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+--- Thread: Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US (/thread-5352.html)
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US - Ed Jewett - 11-01-2011
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US By Brad Meltzer 11 Jan 2011 ...n 2004 I was recruited by the Department of Homeland Security for its Red Cell program. As they described it - and as The Washington Post later reported - Red Cell was the government's way of trying to anticipate how terrorists would next attack the United States. To do that, the government brought together what they called "out-of-the-box thinkers." ...Sometimes I was paired with a psychologist or a philosopher. Sometimes I was contacted alone, via email, and given a target to attack. I'm not allowed to tell you what the targets were. Or where they were. But I can say that we'd destroy major cities like my hometown, New York. In minutes.
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US - Ed Jewett - 11-01-2011
Full text:
Author Brad Meltzer was recruited in government agency, 'horrified' at how easy it is to attack U.S.
BY Brad Meltzer
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Tuesday, January 11th 2011, 4:00 AM
![[Image: alg_brad_meltzer.jpg]](http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2011/01/11/alg_brad_meltzer.jpg)
Brown/GettyAuthor Brad Meltzer will speak about his experiences being recruited by the Department of Homeland Security's Red Cell program at a book reading Tuesday.
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I was a real-life secret agent. I didn't have the hand-grenade cuff links or the poison-dart pen, but in 2004 I was recruited by the Department of Homeland Security for its Red Cell program.
As they described it - and as The Washington Post later reported - Red Cell was the government's way of trying to anticipate how terrorists would next attack the United States. To do that, the government brought together what they called "out-of-the-box thinkers."
As a novelist who writes thrillers with scenes that take place in the underground tunnel below the White House, I was somehow identified as one of those thinkers.
Sometimes I was paired with a psychologist or a philosopher. Sometimes I was contacted alone, via email, and given a target to attack.
I'm not allowed to tell you what the targets were. Or where they were. But I can say that we'd destroy major cities like my hometown, New York. In minutes. And when I went home at night, I felt horrified, because I saw how easy it was to kill us.
But what inspired me more than anything else were the other people sitting next to me in that room. Sure, there were "real" heroes, members of the FBI and CIA, who helped us with vital facts. But there were far more professors and transportation employees, musicians and software programmers - regular people whose names will never be known and whom you'll never hear about.
Let me be clear: Those unseen heroes are everywhere. And they help us every day. And the best part? It's been true throughout our history. Indeed, as I researched my newest thriller, "Inner Circle," I found that back during the Revolutionary War, a secret presidential spy ring was started by none other than George Washington.
Washington called it the Culper Ring, and it was made up of ordinary citizens who operated throughout New York and Long Island. People just like you. Throughout the war, they moved information, gathered secrets about the British and never told anyone about their existence. In fact, even George Washington didn't know all their names. But this ring of civilians was so amazing at transporting secret information for Washington, they helped win the Revolutionary War for us.
And you'll never read about them in most history books.
These days, nearly every New Yorker knows at least one unseen hero. Most of them will remain "invisible" forever. But that invisibility may just be the most beautiful part of the story.
Indeed, most people don't set out to be heroes. Most people are just living their lives - until a moment arrives, and they're called to serve.
But as I saw in the Red Cell program, that's how history always works. History is a selection process. But it doesn't just choose people and moments. History chooses all of us. Every single day.
Brad Meltzer's newest thriller, "The Inner Circle," hits stores Tuesday. The author will read from the book at the Union Square Barnes & Noble, at 17th St. (off Fifth Ave.), Tuesday night at 7.
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US - Peter Lemkin - 11-01-2011
Quote:I'm not allowed to tell you what the targets were. Or where they were. But I can say that we'd destroy major cities like my hometown, New York. In minutes. And when I went home at night, I felt horrified, because I saw how easy it was to kill us.
Sleep well tonight, and every night....our Government [excuse me, Wizard of Oz facade Oligarchy] have our best interests at heart and are always on the alert to make our live better [for them!]...................
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US - Jan Klimkowski - 11-01-2011
Quote:I'm not allowed to tell you what the targets were. Or where they were. But I can say that we'd destroy major cities like my hometown, New York. In minutes. And when I went home at night, I felt horrified, because I saw how easy it was to kill us.
