(Pitcher-in-Chief Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013. RIP.) I think that from the time I left the academy I was oriented toward a revolutionary movement… The Hugo Chávez who entered there was a kid from the hills, a Ilanero with aspirations of playing professional baseball. Four years later, a second-lieutenant […]

(Photo of Big Smoke, a motor yacht used by the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 157, for intelligence collection operations in the Mediterranean. Photo from Jeffrey Richelson, “Task Force 157: The U.S. Navy’s Secret Intelligence Service, 1966-77,” Intelligence and National Security 11 (1996), 118; it is used because I had to buy the article for $34 […]

I am often asked if I have served various places around the world, and how many languages I spoke. However, maybe on this occasion, it was good that I didn’t know one word of French. Had I known, I may not be here today. We arrived at the Gar du Nord station in Paris on […]

This is the third and penultimate episode of Big Smoke. I hope to do a brief appreciation of the organization he served, and how Naval Intelligence acquired and divested itself of a Human Intelligence capability. Which included yachts with topless female crewmembers to deflect resistance to close-aboard passes of Soviet warships for important collection missions. […]

Sorry- I was going to complete Big Smoke’s tale of counter-intelligence on the Cote D’Azur this morning, but for a variety of perfectly good reasons I got involved in an editorial project that was going to take too much time and I blissfully dove into it so I would not have anything hanging over my […]

Reader’s Note: The world ended this morning. Sequestration is in effect. Accordingly, I have scheduled meetings in distant Fairfax County through the day in case the capital spontaneously combusts. We are still twenty days out from the official start of Spring and have no Pope at the moment, but I am going to treat the […]

(The United States Embassy Paris, near the Place de la Concorde.) The US Embassy is an impressive pile of stone located near the bustling Place de la Concord. We were waved through the gate and the Captain slid the black Ford sedan into a parking place near the front entrance. We were waved in by […]

Part One Memorandum for the Director of Naval Intelligence The Pentagon, Washington, D.C. “May I take this opportunity of commending Mr. Duval for his efforts in this matter; without the knowledge of the French language, he was able to make contact with one of the cleverest band of Corsican counterfeit passers operating in the Mediterranean […]

(Main Gate to Fleet Activities Yokosuka, circa 1952.) I had to pass along the sad news about the passing of Tom “Big Smoke” Duval yesterday, and since there is no good obituary is available, I thought I would let him tell you something about his life and times. With the controversy over the water-boarding scenes […]

04 February 2013. LCDR Thomas J. “Big Smoke” Duval, USN-Ret., at a nursing facility in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Born in 1927, Tom made his home in the DC suburb of Arlington after retiring from active duty and joining the staff of the Office of Naval Intelligence and a second career in the shadowy Task […]