There was one of those Deep State Moments last Friday. You may not have noticed, since you were not supposed to.

We all know the drill now. Stories that could be inconvenient to the people running things are kept aside by those who monitor Public Affairs and those sorts of things. They are saved for release at times no one in the massive media flow has time to pay much attention. The end of the working week before the 4th of July is an excellent example. One of the timestamps on one of several press releases was marked around Midnight, so that naturally attracted our attention as being the most obscure by design.

We think it was one about JFK assassination records, which were deemed, sixty years after the events, to be still classified for “national security” reasons. Whatever those might be must be interesting, but there is more to say about that. Some of it was said in the hundreds of blog and web sites that followed in the hours most sensible people were grilling ribs and enjoying some downtime without news. And that is how this minor recollection came to be.

It was from a demonstrably strange time. I happened to be working in a government job nearing the end of over 26 years of government service. The assignment was a band-aid position on a band-aid staff created to try to reign in the powers and authorities of powerful organizations not included in the Constitution. One of them was the CIA. The head of that organization had invented a title by which they claimed oversight of the growing number of “intelligence agencies” contained in and outside the Executive Branch of government: The Director of Central Intelligence, or “DCI.”

The evolution of that position merits a brief discussion. We have written about some of the events to re-structure the American defense establishment after the conclusion of World War Two. The successful use of the atomic bomb to end the war in the Pacific was only part of the issues in play. Since the adoption of the Constitution, two seats on the Cabinet represented components of military power. One was the Department of War, responsible for the US Army and the conduct of ground warfare. The other was the Department of the Navy, responsible for maritime operations worldwide.

Aviation and scientific advances had produced a capability to deliver atomic weapons from the air anywhere on earth. One of the arguments of the time was that this dramatic innovation might supersede the old War/Navy divisons, rendering one or both obsolete. Discussion was vigorous. Similar debate raged with the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency that incorporated the various wartime espionage activities (some with non-governmental origins) into a unified capability subordinate to the Executive Branch of government.

The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was a position established in 1946 continued to 2005. The DCI served as head of the CIA and as principal intelligence advisor to the President and National Security Council as well as coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various US intelligence agencies in the Executive Branch known as the “Intelligence Community” from 1981 through the amalgamation of organizations today.

The events of 9/11 changed everything, of course. I happened to be at the Pentagon briefly that morning on the way to Langley when our world was turned upside down. After arrival, we heard muffled shouts down the 6th floor corridor at the Original Headquarters Building when the first aircraft hit. There were hurried reminders this had occurred before with a near-miss years ago and then the second jet hit and we knew we were under attack before the third one hit us here in Arlington.

There was more to it for us, since the realization that we were under attack and suddenly at war made old plans intended to manage mass-attack crisis were unearthed and we discovered our staff was charged with providing direct support to the Cabinet member designated to be outside the radius of destruction in gatherings that included those designated to succeed the President. Which is how this improbable story came to pass. It has some interesting aspects, due to the people involved, which included me and and the Secretaries of Interior, Education and Health and Human Services.

It is interesting to be one-on-one, no assistants, with someone who runs one of the Departments with no agenda and hours to kill until whatever ceremony far away was concluded. Only one of the important people actually had some ideas about that, and this is how this interlude with the Deep State begins.

More of that tale follows in the days to come. It was a trip, and maybe the only time I got to see the people who manage our State in person!

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotracom