My Usual Charming Self

Drill down to the core of modern espionage and you bump into James Jesus Angleton, the counterintelligence chief of CIA from the 1950s to the mid-70s who turned the Agency upside down in search of a KGB “mole” codenamed SASHA. Many careers were buried in the search for SASHA, an odyssey peopled with double agents, deception operations and sinister characters of all stripes, often passing each other like ships in the night in a “wilderness of mirrors”. As Angleton’s obsession took hold of CIA, a cadre of operatives came to blame him for creating a stultifying atmosphere that impeded progress against the Soviets.

Of all the characters and events during this paranoid epic, the saga of KGB officer Yuri Nosenko lingers today. And Tennent “Pete” Bagley, the man who directly handled the Nosenko case - and the author of a controversial new book on the subject that caused his colleagues at CIA to cancel his scheduled appearance at Langley - is coming to Raleigh for the 5th Raleigh Spy Conference March 26-28 at the NC Museum of History auditorium. Joining Bagley is the expert on Angleton, CIA chief historian David Robarge; old friend and counterintelligence officer Brian Kelley with a never-before-told story of an American double agent that includes dramatic twists and turns and a surprise ending; famous journalists Jerry Schecter - author and former Moscow bureau chief for Time magazine – and David Ignatius, Washington Post editorial writer and former bureau chief in Moscow and the Middle East. Go to www.raleighspyconference for a complete schedule and registration information.

Owl Theory Returns

The “owl theory” has re-emerged in the wake of recent attacks on two men in Apex. Durham attorney Larry Pollard first put forward the idea that Kathleen Peterson was attacked by an owl outside her home the night she was found dead by her husband Michael Peterson. Peterson was found guilty for her death, prosecuted by District Attorney Jim Hardin who preceded Michael Nifong, the defrocked DA who waged an unwarranted prosecution of the Duke lacrosse players. Metro ran an article on Pollard’s theory in the July 2006 issue that included autopsy pictures of Kathleen Peterson at the deadline of a ban passed by the North Carolina Legislature against their publication. The wounds on her head match those of an owl attack and do not come close to approximating scars delivered from a “blow poke” as presented by the prosecution in the case.

Today, news reports refuse to clarify that the alleged owl attack took place outside the Peterson home – not inside as has been incorrectly reported. But also in question is the efficacy of the operations of the Durham County Court House after the Nifong debacle. This case needs to be revisited.

Patriots in Cary

Hurrah for the parents in Cary who stood up to the Wake County Board of Education and threatened to secede to defy school authorities who bus their kids over Hell and half of Georgia in the name of a social theory that has been adjudged illegal. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that busing school children to attain racial proportion to be unconstitutional a decade ago, yet the Wake County commissars continue the practice by other means, using economic considerations to “balance” school attendance. Disrupting families and the lives of school children sounds more like the Kremlin relocating the kulaks from Ukraine to Siberia than sound educational policy. Beware the social theorists who hold the individual in contempt in the name of ideology.

The Rugged Cross

Gene Nichol, the former dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law, lasted 16 months as president of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA. The left-of center activist managed to alienate just about everyone in his zeal to cleanse the venerable school of its traditions, including the removal of a cross in the school’s main auditorium, bellowing the usual platitudes about separation of church and state. For some reason religious icons are the first target for Bolshevik-minded people’s campaigns.

I remember a similar confrontation in the early 80s over the annual production of the Star of Bethlehem program at the Morehead Planetarium at UNC. An activist law professor started a stink claiming the display of the star on the roof of the planetarium to promote the show – and the show itself – were a violation of the US Constitution’s guarantee of separation of church and state. I wrote in the weekly Spectator that the tradition of the program harmed no one, and was perfectly acceptable in a nation founded on Christian principles. I forgot who won, but the same argument was used by Nichol at William & Mary - that people of non-Christian persuasion are offended and therefore made to feel unwelcome if a cross is displayed.

The only person I can think of who would be offended by the cross is Count Dracula, or perhaps Osama bin Laden. Look at this way. If you moved to India and a statue of Buddha was sitting in the room, would you feel you had been insulted by the people of India? I think not. As members of my faith remind me, I am hardly a hard-core Christian. But I do object to people like Nichol who insist on throwing out the symbols of our culture to make a point that doesn’t exist.

Look Out For Libba

Libba Evans, Secretary of Cultural Resources for North Carolina, has been accused by writer Don Carrington in the Carolina Journal newspaper – published by the John Locke Foundation – of using her influence in public office to exempt land she owns in the Northeastern coastal town of Marshes Light, NC from expensive tree-clearing requirements.

It appears that Evans, whose most well known qualification for her position was rooming with First Lady Mary Easley in college, likes to throw her weight around in personnel matters too. She summarily terminated Betsy Buford, the much-loved and respected director of the NC Museum of History early in 2007, causing even the usually calm and dignified former UNC system president William Friday to protest the contemptuous manner Evans used to fire Buford. It was a brutal act against one of the state’s most effective department chiefs coming only three months before Buford reached the required service for full retirement benefits.

Since knocking off Buford, others have been “disappeared” from Cultural Resources without so much as a how-do-you-do by the intimidating Evans. Speculation on her motives range from “political” to just plain meanness. I can’t prove it, but I have reason to suspect that Evans orchestrated a campaign of innuendo against Metro when we partnered with the Museum of History on the Raleigh Spy Conference and the Mannequin Ball.