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8. Secret back-door diplomacy, rather than brinkmanship, defused the crisis.
Once Kennedy announced the blockade, the Americans and Soviets were in regular communication. The October 28 agreement was hammered out the night before in a secret meeting between Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. The Attorney General’s outreach and offer to remove missiles from Turkey was so clandestine that only a handful of presidential advisers were aware of it at the time.
Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in 1959.[1] Its main distinctions from most board wargames are its negotiation phases (players spend much of their time forming and betraying alliances with other players and forming beneficial strategies)[2] and the absence of dice and other game elements that produce random effects. Set in Europe before the beginning of World War I, Diplomacy is played by two to seven players,[3] each controlling the armed forces of a major European power (or, with fewer players, multiple powers). Each player aims to move his or her few starting units and defeat those of others to win possession of a majority of strategic cities and provinces marked as "supply centers" on the map; these supply centers allow players who control them to produce more units.
A Career in SIGINT
The SIGINT mission must keep pace with advances in the high speed, multi-functional technologies of today's information age. The ever-increasing volume, velocity and variety of today's signals make the production of relevant and timely intelligence for military commanders and national policy-makers more challenging and exciting than ever. While modern telecommunications technology poses significant challenges to SIGINT, the many languages used in the nations and regions of the world that are of interest to our military and national leaders require NSA to maintain a wide variety of language capabilities as well. Indeed, successful SIGINT depends on the skills of language professionals, mathematicians, analysts, and engineers, to name just a few.
The critical thinking and vitality required to accomplish our strategic goals depend on a diverse workforce, divergent points of view, and a fully inclusive environment. NSA has a strong tradition of employing dedicated, highly qualified people deeply committed to maintaining the Nation's security. While technology will obviously continue to be a key element of our future, NSA recognizes that technology is only as good as the people creating it and the people using it
originally posted by: Bybyots
This is a very cool story that I have never heard, thanks for bringing it to a thread. I'm going to have fun digging in to this.
So strange.
ETA: Uh, I don't know about this. There seems to be no precedent for the images of the cards and dominoes, or the story, for that matter.
I'll have to dig around, but this is starting to smell a little of History Channel bull#. I'm starting to wonder if we had enlargements of those photos if we couldn't begin to pick out stuff that doesn't belong, or is out of place or time.
Something doesn't ring true about this, I think HC is scraping some barrel they may have invented themselves.
We'll see, I guess.
I could tell that the "Edward Shiller" guy was an acto, how about you guys?
Thus, you soon discover that Dark Secrets is really a science fiction program, presented in documentary format—a mockumentary, if you will. Too bad that much of today’s “true” science is little more than a mock version, or even a parody of what it should be. Consider the comically overrated practice of peer review.
originally posted by: defcon5
The TV show is fiction, these aren't real stories, none if this really happened.
junkscience.com...
Thus, you soon discover that Dark Secrets is really a science fiction program, presented in documentary format—a mockumentary, if you will. Too bad that much of today’s “true” science is little more than a mock version, or even a parody of what it should be. Consider the comically overrated practice of peer review.
THE NSA RESPONSE
At NSA, the response to the crisis was led by the director, Lieutenant General Gordon Blake, USAF. Blake had become DIRNSA only three months before, but he had a strong background in communications and intelligence. Early in his career he had been operations officer at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, and was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. After a series of command and staff positions, in1957 he became chief of the Air Force Security Service. Two years later he became vice commander and chief of staff of the Pacific Air Forces, then chief of the Continental Air Command. In 1962, when Vice Admiral Laurence Frost was unexpectedly transferred from his position as DIRNSA, Gordon Blake was selected as his replacement.
Much of the day-to-day - or minute-to-minute - burden fell on an element of the Operations organization headed by Mrs. Juanita Moody. Mrs. Moody had begun her career as a cryptanalyst during World War I1 and had remained in cryptology after the end of the war. Her office worked around the clock to reexamine older reports about the status of Cuba's armed forces and produce current intelligence quickly. In addition to producing new reports and summaries, Mrs. Moody found it necessary to give impromptu telephone briefings to senior military and political decision makers, most of whom would call for information updates at any hour of the day or night.
Mrs. Moody later recalled how NSA responded as a team to the crisis, sometimes in unusual ways. At one point General Blake came to her office to ask if he might be of any assistance to the effort there. She asked him to try to get additional staff to meet a sudden need for more personnel. Shortly she heard him on the telephone talking to off-duty employees, "This is Gordon Blake calling for Mrs. Moody. Could you come in to work now?" -
To ensure timely responses to unexpected needs by the consumers of SIGINT, General Blake established NSA's first around-the-clock command center. General Blake also took responsibility for getting NSA's product to the White House and interpreting its sometimes arcane indicators to the policymakers.
NSA had deployed a considerable capability around Cuba, including SIGINT collection from ground-based stations and aircraft circling the periphery of the island, just outside Cuban territorial waters. The USS Oxford, a specially configured SIGINT collection ship, nestled close to the Cuban coastline intercepting radio communications from the island.