The New York Times and Washington Post have excellent obituaries that capture Nitze’s good and bad qualities. Decorum inhibits candor, however. Nitze’s role in slandering Paul Warnke, during Warnke’s confirmation hearing for Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is an unseemly moment that defined Nitze for a great many of his colleagues. To …
CSRS and CounterCom (Blame it on Nanjing)
by | 2004-10-20 | No Comments
While I was in Nanjing, Space News confirmed (“U.S. Declates Satellite Jammer Ready” October 11, 2004, p.1) that the Air Force canceled the Counter Surveillance Reconnaissance System (CSRS or “scissors) and has delivered the first Counter Communications System (now called CounterCom). [Early Bird readers can access it here] The confirmations were provided by Gen. Lance …
Cuba BW "Program" Redux
by | 2004-10-19 | No Comments
I had an interesting conversation with Steve Weisman at the New York Times regarding his story on the “new” intelligence estimate that concludes “it is no longer clear that Cuba has an active, offensive bio-weapons program.” We still disagree about whether his story is misleading or not—in part, I suppose, because we see different things …
CIA Declassifies 1948-1972 NIEs on China
by | 2004-10-19 | No Comments
The CIA has partially declassified “over seventy National Intelligence Estimates on China covering the period 1948-76.” The Agency claims this is “the largest such release ever made at one time.” The documents were also published in a book and CD/ROM entitled Tracking the Dragon: Selected National Intelligence Estimates on China, 1948-1976 and were the subject …
