Fall of Saigon

This WaPo headline from 35 years ago says "Vietcong" but, actually, Saigon's 30,000 defending troops surrendered to 100,000 North Vietnamese troops who had converged on the city 55 days after twenty North Vietnamese Army divisions invaded the South.

Thirty-Five Years Ago Today

The U.S. Embassy in Saigon sent its last message:

PLAN TO CLOSE MISSION AT ABOUT 0430 30 APRIL LOCAL TIME. DUE TO NECESSITY TO DESTROY COMMO GEAR THIS IS THE LAST MESSAGE FROM EMBASSY SAIGON.

The U.S. Ambassador, Graham Martin, initiated Operation Frequent Wind, the helicopter evacuation of the last remaining U.S. citizens and 'at-risk' Vietnamese allies from Saigon by U.S. Navy Task Force 76.

At 04:58, Ambassador Martin boarded a Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helo and was flown to the USS Blue Ridge. At 07:53, the final helo in the airlift extracted eleven Marine Security Guards from the embassy rooftop, and the evacuation was over.

See Tears Before the Rain for an excellent collection of first-person accounts of those last days.

Shocking Revelation About Andrew Warren

The WaPo's SpyTalk column has some more details on the arrest of Andrew Warren, the former CIA Station Chief who today resides in the hospital wing of the Norfolk, Virginia, City Jail.

Ex-CIA fugitive was subdued with Taser:

Ex-CIA operative Andrew Warren had to be subdued twice with electric shocks when a fugitive task force tried to arrest him at a Norfolk hotel this week, according to law enforcement sources.

“He appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” a law enforcement official, who asked for anonymity in exchange for quoting from a field report on the incident, said of Warren.

The official said that Warren, ordered to put his hands behind his head, “made numerous affirmative movements toward his mid-torso,” when police spotted a gun handle in his waistband.

Police then shocked Warren, 42, with a Taser, which shoots an electrically charged wire at a target. When Warren continued to struggle, he was “dry-tasered,” or stunned with a direct application to his back.

He was tasered twice? I'll bet that hurt.

Some of his former colleagues, however, say they were not surprised at the turn of events.

They say that Warren, a Muslim convert, had earned an unsavory reputation long before his prestigious Algiers assignment, citing what they said was a habit of frequenting strip clubs and prostitutes with his informants.

“He was despised by his peers, in training and in the division, after graduation,” said one former colleague, echoing the views of a handful of others.

“His conduct in Algeria was not a surprise or aberration. These personality and performance issues were on display in his three previous tours.”

There's a bit more background on Warren and his fast-rising, and even faster-falling, CIA career from ABC News.

U.S. Government Websites: For Adults Only

Oh, the irony.

At the same time that Washington is buzzing with outrage about government officials who spent their work hours surfing the internet for porn, a Pew Research Center study has found that large numbers of adult American internet users are searching online for hardcore government information.

Some 40% of adult internet users have gone online for raw data about government spending and activities. This includes anyone who has done at least one of the following: look online to see how federal stimulus money is being spent (23% of internet users have done this); read or download the text of legislation (22%); visit a site such as data.gov that provides access to government data (16%); or look online to see who is contributing to the campaigns of their elected officials (14%).

The report also finds that 31% of online adults have used social tools such as blogs, social networking sites, and online video as well as email and text alerts to keep informed about government activities. Moreover, these new tools show particular appeal to groups that have historically lagged in their use of other online government offerings—in particular, minority Americans.

-- snip --

“Just as social media and just-in-time applications have changed the way Americans get information about current events or health information, they are now changing how citizens interact with elected officials and government agencies,” said Smith. “People are not only getting involved with government in new and interesting ways, they are also using these tools to share their views with others and contribute to the broader debate around government policies.”

Here's my next project: putting a warning notice on my office's web page that says "Some Scenes May be Too Intense For Younger Viewers."

"Warren ... Andrew Warren"

A bit more news came out today that clarifies yesterday's arrest of Andrew Warren, the former CIA Station Chief who is currently awaiting trial on charges of sexual assault allegedly committed while he was posted at U.S. Embassy Algiers.

It turns out that Warren had failed to appear for a court hearing in Washington DC last Wednesday, after which a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. Warren, however, was already in hiding by then because back on April 3 his neighbors in Norfolk, Virginia, had called the police to report him for indecent exposure.

Judging by the quotes from "Stacy" and "Jessica" in the news stories linked above, Mr. Warren sounds like quite the suave character. A real smooth operator. Actually, he sounds a lot more like a pimp than like James Bond.

Former CIA Algiers Station Chief Arrested Again

When I'd last heard of him, Andrew M. Warren, the former CIA Station Chief in Algiers who is under indictment for sexual assaults allegedly committed while he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Algiers, Algeria, was coming up for a trial date in June.

This afternoon at 4PM, Warren was arrested at a hotel in Norfolk, Virginia, by agents of the Diplomatic Security Service, Deputy U.S. Marshals, and local police, on both a local arrest warrant and a federal warrant.

No news has been released yet beyond the sketchy facts of his arrest. However, that there was a local arrest warrant suggests to me that Warren has committed new offenses. And the federal warrant suggests that Mr. Warren may have violated the terms of his pretrial release. He was armed with a pistol when he was arrested today, which is probably another violation of the terms of his release.

All My Memos Will Be Tweets

There might be hope for Twitter after all. The WaPo restaurant reviewer is asking readers to submit restaurant reviews in 140 characters.

That idea must, simply must, catch on and spread to government memos. There would be no more agonizing over drafts. I could just send stuff like this:

@OBO, abt yr #memo: gr8 idea, wld ok right now but need to knw RU sending $$$ to post? plz lmk, K? JSYK, peeps askin WTF? lets go V2V. thx

Exactly 140 characters and it says everything I want to say.