Bill Gertz | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Editor, columnist, reporter |
William D. Gertz (born March 28, 1952) [1] is an American editor, columnist and reporter for The Washington Times . He is the author of eight books and writes a weekly column on the Pentagon and national security issues called "Inside the Ring". During the administration of Bill Clinton, Gertz was known for his stories exposing government secrets. [2] [3]
Gertz was born on Long Island, New York. He has attended Washington College and George Washington University. He has also written for National Review , The Weekly Standard and Air Force Magazine. He has lectured on defense, national security, and media issues at the Defense Department’s National Security Leadership Program, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, the FBI National Academy, the National Defense University, and the CIA. [4] He has been a media fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. [5] He lives in Maryland. [6]
In 2008, Gertz was subpoenaed to the Santa Ana, California federal court to testify in the case of Chi Mak, who was convicted of providing United States Navy technology to China. Gertz refused to answer questions about his sources, citing the Fifth Amendment. [7]
Gertz was a senior editor at the Washington Free Beacon until October 2019, when he was fired upon the discovery of "a previously undisclosed financial transaction." [8] Gertz had taken a 100,000 US dollar loan from Guo Wengui, whom Gertz called a "leading Chinese dissident" in his reports. [9] [10] Gertz later rejoined The Washington Times full time. [11]
During 1996 Gertz reported in The Washington Times on Chinese sales of nuclear technology to Pakistan. [12] In 1997 he reported on Russian aid to Iran's nuclear weapon program, based on information given him by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. [13] In 1998 he reported on United States sale of missile technology to China. [14] In 2004, Gertz wrote that Syria, possibly with the aid of Russian troops, transferred Iraqi weapons of mass destruction stockpiles to its own military installations. [15]
Gertz's 2000 book, The China Threat: How the People's Republic Targets America, presented the case that China's military was more modern and powerful than was its reputation in the United States military and intelligence communities. [16] His 2002 book, Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to Sept. 11, examined the activities of United States intelligence agencies prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks. [17] His 2004 book, Treachery: How America’s Friends and Foes Are Secretly Arming Our Enemies, accused United States allies, including France and Germany of helping to arm terrorists. [18] His 2008 book, The Failure Factory: How Unelected Bureaucrats, Liberal Democrats, and Big Government Republicans Are Undermining America's Security and Leading Us to War, said that many federal bureaucrats hold liberal views on foreign policy. [19]
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy. Any individual or spy ring, in the service of a government, company, criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law.
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning.
George John Tenet is an American intelligence official and academic who served as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.
Richard Alan Clarke is an American national security expert, novelist, and former government official. He served as the Counterterrorism Czar for the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-Terrorism for the United States between 1998 and 2003.
John Alexander McCone was an American businessman and politician who served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1961 to 1965, during the height of the Cold War.
The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The National Security Archive is an investigative journalism center, open government advocate, international affairs research institute, and the largest repository of declassified U.S. documents outside the federal government. The National Security Archive has spurred the declassification of more than 15 million pages of government documents by being the leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), filing a total of more than 70,000 FOIA and declassification requests in its over 35+ years of history.
James Risen is an American journalist for The Intercept. He previously worked for The New York Times and before that for Los Angeles Times. He has written or co-written many articles concerning U.S. government activities and is the author or co-author of two books about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a book about the American public debate about abortion. Risen is a Pulitzer Prize winner.
The timeline of the Cox Report controversy is a chronology of information relating to the People's Republic of China's (PRC) nuclear espionage against the United States detailed in the Congressional Cox Report. The timeline also includes documented information relating to relevant investigations and reactions by the White House, the U.S. Congress, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and United States Department of Justice.
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the director of national intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the president and Cabinet of the United States. Following the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a director of central intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.
Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security is a 1999 book by reporter Bill Gertz. It was first published on May 25, 1999 through Regnery Publishing and centers upon the Clinton administration.
Breakdown (ISBN 0-452-28427-9) is a 2003 book by Bill Gertz arguing that U.S. intelligence services "lost sight of [their] purpose and function" due to Clinton administration policies that were more concerned with political correctness than with national defense.
Enemies: How America's Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets – And How We Let It Happen is a 2006 book by Bill Gertz. In this book, Gertz brings to light instances where national security had been damaged by negligence and incompetence. Gertz makes the claim that more high-level attention is needed, as well as more resources, better leadership and proactive programs.
CIA activities in North Korea began primarily at the beginning of the Cold War in 1949. At the time, the U.S. viewed North Korea or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as a Soviet puppet regime. This posed a threat to the U.S. government, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began to focus more of its resources towards the DPRK. During the Cold War, the CIA gathered crucial intelligence regarding the DPRK such as its plans and capacities regarding an attack on America and its ally, South Korea. In later history, the CIA and sixteen other U.S. intelligence agencies have primarily focused strictly on the DPRK'S weapons and capabilities.
Project Azorian was a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in 1974 using the purpose-built ship Hughes Glomar Explorer. The 1968 sinking of K-129 occurred about 1,600 miles (2,600 km) northwest of Hawaii. Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million, or $4.9 billion today.
An assassin's mace is a legendary ancient Chinese weapon. It is now used metaphorically to describe certain Chinese weapons systems. The term has its roots in ancient Chinese folklore, which recounts how a hero wielding such a weapon managed to overcome a far more powerful adversary. The eponymous assassin's mace was a club which was used to break an enemy's blade in combat, or a hand mace that could impact through an enemy's armor. According to American military analysts, the term is now used in China to describe a specific type of military system that demonstrates asymmetrical warfare and anti-access/area denial capabilities to counter the United States. Whether assassin's mace refers to a government-defined class of weapons or is merely used in the Chinese government to describe these weapons is disputed.
Informatized warfare of China is the implementation of information warfare (IW) within the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and other organizations affiliated or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Laid out in the Chinese Defence White Paper of 2008, informatized warfare includes the utilization of information-based weapons and forces, including battlefield management systems, precision-strike capabilities, and technology-assisted command and control (C4ISR). However, some media and analyst report also uses the term to describe the political and espionage effort from the Chinese state.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) dates from September 18, 1947, when President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 into law. A major impetus that has been cited over the years for the creation of the CIA was the unforeseen attack on Pearl Harbor, but whatever Pearl Harbor's role, at the close of World War II government circles identified a need for a group to coordinate government intelligence efforts, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the State Department, the War Department, and even the Post Office were all jockeying for that new power.
The deep state is a supposed clandestine network of members of the federal government, working in conjunction with high-level financial and industrial entities and leaders, to exercise power alongside or within the elected United States government.
Tina Westby Jonas is an expert in military, defense, and aerospace industries. She was an undersecretary of defense at the United States Department of Defense and had also served as chief financial officer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Stephen C. Coughlin is an American lawyer and former Joint Chiefs of Staff intelligence analyst who was a contract employee providing advice and analysis at the Pentagon, until he was let go in 2008 under controversial circumstances, reportedly owing to his views on the nature of Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.