Story 1: Putin’s Sting — How Russian Intelligence Service (FSB) Played The Washington Political Elitist Establishment (Democrats and Republicans) And Big Lie Media And How They Fell Hook, Line and Sinker for Russian Intelligence Disinformation Campaign — Russian Trump Dossier — The Dangers of Opposition Research, Confirmation Bias, True Believers, Useful Idiots, Blind Ambition and Two Party Tyranny — The Sting Redux — Videos —
“You can fool all the people some of the time,
and some of the people all the time,
but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“Perception is reality.”
~Lee Atwater
“People readily believe what they want to believe.”
~Julius Caesar
“Never give a sucker an even break.”
~W. C. Fields
Spoiler Alerts
[Figuring out which con to pull on Lonnegan]
J.J. Singleton: I dunno know what to do with this guy, Henry. He’s an Irishman who doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and doesn’t chase dames. He’s a grand knight in the Knights of Columbus, and he only goes out to play faro. Sometimes plays 15 or 20 hours at a time, just him against the house.
Henry Gondorff: Roulette? Craps?
J.J. Singleton: He won’t touch ’em. The croupier at Gilman’s says he never plays anything he can’t win.
Henry Gondorff: Sports?
J.J. Singleton: Likes to be seen with fighters sometimes, but he doesn’t go to the fights or bet on ’em.
Henry Gondorff: Jesus. Does he do anything where he’s not alone?
J.J. Singleton: Just poker. And he cheats. Pretty good at it, too.
First con of The Sting
The Sting – Poker Game
The Sting (8/10) Movie CLIP – A Real Professional (1973) HD
The Sting (10/10) Movie CLIP – It’s Close (1973) HD
President Donald Trump: Meeting With Russian Lawyer Was ‘Opposition Research’ | CNBC
Donald Trump JR is being SETUP by Fusion GPS (FAKE DOSSIER)
Report: Senate to Investigate Democratic Ties to Trump Russian Dossier
Democrats intentionally used disinformation from Russia to attack Trump and his campaign aides.
How credible are reports that Russia has compromising information about Trump?
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Circa News: FBI illegally shared data about Americans
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Former CIA Director: Obama Administration “Did Nothing” to Stop Russian Interference
Trump vows to get special prosecutor to investigate Clinton
Trump Loses It After Clinton Calls Him Putin’s Puppet
The Low Down Dirt On Trump
Paul Joseph Watson: DNC Worked With Ukraine To Dig Up Opposition Research On Trump And Manafort
CNN is Falling Apart | Dick Morris
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The Conspiracy Files: Putin, The FBI and Donald Trump – the fifth estate
Vladimir Putin’s Rise To Power – Full Documentary [HD]
Putin Documentary – The Real Story of the President Putin
Putin crushes CNN smartass Fareed Zakaria on Donald Trump and US elections
Putin Speaks English for CNN
Disinformation: The Secret Strategy to Destroy the West – Part 1
Disinformation: The Secret Strategy to Destroy the West – Part 2
Secrets of the Cold War: Disinformation | Soviet Active Measures | 1984 | Documentary
KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov’s warning to America
Yuri Bezmenov: Sleepers Emerge and Messiah Appears
How To Brainwash A Nation
Yuri Bezmenov Full Interview & Lecture – HQ
Sen Grassley:’Democratic Opposition Research firm Fusion GPS Behind Trump Dossier Was Funded Russia?
BREAKING Dems Intentionally Used FAKE Russian Disinformation to Attack Trump
WOW Government Official Admits to FBI Coup Attempt on Trump
Propaganda, Disinformation, and Dirty Tricks: The Resurgence of Russian Political Warfare
Peter Pomerantsev: From Information to Disinformation Age – Russia and the Future of Propaganda Wars
Inside Russia’s propaganda machine
Russian propaganda war against West heats up | Moscow’s Version
The Propaganda of Propaganda
Inside the Democrats’ opposition research shop
12 Cognitive Biases Explained – How to Think Better and More Logically Removing Bias
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation Bias (explained in a minute) – Behavioural Finance
Scott Adams talks about the Comey fog of confirmation bias
Scott Adams talks about Putin and President Trump
Trump’s “Tools of Persuasion” according to Dilbert creator Scott Adams
Scott Adams says stop obstructing my witch hunt \ 2017.06.23
Scott Adams predicts what happens after the public realizes President Trump is effective
Democrats intentionally used disinformation from Russia to attack Trump, campaign aides
By Rowan Scarborough – The Washington Times – Tuesday, July 11, 2017
While the mainstream news media hunts for evidence of Trump–Russia collusion, the public record shows that Democrats have willfully used Moscow disinformation to influence the presidential election against Donald Trumpand attack his administration.
The disinformation came in the form of a Russian-fed dossier written by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. It contains a series of unverified criminal charges against Mr. Trump’s campaign aides, such as coordinating Moscow’s hacking of Democratic Party computers.
Some Democrats have widely circulated the discredited information. Mr. Steele was paid by the Democrat-funded opposition research firm Fusion GPS with money from a Hillary Clinton backer. Fusion GPS distributed the dossier among Democrats and journalists. The information fell into the hands of the FBI, which used it in part to investigate Mr. Trump’s campaign aides.
Mr. Steele makes clear that his unproven charges came almost exclusively from sources linked to the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He identified his sources as “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure,” a former “top level Russian intelligence officer active inside the Kremlin,” a “senior Kremlin official” and a “senior Russian government official.”
The same Democrats who have condemned Russia’s election interference via plying fake news and hacking email servers have quoted freely from the Steele anti-Trump memos derived from creatures of the Kremlin.
In other words, there is public evidence of significant, indirect collusion between Democrats and Russian disinformation, a Trump supporter said.
“If anyone colluded with the Russians, it was the Democrats,” said a former Trump campaign adviser who asked not to be identified because of the pending investigations. “After all, they’ve routinely shopped around false claims from the debunked Steele dossier, which listed sources including senior Kremlin officials. If anyone should be investigated in Washington, it ought to be Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Mark Warner and their staffers.”
That is a reference to Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Sen. Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; and Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California, Democrat on the House intelligence panel.
By his own admission, Mr. Steele’s work has proved unreliable.
As first reported by The Washington Times on April 25, Mr. Steele filed a document in a sealed court case in Londonacknowledging that a major dossier charge about hacking Democrats’ computers was unverified. The entire dossier never should have been made public and Fusion GPS should not have passed it around, Mr. Steele said in a filing defending himself against a libel charge.
About Carter Page
Other dossier targets vehemently deny the dirt thrown by the Kremlin sources.
Mr. Steele’s Russian sources accused Mr. Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, of attending a meeting with Russian agents in Prague to cover up their role in Moscow’s hacking. Mr. Cohen has said he has never been to Prague and was in California at the time.
One of the main targets of Mr. Steele’s Russian sources is Carter Page, who lived and worked in Moscow as a Merrill Lynch investor. He had loose ties to the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser and surrogate.
Mr. Steele’s Russian sources accused Mr. Page of a series of crimes: teaming up with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to help Russia hack Democratic computers, meeting in Moscow with two Putin cronies to plot against Mrs. Clinton and working out a shady brokerage deal with a Russian oligarch.
Mr. Page told The Washington Times that he has never met Mr. Manafort, knew nothing about Russian hacking when it was happening, never met the two Russians named by Mr. Steele and never completed the supposed investment deal.
The dossier accusations against Mr. Page surfaced during the campaign in a Yahoo News story, citing not Mr. Steelebut intelligence sources. It then went out on the U.S. government’s Voice of America.
In the meantime, the Clinton campaign used the Yahoo story to attack Mr. Trump: “Hillary for America Statement on Bombshell Report About Trump Aide’s Chilling Ties to Kremlin,” blared the Clinton campaign’s Sept. 23 press release.
Since the dossier was circulated widely among Democrats, Mr. Page said, he believes the Clinton team possessed it and relied on it based on what some of Mrs. Clinton’s surrogates said publicly.
“After the report by Yahoo News, the Clinton campaign put out an equally false press release just minutes after the article was released that afternoon,” said Mr. Page, who has tracked what he believes is a series of inaccurate stories and accusations against him.
“Of course, the [Clinton campaign representatives] were lying about it with the media nonstop for many months, and they’ve continued until this day,” Mr. Page said. “Both indirectly as they planted articles in the press and directly with many TV appearances.”
Even before the Yahoo story, then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, was using the Russian-sourced dossier.
On Aug. 27, with the campaign in high gear and knowledge that Russian hackers had penetrated Clinton campaign computers in the public domain, Mr. Reid released a letter to then-FBI Director James B. Comey.
Mr. Reid called for an investigation into Mr. Page’s trip to Moscow, where he supposedly “met with high-ranking sanctioned individuals. Any such meetings should be investigated and made part of the public record.”
Mr. Reid’s evidence surely came from the dossier and its Russian sources.
In the dossier, Mr. Steele clearly states that his anti-Trump accusations are from the Kremlin, which means some Democrats have been willingly repeating Moscow propaganda for public consumption in Washington.
No Democrats have embraced the Russian-sourced dossier more than members of the House intelligence committee, which is investigating Moscow’s interference in the election.
Mr. Schiff read from the dossier extensively at a March hearing featuring Mr. Comey and Navy Adm. Michael Rogers, who leads the National Security Agency.
As Mr. Schiff and other Democrats were bemoaning Kremlin activities against Mrs. Clinton, they were more than willing to quote Kremlin sources attacking Mr. Trump during the election campaign.
Mr. Schiff lauded Mr. Steele for disclosing that Rosneft, a Russian-owned gas and oil company, planned to sell a 19.5 percent share to an investor and that Mr. Page was offered a brokerage fee.
Trouble is, the 19.5 percent share was announced publicly by Moscow before Mr. Steele wrote that memo. Mr. Page said he was never involved in any talk about a commission.
Mr. Schiff was more than willing to quote Kremlin sources.
“According to Steele’s Russian sources, the campaign has offered documents damaging to Hillary Clinton, which the Russians would publish through an outlet that gives them deniability like WikiLeaks,” he said.
Mr. Schiff also said: “According to Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, who is reportedly held in high regard by U.S. intelligence, Russian sources tell him that Page has also had a secret meeting with Igor Sechin, CEO of the Russian gas giant, Rosneft. Sechin is reported to be a former KGB agent and close friend of Putin’s.”
Mr. Page has said repeatedly that he does not know Mr. Sechin and did not meet with him in Moscow.
Meanwhile, Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, another Democrat on the House committee, lauded Mr. Steele’s Kremlin sourcing.
“I want to take a moment to turn to the Christopher Steele dossier, which was first mentioned in the media just before the election and published in full by media outlets in January,” Mr. Castro said. “My focus today is to explore how many claims within Steele’s dossier are looking more and more likely, as though they are accurate.
“This is not someone who doesn’t know how to run a source and not someone without contacts. The allegations it raises about President Trump’s campaign aides’ connections to Russians, when overlaid with known established facts and timelines from the 2016 campaign, are very revealing,” he said.
Rep. Andre Carson, Indiana Democrat, said: “There’s a lot in the dossier that is yet to be proven, but increasingly as we’ll hear throughout the day, allegations are checking out.”
On MSNBC in March, Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, said she believed the dossier section on Mr. Trumpand supposed sex acts with prostitutes in Moscow were true.
“Oh, I think it should be taken a look at,” she said. “I think they should really read it, understand it, analyze it and determine what’s fact, what may not be fact. We already know that the part about the coverage that they have on him with sex actions is supposed to be true. They have said that that’s absolutely true. Some other things they kind of allude to. Yes, I think he should go into that dossier and see what’s there.”
Fusion GPS widely circulated the dossier during the presidential race. The public got its first glance when the news site BuzzFeed posted it online in January, with its editor saying he doubted it was true.
One person who says he knows it is a fabrication is Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev.
The dossier quotes Russian sources as saying Mr. Gubarev’s technology company, XBT, used botnets to flood Democratic computers with porn and spying devices.
Mr. Gubarev is suing Mr. Steele for libel in London and is suing BuzzFeed in Florida.
It is in the London case that Mr. Steele acknowledged that his memo on Mr. Gubarev was unverified.
The Trump Dossier Is Fake — And Here Are The Reasons Why
Paul Roderick Gregory ,
CONTRIBUTOR
A former British intelligence officer, who is now a director of a London private security-and-investigations firm, has been identified as the author of the dossier of unverified allegations about President-elect Donald Trump’s activities and connections in Russia, according to the Wall Street Journal. A Christopher Steele, a director of London-based private intelligence company, Orbis, purportedly prepared the dossier under contract to both Republican and Democratic adversaries of then-candidate Trump. The poor grammar and shaky spelling plus the author’s use of KGB-style intelligence reporting, however, do not fit the image of a high-end London security company run by highly connected former British intelligence figures.
The PDF file of the 30-page typewritten report alleges that high Kremlin officials colluded with Trump, offered him multi-billion dollar bribes, and accumulated compromising evidence of Trump’s sexual escapades in Russia. That the dossier comes from former British intelligence officers appears, at first glance, to give it weight especially with Orbis’ claim of a “global network.” The U.S. intelligence community purportedly has examined the allegations but have not confirmed any of them. We can wait till hell freezes over. The material is not verifiable.
President-elect Trump has dismissed the dossier’s contents as false as has the Kremlin. Trump is right: The Orbis dossier is fake news.
I have studied Russia and the Soviet Union professionally since the mid-1960s. I have visited Russia as a scholar, as the head of a multi-year petroleum legislation project, and as a business consultant close to one hundred times. My first visit was in 1965 shortly after Nikita Khrushchev’s removal. I have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in Russia, and I follow the Russian press regularly. I personally witnessed the creation in the early 90s of Russia’s giant energy concerns in the offices of the oil minister. I met with St. Petersburg officials in the early 90s but do not remember meeting then deputy mayor, Vladimir Putin. I have written and co-authored reports for the State Department, Congress, and the intelligence community; so I sort of know how these things work.
With the brief exception of the early to late 1990s, Russia has had a non-transparent system of rule that deliberately reveals little about itself. Both insiders and outsiders must look for subtle signs and signals. Russians and Russian experts are gossip junkies. They recite their tales of who is up and who is down to those foolish enough to listen. Outside researchers must grasp for flimsy straws to write their scholarly articles and books. Despite the greater openness of contemporary Russia, we are back to Kremlinology to learn how Putin’s kleptocracy works.
The Orbis report makes as if it knows all the ins-and-outs and comings-and-goings within Putin’s impenetrable Kremlin. It reports information from anonymous “trusted compatriots,” “knowledgeable sources,” “former intelligence officers,” and “ministry of foreign affairs officials.” The report gives a fly-on-the-wall account of just about every conceivable event associated with Donald Trump’s Russian connections. It claims to know more than is knowable as it recounts sordid tales of prostitutes, “golden showers,” bribes, squabbles in Putin’s inner circle, and who controls the dossiers of kompromat (compromising information).
There are two possible explanations for the fly-on-the-wall claims of the Orbis report: Either its author (who is not Mr. Steele) decided to write fiction, or collected enough gossip to fill a 30-page report, or a combination of the two. The author of the Orbis report has one more advantage: He knew that what he was writing was unverifiable. He advertises himself as the only Kremlin outsider with enough “reliable” contacts to explain what is really going within Putin’s office.
As someone who has worked for more than a decade with the microfilm collection of Soviet documents in the Hoover Institution Archives, I can say that the dossier itself was compiled by a Russian, whose command of English is far from perfect and who follows the KGB (now FSB) practice of writing intelligence reports, in particular the practice of capitalizing all names for easy reference. The report includes Putin’s inner circle – Peskov, Ivanov, Sechin, Lavrov. The anonymous author claims to have “trusted compatriots” who knew the roles that each Kremlin insider, including Putin himself, played in the Trump election saga and were prepared to tell him.
The Orbis report spins the tale of Putin insiders, spurred on by Putin himself, engaging in a five-year courtship of Donald Trump in which they offer him lucrative real estate deals that he rejects but leaves himself open to blackmail as a result of sexual escapades with prostitutes in St. Petersburg and Moscow (the famous “golden shower” incident). Despite his reluctance to enter into lucrative business deals, Trump “and his inner circle have accepted regular intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals,” according to the Orbis report.
This story makes no sense. In 2011, when the courtship purportedly begins, Trump was a TV personality and beauty pageant impresario. Neither in the U.S. or Russia would anyone of authority anticipate that Trump would one day become the presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party, making him the target of Russian intelligence.
The Orbis report claims, that as the election neared (July 2016), Igor Sechin, Putin’s right-hand man and CEO of Rosneft (Russia’s national oil company) offered Trump a deal that defies belief. I quote:
“Speaking to a trusted compatriot in mid-October 2015, a close associate of Rosneft President and PUTIN ally Igor SECHIN elaborated on the reported secret meeting between the latter and Carter PAGE, of US Republican presidential candidate’s foreign policy team, in Moscow in July 2016. The secret had been confirmed to him/her by a senior member of staff, in addition to the Rosneft President himself…Sechin’s associate said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate Western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.”
This story is utter nonsense, not worthy of a wacky conspiracy theory of an alien invasion.
To offer Trump either the entirety of, or a brokerage commission on, the market value of 19.5% of Rosneft shares—even a 6 percent commission on $12 billion worth of Rosneft shares would amount to an astonishing $720 million—would deplete the cash that Putin desperately needed for military spending and budget deficits, all in return for a promise to lift sanctions if—and what a big “if”—Trump were elected. Rosneft, as a public company, would have to conceal that the U.S. president was a party to this major transaction. This remarkable secret-of-secrets seems to be bandied about to an Orbis “trusted compatriot,” a senior member of Sechin’s staff, and disclosed by Sechin himself. I guess there are a lot of loose lips in Rosneft offices.
The story of the purported bribe was picked up by the Russian liberal press directly from the Orbis report without comment but with a big question marks in the title “A 10.5 billion Euro bribe? Putin and Sechin gifted Trump 19.5% of Rosneft shares? This story has given Putin’s weak opposition the chance to accuse him of wasting national treasure on a stupid bribe.
The huge bribe for (perhaps) lifting the sanctions makes Nikita Khrushchev’s hare-brained schemes—for which he was fired—look eminently reasonable.
One of the few verifiable facts in the Orbis report is the key role played by Trump’s “personal lawyer” Michael Cohen. Cohen purportedly took over the negotiation of the Sechin deal, and, when the Kremlin got cold feet over its hacking campaign, it turned to Cohen to cover up the operation, meet with the Kremlin’s Presidential Administration, and make illicit payments to shut up and move the hackers to Bulgaria. A key meeting was held in Prague in August of 2016 with Cohen accompanied by three colleagues. The meetings took place in the offices of a Russian quasi-state organization, Rossotrudnichestvo.
Cohen has denied any such meetings with the Kremlin Presidential administration and claims never to have visited Prague. According to the Orbis report, Cohen engaged in potential criminal activities, such as illicit payoffs to hackers and the buying of their silence. I doubt that he will let such accusations pass.
