimal. This, however, was not true for Modotti who even offered to leave Mexico and go and fight with Sandino’s guerrilla. Vidali ridiculed her offer and the Nicaraguan rebel politely declined it.

A Stalinist spy

In 1928, Mexican president-elect Alvaro Obregón was killed. This was just one in a series of political assassinations, but it did help change the political and social climate in Mexico. Constraints on (and repression of) communist activities increased. On the 10th of January 1929, as he was walking home with Tina, Mella was shot and killed. The circumstances of the assassination remained unclear. The repressive Cuban government of Machado is the most likely candidate, perhaps with the support of Mexican communists, and Vidali himself who (like the Comintern) saw Mella’s adventurism as too dangerous. The press initially launched a rabid campaign accusing Modotti which soon took on mysoginistic tones: what was she doing posing naked in pictures? How can she possibly be trusted?

As Albers summarises, once this campaign subsided, the trauma of losing Mella, whom she loved deeply, moved Modotti to fully adopt Stalinism. She moved, Albers writes, ‘into the powerful, all-explaining Party as into a great emotional sanctuary.’ Vidali, who had taken a more prominent role in Tina’s life and would soon start a relationship with her, was keen to see this shift. Again, as Alberx explains, ‘to say that Tina surrendered herself to the Stalinist Party is not to say that her deepening commitment to Communist militancy was merely a visceral reaction.’ This commitment soon expressed itself in the rigid following of the Party line, including labelling Diego Rivera as a ‘traitor’ for his refusal to toe the line.

It is at this moment (also due to a change in the Comintern’s line) that Tina started to combine the overt work for Communist organisations with covert work. This activity contributed to her expulsion from Mexico in 1930. Followed by Vidali she moved initially to Berlin and later to Moscow. In Berlin, she moved within the Communist underground and continued operating overtly and covertly. Moscow in the early 1930s, on the other hand, was clearly not the place to be with increasing repression and paranoia. Once there, though, she worked with (and was protected by Vidali) who had long been at the service of the Soviet system. Vidali’s work was primarily that of controlling and - if needed - eliminating Italian communists in Moscow. According to Cacucci, in the same years, 296 Italian communists were sent to Siberia to never return, 9 were executed, 4 committed suicide, and 2 died in a mental asylum.

Modotti conducted a series of clandestine missions abroad for the Comintern, particularly in Eastern Europe. The details remains sketchy. She became adept at clandestine mail drops, cyphers, and avoiding police forces. In 1933, Modotti and Vidali were asked to join the mission of Soviet spy Richard Sorge in China, but the mission was cancelled at the last minute. According to Cacucci, Modotti officially joined the Soviet military secret service in August of 1933.

With the situation in Moscow becoming untenable (after the assassination of Kirov), Vidali and Modotti moved to Paris to conduct a series of clandestine operations in support of Communist groups and communist exiles from Germany. These missions were dangerous, often ruthless affairs of covert and (para)military nature. Gone were the days of communist solidarity via Red Aid.

The cauldron of the Spanish Civil War: colluding in assassination?

The start of the Spanish Civil War saw Modotti and Vidali very active in Spain, and on a mission for the Soviet Union. Vidali quickly became the leading figure of Stalinist repression within the Republican ranks. According to Cacucci, he was named political commissar in the Fifth Regiment, tasked with bringing Stalinist education and discipline to the Republican forces. Modotti initially conducted work more aligned with the charity side of Red Aid. She is credited, for example, with fantastic work in hospitals for wounded fighters in the war. Both her and Vidali, though, were also keeping a close eye on - and doing intelligence work against - the International Brigades (below).

This is not the place - nor do I have the expertise - to explain the intricacies of the Spanish Civil War. They do intersect with another rabbit hole I pursued in the last few months. George Orwell famously fought in the Spanish Civil War. Seemingly, he was spared the wrath of Stalinist discipline (read elimination) due to his evacuation in the aftermath of an injury. An excellent episode of another podcast Empire deals with the episode and with the (somewhat) forgotten role of his wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy in saving his life. But I am digressing.

Tina did not shy away from collaborating with Vidali’s more violent operations. It seems clear that he was in charge of covert operations including kidnappings and assassination of individuals seen as “dangerous” leftists by his Stalinist masters. According to Albers, Modotti herself was ‘instrumental’ in the assassination of International Brigades Volunteer Alberto Bomilcar Besouchet. She did not play an active role, but provided information to the International Brigades and its political commissars that Besouchet, in spite of fighting valiantly in the war, had developed Trockijst tentdencies. Tina must have understood that this amounted certainly to a prison and - likely - to a death sentence.

Back to Mexico: a mysterious death?

In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Modotti and Vidali returned to Mexico where they continued to work for the Soviet Union and the Comintern. On January 6 1942, Modotti left the party at a friend’s house and took a taxi. She died in the back of the taxi at the age of 45. The New York Times article cited at the start cites ‘cardiac arrest’ as the reason for her death. Albers also seems persuaded by this view. Throughout her biography of Modotti, she points to both a family history of cardiac problems and Modotti’s early discovery of cardiac problems which caused her swollen ankles, fatigue, and other health issues throughout her life. Cacucci is less convinced. Initial newspaper reports, Cacucci writes, defined the death as a typical Stalinist execution. Furthermore, the autopsy report found in the Mexico City general hospital only listed a ‘generalized visceral congestion’ with no reference to cardiac issues.

Cacucci claims that Modotti had grown tired of her life as a spy and that her confrontations with Vidali had increased and become more violent. He also suggests that the Mexican government had no interest in finding out the truth, to avoid embarassing the Soviet Union, by then an ally in the Second World War.

The suspicions surrounding Vidali do no seem entirrely unfounded. As we have seen, he had been involved in bitter fights and in several covert operations and assassinations. Seemingly, he also played a part in the successful infiltration into Trotsky's inner circle of fellow NKVD operative Ramon Mercader, his eventual assassin. Vidali returned to Italy in the late 1940s where he continued to play roles in Stalinist purges, especially against Titoists after the Stalin-Tito split. He wrote several volumes of memoirs in which he largely denies all dark aspects of his political activity. Few academic sources have dealt with him. The only exception I found (but haven’t read yet) is a book by Patrick Karlsen, in Italian, Vittorio Vidali: Vita di Uno Stalinista.

Coda: one final mystery? Or a clerical error?

As part of my Modotti rabbit hole, I wrote to the US National Archives in Colleg Park, MD. Modotti was clearly followed by several international organizations and agencies. The Ovra followed her, so did the FBI and US Immigration Authorities. I thought there might be something interesting at the Archives. The Archives replied with only one document that mentions her. It is a War Department document dated 14 March 1944. The subject is: Passengers expected to arrive in Miami.

The name Tina Modotti appears - under an alias - on the second page, among the expected passengers. The entry reads:

‘Maria M. Ruiz: Maria Ruiz is an alias used by Tinna [sic] Modotti. She was formerly mistress of Antonio Mella who was murdered and presently mistress of Victorio [sic] Vidali Rizzi who was involved in the murder. Subject has been suspected of being a communist agent and of having reported on Mella to the komintern. Subject was deported from Mexico.’

The note, then, is clear on Vidali’s responsibility for Mella’s murder and suggests that - as part of her Comintern work - Tina spied on him. But regardless of interpretations. There is one problem. How can Tina be expected to arrive in Miami in March 1944, when she died in 1942?

Thanks for reading.

The bottom line for me is that this was unhinged, historically, ignorant, idiotic. A lot about oil, US occupation, and more…

The US conducted a strikes on Venezuela’s capital Caracas and kidnapped (or arrested if you prefer) Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife. This post is primarily a review of the press conference held by Trump and other US officials in the afternoon (morning in US) of January the 3rd.

Most of the President’s claims were even more unhinged than expected. A short review with comments of Trump’s claims follows.

- It has become customary for the US government to no longer justify its uses of military force via international law. No effort was made today,

- Trump compared the strike with other ‘succesful’ and crucially illegal strikes (e.g. Soleimani),

- Trump accused Maduro of conducting a ‘deadly campaign of narco-terrorism against the United States and its citizens.’ This with limited evidence. Most of the evidence came from Maduro’s ‘use’ of gangs,

- Trump potentially reveals too much about US intelligence capabilities. He states that lights in Caracas were turned off ‘due to a certain expertise that we have.’

- Maduro and his wife were found in ‘ready position,’

- Trump seems to imply that the US was/is ready for a follow-up strike if things don’t go to US plans,

- Trump points to a willingness for the US to stay in Venezuela. ‘We are there now…but we are going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place. We are going to run it.’

- Trump makes clear that he aims for US companies to run Venezuela’s oil industry. ‘We are going to have our very large United States oil company going in, spend billions of dollars’ and rebuild the infrastructure,

- Trump again confuses asylum seekers with insane asylums and (see mingling) jails and prisons,

- Trump connects with (often) unfounded claims US domestic position and Venezuela’s role,

- Trump threatens again the deployment of the National Guard in US cities,

- Trump claims that Maduro was hosting US enemies and using foreign weapons to threaten the United States,

- ‘The Monroe doctrine is a big deal, but we superseded it by a lot, we now call it the Donroe doctrine.’ [no comment needed].

- ‘We are reasserting American power in a very powerful way,’ again, whatever.

- The United States retains all military options until US demands have been satisfied,

- Other Venezuelans policymakers should know that ‘what happened to Maduro, can happen to them.’

Other claims from other parts…

Secretary of War Peter Hegseth’s points were a combination of sycophancy and high-school-level bravado (‘He F’d around and Found Out’). They don’t deserve any comments.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke about the practicalities and intelligence needs of Operation “Absolute Resolve.” Again, no effort was made to justify the operation in legal terms. The main issue was timing. The focus is on inter-agency cooperation and US skills.