But what inspired me more than anything else were the other people sitting next to me in that room. Sure, there were "real" heroes, members of the FBI and CIA, who helped us with vital facts. But there were far more professors and transportation employees, musicians and software programmers - regular people whose names will never be known and whom you'll never hear about.
A man who sees much and learns nothing is but putty in Their hands.
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US - Charles Drago - 11-01-2011
Shades of James Grady's Six Days of the Condor (cut to Three Days by Hollywood's Lorenzo Semple, Jr.).
In that story, a small group of CIA "egg heads" reads thrillers to mine ideas and determine if actual operations are being blown. They end up being sanitized when at least one of their number stumbles onto a Middle Eastern oil-related off-the-books op.
There is, of course, real-life precedent for this sort of thing. I give you Ian Lancaster Fleming, for example.
Well known tales of his anti-Castro provocations aside -- and as I was first to note and write about -- Fleming was the first novelist (to my knowledge) to incorporate into a plot an intelligence service's manipulation of a serial killer: Red Grant, the lunar cycle murderer recruited by SMERSH, trained as an assassin, and later assigned to kill James Bond in From Russia with Love.
(For the climactic Orient Express encounter with his prey, Grant takes the cover name "Colonel Nash" -- that's "nash," as in a transliteration of the Russian term for "one of ours." Oh, that Ian ... )
Was Fleming the inspirer or the inspired?
Alas, Ian, we do not expect you to talk.
As expected, you died.
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US - Jan Klimkowski - 11-01-2011
Charles Drago Wrote:Shades of James Grady's Six Days of the Condor (cut to Three Days by Hollywood's Lorenzo Semple, Jr.).
In that story, a small group of CIA "egg heads" reads thrillers to mine ideas and determine if actual operations are being blown. They end up being sanitized when at least one of their number stumbles onto a Middle Eastern oil-related off-the-books op.
Yup.
The secret plot in Grady's Six Days of the Condor, written in 1974, was CIA drug trafficking from Laos.
Of course that wasn't a work of fiction. 'Twas true.
Charles Drago Wrote:There is, of course, real-life precedent for this sort of thing. I give you Ian Lancaster Fleming, for example.
Well known tales of his anti-Castro provocations aside -- and as I was first to note and write about -- Fleming was the first novelist (to my knowledge) to incorporate into a plot an intelligence service's manipulation of a serial killer: Red Grant, the lunar cycle murderer recruited by SMERSH, trained as an assassin, and later assigned to kill James Bond in From Russia with Love.
(For the climactic Orient Express encounter with his prey, Grant takes the cover name "Colonel Nash" -- that's "nash," as in a transliteration of the Russian term for "one of ours." Oh, that Ian ... )
Was Fleming the inspirer or the inspired?
Alas, Ian, we do not expect you to talk.
As expected, you died.
Colonel Nasz the Gnasher....
From Russia with Love was published in 1957.
In 1976-7, there were allegations that David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz was a lunar serial killer.
Maury Terry's investigation suggested Berkowitz and "Manson II" were, instead, Process(ed) serial killers.
Sometimes the old scripts are the best....
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US - Charles Drago - 11-01-2011
You're right, Jan. The film sanitized drug trafficking into big oil manipulation. One could argue that the switch was made to take advantage of then-current events.
Or not.
And while we're on the broad subject of James Bond and drugs: Back in the early '50s, when Casino Royale was born, the use of Benzedrine inhalers was quite legal and quite common. So of course 007 not only indulged, but upped the ante by disassembling the inhalers, taking out the cotton wadding saturated with the drug, and manipulating them to enhance the effect.
Take it easy, Mr. Bond.
One more point: FRWL was indeed published in 1957 -- nearly 20 years before the events examined in The Ultimate Evil.
Again, was Fleming ahead of the curve or merely riding it?
Novelist: Homeland Security recruited me to 'attack' US - Ed Jewett - 13-01-2011
More on TSA Red Teams...:
http://cryptome.org/nara/tsa/tsa-03-0903.pdf