Another noteworthy claim of the Orbis report is that Vladimir Putin personally directed Russia’s intervention in the 2016 campaign: “The TRUMP operation was both supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Its aim was to sow discord both within the U.S. itself, but more especially within the Transatlantic alliance.” The Orbis report claims that Putin personally controlled the dossier compiled on Hillary Clinton and held by his spokesperson, Peskov. He ordered that any disposition of the Clinton file would be decided by him personally.
I have picked out just a few excerpts from the Orbis report. It was written, in my opinion, not by an ex British intelligence officer but by a Russian trained in the KGB tradition. It is full of names, dates, meetings, quarrels, and events that are hearsay (one an overheard conversation). It is a collection of “this important person” said this to “another important person.” There is no record; no informant is identified by name or by more than a generic title. The report appears to fail the veracity test in the one instance of a purported meeting in which names, dates, and location are provided. Some of the stories are so bizarre (the Rosneft bribe) that they fail the laugh test. Yet, there appears to be a desire on the part of some media and Trump opponents on both sides of the aisle to picture the Orbis report as genuine but unverifiable.
After reading the Orbis report I got the queasy feeling that it may have influenced the intelligence community’s unclassified report. Leaks of classified bits by NBCNews and the Washington Post suggest the findings were, in part, based on British intelligence and spies. I wonder if the reference is to Putin’s role, which the intelligence report characterized as direct. This is a matter the new administration must look into.
We have reached a sad state of affairs where an anonymous report, full of bizarre statements, captures the attention of the world media because it casts a shadow over the legitimacy of a President-elect, who has not even taken the oath of office. For example, the Trump dossier is tonight’s lead item on German state television and on BBC. False news has become America’s international export to the world media.
UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect the dual possibility that Trump was offered the brokerage commission of, or the entire value of, 19.5 percent of Rosneft shares.
Researchers say they’ve uncovered a disinformation campaign with apparent Russian link
A hacking campaign using “tainted leaks” targets opponents of the Kremlin. (Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)
By David FilipovMay 25
MOSCOW — Researchers have discovered an extensive international hacking campaign that steals documents from its targets, carefully modifies them and repackages them as disinformation aimed at undermining civil society and democratic institutions, according to a study released Thursday.The investigators say the campaign shows clear signs of a Russian link.Although the study by the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto does not demonstrate a direct tie to the Kremlin, it suggests that the attackers are aiming to discredit the Kremlin’s opponents. The report also demonstrates overlap with cyberattacks used in the U.S. and French presidential elections, which American and European intelligence agencies and cybersecurity companies have attributed to hacking groups affiliated with the Russian government.
The campaign has targeted more than 200 government officials, military leaders and diplomats from 39 countries, as well as journalists, activists, a former Russian prime minister and a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, according to the report. The attackers seek to hack into email accounts using phishing techniques, steal documents and slightly alter them while retaining the appearance of authenticity. These forgeries, which the researchers have dubbed “tainted leaks,” are then released along with unaltered documents and publicized as legitimate leaks.
“Tainted leaks plant fakes in a forest of facts in an attempt to make them credible by association with genuine, stolen documents,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. “Tainted leaks are a clever and concerning tool for spreading falsehoods. We expect to see many more of them in the future.”
(Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto)
The study details the hack in October of the email log-in details of David Satter, a renowned Kremlin critic who in 2016 published a book that links Putin’s rise to power with a series of deadly apartment bombings in Russia in 1999.
Hackers were able to access Satter’s emails when he clicked on what appeared to be a legitimate link, an attack that the study found to be technically similar to the 2016 breach of the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russian intelligence agencies carried out hacks against the Democratic Party on Putin’s orders, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.
In studying Satter’s case, the Citizen Lab investigators developed a technique to identify the other phishing links that were being sent as part of the same operation.
The study describes how the pro-Russian hacking group CyberBerkut posted Satter’s emails, some of them carefully altered to create a false narrative of a U.S. government plot to plant negative articles about Putin’s regime in the Russian media. These forgeries were then reported by Russia’s state news agency as evidence of a CIA plot to support a “color revolution” in Russia.
The narrative supports a consistent theme of pro-Putin media: that Russia suffers not because of its leadership’s refusal to loosen its grip on power, but because of constant meddling in Russian affairs by the United States and its European proxies.
“The motivations behind Russian cyberespionage are as much about securing Putin’s kleptocracy as they are geopolitical competition,” said Ronald Deibert, professor of political science and director of the Citizen Lab. “This means journalists, activists and opposition figures — both domestically and abroad — bear a disproportionate burden of their targeting.”
Mark Galeotti, who studies Russia’s power structures as a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague, called the use of tainted leaks “a step forward in Russia’s use of hacking as a weapon of political subversion.”
“In the case of the [Democratic National Committee] hacks, they leaked secret but real messages,” Galeotti said.
Galeotti said that “tainted leaks” are more likely to be used for domestic consumption, where the Kremlin is starting to feel the pressure from scattered, grass-roots protests, epitomized by the anti-corruption campaign of Alexei Navalny.
“While we’re not talking about the kind of critical mass likely to pose a challenge to Putin’s carefully orchestrated reelection in 2018, there is clearly a growing, generalized dissatisfaction across the country,” Galeotti said. “The attempts to paint Navalny and other critics as pawns of Western subversion suggest a degree of worry, even desperation.”
A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories
STOCKHOLM — With a vigorous national debate underway on whether Sweden should enter a military partnership with NATO, officials in Stockholm suddenly encountered an unsettling problem: a flood of distorted and outright false information on social media, confusing public perceptions of the issue.
The claims were alarming: If Sweden, a non-NATO member, signed the deal, the alliance would stockpile secret nuclear weapons on Swedish soil; NATO could attack Russia from Sweden without government approval; NATO soldiers, immune from prosecution, could rape Swedish women without fear of criminal charges.
They were all false, but the disinformation had begun spilling into the traditional news media, and as the defense minister, Peter Hultqvist, traveled the country to promote the pact in speeches and town hall meetings, he was repeatedly grilled about the bogus stories.
“People were not used to it, and they got scared, asking what can be believed, what should be believed?” said Marinette Nyh Radebo, Mr. Hultqvist’s spokeswoman.
As often happens in such cases, Swedish officials were never able to pin down the source of the false reports. But they, numerous analysts and experts in American and European intelligence point to Russia as the prime suspect, noting that preventing NATO expansion is a centerpiece of the foreign policy of President Vladimir V. Putin, who invaded Georgia in 2008 largely to forestall that possibility.
In Crimea, eastern Ukraine and now Syria, Mr. Putin has flaunted a modernized and more muscular military. But he lacks the economic strength and overall might to openly confront NATO, the European Union or the United States. Instead, he has invested heavily in a program of “weaponized” information, using a variety of means to sow doubt and division. The goal is to weaken cohesion among member states, stir discord in their domestic politics and blunt opposition to Russia.
“Moscow views world affairs as a system of special operations, and very sincerely believes that it itself is an object of Western special operations,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, who helped establish the Kremlin’s information machine before 2008. “I am sure that there are a lot of centers, some linked to the state, that are involved in inventing these kinds of fake stories.”
The planting of false stories is nothing new; the Soviet Union devoted considerable resources to that during the ideological battles of the Cold War. Now, though, disinformation is regarded as an important aspect of Russian military doctrine, and it is being directed at political debates in target countries with far greater sophistication and volume than in the past.
The flow of misleading and inaccurate stories is so strong that both NATO and the European Union have established special offices to identify and refute disinformation, particularly claims emanating from Russia.
The Kremlin’s clandestine methods have surfaced in the United States, too, American officials say, identifying Russian intelligence as the likely source of leaked Democratic National Committee emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The Kremlin uses both conventional media — Sputnik, a news agency, and RT, a television outlet — and covert channels, as in Sweden, that are almost always untraceable.
Russia exploits both approaches in a comprehensive assault, Wilhelm Unge, a spokesman for the Swedish Security Service, said this year when presenting the agency’s annual report. “We mean everything from internet trolls to propaganda and misinformation spread by media companies like RT and Sputnik,” he said.
The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of events — even the very idea that there is a true version of events — and foster a kind of policy paralysis.
Disinformation most famously succeeded in early 2014 with the initial obfuscation about deploying Russian forces to seize Crimea. That summer, Russia pumped out a dizzying array of theories about the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, blaming the C.I.A. and, most outlandishly, Ukrainian fighter pilots who had mistaken the airliner for the Russian presidential aircraft.
The cloud of stories helped veil the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had accidentally downed the plane with a missile supplied by Russia.
Moscow adamantly denies using disinformation to influence Western public opinion and tends to label accusations of either overt or covert threats as “Russophobia.”
“There is an impression that, like in a good orchestra, many Western countries every day accuse Russia of threatening someone,” Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a recent ministry briefing.
Tracing individual strands of disinformation is difficult, but in Sweden and elsewhere, experts have detected a characteristic pattern that they tie to Kremlin-generated disinformation campaigns.
“The dynamic is always the same: It originates somewhere in Russia, on Russia state media sites, or different websites or somewhere in that kind of context,” said Anders Lindberg, a Swedish journalist and lawyer.
“Then the fake document becomes the source of a news story distributed on far-left or far-right-wing websites,” he said. “Those who rely on those sites for news link to the story, and it spreads. Nobody can say where they come from, but they end up as key issues in a security policy decision.”
Although the topics may vary, the goal is the same, Mr. Lindberg and others suggested. “What the Russians are doing is building narratives; they are not building facts,” he said. “The underlying narrative is, ‘Don’t trust anyone.’”
The weaponization of information is not some project devised by a Kremlin policy expert but is an integral part of Russian military doctrine — what some senior military figures call a “decisive” battlefront.
“The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness,” Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces, wrote in 2013.
A prime Kremlin target is Europe, where the rise of the populist right and declining support for the European Union create an ever more receptive audience for Russia’s conservative, nationalistic and authoritarian approach under Mr. Putin. Last year, the European Parliament accused Russia of “financing radical and extremist parties” in its member states, and in 2014 the Kremlin extended an $11.7 million loan to the National Front, the extreme-right party in France.
“The Russians are very good at courting everyone who has a grudge with liberal democracy, and that goes from extreme right to extreme left,” said Patrik Oksanen, an editorial writer for the Swedish newspaper group MittMedia. The central idea, he said, is that “liberal democracy is corrupt, inefficient, chaotic and, ultimately, not democratic.”
Another message, largely unstated, is that European governments lack the competence to deal with the crises they face, particularly immigration and terrorism, and that their officials are all American puppets.
In Germany, concerns over immigrant violence grew after a 13-year-old Russian-German girl said she had been raped by migrants. A report on Russian state television furthered the story. Even after the police debunked the claim, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, continued to chastise Germany.
In Britain, analysts said, the Kremlin’s English-language news outlets heavily favored the campaign for the country to leave the European Union, despite their claims of objectivity.
In the Czech Republic, alarming, sensational stories portraying the United States, the European Union and immigrants as villains appear daily across a cluster of about 40 pro-Russia websites.
During NATO military exercises in early June, articles on the websites suggested that Washington controlled Europe through the alliance, with Germany as its local sheriff. Echoing the disinformation that appeared in Sweden, the reports said NATO planned to store nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe and would attack Russia from there without seeking approval from local capitals.
A poll this summer by European Values, a think tank in Prague, found that 51 percent of Czechs viewed the United States’ role in Europe negatively, that only 32 percent viewed the European Union positively and that at least a quarter believed some elements of the disinformation.
“The data show how public opinion is changing thanks to the disinformation on those outlets,” said Jakub Janda, the think tank’s deputy director for public and political affairs. “They try to look like a regular media outlet even if they have a hidden agenda.”
Not all Russian disinformation efforts succeed. Sputnik news websites in various Scandinavian languages failed to attract enough readers and were closed after less than a year.
Both RT and Sputnik portray themselves as independent, alternative voices. Sputnik claims that it “tells the untold,” even if its daily report relies heavily on articles abridged from other sources. RT trumpets the slogan “Question More.”
Both depict the West as grim, divided, brutal, decadent, overrun with violent immigrants and unstable. “They want to give a picture of Europe as some sort of continent that is collapsing,” Mr. Hultqvist, the Swedish defense minister, said in an interview.
RT often seems obsessed with the United States, portraying life there as hellish. On the day President Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention, for example, it emphasized scattered demonstrations rather than the speeches. It defends the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, as an underdog maligned by the established news media.
Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor in chief, said the channel was being singled out as a threat because it offered a different narrative from “the Anglo-American media-political establishment.” RT, she said, wants to provide “a perspective otherwise missing from the mainstream media echo chamber.”
Moscow’s targeting of the West with disinformation dates to a Cold War program the Soviets called “active measures.” The effort involved leaking or even writing stories for sympathetic newspapers in India and hoping that they would be picked up in the West, said Professor Mark N. Kramer, a Cold War expert at Harvard.
The story that AIDS was a C.I.A. project run amok spread that way, and it poisons the discussion of the disease decades later. At the time, before the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, the Kremlin was selling communism as an ideological alternative. Now, experts said, the ideological component has evaporated, but the goal of weakening adversaries remains.
In Sweden recently, that has meant a series of bizarre forged letters and news articles about NATO and linked to Russia.
One forgery, on Defense Ministry letterhead over Mr. Hultqvist’s signature, encouraged a major Swedish firm to sell artillery to Ukraine, a move that would be illegal in Sweden. Ms. Nyh Radebo, his spokeswoman, put an end to that story in Sweden, but at international conferences, Mr. Hultqvist still faced questions about the nonexistent sales.
Russia also made at least one overt attempt to influence the debate. During a seminar in the spring, Vladimir Kozin, a senior adviser to the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank linked to the Kremlin and Russian foreign intelligence, argued against any change in Sweden’s neutral status.
“Do they really need to lose their neutral status?” he said of the Swedes. “To permit fielding new U.S. military bases on their territory and to send their national troops to take part in dubious regional conflicts?”
Whatever the method or message, Russia clearly wants to win any information war, as Dmitry Kiselyev, Russia’s most famous television anchor and the director of the organization that runs Sputnik, made clear recently.
Speaking this summer on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Information Bureau, Mr. Kiselyev said the age of neutral journalism was over. “If we do propaganda, then you do propaganda, too,” he said, directing his message to Western journalists.
“Today, it is much more costly to kill one enemy soldier than during World War II, World War I or in the Middle Ages,” he said in an interview on the state-run Rossiya 24 network. While the business of “persuasion” is more expensive now, too, he said, “if you can persuade a person, you don’t need to kill him.”
Friday 28 April 2017 13.23 EDTLast modified on Tuesday 27 June 2017 08.37 EDT
The UK government was given details last December of allegedly extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow, according to court papers.
Reports by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer, on possible collusion between the the Trump camp and the Kremlin are at the centre of a political storm in the US over Moscow’s role in getting Donald Trump elected.
UK was given details of alleged contacts between Trump campaign and Moscow
In December the UK government was given reports by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele on possible collusion between Trump camp and the Kremlin
Friday 28 April 2017 13.23 EDTLast modified on Tuesday 27 June 2017 08.37 EDT
The UK government was given details last December of allegedly extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow, according to court papers.
Reports by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer, on possible collusion between the the Trump camp and the Kremlin are at the centre of a political storm in the US over Moscow’s role in getting Donald Trump elected.
It was not previously known that the UK intelligence services had also received the dossier but Steele confirmed in a court filing earlier this month that he handed a memorandum compiled in December to a “senior UK government national security official acting in his official capacity, on a confidential basis in hard copy form”.
The December memo alleged that four Trump representatives travelled to Prague in August or September in 2016 for “secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers”, about how to pay hackers secretly for penetrating Democratic party computer systems and “contingency plans for covering up operations”.
Between March and September, the December memo alleges, the hackers used botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs and steal data online from Democratic party leadership. Two of the hackers had been “recruited under duress by the FSB” the memo said. The hackers were paid by the Trump organisation, but were under the control of Vladimir Putin’s presidential administration.
Trump has rejected the allegations of collusion as a smear campaign. His lawyer, Michael Cohen, one of Trump representatives named in the memo, has described the claims in the memo as “totally fake, totally inaccurate”, and has said he had never been to Prague.
Since the memo became public in January, Steele had not spoken about his role in compiling it but he and his company, Orbis Business Intelligence Limited, have filed a defence in the high court of justice in London, in a defamation case brought by Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian venture capitalist and owner of a global computer technology company, XBT, and a Dallas-based subsidiary Webzilla.
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Gubarev, who was named along with his company in the December memo as being involved in hacking operation, has denied any such involvement and is also suing Buzzfeed in the US courts for publishing the December memo alongside Steele’s earlier reports on election hacking.
A statement by Steele’s defence lawyers, endorsed by the former MI6 agent, said Orbis was hired between June and November last year by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research consultancy to look into Trump’s links with Russia.
In that period, Steele produced 16 memoranda citing mostly Russian sources as describing a web of alleged contacts and collusion between Trump aides and Russian intelligence or other Kremlin representatives.
The document said that he passed the memos to Fusion on the understanding that Fusion would not disclose the material to any third parties without the approval of Steele and Orbis. They did agree to Fusion providing a copy to Senator John McCain after the veteran Republican had been told about the existence of Steele’s research by Sir Andrew Wood, a former UK ambassador to Moscow and an Orbis associate, at a conference in Canada on 8 November.
Senator McCain handed a copy of the Steele memos to James Comey, the FBI director, on 9 December.
After delivering these reports, the court papers say Steele and Orbis continued to receive “unsolicited intelligence” on Trump-Russia links, and Steele decided that to draw up another memo with this new information which was dated 13 December.
He handed one copy over to the senior British national security official and sent an encrypted version to Fusion with instructions to deliver a hard copy to Senator McCain.
The defence argues that Steele and Orbis were under a duty to pass on the information “so that it was known to the United Kingdom and United States governments at a high level by persons with responsibility for national security”.
Steele and Orbis say they never gave any copies to news organisations although Steele said he gave off-the-record briefings about the dossier to a small number of journalists in late summer and early autumn 2016. The defence brief argues that neither Steele nor Orbis is liable for Buzzfeed’s decision to print the document.
The Steele dossier was referred to in an intelligence briefing provided by the FBI and US intelligence agencies to Obama and Trump in January. Comey has confirmed that counter-intelligence investigations are under way into possible links between Trump associates and Moscow, and CNN has reported that the FBI used the dossier to bolster its investigations.
On Tuesday morning, there was a stunning development in the Trump-Russia scandal: Donald Trump Jr. confessed. In yet another bombshell story, the New York Times reported on emails showing that the president’s oldest son had eagerly accepted an offer of help during the 2016 campaign from what he understood to be the Russian government. Trump Jr., the Times disclosed, had set up a meeting with a Russian attorney in the hopes of receiving derogatory information on Hillary Clinton straight from Putin’s regime. As the Times was publishing this story, Trump Jr. tweeted out those same emails.
The emails reveal that top Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner attended the meeting and suggest that all three Trump advisers colluded in what seemed to be a Russian government-backed attempt to hurt Clinton in order to help Trump win the presidency. This new development contradicts the long series of denials from Trump defenders who have claimed that there was no collusion, that there was no evidence Russian leader Vladimir Putin wanted Trump to win, and that the Trump-Russia affair is merely a hoax perpetuated by loser Democrats and fake news outlets.
The Trump Jr. emails also provide partial support for someinformation within the Steele dossier.
The Steele memos, which Mother Jones first reported on a week before Election Day, were compiled during the campaign by a former British intelligence officer named Christopher David Steele, who was hired by a Washington, DC, research firm retained to unearth information on Trump. The documents contained troubling allegations about Trump and his connections to Russia and relayed unverifiedsalacious information about the candidate. The first memo, dated June 20 and based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, stated, “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.” It asserted that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.”
Steele made the memos available to the FBI during the campaign, and the bureau investigated some of the information they contained.
The memos made headlines after the election, when CNN reported that Trump, as president-elect, and President Barack Obama had been told about their contents during briefings on the intelligence community’s assessment that Putin had mounted a covert operation during the campaign to hack Democratic targets and disseminate stolen emails in order to benefit Trump.
Trump and his supporters have denounced the Steele memos as unsubstantiated trash, with some Trump backers concocting various conspiracy theories about them. Indeed, key pieces of the information within the memos have been challenged. But the memos were meant to be working documents produced by Steele—full of investigative leads and tips to follow—not finished reports, vetted and confirmed.
One interesting element of the Donald Trump Jr. emails now in the news is that they track with parts of the Steele memos.
In that first memo, dated June 20, Steele wrote that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” The Trump Jr. email chain began on June 3, 2016. This was shortly after Trump had secured the Republican presidential nomination. It was that day that Rob Goldstone, a talent manager for a middling pop-star named Emin Agaralov, contacted Trump Jr. and said Emin’s father, Aras Agalarov, a Putin-friendly billionaire developer, had met with the “crown prosecutor of Russia,” who offered to provide the Trump campaign with negative information on Clinton. The Agalarovs and Goldstone had a close relationship to the Trumps, because they all had worked together in 2013 to bring the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time, to Moscow. (Part of the deal was that Emin would get to perform two songs.) Following that event, both Trumps worked with both Agalarovs to develop a major project in Moscow. (It never happened.)
This email from Goldstone to Trump Jr. led to a meeting six days later, where a Kremlin-connected Russian attorney spoke to Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort about negative information on Clinton. In a statement, Trump Jr. says that what she offered was vague and meaningless, suggesting there was nothing to it. (But Trump Jr. has dissembled repeatedly about this meeting.)
Let’s turn to Steele’s June 20 memo. It stated:
Source A confided that the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, for several years…This was confirmed by Source D, a close associate of TRUMP who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow, and who reported, also in June 2016, that this Russian intelligence had been “very helpful”.
The memo also reported that there was anti-Clinton information that Putin was sitting on:
A dossier of compromising material on Hillary CLINTON has been collated by the Russian intelligence services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls rather than any embarrassing conduct. The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV, directly on PUTIN’s orders. However it has not as yet been distributed abroad, including to TRUMP. Russian intentions for its deployment still unclear.
There has been no confirmation that Putin steadily fed information to Trump’s camp or that a Kremlin-controlled anti-Clinton dossier existed. But one of Steele’s overarching points in this memo was that Putin’s regime was funneling derogatory Clinton material to Trump. The Trump Jr. emails suggest that the Russian government was aiming to do that and that the Trump campaign was willing and eager to receive assistance from Putin. So Donald Trump Jr. has done what Steele could not: produce evidence that the Trump campaign was—or wanted to be—in cahoots with a foreign adversary to win the White House.
Donald Trump–Russia dossier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is part of
a series about Donald Trump
The dossier primarily discusses possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The media and the intelligence community have stressed that accusations in the dossier have not been verified. Most experts have treated the dossier with caution, but in February, it was reported that some details related to conversations between foreign nationals had been independently corroborated, giving U.S. intelligence and law enforcement greater confidence in some aspects of the dossier as investigations continued. Trump himself has denounced the report, calling it “fake news” and “phony.”
The dossier was produced as part of opposition research during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The research was initially funded by Republicans who did not want Trump to be the Republican Party nominee for president. After Trump won the primaries, a Democratic client took over the funding; and, following Trump’s election, Steele continued working on the report pro bono and passed on the information to British and American intelligence services.
The 35-page dossier claims that Russia is in possession of damaging or embarrassing information about Trump which could be used for purposes of blackmail to get Trump to cooperate with the Russian government.[2] The material includes allegations about Trump’s sexual and financial dealings in Russia.[3] The dossier further alleges that Trump has been cultivated and supported by Russia for at least five years, with Putin’s endorsement, with the overall aim of creating divisions between Western alliances; that Trump has extensive ties to Russia; and that there had been multiple contacts between Russian officials and people working for Trump during the campaign.[2][4]
History
Creation of the dossier
According to reports, the dossier was created as part of opposition research on Trump. The investigation into Trump was initially funded by “Never Trump” Republicans and later by Democrats.[5][6][7] In September 2015, a wealthy Republican donor who opposed Trump’s candidacy in the Republican primary hired Fusion GPS, an American research firm, to do opposition research on Trump. For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee in May 2016, the Republican donor withdrew and the investigation contract was taken over by an unidentified Democratic client.[7][8]
In June 2016 it was revealed that the Democratic National Committee website had been hacked by Russian sources, so Fusion GPS hired Orbis Business Intelligence, a private British intelligence firm, to look into any Russian connections.[7] The investigation was undertaken by Orbis co-founder Christopher Steele, a retired British MI6 officer with expertise in Russian matters. Steele delivered his report as a series of two- or three-page memos, starting in June 2016 and continuing through December. He continued his investigation even after the Democratic client stopped paying for it following Trump’s election.[7]
On his own initiative, Steele decided to also pass the information to British and American intelligence services because he believed the findings were a matter of national security for both countries.[9] However, he became frustrated with the FBI, which he believed was failing to investigate his reports, choosing instead to focus on the Hillary Clinton’s email investigation. According to The Independent, Steele came to believe that there was a “cabal” inside the FBI, particularly its New York field office linked to Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani, which blocked any attempts to investigate the links between Trump and Russia.[9] In October 2016, Steele passed on what he discovered so far to a reporter from Mother Jones magazine.
Shortly after the presidential election, Senator John McCain, who had been informed about the alleged links between Kremlin and Trump, met with former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood. Wood confirmed the existence of the dossier and vouched for Steele.[9] McCain obtained the dossier from David J. Kramer and took it directly to FBI director James Comey on December 9, 2016.[7][6]
In a court filing in April 2017, Steele revealed previously unreported information that in December 2016 he gave one more report to “the senior British national security official and sent an encrypted version to Fusion with instructions to deliver a hard copy to Senator McCain.” This memo, dated December 13, detailed possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. It described secret discussions between four named Trump representatives, Kremlin representatives, and associated operators/hackers about how to secretly pay the hackers who penetrated the DNC computer system and also how to cover up the operation. Although paid by the Trump organisation, the hackers were controlled by Putin’s administration. “Comey has confirmed that counter-intelligence investigations are under way into possible links between Trump associates and Moscow, and CNN has reported that the FBI used the dossier to bolster its investigations.”[10]
Early indications of the dossier’s existence
By Fall 2016, many news organizations knew about the existence of the dossier, which had been described as an “open secret” among journalists. However, they chose not to publish information that could not be confirmed.[7] Finally on October 31, 2016, a week before the election, Mother Jones reported that a former intelligence officer, whom they did not name, had produced a report based on Russian sources and turned it over to the FBI.[11] The report alleged that the Russian government had cultivated Trump for years:
The “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.” It maintained that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” It claimed that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.”[11]
The report further alleged that there were multiple in-person meetings between Russian government officials and individuals established as working for Trump.[12][13] The former intelligence officer continued to share information with the FBI, and said in October 2016 that “there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on.”[11]
In October 2016 the FBI reached an agreement with Steele to pay him to continue his work, according to involved sources reported by The Washington Post. “Steele was known for the quality of his past work and for the knowledge he had developed over nearly 20 years working on Russia-related issues for British intelligence.” The FBI found Steele credible and his unproved information worthy enough that it considered paying Steele to continue collecting information, but the release of the document to the public stopped discussions between Steele and the FBI.[14]
Trump and Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier by the chiefs of several U.S. intelligence agencies in early January 2017. Vice President Joe Biden has confirmed that he and the president had received briefings on the dossier, and the allegations within.[15][8][16][17]
Public release
On January 10, 2017, CNN reported that classified documents presented to Obama and Trump the previous week included allegations that Russian operatives possess “compromising personal and financial information” about Trump. CNN stated that it would not publish specific details on the memos because it had not “independently corroborated the specific allegations.”[18][19] Following the CNN report,[20]BuzzFeed published a 35-page dossier that it said was the basis of the briefing, including unverified claims that Russian operatives had collected “embarrassing material” involving Trump that could be used to blackmail him.[21][22][19][23] NBC reported that a senior U.S. intelligence official said that Trump had not been previously briefed on the contents of the memos,[24] although a CNN report said that a statement released by James Clapper in early January confirmed that the synopsis existed and had been compiled for Trump.[25]
Many news organizations knew about the document in the fall of 2016, before the presidential election, but refused to publish it because they could not independently verify the information.[26] BuzzFeed was harshly criticized for publishing what Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan called “scurrilous allegations dressed up as an intelligence report meant to damage Donald Trump”[27] while The New York Times noted that the publication sparked a debate centering on the use of unsubstantiated information from anonymous sources.[28] BuzzFeed’s executive staff said the materials were newsworthy because they were “in wide circulation at the highest levels of American government and media” and argued that this justified public release.[29]
Authorship
When CNN reported the existence of the dossier on January 10, 2017,[30] it did not name the author of the dossier, but revealed that he was British. Steele concluded that his anonymity had been “fatally compromised” and realized it was “only a matter of time until his name became public knowledge,” and, accompanied by his family, he fled into hiding in fear of “a prompt and potentially dangerous backlash against him from Moscow.”[31][32][5]The Wall Street Journal revealed Steele’s name the next day, on January 11.[33] Christopher Burrows, director of Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, for whom Steele worked at the time the dossier was authored, and Orbis would not “confirm or deny” that Orbis had produced the dossier.[30][7]
Called by the media a “highly regarded Kremlin expert” and “one of MI6’s greatest ‘Russia specialists”, Steele formerly worked for the British intelligence agency MI6 and is currently working for Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, a private intelligence company Steele had co-founded in London.[34][33][35] Steele entered the MI6 in 1987, directly after his graduation from college.[36]
Former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood has vouched for Steele’s reputation.[9] He views Steele as a “very competent professional operator… I take the report seriously. I don’t think it’s totally implausible.” He also stated that “the report’s key allegation – that Trump and Russia’s leadership were communicating via secret back channels during the presidential campaign – was eminently plausible.”[37]
On December 26, 2016, Oleg Erovinkin, a former KGB/FSB general, was found dead in his car in Moscow. Erovinkin was a key liaison between Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, and President Putin. Steele claimed much of the information came from a source close to Sechin. According to Christo Grozev, a journalist at Risk Management Lab, a think-tank based in Bulgaria, the circumstances of Erovinkin’s death were “mysterious”. Grozev suspected Erovinkin helped Steele compile the dossier on Trump and suggests the hypothesis that the death may have been part of a cover-up by the Russian government.[38][39]Mark Galeotti, senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague, who specializes in Russian history and security, rejected Grozev’s hypothesis.[40][38]
On March 7, 2017, as some members of the U.S. Congress were expressing interest in meeting with or hearing testimony from Steele, he reemerged after weeks in hiding, appearing publicly on camera and stating, “I’m really pleased to be back here working again at the Orbis’s offices in London today.”[41]
Veracity of the dossier
Observers and experts have had varying reactions to the dossier. Generally, “former intelligence officers and other national-security experts” urged “skepticism and caution” but still took “the fact that the nation’s top intelligence officials chose to present a summary version of the dossier to both President Obama and President-elect Trump” as an indication “that they may have had a relatively high degree of confidence that at least some of the claims therein were credible, or at least worth investigating further.”[42]
Vice President Biden told reporters that while he and President Obama were receiving a briefing on the extent of Russian hackers trying to influence the US election, there was a two-page addendum which addressed the contents of the Steele Dossier.[43] Top intelligence officials told them they “felt obligated to inform them about uncorroborated allegations about President-elect Donald Trump out of concern the information would become public and catch them off-guard.”[44]
According to Paul Wood of BBC News, the information in Steele’s report is also reported by “multiple intelligence sources” and “at least one East European intelligence service.” They report that there is “more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg.”[45][33] He added that “the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat—or compromising material— on the next US commander in chief” and “a joint taskforce, which includes the CIA and the FBI, has been investigating allegations that the Russians may have sent money to Mr Trump’s organisation or his election campaign.”[46][47][45]On March 30, 2017, Wood revealed that the FBI was using the dossier as a roadmap for its investigation.[48] On April 18, 2017, CNN reported that corroborated information from the dossier had been used as part of the basis for getting the FISA warrant to monitor former Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page during the summer of 2016.[49]
Former Los Angeles Times Moscow correspondent Robert Gillette wrote in an op-ed in the Concord Monitor that the dossier has had at least one of its main factual assertions verified. On January 6, 2017, the Director of National Intelligence released a report assessing “with high confidence” that Russia’s combined cyber and propaganda operation was directed personally by Vladimir Putin, with the aim of harming Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and helping Trump.[50] Gillette wrote: “Steele’s dossier, paraphrasing multiple sources, reported precisely the same conclusion, in greater detail, six months earlier, in a memo dated June 20.”[51]
Susan Hennessey, a former National Security Administration lawyer now with the Brookings Institution, stated: “My general take is that the intelligence community and law enforcement seem to be taking these claims seriously. That itself is highly significant. But it is not the same as these allegations being verified. Even if this was an intelligence community document—which it isn’t—this kind of raw intelligence is still treated with skepticism.”[42][52] Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes wrote that “the current state of the evidence makes a powerful argument for a serious public inquiry into this matter.”[52]
Former CIA analyst Patrick Skinner said that he is “neither dismissing the report nor taking its claims at face value,” telling Wired: “I imagine a lot more will come out, and much will be nothing and perhaps some of it will be meaningful, and perhaps even devastating.”[42] Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov writes that while “many of the report’s elements appear hastily compiled”, and there were many “shaky” claims, the document “rings frighteningly true” and “overall … reflects accurately the way decision-making in the Kremlin looks to close observers.”[53] Soldatov writes: “Unverifiable sensational details aside, the Trump dossier is a good reflection of how things are run in the Kremlin – the mess at the level of decision-making and increasingly the outsourcing of operations, combined with methods borrowed from the KGB and the secret services of the lawless 1990s.”[53]
Newsweek published a list of “13 things that don’t add up” in the dossier, writing that the document was a “strange mix of the amateur and the insightful” and stating that the document “contains lots of Kremlin-related gossip that could indeed be, as the author claims, from deep insiders—or equally gleaned” from Russian newspapers and blogs.[54] Former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton stated that certain aspects of the dossier were inconsistent with British intelligence’s understanding of how the Kremlin works, commenting: “I’ve seen quite a lot of intelligence on Russia, and there are some things in [the dossier] which look pretty shaky.”[55]
On February 10, 2017, CNN reported that some communications between “senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals” described in the dossier had been corroborated by multiple U.S. officials. Sources told CNN that some conversations had been “intercepted during routine intelligence gathering”, but refused to reveal the content of conversations, or specify which communications were detailed in the dossier. CNN was unable to confirm whether conversations were related to Trump. U.S. officials said the corroboration gave “US intelligence and law enforcement ‘greater confidence’ in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents”.[56]
According to Business Insider, the dossier alleges that “the Trump campaign agreed to minimize US opposition to Russia’s incursions into Ukraine”.[57] In July 2016, the Republican National Convention made changes to the Republican Party’s platform on Ukraine: initially they proposed providing “lethal weapons” to Ukraine, but the line was changed to “appropriate assistance”. J. D. Gordon, who was one of Trump’s national security advisers during the campaign, said that he had advocated for changing language because that reflected what Trump had said.[57][58]
Responses
Donald Trump called the dossier “fake news” and criticized the intelligence and media sources that published it.[59] During a press conference on January 11, 2017, Trump denounced the unsubstantiated claims as false, saying that it was “disgraceful” for U.S. intelligence agencies to report them. Trump refused to answer a question from CNN’s senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta on the subject and called CNN “fake news.” In response, CNN said that it had published “carefully sourced reporting” on the matter which had been “matched by the other major news organizations,” as opposed to BuzzFeed‘s posting of “unsubstantiated materials.”[60][20]James Clapper described the leaks as damaging to US national security.[61] This also contradicted Trump’s previous claim that Clapper said the information was false; Clapper’s statement actually said the intelligence community has made no judgement on the truth or falsity of the information.[62]
Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov insisted in an interview that the document is a fraud, saying “I can assure you that the allegations in this funny paper, in this so-called report, they are untrue. They are all fake.”[63] The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, called the people who leaked the document “worse than prostitutes”[64] and referred to the dossier itself as “rubbish.”[65] Putin went on to state he believed that the dossier was “clearly fake,”[66]fabricated as a plot against the legitimacy of President-elect Donald Trump.[67]
Some of Steele’s former colleagues expressed support for his character, saying “The idea his work is fake or a cowboy operation is false – completely untrue. Chris is an experienced and highly regarded professional. He’s not the sort of person who will simply pass on gossip.”[68]
Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen, in a denial of some allegations, said “I’m telling you emphatically that I’ve not been to Prague, I’ve never been to Czech [Republic], I’ve not been to Russia. The story is completely inaccurate, it is fake news meant to malign Mr. Trump.”[69] Cohen said that between August 23–29 he was in Los Angeles. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “A Czech intelligence source told the Respekt magazine that there is no record of Cohen arriving in Prague by plane, although the news weekly pointed out he could have traveled by car or train from a nearby EU country, avoiding passport control under Schengen zone travel rules.”[70]
Among journalists, Bob Woodward called the dossier a “garbage document,” while Carl Bernstein took the opposite view, noting that the senior-most U.S. intelligence officials had determined that the content was worth reporting to the president and the president-elect.[71]
Ynet, an Israeli online news site, reported on January 12 that U.S. intelligence advised Israeli intelligence officers to be cautious about sharing information with the incoming Trump administration, until the possibility of Russian influence over Trump, suggested by Steele’s report, has been fully investigated.[72]
Aleksej Gubarev, chief of technology company XBT and a figure mentioned in the dossier, sued BuzzFeed for defamation on February 3, 2017. The suit, filed in a Broward County, Florida court,[73] centers on allegations from the dossier that XBT had been “using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct ‘altering operations’ against the Democratic Party leadership.”[74] In the High Court of Justice, Steele’s lawyers said that their client did not intend for the memos to be released, and that one of the memos “needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified.”[75]
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to CNN’s report of February 10, of a partial corroboration of the dossier, by saying, “We continue to be disgusted by CNN’s fake news reporting.”[56]
On March 2, 2017, media began reporting that the Senate may call Steele to testify about the Trump dossier.[76]
On March 27, 2017, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley asked the Department of Justice to initiate an inquiry into Fusion GPS, who initially retained Steele to write the dossier.[77] Fusion GPS was previously associated with pro-Russia lobbying activities due to sanctions imposed by the Magnitsky Act. Grassley’s committee made direct inquiries of Fusion GPS: “When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics.”[78] The other basis for Grassley’s concern is the fact that Fusion GPS was working as a pro-Russia lobbyist at the same time it had retained Steele to research and write the Trump dossier.[79] Grassley was concerned that the FBI was improperly using the dossier as the basis for an investigation into Russian influence of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[77]
In political jargon, a useful idiot is a person perceived as a propagandist for a cause the goals of which they are not fully aware of, and who is used cynically by the leaders of the cause.
Usage in Russian
In the Russian language, the equivalent term “useful fools” (Russian: полезные дураки, tr.polezniye duraki) was already in use in 1941. It was mockingly used against Russian “nihilists” of 1860s who, for Polish agents, were said to be no more than “useful fools and silly enthusiasts”.[1] The phrase is often attributed to Lenin in the West, and by some Russian writers including Vladimir Bukovsky in 1984.[2] However, in a 1987 article, American journalist William Safire noted that a Library of Congress librarian had not been able to find the phrase in Lenin’s works.[3] The book They Never Said It also suggests the attribution is false.[4]
Usage in English
In the memoir of actor Alexander Granach, the phrase was used in the description of a boyhood incident in a shtetl in Western Ukraine.[5]
In June 1948, The New York Times used the term in an article on contemporary Italian politics, citing the social-democratic Italian paper L’Umanità.[6] In January 1958, Time magazine started to use the phrase.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
In 2016, the term was used by the Editorial Board of The New York Times to describe President-electDonald Trump.[13]Michael Hayden, former NSA director and former CIA director, described Trump as a polezni durak, translating the term as “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited”.[14]
Useful innocents
A similar term, useful innocents, appears in Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises‘ “Planned Chaos” (1947). Von Mises claims the term was used by communists for liberals that von Mises describes as “confused and misguided sympathizers”.[15] The term useful innocents also appears in a Readers Digest article (1946) titled “Yugoslavia’s Tragic Lesson to the World”, authored by Bogdan Raditsa (Bogdan Radica), a “high ranking official of the Yugoslav Government”. Raditsa says: “In the Serbo-Croat language the communists have a phrase for true democrats who consent to collaborate with them for ‘democracy.’ It is Korisne Budale, or Useful Innocents.”[16] Although Raditsa translates the phrase as “Useful Innocents”, the word budala (plural: budale) actually translates as “fool” and synonyms thereof.
The French equivalent, “Innocents utiles” or Useful innocents, was used in a newspaper article title in 1946.[17][18]
The FSB is mainly responsible for internal security of the Russian state, counterespionage, and the fight against organized crime, terrorism, and drug smuggling. Since 2003, when the Federal Border Guards Service was incorporated to the FSB, it has also been responsible for overseeing border security.[1] The FSB is engaged mostly in domestic affairs, while espionage duties are responsibility of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. However, the FSB also includes the FAPSI agency, which conducts electronic surveillance abroad. All law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Russia work under the guidance of FSB, if needed.[1]
Under Article 32 of the Federal Constitutional Law On the Government of the Russian Federation,[2] the FSB head answers directly to the RF president and the FSB director is the RF president’s appointment, though he is a member of the RF government which is headed by the Chairman of Government; he also, ex officio, is a permanent member of the Security Council of Russia presided over by the president and chairman of the National Anti-terrorism Committee of Russia.
FSB medal for “distinguished military service”. The FSB had overall command of the federal forces in Chechnya in 2001–2003.
In 1995, the FSK was renamed and reorganized into the Federal Security Service (FSB) by the Federal Law of 3 April 1995, “On the Organs of the Federal Security Service in the Russian Federation”.[6] The FSB reforms were rounded out by decree No. 633, signed by Boris Yeltsin on 23 June 1995. The decree made the tasks of the FSB more specific, giving the FSB substantial rights to conduct cryptographic work, and described the powers of the FSB director. The number of deputy directors was increased to 8: 2 first deputies, 5 deputies responsible for departments and directorates and 1 deputy director heading the Moscow City and Moscow regional directorate. Yeltsin appointed Colonel-General Mikhail Ivanovich Barsukov as the new director of the FSB. In 1998 Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin, a KGB veteran who would later succeed Yeltsin as federal president, as director of the FSB.[7] Putin was reluctant to take over the directorship, but once appointed conducted a thorough reorganization, which included the dismissal of most of the FSB’s top personnel.[1] Putin appointed Nikolai Patrushev as the head of FSB in 1999.[5]
Role in the Second Chechen War
After the main military offensive of the Second Chechen War ended and the separatists changed tactics to guerilla warfare, overall command of the federal forces in Chechnya was transferred from the military to the FSB in January 2001. While the army lacked technical means of tracking the guerrilla groups, the FSB suffered from insufficient human intelligence due to its inability to build networks of agents and informants. In the autumn of 2002, the separatists launched a massive campaign of terrorism against the Russian civilians, including the Dubrovka theatre attack. The inability of the federal forces to conduct efficient counter-terrorist operations led to the government to transfer the responsibility of “maintaining order” in Chechnya from the FSB to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in July 2003.[8]
Putin reforms
President Putin meeting with Director of FSB Nikolai Patrushev on 9 August 2000
After becoming President, Vladimir Putin launched a major reorganization of the FSB. First, the FSB maybe was placed under direct control of the President by a decree issued on 17 May 2000.[5] Internal structure of the agency was reformed by a decree signed on 17 June 2000. In the resulting structure, the FSB was to have a director, a first deputy director and nine other deputy directors, including one possible state secretary and the chiefs of six departments: Economic Security Department, Counterintelligence Department, Organizational and Personnel Service, Department of activity provision, Department for Analysis, Forecasting and Strategic Planning, Department for Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight against Terrorism. In 2003, the agency’s responsibilities were considered considerably widened. The Border Guard Service of Russia, with its staff of 210,000, was integrated to the FSB via a decree was signed on 11 March 2003. The merger was completed by 1 July 2003. In addition, The Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information (FAPSI) was abolished and the FSB was granted a major part of its functions, while other parts went to the Ministry of Defense.[5] Among the reasons for this strengthening of the FSB were enhanced need for security after increased terror attacks against Russian civilians starting from the Moscow theater hostage crisis; the need to end the permanent infighting between the FSB, FAPSI and the Border Guards due to their overlapping functions and the need for more efficient response to migration, drug trafficking and illegal arms trading. It has also been pointed out, that the FSB was the only power base of the new president, and the restructuring therefore strengthened Putin’s position (see Political groups under Vladimir Putin’s presidency).[5] On 28 June 2004 in a speech to high-ranking FSB officers, Putin emphasized three major tasks of the agency: neutralizing foreign espionage, safeguarding economic and financial security of the country and combating organized crime.[5] In September 2006, the FSB was shaken by a major reshuffle, which, combined with some earlier reassignments (most remarkably, those of FSB Deputy Directors Yury Zaostrovtsev and Vladimir Anisimov in 2004 and 2005, respectively), were widely believed to be linked to the Three Whales Corruption Scandal that had slowly unfolded since 2000. Some analysts considered it to be an attempt to undermine FSB Director Nikolay Patrushev‘s influence, as it was Patrushev’s team from the Karelian KGB Directorate of the late 1980s – early 1990s that had suffered most and he had been on vacations during the event.[9][10][11]
By 2008, the agency had one Director, two First Deputy Directors and 5 Deputy Directors. It had the following 9 divisions:[5]
Counter-Espionage
Service for Defense of Constitutional Order and Fight against Terrorism
Border Service
Economic Security Service
Current Information and International Links
Organizational and Personnel Service
Monitoring Department
Scientific and Technical Service
Organizational Security Service
Fight against terrorism
FSB special forces members during a special operation in Makhachkala, as a result of which “one fighter was killed and two terrorist attacks prevented” in 2010.