Caine also falls into some elements of bravado. ‘This organisation does not quit.’ I guess we are in the motivational poster phase of US military action. No one denies that - in reality and as described by Caine - the operation is militarily and from an intelligence perspective impressive. But it remains illegal, as are the claims made by Trump, let alone any US occupation of Venezuela and/or use of Venezuelan resources.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims that Maduro was not the legitimate president of Venezuela, and that he was not recognised as such by other states. Maduro chose to refuse US offers to surrender. Rubio points to Maduro inviting Iran into his country, send gangs to the US, hold American citizens hostage. Rubio then also goes into full sycophancy mode claiming that ‘this is a president of action.’

Special bits on Q/A session [SPOILER: no meaningful answer was given].

- Asked how the US will run Venezuela: Trump claims the US is there with a group of people and ‘we are going to run it properly.’

- Ask if US troops will be on the ground: Trump replies ‘we are not afraid of it.’ Again, no response.

- Further questions on mechanisms: ‘Trump says we are designating people.’ Trump seems to imply that his presidency will run the country. ‘We are gonna have a group of people running it until’ it runs properly.

- Unclear what role Trump (or anyone in the US) sees for Maria Corina Machado or the current VP of Venezuela.

- Trump also seems to be threatening Colombian president.

- Rubio admits that there was no Congressional notification as there was no time. he justifies this as a ‘law enforcement’ operation. Trump claims that ‘Congress has a tendency to leak.’ And contradicts Rubio claims that the operation needed secrecy and immediacy by claiming ‘They new we were coming.’

- Trump claims ‘it could have happened’ when asked if they had considered killing Maduro during the operation.

- Trump is asked about the US record of regime change and answers with examples of operations that are not regime change saying that with him the US only had ‘victories’ and that ‘we have peace in the Middle East.’

- No answer on how long the US plans to stay in Venezuela.

- Asked about possible reactions by China and Russia, Trump claims that the US will be seeking a lot of oil, including to states that are buying it now.

- Trump claims ‘there is no one to take over’ Venezuela. Seems to suggest that Machado was appointed by Maduro and claims the US won’t just leave.

- ‘Why is running a country in South America, America First?’ Trump replies that the US wants to have secure neighbours and resources. Then goes on a rant about ‘Cuba being a failing nation.’ ‘We want to help the people in Cuba.’ Rubio chips in by saying that Cuba is a disaster. ‘If I was in the government in Havana, I would be concerned.’

- True claims administering Venezuela won’t cost the US anything and the US does not have contact with Machado. The oil companies are going to pay for it. This is just Iraq 2003, but immensely dumber.

- Trump claims that the Honduran president he just pardoned was treated very unfairly (like the Biden team treated him).

- ‘Do you envision the US military having a presence in Venezuela as the US runs the country?’ Trump gives an incredibly confusing answer regarding the US having an ‘oil presence’ and a small contingent there.

- Let’s conclude with ‘I’m not thrilled with Putin’ and ‘Life is all a big deal.’

At this point, I can’t do it anymore, It’s just sadness all around. Peace out.

At Heathrow, I picked-up two quick reads: Carlo Masala’s If Russia Wins and Mark Galeotti’s We need to talk about Putin (the updated edition). I am, admittedly, late to Masala’s book (for Italian speakers, had provided a great overview here).

The book is an exercise in scenario building.

In Masala’s scenario, Russia conducts a small land invasion of the Estonian town of Narva and of the small island of Hiiumaa, under the pretext of defending the rights of Russian-Estonians. Having weaponised migration and taken advantage of China’s collaboration, Russia - in which Putin is still present behind the scenes - is also able to conduct additional military provocations in the Arctic Sea. The European Union and NATO talk a good game but are ultimately unprepared and too scared to take action. Having surveyed his own options and fearing a nuclear escalation, the US president is unwilling to join (some of the) NATO states to invoke Article 5. Russia’s invasion is allowed to stand with a slap on the wrist; it is a new remilitarization of the Rhineland, but also the last nail in the coffin of the international liberal order. By the end of the (short) book, Russia and China celebrated the establishment of a new international system of security.

As a scenario, it is plausible enough and one should take into account that the book was written some time ago. In this sense, one can overlook that many of the provocations only imagined in the book have already happened. Sabotage, assassination (attempts), military provocations - often via drones - are now daily occurrences.

One should also note, however, that in several dimensions, Russia has already won. Intelligence, covert action, and disinformation play minor roles in the book. The same is true for Russia’s successes in political and electoral interference. These are - when noticed - only implied. The book references the influence of domestic pressures (e.g. regarding migration) and it references the rise of the far-right. There is, for example, a far-right president in France. But this is discussed matter-of-factly. In the book, a US president (clearly Trump) shies away from confrontation with Russia, but again his decision-making and his approach (while misguided) appear rational and based on strategic calculations. It is in these areas, though, that Russia has already won.

In terms of electoral politics, Russia has been free to interference in elections for at least 10 years. Brexit and the rise of UKIP (and now Reform), the election of Donald Trump, the support for far-right parties, these are (and were at the time of Masala’s writing) clear Russian victories; areas in which Russia was able to exploit weaknesses and fractures within European and US politics and society. The same goes for hybrid war. One of the few assertive European leaders is - in Masala’s take - the German Prime Minister. This is perhaps unsurprising since Masala is German. At a NATO meeting, the Prime Minister laments that hybrid war has been waged against the West for some time, but not it is happening with more intensity. This is true now and was true then, but again, it is an area in which Russia has won. There has been no serious response against Russia’s hybrid war. Studies and reports from think tanks and organisations don’t seem sufficient to wake many governments from their sleep.

Masala concludes the book with a warning: ‘For a society to develop the willingness to become resilient, its government needs to communicate very clearly to them what is at stake.’ This is true and something most governments are still unwilling to do [see my earlier post the Nathan Gill case].

This gets me to the second book, We need to talk about Putin. It is a book clearly aimed at informing the general public and this is done in an exceptional manner. It is structured around myths and simplifications that surround Valdimir Putin, and it aims at debunking and/or contextualising them. For example, the book challenges simplifications surrounding the influence of his KGB career on Putin’s politics and strategy. Similarly, Galeotti challenges the idea of a grand project to restore the Soviet Union or Tsarist Russia, but does highlight Putin’s vision of Russia as a great power (at least in Putin’s mind) and the implications for foreign policy. Galeotti also challenges the view of Putin as a a chess master, of playing 3-D chess. If anything, Galeotti suggests, Putin is a Judoka. He goes into a fight with the outline of an approach, but then aims at exploiting an adversary’s weakness. This approach can be haphazard. The same is true for Putin’s decision-making style in which - according to Galeotti - more than a precise strategy we have broad-strokes guidelines, interpreted by a constantly shifting court of official, unofficial, and ad hoc bureaucrats, or ‘adhocrats.’

It is here that - I fear and with all the caveats surrounding the gulf in expertise in the topic between me and Galeotti - I fear the argument can be taken too far. Galeotti writes:

Putin’s state generally responds to opportunities. A British Prime Minister calls for a referendum on leaving the European Union; American Democratic Party officials practise poor computer security; people in the West begin to lose faith in their political system and elites; opaque financial structures allow “dark money” to distort economies and corrupt politics; social media bypasses the traditional press. Russia created none of these opportunities; but has demonstrably tried to exploit them.

Is this picture too optimistic? Russia appears to be an exploiter of opportunities and gifts from its enemies. Take the reference to the 2016 elections. Russia’s hack of John Podesta’s emails happened in March 2016. Russia’s operation to influence the US elections started - at least - two years earlier. Russian operatives visited US battleground states as early as June 2014. The New York Times reported that:

The operation also included the creation of hundreds of email, PayPal and bank accounts and even fraudulent drivers’ licenses issued to fictitious Americans. The Russians also used the identities of real Americans from stolen Social Security numbers.

This was a 3-year campaign of electoral interference. Galeotti’s ultimate goal is laudable. We shouldn’t see Russia as all-powerful. We shouldn’t see - in his words - ‘great white sharks’ when what we are dealing with is a ‘shoal of piranhas.’ But too much of this perspective also has its problems. Sometimes there are both white sharks AND piranhas. Perhaps, it would help to realise that Russia has won - in certain areas - and that Russia is dangerous in others. It would also help to note that European countries are - now - largely alone in this fight; and this might well have been Putin’s greatest victory of all.

The AP story rightly connects this - almost farcical - attempt to the expansion of the US government and the CIA’s covert operations against Venezuela and, more broadly, presence in Latin America. The parallel many are drawing is with the era of aggressive covert operations in the region under President Reagan and CIA Director William Casey.

There is, however, a more fitting parallel for the plot involving Maduro’s pilot, one that looks even further back to another aggressive era of CIA’s covert operations, that of Eisenhower and Dulles.

Confronted with an enemy even more obstinate than Maduro, that is, Fidel Castro and the Cuban regime, the US government developed various options to bribe, ridicule, and eventually kill the Cuban leader. One of the first assassination plots, though, did not target Fidel, but his brother Raul and it involved the recruitment of a pilot.

In 1960, William Murray, a CIA officer in Havana, started cultivating an asset, Jose Raul Martinez Nunez, a pilot for Cuba’s airline. On 18 July, Martinez requested an emergency meeting with Murray. He had been selected to fly Raul Castro from Havana to Prague on the 21st. Murray discussed the opportunities this presented with CIA Headquarters. The station in Havana received a response: ‘possible removal top three leaders is receiving serious consideration at HQS’. Headquarters wrote that if the asset’s motivation was sufficient for him to arrange an accident during the return trip, HQ was happy to pay the asset $10,000 (about $100,000 or so today) or more (within reasonable bounds). As in Villegas’s case, the US promised to make Nunez (somewhat) rich.

HQ also agreed to arrange for a rescue operation if required. However, no advance payment could be made to avoid risks that the asset might be a ‘provocator [sic]’. The station was authorised to go ahead with the plan and finalise details with the asset. Options to stage an incident were discussed including causing an engine burnout or water ditching, but Martinez warned that these were unlikely to be seen as accidents. Martinez asked for financial support for the college education of his kids. This was granted.

When Martinez departed, in an effort to cover its traces (to be diplomatic) the CIA sent a cable to Martinez: ‘Do not pursue. Would like to drop matter.’ The cable had been intentionally sent too late but Martinez returned from his flight having been unable or unwilling to cause an incident. It is well-known that the CIA (and the US government) did not abandon assassination plans after this failed plot. If anything, the plots expanded and came to include a land invasion at the Bay of Pigs.

The Trump Administration similarly looks intent on expanding operations against Venezuela and, Secretary of Defence Hegseth has already threatened Maduro. Will any of the Trump Administration’s plots fly? Will they succeed?

Here, a comprehensive summary of Operation CONDOR and what it entailed from Dr Francesca Lessa who wrote an excellent book on the topic and was a guest on my podcast when I was still running an independent one.

Needless to say, CONDOR emerged in the after of the 1973 coup that overthrew the government of Salvador Allende. Henry Kissinger was a prominent figure behind the coup and more broadly behind the US government’s effort to prevent Allende from taking power and, after 1970, to overthrow him. Kissinger is the subject of a new PBS American Experience Documentary - Kissinger: Power. By Any Means Necessary. A key argument in the documentary is that Kissinger was a master manipulator, ever so skillful at manipulating the press, Congress, colleagues, as well as foreign diplomats and leaders.

Ironically, 1975 is also the 50th anniversary of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (better known as the Church Committee). the Committee dealt with Chile in two main ways. First, it published a report on the US government broad covert involvement in Chile from electoral interference to coup plotting. Second, it investigated in detail the CIA’s involvement in Chile around the 1970 presidential election as part of its investigation in the assassination of the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army General Rene Schneider.

It is in the context of this latter assassination that one - and by all means probably not the most egregious - example of Kissinger’s ability to lie and manipulate comes to the fore.

Called to testify regarding the US government’s involvement in the Schneider assassination, Kissinger told Senators that any White House involvement in the operation that - eventually led to the Schneider assassination - had ended on the 15th of October 1970. On that day, Kissinger had convened a meeting with his Deputy Alexander Haig and the CIA’s Tom Karamessines, in charge of the CIA’s Chile Task Force. The meeting had concluded with a decision to pause an early attempt to be conducted by right-wing General Roberto Viaux but to continue the plotting in the hope of a more succesful attempt. The three agreed to send a message to Viaux:

We have reviewed your plans and based on your information and ours, we come to the conclusion that your plans for a coup at this time cannot succeed . . . Preserve your assets. We will stay in touch. The time will come when you with all your other friends can do something.

The CIA’s minutes of the meeting concluded on ‘Dr. Kissinger’s note that the Agency should continue keeping the pressure on every Allende weak spot in sight – now…and into the future until such time as new marching orders are given.’ All involved knew that the first step in the plotting was the kidnapping of Schneider.

Confronted with these minutes in 1975, Kissinger feigned candor with the Senators. He testified that the minutes taken by Karamessines were – in essence – what had been agreed, albeit in a bit more detail than he would have liked. According to Kissinger, the spirit of the meeting had been that of ‘turning off’ Viaux and the coup plotting. If the Agency continued with the plotting after the meeting on the 15th, it was behind the White House’s back and neither him nor Haig had been involved.

For the Senators, Kissinger’s argument seemed plausible enough. After all, the CIA had sent a separate telegram to Viaux on the 16th to discourage him from acting alone and to encourage him to join forces with other coup planners. The Committee had testimonies from Kissinger and Haig that confirmed Kissinger’s view, and testimonies from Karamessines and David Attlee Phillips (then also working in the Chile CIA Task force) that pointed to more direct control from the White House. Presented with these contradictory perspectives, the Committee’s conclusion was somewhat hedged.

And yet, we now know that Kissinger was lying. A document uncovered for the first time during the research for my book at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library (and reproduced below), demonstrates Haig’s and Kissinger’s continued involvement in the coup plotting after the 15th.

The document dated 16th of October and signed by Haig reports to Kissinger an episode of miscommunication. Karamessines had called Haig lamenting that the CIA had received a duplicate of the instructions regarding the continuation of coup plotting and contacts with the Chilean military from a representative of the Secretary of Defence. This, Haig noted, could have created problems especially since, the previous day (the 15th), it had been decided to stop the premature coup, but to continue plotting and building assets. Haig, for this reason, instructs Kissinger to call Secretary of Defence Melvin Laird to straighten out the misunderstanding. Kissinger has signed the document and called Laird.

By all means, this is not the greatest (or most consequential) of Kissinger’s lies. It is, though, an important example of his ability to manipulate audiences, blend candour and secrecy, and obfuscate in the pursuit of power.

On the 26th of September the former leader of Reform UK in Wales, Nathan Gill, pleaded guilty to bribery charges. Most media headlines focused on the bribery charges, and one had to wait for the standfirst, or in some cases the body of the article itself to learn what these bribery charges were all about.

The bribery had to do with Russia. Gill received money from Oleg Voloshyn, a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian once described by the US government as a ‘pawn’ of Russia secret services to make statements that favored Russia in the European Parliament. In particular, some of the statements criticised the treatment received by pro-Russia news channels linked to Viktor Medvedchuk, a man with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For anyone following, this type of activity conforms to the long tradition of Russian ‘active measures,’ which include - but are not limited to - the spread of disinformation and propaganda. At a moment in which most of the attention (when it comes to Russia) is focused on the increase in sabotage and the endless provocations and testing of borders, active measures risk falling by the wayside.

It is not the first time that Western democracies have confronted Russia’s disinformation campaign. Disinformation was an important dimension of Soviet covert and foreign policy during the Cold War (if anything, activities like active measures go back to Czarist times, and have a long history in several countries). The key question at the moment is how to confront the recrudescence of active measures. European and NATO countries have become particularly effective in exposing and denouncing Russia’s sabotage and other provocations, as well as in strategically sharing intelligence to expose Russia’s moves. The same is true of various think-tanks. In part due to the political vacuum in the United States, though, very limited efforts at made at confronting active measures and, particularly, the narratives they produce.

Here, as in other areas of covert action, there is, of course, a risk. Seeing Russia’s hand behind any story, or behind any development risks attributing to Russia powers that it does not have; the old problem of ‘seeing a red under every bed.’ Active measures are particularly pernicious on this front, for two main reasons. First, active measures and disinformation are slow but relentless. As Dennis Kux - who led efforts to counter active measures in the 1980s - put it:

One way to look at these active measures…is to think of drops of water falling on a stone. Over five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, one hour, one day nothing happens, but five years, ten years, fifteen years, goes by and you’ve got a hole in the stone.

Drops - of various sizes - have certainly been falling for some time. Russia’s interference in the Brexit vote, in the 2016 elections…gaping holes are starting to emerge everywhere, from the White House to Anglesey.

Second, active measures tend to have a grain of truth within them. They build on, exploit, and radicalize themes, issues, grievances, and divisions already present within a society.

So, what can be done in this situation? If you follow the Brush Contact, you will know that I have several qualms (read I am very critical of many policies of the Reagan Administration), but they did get a lot of things right in the context of active measures. Early in the Administration, and against bureaucratic opposition, the State Department established an Active Measures Working Group (one of the reports compiled by the group can be found here).

The group is discussed in detail in the study cited above. This was an inter-agency working group with a clear methodology to deal with active measures. The aim was to Report, Analyze, and Publicize (RAP) Soviet attempts at active measures and to expose the organizations and individuals involved. One of the points that emerges from the activities of the group is the need to be relentless, to be professional (as opposed to ideologically driven), and to increase the costs (political, strategic, and reputational) for the institutions and states engaging in such activities.

Here is where the media and governments (I am looking at you, UK Labour government) are badly failing in their mission. Certainly, the information environment has long changed since the 1980s, but governments should be as active in exposing active measures as they are in exposing sabotage and drone provocations. Mainstream media should also be more explicitly in defining what is happening for what it is. There isn’t a ‘red’ under every bed, but when you find one (in Wales), it’s probably better to expose him for what he is.

Still, the norm itself may not be so easily "divisible." Even actions taken against nonstate terrorist targets are, in the long run, likely to undermine the norm as a whole and erode the barriers to the use of assassination in other circumstances.

The warning has proven prescient. Since 9/11 assassinations have become more frequent - often under the euphemism ‘targeted killings’ - and more reckless. Perhaps, a key turning point was the 2020 assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani, an Iranian state-official, was killed at Baghdad airport by a drone strike during the then first Trump presidency.

Beyond causing a wave of Iranian assassination attempts, often against members of the same Administration, Soleimani’s assassination also signalled an era of more open assassinations; one in which the United States did not even feel the need to provide a veneer of legal justification for its actions.

To be sure, before and since, several other states have relied on assassination as a tool of foreign policy. Several countries have used assassination with a plethora of methods, rationales, and targets. Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, India, and Russia for example have often used assassination against individuals who were understood as posing threats to the regime or were considered ‘traitors.’ Israel has historically and more recently made assassination a key component of its (covert) foreign policy and its uses of force. These have targeted terrorists, suspected terrorists, political leaders, and scientists, often using the latest technologies. Incidentally, I have covered - with Dr Kiril Avramov - many of the challenges posed by assassinations and many of these state cases in an upcoming edited volume.

Regardless of the frequency and intensity of assassinations, many have maintained that a narrowly understood international norm against assassination was still holding. This, or so the argument went, was reflected in the different reactions to the assassination of non-state officials and of state officials. The latter, some scholars argue, have been and are (more) protected than the former. When a state official is assassinated, the reaction of other states and of the international community (if such thing still exists) is much stronger than when non-state terrorists are assassinated.

I have never found this argument too convincing. In part because of Thomas’s spill-over argument mentioned above; the weakening of a norm against assassination was unlikely to remain contained. In part, because it always felt that the type and intensity of reaction depended more on the nationality of the target, than on whether the target was a state or non-state official. In other words, a double standard applied against some states understood as “rogue” made the assassination of their officials more palatable than that of other.

As I write this, whether one buys the initial argument or my criticisms seems immaterial. It feels like a new red line has been crossed. The President of the United States has publicly threatened Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Having called for Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender,’ Trump added:

We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump added. “He is an easy target, but is safe there - We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.

I am well aware that the United States has long been involved in the assassination of foreign officials, and it has often publicly discussed this. And yet, the openness and brazenness of the statement make clear that the mask is off. It is open season. Assassinations are rampant. It remains to be seen how the “international community” will react. If it will react.

We argue that the response to these threats should go beyond a more Realist approach of increased defence spending. It should also go beyond simple problem-solving solutions such as calls to increase collaboration between intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

An “English School-inspired” response should take into consideration the challenges that these “new” threats pose to states and - more broadly - to international society. They should be understood as Matthew Redhead put it in an excellent report as challenges to the rules and norms of the game. The game, here, understood as both the game of statecraft and the game of espionage.

Of course, one could argue that - in looking at the activities of states like Russia and Iran as breaches to the rules of the game - we are turning a blind eye to how those rules and norms have been undermined, circumvented, and altogether abandoned by states we associate with “the West.” This is very true. I have long ben critical of the conduct of the United States, especially in the context of normalising assassination. The fact that the US and others have undermined these rules, though, does not entail that current episodes do not represent violations.

We conclude the RUSI piece with a suggestion:

In other words, an approach that recognised the diversity of international society and the evolution of states’ approaches helps policymakers, diplomats, and intelligence professionals fine-tune their norm-setting responses – neither panicked nor complacent. Democracies must defend themselves, without becoming what they oppose.

The last sentence is particularly dear to my work. Too often, democratic governments have fallen into the trap of fighting fire with fire or, as we put in the piece, of suggesting that the fight against particularly brutal enemies had necessarily to occur on the dark side. This is very much a fallacy. One that was exposed - but perhaps never expanded upon - during a moment of soul searching in US history.

As Congressional investigators unravelled the misdeeds of the CIA in the 1970s, they identified certain practices (assassination, for example) as “un-American.” Compiling recommendations for the US government, Senators wrote:

We reject absolutely any notion that the United States should justify its actions by the standards of totalitarians. Our standards must be higher, and this difference is what the struggle is all about. Of course, we must defend our democracy. But in defending it, we must resist undermining the very virtues we are defending.

Yes, there is more than a whiff of American exceptionalism here. And, of course, as those investigations and many since have uncovered, the United States has often used the methods (and the justifications) of totalitarians, but the recommendation remains. The conduct and justifications of democratic states should be different from those of authoritarian and/or totalitarian ones; as that is ‘what the struggle is all about.’

The novel is set during the Derg military dictatorship in Ethiopia. It follows the (mis)adventures of a journalist, Tsegaye, who is sent to report on the Red Star Campaign, an effort by Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam (replaced by a fictional character in the novel) to destroy the insurgency in Eritrea.

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The novel is part love story (that of Tsegaye and his fiancé, but also of Tsegaye and the mistress his finds in Asmara, Fiammetta), part exploration of the nature of politics and propaganda, and part counter-intelligence tale. Like the love adventure(s), the counter-intelligence tale runs through the novel and - without giving too much away - has to do with the uncovering of a spy network within a group of recent deserters from the guerrilla ranks. Over time, and especially after participating in a pointless attack against one of the enemy’s positions, Tsegaye becomes disillusioned with the war effort and - more broadly - with the consequences of war.

In the novel - rich in references to the Italian colonial past (and pasta) - Oromay is the name of the deserters’ intelligence operation, but the Italian ‘Oramai’ also entails that everything is futile, it is too late. This disillusionment and the (never too explicit) critique of the Ethiopian authorities appear through both Tsegaye, and other characters. At one point, during an alcohol-filled chat, the main character talks to Colonel Wolday Tariku, who is leading the charge against the insurgency. The Colonel is very pessimistic about the future of the regime, it will end very badly. One of the main reasons very much echoes in the present:

‘Incompetent leaders will band together united by their shared knowledge that they are unqualified for their posts: “I know you, you know me, we cannot advance by merit, so, instead, let’s scratch each other’s backs'.’ Bu running a country is no game, and incompetence can bring it all to a halt.’

(Or to sharing war plans on Signal).

The novel is - at least in part - an autobiography of its author’s experiences. Baalu Girma served as Deputy Minister and then Minister of information under the same dictatorship.

***

As I was finishing the book, I noticed that Netflix had launched a series that I had long been waiting for, The Eternaut, El Eternauta. As you might know from a previous post, I am very much a fun of science fiction, especially if it has post-apocalyptic undertones.

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The series is based on a graphic novel. The novel first appeared as a series of comic strips between 1957 and 1959 in the Argentinian weekly magazine Hora Cero Semanal. The novel was written by Héctor Germán Oesterheld. At face value, the novel tells the story of an everyday man banding together with a group of friends (and for a brief moment with a larger group of well-armed resistance) to confront an alien invasion.

The invaders “They” have launched a series of attacks against planet Earth, starting with a deadly snow. It soon becomes apparent that the snow is only the first wave and ‘They’ control a series of monstrous creatures ‘They’ have subjugated on other planets. ‘They’ have complete control of these seemingly all-powerful creatures. Traditional military weapons are often useless against the invaders superior technology, but Salvo - the main character (“saved” in Spanish) - and his companions a too-often cold and detached professor, and a brave worker often outsmart the alien creatures. Again, without giving too much away, the ending isn’t the most comforting, but it isn’t the darkest either.

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Below the surface of a very exciting graphic novel, though, there is also a political tale, explained exceptionally well in an essay at the end of the English translation of the graphic novel. The essay ‘Superpowers and underdogs’ by Juan Caballero, explores how the novel reflects Argentina’s interest in science fiction, its ability to adopt and adapt literary genres, but also the politics of Argentina and of The Eternaut’s author. It is the humble worker that very often saves the day. The Cold War confrontation is very often an hindrance. The weapons and the Cold War arms race prove pointless when they are needed the most. Only everyday people can save us from brutal invaders and repression.

The disappeared

If you are still reading, you might be wondering why I am talking about these two very different works. To be clear, you had been warned that The Brush Contact would contain mostly things I am interested in. But there is more. There is a tragic coincidence here.

Baalu Girma, the author of Oromay, was disappeared, most likely assassinated by the Ethiopian military junta in 1984. The disappearance certainly had to do with Girma’s work that had already been censored by Ethiopian authorities. Héctor Germán Oesterheld was also disappeared by the Argentinian Military dictatorship. According to Alberto Ongaro, an Italian writer who continued the work on The Eternaut, the government’s reason for the disappearance was Oesterheld’s authoring of a famous biography of Che Guevara. This sounds unconvincing, a more convincing picture as to do with the evolving politics of the author. By the mid-1970s, he (and his family) had become more critical of the Argentinian military dictatorship.

Oesterheld had started working on a El Eternauta - Parte 2. This is still not available in English and there are concerns as to whether Oesterheld authored its last instalments. But the sequel is a more explicitly critique in which Argentina is ruled by a brutal military dictatorship. Some speculate that he had also joined the Montoneros, an armed resistance to the dictatorship. What is certain, author Uki Goñi reports, is that Oesterheld went into hiding and continued to release work, ‘but in April 1977 he was seized, and taken to army’s clandestine Vesubio prison where torture, murder and rape were the norm.’ He was last seen alive in January 1978 by a fellow prisoner. His four daughters – two of them pregnant – and their partners, ‘were murdered by the dictatorship, their exact fate unknown to this day.’

There is, of course, a long history of (fiction) authors being killed for their criticisms of authoritarian regimes. Georgi Markov - perhaps one of the most famous assassinations of the Cold War - was killed for his (literary) critique of the Bulgarian regime. What other episodes come to mind? is it possible to find commonalities? What pushes authoritarian regimes to remove authors whose reputation often goes far beyond the confines of the dictatorship they are criticising?

One month later, Maksim Kuzminov, a Russian pilot who had defected to Ukraine was gunned down in Villajoyosa, Spain, where he had tried to build a new incognito life. As Mark Galeotti wrote, Kuzminov hardly kept a low profile, getting into fights and even contacting his former girlfriend still in Russia. While there are few doubts that Russia was behind the killing, the modalities and methods of the killing suggest that this was not committed by professionals other than by intelligence agencies. Instead, it is likely that criminals - possibly from the local Russian organised crime - were involved.

The new state threats debate

Both episodes showcase recent trends in certain states’ conduct. First, several commentators and academics have pointed to a spike in covert activities conducted by (or on behalf of) states. These include assassinations, cyber operations, and sabotage activities. Second, these operations include elements of novelty. They rely on new - and encrypted - communication technologies, they exploit social media, and - more importantly - they showcase the enmeshing between state intelligence agencies and a plethora of non-state actors, including criminal groups and others like the Hells Angles motorcycle club that - at times - live in the grey area between legality and illegality. These developments pose a double challenge: the challenge in confronting them, and a perhaps even more basic challenge of understanding them.

Both of these challenges emerge from the nature of these threats. As scholars like Galeotti and Matthew Redhead (at RUSI) have highlighted, they represent new type of state threats. They emerge organically and develop in in-between zones; in the murky grey area between intelligence and law enforcement, the state and the non-state, as well as in secret, encrypted, and (at times) unreachable spaces. When it comes to confronting them, the tools states have at their disposal are often found wanting. Naming and shaming does not work if the perpetrator does not fear being shamed. Sanctions on intelligence agencies and their personnel might actually make the situation worse, increasing the reliance on criminal groups. Law enforcement resources are often ill-equipped to confront large, state-sponsored threats. At the same time, intelligence agencies often struggle to deal with crime, and criminal groups. Many of these threats might end-up falling between the cracks. And it is more, states learn from each other and constantly adapt.

Perhaps, then, an important step in confronting these challenges would be to better understand their nature. Certainly, much of this forms part of the effort to explore ‘hybrid warfare,’ as well as other types of intelligence conflict. A particular challenge, though, seems to be the state-criminal nexus. Various labels have been identified to describe this almost symbiotic relationship. Looking at Russia, for example, some settled for the ‘Mafia state.’ More recently, in a report for The Global Initiative against Transnational Crime, Galeotti seemed unpersuaded by this interpretation. Instead, he pointed to a process of ‘nationalization.’ In this view, the relationship is not one of control (e.g. the Kremlin does not control the criminal world, nor vice versa), but one of mutual understandings, mutual agreements, an ‘I scratch your back, you kill my dissident’ type of situation (my take, not Galeotti’s). Others have shifted the attention to criminal gangs as the primary actors. They are, in this view, full-blown geopolitical actors. They ‘have gone global, intertwining with state power struggles and hybrid warfare.’

Parapolitics and Covert Netherworld: help from unexpected quarters?

The aim here is to expose and explain how the state relates to criminal networks and how these networks, in turn, relate to the states. Perhaps, an interpretive toolkit is already available, although it comes from unexpected quarters.

In the 1970s, author Peter Dale Scott introduced the term “parapolitics,” in the context of the US government’s involvement in Vietnam. Re-popularised in the 1990s, the term, according to Robert Cribb, tried to ‘capture a set of observations which suggest a strange, powerful, clandestine and apparently structural relationship between state security-intelligence apparatuses, terrorist organisations and transnational organised criminal syndicates.’ One of the key points was that the state did not exist in isolation, but competed and - at times - colluded with or co-opted powerful groups that acted either below or across states. These same groups, often showcased state-like features (think, for example at the moral code and structures of the Mafia, or the state-like apparatuses of the FARC in Colombia). An important point of this scholarship is that these structures are neither peripheral nor ‘parasitic’ or ‘deviant.’ Instead, Eric Wilson writes, they are ‘functionally central to the routine operations of global governance.’ Similarly intuitions can be found in the work of Alfred McCoy (also involved in scholarship on ‘parapolitics’) on the ‘covert netherworld.’ This, in turn, was devised by . The covert netherworld is a clandestine, secret area. It emerges below the surface of politics (and diplomacy), it is an ‘invisible interstice in the world order,’ a ‘clandestine social milieu populated by secret services and criminal syndicates’ and includes an illicit economic realm, as well as a (global) space in which these actors operate.

Both parapolitics and ‘covert netherworld’ shine a bright light on many of the phenomena we are witnessing today. They go beyond the simple suggestion of an occasional alliance between the state and criminal groups, to suggest the existence of a much more engrained ecosystem. Certainly, this scholarship is short on recommendations. At times, it does not seem to consider ‘parapolitical’ activities as necessarily problematic. At other times, it also takes more conspiratorial turns, veering, for example, towards accounts of a ‘deep state’ pushing the United States towards constant war. And yet, these works confronts and discusses precisely those phenomena that are at the centre of the ‘new threats’ debate: crime and criminal networks, state-crime relationships, illicit financial markets, the relationship between intelligence services and crime syndicates. Is it time to recover this scholarship?

I fully get that - at this point in time, perhaps in a manner not too dissimilar from the early months of the pandemic - much of post-apocalyptic fiction could seamlessly be moved to the current affairs section. Take for example, one of my favourite Omar El-Akkad’s American War. Prescient doesn’t even come close; a much better job at portraying a possible future for the United States than, say, the quite pointless Civil War. But I am digressing…

I’m not on holiday, but a couple of days ago, I started reading Tender is the flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica. It is a frankly terrifying novel, with some truly haunting - although often only hinted at - scenes. I am about 60 pages in. The premise of the novel is that after a virus seemingly attacks all animals, a repressive government fully legalises cannibalism. Slaughterhouses, meat plants, and butcher shops are all repurposed to produce and sell ‘human flesh.’ The main character - while very much a part of this system - is tormented by it.

An interesting aspect this early in the novel, though, is the role it assigns to language, to words (something that is very prominent in dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, hello 1984). Some words, ‘cannibalism’ for example, cannot be spoken, other words have to be used. ‘His [the main character’s] brain warns him,’ the author writes, ‘that there are words that cover up the world. There are words that are convenient, hygienic, legal.’ These words not only legitimate unspeakable practices, but become a shield protecting the image and self-image of those involved in these practices. They create a world in which everything is normal, everything is fine. They are all, we are told, ‘euphemisms that nullified the horror.’ But at various points, the novel goes beyond the ideas of sanitising euphemisms, pointing instead to words’ power of world-making.

Several characters, including the owners of a ‘breeding centre’ and of a ‘butcher shop,’ speak in either mechanical or de-sensitized terms. The main character perceives that this is - at least in part - self-deception. An effort at world-making; an effort at building a world in which the horror of ‘the Transition’ and of ‘special meat’ can be “digested” (no pun intended), can be made palatable (OK, maybe a pun is intended). This effort and the world it creates are kept together by words, often pronounced at rapid, suffocating speed. This world is public, it’s open, it’s everyone’s daily life now. But, we are warned, it is a fragile world, one that can shatter at any moment, with the wrong word, the wrong choice.

Words and the reshaping of language and meaning have often protected those involved in violence. They have helped them in denying the nature of their activities. Euphemisms, innuendos, and plausible deniability have ben understood as methods to protect those involved by establishing a certain ‘distance’ between their image (and self-image) and the controversial or violent act being carried out. It is, some have argued, a process of ‘othering,’ of interposing layers between oneself and violence. This all rings true, but perhaps it is more. Perhaps, as in the novel, it is also a matter of world-making.

Take for example the CIA’s Justin O’Donnell. In 1960, he was asked by CIA Director of Operations Richard Bissell to travel to Congo to assassinate Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. O’Donnell, reportedly, was shocked at the proposal. ‘I told him,’ he later recalled, ‘that I would absolutely not have any part of killing Lumumba.’ Regardless, O’Donnell was told to meet with the CIA’s poisoner in chief Sydney Gottlieb. The latter told O’Donnell that multiple methods to kill Lumumba were available including a virus and poison. Having met with Gottlieb. O’Donnell went back to Bissell to restate his opposition to an assassination mission.

O’Donnell, though, was not opposed to getting rid of Lumumba is a less direct, and more sanitised manner. ‘I said I would go down and I would have no compunction about operating to draw Lumumba out [of UN custody].’ The operation, then, would not kill Lumumba directly, but would deliver him to his enemies where he would face (almost) certain death. The fact that he would - almost certainly - be killed, O’Donnell recalled, was discussed, but then ‘it would have been a Congolese being judged by Congolese for Congolese crimes.’

Poison was certainly too direct a method. Delivering Lumumba to his enemies was more indirect, more deniable. It established distance between the US officials involved (and their contractors) and the killing of Lumumba. But there is more, “poison” was also one of those words (and deeds) that would have shattered a world; a world in which the CIA and its employees balked at the thought of assassination. Words (and later deeds) created a world in which sending a democratically elected Prime Minister to certain death did not amount to assassination. O’Donnell conscience was clear.

The same effort at world-making is, of course, at the centre of the “transition” from assassination to the more ‘convenient, hygienic, legal’ “targeted killing.” In this process, the law and legal reasoning have played a prominent role in (re)shaping both domestic and international law and regulations. As Rebecca Sanders has argued this process has been one of establishing “plausible legality,” of devising and publicly professing a sufficient persuasive legal fig leaf for the conduct of violence.

But it is also, as I have written, a world in which we have moved past traditional understandings of (im)plausible deniability. It is not a matter of protecting the reputation of the US government; nor is it a matter of protecting the reputation of the president (topics we covered in previous posts here and here). It is, instead, a situation in which a new world is created. In this world, the United States can (could is probably more accurate considering current events) both present itself the leader of an international liberal order and conduct a systematised program of assassination. It is a world in which words cover and justify the violence you are witnessing.

Stanley Cohen also explored how we become desensitised to violence. In his view, when perpetrating violence or when confronted with violence, among many forms of denial we can engage in ‘interpretive denial.’ In this form of denial, the facts are not (or cannot) be hidden or denied. Words, instead, are used to give a different meaning to what is apparent. ‘Officials,’ he writes, ‘do not claim that “nothing happened”, but that what happened is not what you think it is, not what it looks like, not what you call it.’ It is not assassination, it’s ‘targeted killing.’ It is not human flesh, it’s ‘special meat.’ Changed and changing words, euphemisms, and technical jargon permit to ‘re-allocate’ violence to a different framework, to a different world. They also serve an anaesthetising function, numbing us to the horror we (refuse to) witness.

