News
international study
Electronic Protective Measures
While the world can argue about whether words can hurt, one thing is clear: misunderstanding words can kill, especially in the context of the military. This study for NATO's Joint Air Power Competence Centre in Kalkar, Germany addresses the confusion, clears up the definitions through examples of each, and makes the obvious suggestion of what needs to be done.
Example Study
The Correct Course for Compass Call
United States Congress, the U.S. DoD, USAF, and others needed to evaluate the existing $1.7 billion electronic warfare (EW) program "Compass Call" while considering a more modern aircraft to carry highly sensitive EW gear and warfighters to conflicts worldwide. The Association of Old Crows provided this study researched and written by Smith.
ongoing research
The Undeniable Weapons Cache
[In research]
60 years ago, while the world was learning about a secret three-ton arms cache buried on a remote beach in Venezuela, the CIA worked to ascertain who put it there and why . . . and President Kennedy hoped for deniability. Smith interviewed the retired CIA officer who researched the origins of the weapons for the president. Kennedy was to identify the culprit (Fidel Castro) on TV but never did...it was the day he was shot. This study will be released in the future.
A Selected Piece:
A Trumpy Fit for James Bond
This article is an abbreviated piece from a longer historic study prepared for the CIA and published in the December 2014 edition of the agency's quarterly journal "Studies in Intelligence".
A
classic power cruiser built by legendary John Trumpy & Sons of Annapolis,
Maryland is easy to spot, with the Trumpy styling and the ornate
scrollwork "T" adorning its bow just below deck level. But one
particular Trumpy would always slide by unrecognized and even unseen. The
boat was small, only 19' 1/2" long, and it lacked the usual trademark.
More important, it was painted gray and designed to have the lowest
possible profile, running with its decks awash in the middle of the
night -- which is exactly the way the Central Intelligence Agency wanted
it.
In 1953 -- six years after President Harry Truman established the CIA -- the
agency hired Trumpy to build this unusual boat. It sounded like something
that might have come straight out of Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel,
which was published that same year. The CIA's objective was to create a boat
that could support clandestine operations, running partly submerged as many
as 50 miles to sneak a small crew and their gear into an enemy harbor. The
boat could then be deliberately sunk, awaiting
the crew's return. Up to a month later, after their intrigues were
completed, the crew could raise the boat and motor to a rendezvous with the
waiting mother ship . . . [read the full story in WoodenBoat Magazine]
To read the full story, please go to A Trumpy Fit for James Bond, WoodenBoat Magazine