Melvin GOODMAN
Dear President-elect Biden,
I’m assuming that you and your team are still debating the selection of a director for the Central Intelligence Agency. I hope that you don’t think me presumptuous for making some suggestions. I’m doing this on the basis of my 24 years of experience as a CIA intelligence analyst as well as my candid testimony before the Senate intelligence committee several decades ago regarding the confirmation process.
I believe that CIA leadership is particularly important at this juncture if the agency is to regain its credibility. Donald Trump’s efforts to politicize the intelligence community combined with the unfortunate appointment as director of Gina Haspel, who was heavily involved in the torture and abuse program, have undermined that credibility. Haspel’s confirmation created cynicism toward the process among many CIA officials both active and retired. I’m also concerned that the media rumors point to the possible appoint
Revamping Federal Climate Science
December 15, 2020, 5:00 am Getty/Liu Shiping/Xinhua
Sam Hananel
Ari Drennen
Introduction and summary
The United States has been the global leader in climate science for decades. Unfortunately, progress has slowed and in some cases, even moved backward over the past four years, with the Trump administration dismantling core elements of the federal climate science apparatus. As the country and the planet head toward an increasingly unstable climate, the U.S. government needs to get back to the business of being the preeminent source of trusted applied science that supports climate change mitigation and adaptation decision-making of governments and civilian stakeholders.
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Darrell Blocker poses at his home in Santa Monica, California, in 2019. (Jayne Amelia Larson/Courtesy of Darrell Blocker via JTA)
JTA In his 28 years at the CIA, Darrell Blocker figured out a reliable strategy for recruiting covert agents.
“A person like myself is always looking for that anomaly, that person who doesn’t feel like they’re being listened to, that person who doesn’t feel like they fit,” Blocker said in a talk early this year at the International Spy Museum. “That’s who I’m looking for as a potential spy.”
In some ways, he could have been talking about himself. Blocker, known in the intelligence community as “the spy whisperer,” is reportedly on a shortlist of candidates President-elect Joe Biden is considering to lead the CIA, the country’s international intelligence service. If selected, he would be the agency’s first Black director and the third Jewish one.