Today, we are bombarded by efforts at (re)making the world with words. Words that make the world appear more normal and more sane. It is often us, academics and commentators, that engage in efforts at world making, to keep ourselves sane and to pretend that what is happening is normal. The question, then, is, if words are endlessly malleable, does it mean that the worlds we can create are also infinite? What words, in turn, can we use to shatter the comfortable worlds in which we permit violence, in which we normalise the absurd? For now, I’ll go back to reading the novel…

At the time, it referred to how much President Richard Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in and the cover-up efforts that followed. The irony that Baker was a Nixon ally and someone who - at least initially - trusted the White House’s version of events has been covered elsewhere.

The question, however, has additional features of interest.

First, it starts from the assumption that - if a major political or national security development happens within an Administration - the President knows about it. Second, the fact that it is uttered in Congress, demonstrates Congress’s role of keeping the Executive (White House included) in check. Finally, it points to the evolution in the doctrine of plausible deniability we covered in the very first post of The Brush Contact.

As a refresher, plausible deniability initially meant that covert operations had to be conducted in such a way that the US government’s role could be plausibly denied. Over time, this also evolved into a doctrine that protected the President’s reputation. Whether the government’s role was deniable or not, what had to be protected was the president’. Yes, the government conducted controversial covert operations (say, assassination plots against Fidel Castro, or selling weapons to Iran and use profits to pay the “contras” in Nicaragua), but this happened without the President knowing about it.

This plausible deniability, like the government one, always tended to be implausible. If anything, everyone agreed that the president actually knew, but to protect his reputation everyone maintained the fiction, the fig leaf, that he did not.

In the past few hours, readers of this substack will know, a new national security scandal has been brewing. Jeffrey Goldberg, a journalist for The Atlantic, was mistakenly (we have to assume) added to a Signal chat which included all the Trump Administration’s national security principals. In the chat, the principals discussed a strike on the Houthis in Yemen, allegedly covering weapons used, selection of targets, and sequencing. The chat raises a manifold of National Security and intelligence issues.

The use of Signal for classified (top secret) information represents in itself a national security breach. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s decision to add Goldberg (mistakenly?) to the chat could represent a violation of the Espionage Act. The use of non-government messaging app is prohibited by the Pentagon regulations and opens the way for a violation of the Presidential Records Act.

Administration officials including Secretary of Defence Peter Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have scrambled to claim (to the media and in Congress) that no classified information was divulged in the chat. This is an interesting take. If the information Goldberg claims to have seen is there, members of the Administration are both lying and playing a very dangerous game, almost begging Goldberg to release additional material he has refused to publish so far for national security reasons. The information that is already available in the chat should have been classified. The fact that it wasn’t is, in itself, concerning. Plenty of commentators (for example the excellent Dan Drezner here) have already pointed out that - when you put the dumbest people in charge - the dumbest things happen. We are in a terrifying grey area of incompetence, stupidity, and danger.

But there is more. During a press conference, President Trump was asked what he thought about the episode, as soon as the new broke out.

His predictable response was to go on a rant about how bad The Atlantic is, but he also showed no awareness at all of the episode and of the chat.

This is my key, perhaps long-winded, point here. We have come to accept - because of how Trump is and who Trump is - that major national security and foreign policy developments can happen without the president knowing about them. This is happening at all levels. Vice-President Vance - in a message in the same chat - questioned Trump’s understanding of the situation. He wrote: ‘I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.’ Beyond the Signal chat, though, the media, commentators, Congress have seemingly come to accept that a President - this President - is allowed not to know what his National Security principals are up to.

Surely, we should expect more from a President? As many have argued, in normal circumstances, this should lead to resignations and to an investigation by the FBI or the Department of Justice. In normal circumstances, this should also raise very serious questions about the President, his cognitive abilities, and his awareness of foreign policy decision-making process and procedures. None of this is likely too happen and, perhaps, it is a great indication of how much we have come to accept, how many things have become normalised, even in the context of national security.

Not really, no, it didn’t. Maybe not yet. And certainly I did not find a file revealing the “true” assassin. Maybe the real assassin was all the friends we made along the way…

I didn’t find them, also, because I did not look for them. I searched for files surrounding the assassinations of foreign leaders and officials. About 2,000 new files were released. Contrary to previous releases - and for the frustration of many - no downloadable spreadsheet is available containing information such as the title and contents of the document. The documents can only be searched online and only by document number (not name or other details).

As a first dive, I started searching for documents I had already used in my book which had large redacted sections in previous versions. The idea was to see what more we could discover by removing the redactions. Here, some initial finds:

1. 157-10002-10148, James O’Connell deposition to the Church Committee: especially pages 145 to 150, are now fully declassified. The tell the story of CIA efforts to provide a female companion for a foreign leader. In the operation, the Agency recruited a girl and opened the correspondence between the girl and the foreign leader. Pages 162 and 163 now confirm the story of the Agency working to develop a movie with the look-alike of a foreign leader. The leader (not named in the testimony) is Sukarno and the Agency became aware that the Soviets had actually taped him having sexual intercourse. The Agency wanted to produce a similar movie to be distributed in the leader’s country and in neighbouring counties;

2. 157-10014-10185, Larry Devlin (CIA Chief of Station in Congo) interview with the Church Committee. Here we see some of irony of the declassification process. The document (already released in 2023) tells explicitly that the operation in Congo quickly became ‘one of Allen Dulles’ projects’ and that the CIA orchestrated the initial coup that put Mobutu in power. So what was redacted? Two numbers ‘five or six’ and 'twenty’ both referring to the number of CIA officials in the station on Congo. Mind-blowing.

3. 104-10214-10034 CIA Inspector General report on the assassination of Rafael Trujillo. Another interesting aspect of declassification here. For the first time, this report is available in full. Former redactions are found in several areas. Pages 14-15 US Ambassador Farland is now described by the CIA’s Jacob Esterline as a ‘wild man who bugged the Agency to support a move to assassinate Trujillo.’ Name of the CIA Station’s Administrative Assistant and of all the plotters in the Dominican Republic are now available, including Lorenzo Berry (aka Wimpy) and his wife, owners of a grocery store where many of the contacts and transfers of weapons occurred. A now removed redaction on p. 26 reveals that the State Department (Rubottom) was in favour of the passage of weapons to anti-Trujillo plotters. Page 41, now reveals the complicity of the Station’s Administrative assistant in the delivery of weapons to Wimpy. On page 44 we now have confirmation that machine guns were delivered, but seemingly never passed to the dissidents, whereas, previously delivered carbines were in the hands of the plotters.

4. 157-10008-10238 Special Group Documents the (Church) Committee might wish to obtain. Now unreacted document 28 reveals a plan to send Commandos of Cuban exiles (names Commandos L) to the island. The economic damage they might be able to inflict is considered negligigble, but thye might have psychological impact by keeping Cuban forces busy. The original document seemingly made clear that President Kennedy had approved of Commandos L.

So, did I find the second shooter on the grassy knoll? Not really (not for now?).

I did find, though, some recurring elements of the search for (further) declassified documents. With all the caveat that there are way more documents than I could explore in a couple of hours, the wait for declassification is, at times, a frustrating endeavour.

The redactions can be mundane and remain for years to protect people who are long gone. In some occasions, by the time these “revelations” are made, the story is already well-known. Often, it is well-known because of the work of journalists and historians. More importantly, these revelations raise an important point: the need to trust local historians. Take the example of the Trujillo assassination, much (if not all) of what the Inspector General report now reveals had been told already by local historians. For example, Bernardo Vega, former Dominican diplomat and historian, had painstakingly collected documents and told the story of the assassination (I also cover it in my book).

Does this mean we should stop looking for answers and for documents? Absolutely not. I will continue exploring this latest release and I would love to hear if you found any documents that (radically) changed your views on certain episodes. Similarly, if you found any document that uncovered operations we knew little about. I will do it to, though, with a pinch of salt…and even more click-baity headings.

The documentary - CHAOS: The Manson Murders - is based on Tom O’Neill’s book by the same name. The book was - in my opinion - somewhat inconclusive. Regardless, I am very much looking forward to the documentary. For a few reasons.

I am an admirer of Errol Morris’s work. In the 2003 documentary The Fog Of War, he was able to tell the story of the United States (and its many wars) in the Twentieth Century through the eyes of former Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara. By then McNamara had been reflecting on - if not repenting for - the tragedy of Vietnam and his role in it. The documentary further showed McNamara as an almost tragic figure. The same trick did not work with a different Secretary of Defence. In Morris’s 2013 The Unknown Unknown, a self-righteous and unrepentant Donald Rumsfeld admitted no wrong as the scandals of the “war on terror” kept coming.

Perhaps more importantly, I have long been fascinated with MKULTRA, and CHAOS is Morris’s second take on the controversial CIA program. In an earlier work, also for Netflix, the perhaps overly long but still excellent Wormwood, Morris had covered the mysterious death of Frank Olson. Olson worked for the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories. On the 28th of November 1953, Olson fell to his death from a seemingly closed window at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York. While the US government claimed this was an accident, it became apparent that - at a minimum - Olson’s death was a suicide. In fact, Olson had been drugged with LSD during an MKULTRA retreat a couple of weeks earlier. The man behind the drugging was the so-called CIA’s ‘poisoner in chief,’ Sidney Gottlieb.

The trouble with MKULTRA

MKULTRA was the code name (and an umbrella term) for a series of CIA experiments in the realm of drugs, interrogation, mind-control, and hypnosis. The program used a combination of techniques on witting and unwitting subjects. These include electroshock, sensory isolation, sleep deprivation, hypnosis, the use of drugs, and the use of practices that amounted to torture in all but name.

