(Mac dressed to kill for his 90th birthday cruise on the Potomac). I sent yesterday’s story on Mac Showers and his involvement with the emergence of the “technological transfer” issue with unvarnished relief as I mashed the button on the wireless keyboard. And it came with not a touch of wistful melancholy. Then I saved […]

(Willow’s co-owner Tracy O’Grady with one of her famous beef-on-Kemmelweck sandwiches). Willow was jumping. It was the last Friday of the month, the evening Tracy O’Grady added the famous Beef on Weck sandwich from her native Buffalo, N.Y., to the menu. Mac and I normally did not meet on the most hectic of weeknights, but […]

(Vic and Mac Showers at the Willow Bar, 2010). Willow was quiet that Thursday Afternoon. The weather outside was raw and damp, so the patio was deserted. Without the constant coming and going to serve the tables out front, Jasper was hanging out behind the bar with Big Jim working the taps and pouting out […]

(The new construction building behind the row of Don’s Johns, far left, is located at 1724 F Street in Washington, DC. It replaced the former home of the Intelligence Community Staff. To the right, the bulk of the Old Executive Office Building looms in Beau Arts glory and demonstrates how useful it is to be […]

Gentle Readers, In view of the controversy regarding the unmasking of American names caught up in “incidental collection” and the parallel accusation that some Americans were inappropriately in contact with agents of the Kremlin, I thought it might be fun to take a look a the way the national security state came to be, masks […]

Scientists now have arrived at the 97% consensus: temperatures in Culpeper, VA, were once warm enough to support the growing of grapes for wine. To demonstrate, our team of expert scientists sampled an experimental personal analysis of the local product at lunch today, courtesy of Quentin, our server at the Copper Fish on historic East […]

See? Isn’t that one of the problems? I have been a useful idiot for Apple products for several years- I think since I was working for IBM and discovered that Big Bluw was going to sell the ThinkPad lap-top line to the Chinese. I always hated Microsoft products because the Government made us use them, […]

(ADM Thomas Moorer in 1964. Photo USN). It was April Fool’s Day, 2010. The town of Topeka, Kansas had decided to re-name itself “Google” for some reason best known to the Mayor and the city council. Mac Showers was feeling a little housebound and was available to chat, and on a splendid day in the […]

(An RVAH-12 RA-5C beginning its reconnaissance run over Vietnam, 1967. Photo USN). Mac was waiting patiently at Willow, half way down the bar that Old Jim anchored at the Amen Corner. I was a little flustered. A subcontractor to us on a counterintelligence contract down at the Russel Knox Building at Quantico had some people […]

Editor’s Note: We are still marching through the remarkable career of RADM Donald “Mac” Showers, which spanned the rise to zenith of The American Century. I will get us to Vietnam one of these days. But trust me, we are going to wrap this up in a month or two. – Vic (GRAB reconnaissance satellite, […]