(In)famous projects under MKULTRA included Operation Midnight Climax in which the CIA set up a series of brothels where men would be drugged with LSD and spied upon during and after sexual intercourse. Controversially, many of the projects also involved medical and educational facilities, within and outside the United States. Subproject 68, for example, concerned medical and psychological experiments conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal under Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, for some time president of the American Psychiatric Association. Cameron received CIA funds for his program of ‘erasing’ memory and ‘reprogramming’ individuals. The experiments included drugs, LSD, and electroconvulsive therapy (far beyond accepted voltage). Unwitting patients who had often entered the facility for minor psychological issues were left forever scarred as well as physically and psychologically debilitated by the torture and experiments suffered. The story is told in harrowing detail in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation podcast Brainwashed.

Brainwashing and ARTICHOKE’s theoretical problem

CHAOS, as far as we can tell from the trailer, will highlight precisely the ‘brainwashing’ aspect of MKULTRA responsible - we are told - for Charles Manson’s ability to establish himself as a cult leader and to get his disciples to commit murder. Experiments to make other people do immoral (and illegal) things they wouldn’t otherwise do - including killing - did not start with MKULTRA, but with its predecessor, codenamed ARTICHOKE. Established in 1951 (two years before MKULTRA), ARTICHOKE (in itself a successor to project BLUEBIRD) involved primarily experiments with interrogation techniques conducted in facilities within the United States and abroad. One of its tasks, though, was the ‘development of means for the control of the activities and mental capacities of individuals whether willing or not.’

In addressing this task, a seemingly ‘theoretical problem’ was posed to an ARTICHOKE team. ‘Can an individual of ***** descent be made to perform an act of attempted assassination involuntarily under the influence of ARTICHOKE?’

The target of this assassination could be a ‘prominent ****** politician or if necessary against an American official.*’ The star at the end of the sentence takes the reader to the handwritten addendum ‘simulated only.’ Something hardly likely to squelch conspiracy theories. The document makes clear that the team had identified a specific asset for the task. And yet, the document concluded that with limited access to the asset and with limited information regarding the nature of the task, it would have been ‘extremely difficult if not impossible’ for the ARTICHOKE team to carry out the assigned task.

Some reflections are important here. First, as I wrote elsewhere, ‘brainwashing’ - especially the ability of create a perfect assassin via a combination of drugs, hypnosis, and other treatments - has long been a fascinating topic for historians, popular culture, and conspiracy theorists. Second, most MKULTRA documents were destroyed by Gottlieb in 1973, under orders from then CIA Director Richard Helms. Much of what we know relies on the work of John Marks, on Congressional investigations, and on further discoveries by the National Security Archives. In this sense, and without necessarily falling into conspiracy rabbit holes, the survival of documents that prove that certain tasks are not feasible shouldn’t be taken at face value. Finally, even John Marks who played a prominent role in uncovering MKULTRA’s secrets found somewhat unconvincing the idea that anyone could be successfully hypnotised to commit murder (I cover this in my book too, as an aside, you can pre-order the paperback now, it will come out in May, perfect for a beach read).

What will we learn from the Errol Morris documentary? What type of link did Manson have with the CIA? What role did MKULTRA play? All these questions and the controversies that after many years surround these themes should make for an interesting watch. It is, we are told, ‘one of the scariest true stories out there.’ And we only have to wait a few days…

Something I missed due to the flu was a media request to comment on the return to fame of a 1940s Office of Strategic Services (OSS) manual. The “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” was developed as a set of instructions for citizens in occupied territories during World War II. In part, its fame is due to recommendations on how to disrupt bureaucracy and meetings (don’t we all wish to do so, sometimes!?).

In part, it is now seen as a tool for the “resistance” to the Trump Administration and its authoritarian drift. Colleagues and friends have recently covered this manual here and here.

My aim here is to make a more general point and to suggest that - beyond the OSS - the CIA has a long history of developing instructions manuals, especially in the realm of covert operations and sabotage. Often, these have taken the form of comics (or comics-looking strips).

In the early 1950s, during the covert regime change operation known as PBSUCCESS (the removal of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala), the CIA trained the group of paramilitaries set to invade the country. The training included sections on the ‘theory and techniques’ of assassination. Likely as part of this training, the CIA developed a manual called A Study in Assassination (available here, with a transcript here).

The manual defined assassination as an ‘extreme measure.’ So extreme that ‘No assassination instructions should ever be written or recorded’ (welcome to my world of researching assassination). Interestingly, one of the permitted rationales for assassination was the elimination of a leader who posed a ‘clear and present danger to the cause of freedom.’ The manual then proceeded to discuss methods of assassination, from accidents (‘The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface’) to drugs, and various weapons and firearms. The manual also provided instructive sketches on how to conduct assassination in a conference room.

Assassination is also part of the story for the second manual. During the Vietnam War, the US government developed a program called Phoenix. This was a program, conducted in South Vietnam, and aimed at “neutralising” the members of the so-called Viet-Cong Infrastructure; that is, the civilian network supporting the Viet Cong in the countryside. The euphemism “neutralising” here stood for killing, arresting, or rallying (convincing to defect).

The program became very controversial, it was accused of being a corrupt program of indiscriminate killings, and became the object of Congressional investigations and depositions. Maybe we’ll cover Phoenix another time, what is interesting now is that - as part of the program - the US government also developed something between propaganda comics and an instruction manual. Available here, it aimed at teaching the South Vietnamese population how to collaborate with the government and it showed the hardships imposed by the communists. The two images below present the comics (Phun Hoang is the South Vietnamese name for Phoenix) and introduce the Ba family, at the centre of the story.

Comics remained at the centre of another manual in the 1980s. This time, the US was on the side of the insurgents. Aiming to undermine (overthrow?) the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the Reagan Administration started covertly supporting the “contras” a group of insurgents, at least in part connected to the previous regime.

For the contras, the CIA developed a manual for psychological warfare, the manual which included the recommendation to “neutralize” (same euphemism as above) Sandinistas, became very controversial and was christened by the media as the CIA “murder manual.”

But what about small sabotage? The CIA developed another manual, The Freedom Fighter’s manual. Targeted at the Nicaraguan population, the manual explained how small acts of sabotage (from not showing up for work, to blowing up small appliances) could all contribute to undermining the government (a sabotage version of Tesco’s every little helps, I guess).

The use of comics is an interesting element here. Comics have long been a tool of official and unofficial propaganda for the US government, from early days in World War II, to the “war of terror.” But are there any other “instruction” comics I have missed? Have other intelligence services developed similar manuals? Till next time.

A few elements are of interest here. First, the definition of cartels as a national security threat expands the series of military measures that can be taken against them. This is something Trump has been hinting at since the campaign when he said that he would consider strikes against Mexico and these organizations. Second, the order’s title emphasises the designation of cartels as both ‘terrorist organizations’ and ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorists.’ The latter points to both organizations and individuals who pose a threat. This - it has to be said - is in line with previous US counter-terrorism documents. National Security Decision Directive 138 - for example - considered the founding document of Ronald Reagan’s first ‘war on terror,’ called for a new intelligence finding (discussion of what a finding is, here) to ‘neutralize or counter terrorist organizations and terrorist leaders’ (we will open a whole new page another time about the euphemism ‘neutralise’). Similarly, the post-9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) singled out ‘nations, organizations, and persons’ who posed a threat. Third, a terrorist designation (of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps) was used by the first Trump Administration in its justification for the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, head of the Guard’s Quds Forces.

So, is Trump about to conduct drone strikes in Mexico? We don’t know, and a lot of the attention is - rightly - on the emerging trade war with Mexico, Canada, and other traditional US partners. But some events of the first Trump Administration might inform what is about to happen. While Barack Obama’s is remembered as a ‘drone presidency,’ drones strikes increased under Trump, with even less concern than before for transparency and civilian casualties.

Beyond drones, Trump considered assassination in several occasions. According to Bob Woodward, in the aftermath of the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack on 4 April 2017, Trump considered the assassination of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. He told then Secretary of Defence James Mattis: ‘“Let’s fucking kill him!” the president said. “Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them.” According to some report (discussed in my book here), the Administration also considered the ‘preemptive decapitation’ of Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, before the tension between the two countries eased. A Yahoo News investigation also concluded that the Administration had considered the assassination of Julian Assange, before concluding that the plan was ridiculous, as he was in London, not ‘Pakistan or Egypt’ (again, so much to unpack here…). And, of course, as we have seen, the Administration did kill Soleimani.

In the first Trump Administration, some of the rhetoric surrounding these episodes - as well as Trump’s foreign policy more broadly - suggested that many of Trump’s excesses had been moderated by the so-called ‘adults in the room.’ As we have seen in the past few days, the ‘adults’ are no longer in the room. If anything, Trump has proven that he can turn against the ‘adults’ as well as those who - often - went along with his policies (see for example the removal of security detail for former National Security Advisor John Bolton and former Secretary of State and CIA Director Michael Pompeo).

So, is all hell about to break loose? Difficult to tell at this point. A few pointers. For the pessimist, the combination of permissive (if not enabling) documents and language, and a dysfunctional decision-making process does not bode well for Mexico, or anybody else. For the optimist, will there be a lot of noise and little of substance? Some did make this argument for the first Trump Administration. We will see. Till next time…

[This week, I’ll be attending an exciting intelligence-related conference. I might provide a report when I’m back.]

Beirut, 3:30pm (local time), on Tuesday 17th of September, a series of explosions rocked the Lebanese capital. In the next few hours, chaos ensued. Scores of injured people tried to reach hospitals across Lebanon. The traffic ground to a standstill as panic spread. The explosions came from pagers in the hands of members and affiliates of Hezbollah, as well as of innocent civilians. It soon became apparent that Israel had launched a coordinated attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Several theories emerged. Initially, commentators suggested that an offensive cyber-attack might have caused the lithium batteries in the pagers to overheat and explode. Later in the day, interpretations coalesced around the use of minute quantities of explosives inserted in the pagers. Some, including yours truly, wrote that Israeli operatives had likely intercepted the pagers, tampering with them, before distribution.

By the evening of the 18th, though, this theory proved wrong. The pagers had not been intercepted by Israel but manufactured from scratch. The attention focused on the brand of the pagers - Gold Apollo - but again, in a quick turn of events, the CEO of the company made clear that - while the pagers carried the Gold Apollo label - they had nothing to do with the company. Instead, they had been produced – seemingly - by BAC Consultancy, a company with headquarters in Budapest, licenced to produce the pagers. Much mystery still surrounds the details of the operation, but it is likely that it was carried out via a network of front companies. But what are front companies?

At the frontline of covert action

Myriad definitions and labels exist (overviews can also be found here and here). Often, the boundaries between front companies and other types of organizations are blurred. Front companies are prevalent in many political and economic realms. Companies might use front companies – in this case often called ‘shell companies’ - for tax evasion purposes. Others might have an interest in presenting their preferred views and positions indirectly, giving the impression that they have emerged organically through genuine grassroots movements, a process called ‘astroturfing.’ As in the previous post, some simplicity will help. We’ll generally call these “fronts.”

In the realm of intelligence, ‘fronts’ provide or appear to provide “products” and/or services. For example, in a famous case, the company Crypto AG for a long time the leading producer of cryptographic machines was secretly purchased by the CIA, in collaboration with the West German Federal Intelligence Service. For decades, this “front” gave US intelligence access to the encrypted communication of much of the “global south” and of the UN. Other “fronts” provide services.

What about a diving holiday in the Red Sea, I hear you ask? In a daring operation to exfiltrate Ethiopian Jews, Israel and the Mossad built a fictitious diving resort on the Red Sea, which at various points hosted real tourists (a story told in an excellent bookhere, and in an atrocious movie here). Speaking of travel, South Air Transport and CAT/Air America were at various points owned and controlled by the CIA and the helped the Agency and the US government with air transport, rescue operations, and all sorts of covert activities.

Academic, intellectual, and/or cultural “fronts” have also proven popular. Often referred to as “front organizations,” they played a prominent role in the Cold War. The Soviet World Peace Council and the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom battled it out for the world’s hearts and minds during the Cold War, using a combination of witting and unwitting (aware and unaware in spy jargon) subjects and intellectuals.

Not totally upfront?

Another interesting aspect is the extent to which “fronts” do genuine “business” or solely fig leaves to cover the activities of intelligence services. Aeroflot was the Soviet Union’s official national airline but also had extensive collaboration with the Soviet intelligence services. As to “fig leaves,” Zenith Technical Enterprises Inc., established on the Miami University Campus had only one “enterprise” acting as a front for JMWAVE (the CIA station in Miami) and supporting the Agency’s and the Cuban exiles’ secret war against Fidel Castro. As we have seen, Crypto AG, started out as genuine, but – while continuing to provide products and services – did so in collaboration with intelligence services. Similarly, while the evidence is scarce the Israeli Incoda postured as a meat processing and exporting company in Ethiopia, but its real purpose was intelligence collection in the Horn of Africa, support to spies, and the holding of arms caches.

There is, then, a different category altogether, one even harder to place. Some fronts that are simply covers for (individual) operatives and/or single operations. These are often used to cover the activities of ‘illegals’ (made famous by the TV hit show The Americans). Also known as deep cover spies, or ‘sleeper agents,’ they operate in foreign countries without diplomatic cover. Philip and Elisabeth Jennings – The Americans – run the travel agency Dupont Circle Travel which provides both cover and actual holiday options for customers. In real life, Serein Jewellery was opened in Naples, Italy. Its owner – under the fictitious name Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera (née Olga Kolobova) – was an illegal’ GRU (Russian military intelligence) officer unveiled by Bellingcat and others. Through the jewellery and her socialite life she had gained access to the Italian (and crucially NATO’s) high society.

Fronts play a prominent role in past, present, and most likely future covert operations. Scores of questions emerge. What are the effects when front companies are unmasked? Are they different depending on the product or service provided? Are they different depending on the degree of “genuineness”? What is the effect of the unmasking on the target country? What are the reputational costs for the country and the intelligence service behind the front? As usual, there are more questions than answers. This is all for now. Next time, I might cede to the temptation and explore what some of President Donald Trump’s new executive orders might entail.

‘The members of our club are now prepared in their minds to have a picnic but do not have the ingredients for the salad. Lately they have developed a plan for the picnic, which just might work if they could find the proper food.

They have asked us for a few sandwiches, hardly more, and we are not prepared to make them available. Last week we were asked to furnish three or four pineapples for a party in the near future, but I could remember nothing in my instructions that would have allowed me to contribute this ingredient. Don't think I wasn't tempted.’

This not-so-subtle letter was penned by Henry Dearborn, US Consul and, for some time, CIA Chief of Station in the Dominican Republic, at the start of 1960s. The letter, addressed to Dearborn’s contact at the State Department, lamented the US government’s timidity in its support for dissidents who were planning the assassination of dictator Rafael Trujillo.

The dissidents had requested weapons and fragmentation grenades – ‘sandwiches’ and ‘pineapples’ – but the US government was reluctant to prodivide them. Trujillo was eventually assassinated by the same group of dissidents and, according to Dominican scholars, weapons provided by the US government were present at the scene. I discuss this episode and – more broadly – the assassination of Trujillo - in my book. Why retell the story here, I ear you ask?

Dissidents, proxies, and Jackals

Well, the episode and Dearborn’s letter came to my mind the other day. During a dog walk along a stunning coastal path. I was listening to the excellent Spycraft 101 podcast. Episode 178 featured Dr Daniela Richterova (talk about heavyweights in the study of intelligence). Richterova was discussing her latest book Watching the Jackals.

Full disclosure, I have’t read the book yet, I have ordered it and it’s on its way. The book covers the work of the Czechoslovakian STB intelligence agency and the support the agency provided to various violent non-state actors, primarily groups affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Groups Richterova calls the Jackals in a reference to the famous Frederick Forsyth’s novel.

The STB was already on my radar as – in a side project – I am looking at Che Guevara’s venture in Bolivia and both Che and the mysterious Tania (best treatment of the latter is probably here) spent some time in Prague before their fatal South American expedition. Anyway, this is for another time, let’s get back to the Jackals.

Richterova argues in the podcast that the STB used a ‘a full spectrum of approaches’ in its relations with these groups. This spectrum included financial support, training, the provision of weapons. The level and intensity of support varied overtime and depending on the sponsored group’s nature and objectives. Discussed in the episode are also some of the benefits and pitfalls of supporting third parties and/or relying on them to do you bidding. So what are these benefits and pitfalls?

Benefits and pitfalls of relying on Jackals

The reliance on third parties, the extent of control over these third parties, and the consequences of support play a prominent role in several academic literatures. Works on covert action, ‘remote warfare,’ and ‘proxy wars’ all encounter (and have contributed to the study of) this issue. There is also extensive debate as to how one should define these third parties. Are they proxies (here the best compendium is a recent Routledge Handbook)? Are they surrogates? Are they something else? Here, for simplicity we’ll just call them third parties or ‘groups.’

There are very good reasons to rely on third parties. Strategically, they might contribute to hide the sponsor’s role and, hence, like covert action more broadly, permit escalation management. Think about the US government’s use of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan during the late 1970s and 1980s and how the thin veneer of deniability helped in avoiding a superpower confrontation. Tactically, third parties might reach where the sponsor could not and/or do things that the sponsor wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. The use of third parties also helps in violating norms without paying the reputational costs associated with norm violations. Finally, the use of third parties (among other techniques) can help morally. It can help government officials distance themselves and their own self-image from the bad deeds conducted by the groups they support. If there are so many advantages, then, why all the fuss? Well, because there are plenty of disadvantages too.

For starters, there is the issue of control and objectives. The sponsor might want the third party to do things (or not do things) in a certain way. The opposite is also true. The third party might want to go beyond the wishes of its sponsor. There are only so many strings that can be attached, and only so much pressure and control that can be exercised. These groups, these Jackals, after all, have agency. This is even more complicated if intermediaries come into the picture (again, think of the role of Pakistan’s ISI in the same 1980s Afghan venture, and since).

The sponsor can certainly pose limits to its support. In an example mentioned by Richterova, a group of Palestinians wanted silencers for their weapons. The STB, afraid that this might have engendered an indiscriminate campaign of assassination, refused. Similarly, the Dominican dissidents wanted bombs and – at one point – poison, but the CIA and the US Government refused. The third party, in turn, can ignore the wishes of the sponsor. For example, although the CIA counselled against a shootout to kill Trujillo – preferring the use of a well-placed bomb – the dictator was killed during a car ride to one of his regular mistresses.

But there is more, as Richterova reminds us, when relying on third parties one should consider not only tactical and strategic choices but also cultural ones. How risk-taking are the proxies? How risk-averse is the sponsor? Do they observe the same norms? What reputational consequences might the sponsor incur if the sponsoring is uncovered and the activity carried out (too) controversial? Sponsors, especially in certain contexts and at certain times, might not wish to be associated with controversial policies (like assassination) and might take even more aggressive measures to distance themselves (plausibly or implausibly) from them.

Like many other matters in the realm of intelligence, relying on third parties to do you bidding is complex and dangerous. The support that is provided, the sponsor’s degree of involvement, and, hence, their level of control are often more a matter of shades of greys than of black and white. If relying on others to do your bidding is so difficult, perhaps you should do it yourself, maybe behind a plausible (commercial) cover. Something for another time. Till our next contact.