Starting from the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002, Russia was faced with increased levels of Islamist terrorism. The FSB, being the main agency responsible for counter-terrorist operations, was in the front line in the fight against terror. During the Moscow theater siege and the Beslan school siege, FSB’s Spetsnaz units Alpha Group and Vympel played a key role in the hostage release operations. However, their performance was criticised due to the high number of hostage casualties. In 2006, the FSB scored a major success in its counter-terrorist efforts when it successfully killed Shamil Basayev, the mastermind behind the Beslan tragedy and several other high-profile terrorist acts. According to the FSB, the operation was planned over six months and made possible due to the FSB’s increased activities in foreign countries that were supplying arms to the terrorists. Basayev was tracked via the surveillance of this arms trafficking. Basayev and other militants were preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in Ingushetia when FSB agents destroyed their convoy; 12 militants were killed.[12][13] During the last years of the Vladimir Putin‘s second presidency (2006–2008), terrorist attacks in Russia dwindled, falling from 257 in 2005 to 48 in 2007. Military analyst Vitaly Shlykov praised the effectiveness of Russia’s security agencies, saying that the experience learned in Chechnya and Dagestan had been key to the success. In 2008, the American Carnegie Endowment‘s Foreign Policy magazine named Russia as “the worst place to be a terrorist” and highlighted especially Russia’s willingness to prioritize national security over civil rights.[14] By 2010, Russian forces, led by the FSB, had managed to eliminate out the top leadership of the Chechen insurgency, except for Dokka Umarov.[15]
Increased terrorism and expansion of the FSB’s powers
Starting from 2009, the level of terrorism in Russia increased again. Particularly worrisome was the increase of suicide attacks. While between February 2005 and August 2008, no civilians were killed in such attacks, in 2008 at least 17 were killed and in 2009 the number rose to 45.[16] In March 2010, Islamist militants organised the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings, which killed 40 people. One of the two blasts took place at Lubyanka station, near the FSB headquarters. Militant leader Doku Umarov—dubbed “Russia’s Osama Bin Laden”—took responsibility for the attacks. In July 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev expanded the FSB’s powers in its fight against terrorism. FSB officers received the power to issue warnings to citizens on actions that could lead to committing crimes and arrest people for 15 days if they fail to comply with legitimate orders given by the officers. The bill was harshly criticized by human rights organizations.[17]
Role
Counterintelligence
In 2011, the FSB said it had exposed 199 foreign spies, including 41 professional spies and 158 agents employed by foreign intelligence services.[18] The number has risen in recent years: in 2006 the FSB reportedly caught about 27 foreign intelligence officers and 89 foreign agents.[19] Comparing the number of exposed spies historically, the then-FSB Director Nikolay Kovalyov said in 1996: “There has never been such a number of spies arrested by us since the time when German agents were sent in during the years of World War II.” The 2011 figure is similar to what was reported in 1995–1996, when around 400 foreign intelligence agents were uncovered during the two-year period.[20] In a high-profile case of foreign espionage, the FSB said in February 2012 that an engineer working at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia’s main space center for military launches, had been sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of state treason. A court judged that the engineer had sold information about testing of new Russian strategic missile systems to the American CIA.[21] An increasing number of scientists have been accused of espionage and illegal technology exports by the FSB during the last decade: researcher Igor Sutyagin,[22] physicist Valentin Danilov,[23] physical chemist Oleg Korobeinichev,[24] academician Oskar Kaibyshev,[25] and physicist Yury Ryzhov.[26] Ecologist and journalist Alexander Nikitin, who worked with the Bellona Foundation, was accused of espionage. He published material exposing hazards posed by the Russian Navy’s nuclear fleet. He was acquitted in 1999 after spending several years in prison (his case was sent for re-investigation 13 times while he remained in prison). Other cases of prosecution are the cases of investigative journalist and ecologist Grigory Pasko,[27][28]Vladimir Petrenko who described danger posed by military chemical warfare stockpiles, and Nikolay Shchur, chairman of the Snezhinskiy Ecological Fund.[20] Other arrested people include Viktor Orekhov, a former KGB officer who assisted Soviet dissidents, Vladimir Kazantsev who disclosed illegal purchases of eavesdropping devices from foreign firms, and Vil Mirzayanov who had written that Russia was working on a nerve-gas weapon.[20]
In 2011, the FSB prevented 94 “crimes of a terrorist nature”, including eight terrorist attacks. In particular, the agency foiled a planned suicide bombing in Moscow on New Year’s Eve. However, the agency failed to prevent terrorists perpetrating the Domodedovo International Airport bombing.[18] Over the years, FSB and affiliated state security organizations have killed all presidents of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria including Dzhokhar Dudaev, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Aslan Maskhadov, and Abdul-Khalim Saidullaev. Just before his death, Saidullaev claimed that the Russian government “treacherously” killed Maskhadov, after inviting him to “talks” and promising his security “at the highest level”.[29] During the Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school hostage crisis, all hostage takers were killed on the spot by FSB spetsnaz forces. Only one of the suspects, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, survived and was convicted later by the court. It is reported that more than 100 leaders of terrorist groups have been killed during 119 operations on North Caucasus during 2006.[19] On 28 July 2006 the FSB presented a list of 17 terrorist organizations recognized by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, to Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, which published the list that day. The list had been available previously, but only through individual request.[30][31] Commenting on the list, Yuri Sapunov, head of anti-terrorism at the FSB, named three main criteria necessary for organizations to be listed.[32]
Foreign intelligence
According to some unofficial sources,[33][34][35] since 1999, the FSB has also been tasked with the intelligence-gathering on the territory of the CIS countries, wherein the SVR is legally forbidden from conducting espionage under the inter-government agreements. Such activity is in line with Article 8 of the Federal Law on the FSB.[36]
Targeted killing
In the summer of 2006, the FSB was allegedly given the legal power to engage in targeted killing of terrorism suspects overseas if so ordered by the president.[37]
Border protection
Border guards of the Federal Security Service pursuing trespassers of the maritime boundary during exercises in Kaliningrad Oblast
The Federal Border Guard Service (FPS) has been part of the FSB since 2003. Russia has 61,000 kilometers (38,000 mi) of sea and land borders, 7,500 kilometers (4,700 mi) of which is with Kazakhstan, and 4,000 kilometers (2,500 mi) with China. One kilometer (1,100 yd) of border protection costs around 1 million rubles per year.[38]
Export control
The FSB is engaged in the development of Russia’s export control strategy and examines drafts of international agreements related to the transfer of dual-use and military commodities and technologies. Its primary role in the nonproliferation sphere is to collect information to prevent the illegal export of controlled nuclear technology and materials.[39]
Claims of intimidation of foreign diplomats and journalists[edit]
The FSB has been accused by The Guardian of using psychological techniques to intimidate western diplomatic staff and journalists, with the intention of making them curtail their work in Russia early.[40] The techniques allegedly involve entering targets’ houses, moving household items around, replacing items with similar (but slightly different) items, and even sending sex toys to a male target’s wife, all with the intention of confusing and scaring the target.[40]Guardian journalist, Luke Harding, claims to have been the subject of such techniques.[40]
Doping scandal
Following allegations by a Russian former lab director about the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, WADA commissioned an independent investigation led by Richard McLaren. McLaren’s investigation concluded in a report published in July 2016 that the Ministry of Sport and the Federal Security Service (FSB) had operated a “state-directed failsafe system” using a “disappearing positive [test] methodology” (DPM) from “at least late 2011 to August 2015.” However, WADA later admitted that there was not sufficient evidence from the report.[41][42]
2016 US presidential elections
On 29 December 2016, the White House sanctioned the FSB and several other Russian companies for helping the Russian military intelligence service, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), to allegedly disrupt and spread disinformation during the 2016 US presidential election. In addition, the State Department also declared 35 Russian diplomats and officials persona non grata and denied Russian government officials access to two Russian-owned installations in Maryland and New York.[43]
Organization
The reception room of the Federal Security Service building located on Kuznetsky Most in Moscow
This article needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(September 2009)
Below the nationwide level, the FSB has regional offices in the federal subjects of Russia. It also has administrations in the armed forces and other military institutions. Sub-departments exist for areas such as aviation, special training centers, forensic expertise, military medicine, etc.[5]
Structure of the Federal Office (incomplete):
Counterintelligence Service (Department) – chiefs: Oleg Syromolotov (since Aug 2000), Valery Pechyonkin (September 1997 – August 2000)
Directorate for the Counterintelligence Support of Strategic Facilities
Military Counterintelligence Directorate – chiefs: Alexander Bezverkhny (at least since 2002), Vladimir Petrishchev (since January 1996)
Directorate for Terrorism and Political Extremism Control – chiefs: Mikhail Belousov, before him Grafov, before the latter Boris Mylnikov (since 2000)
President’s regiment in the Service of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin of the Federal Security Service of Russia[44] (Russian: Президентский полк Службы коменданта Московского Кремля ФСО России) stationed in Kremlin. Was created on 8 April 1936 as a special regiment (Spetsnaz) for the security of the Kremlin Garrison.
Operational Information and International Relations Service (Analysis, Forecasting, and Strategic Planning Department) – chiefs: Viktor Komogorov (since 1999), Sergei Ivanov (1998–1999)
Organizational and Personnel Service (Department) – chiefs: Yevgeny Lovyrev (since 2001), Yevgeny Solovyov (before Lovyrev)
Besides the services (departments) and directorates of the federal office, the territorial directorates of FSB in the federal subjects are also subordinate to it. Of these, St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Directorate of FSB and its predecessors (historically covering both Leningrad/Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast) have played especially important roles in the history of this organization, as many of the officers of the Directorate, including Vladimir Putin and Nikolay Patrushev, later assumed important positions within the federal FSB office or other government bodies. After the last Chief of the Soviet time, Anatoly Kurkov, the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Directorate were led by Sergei Stepashin (29 November 1991 – 1992), Viktor Cherkesov (1992 –1998), Alexander Grigoryev (1 October 1998 – 5 January 2001), Sergei Smirnov (5 January 2001 – June 2003), Alexander Bortnikov (June 2003 – March 2004) and Yury Ignashchenkov (since March 2004).
The FSB has been further criticised by some for failure to bring Islamist terrorism in Russia under control.[48] In the mid-2000s, the pro-Kremlin Russian sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya claimed that FSB played a dominant role in the country’s political, economic and even cultural life.[49][50][51] FSB officers have been frequently accused of extortion, bribery and illegal takeovers of private companies, often working together with tax inspection officers. Active and former FSB officers are also present as “curators” in “almost every single large enterprise”, both in public and private sectors.[52][53]
In his book Mafia State, Luke Harding, the Moscow correspondent for The Guardian from to 2007 to 2011 and a fierce critic of Russian politics, alleges that the FSB subjected him to continual psychological harassment, with the aim of either coercing him into practicing self-censorship in his reporting, or to leave the country entirely. He says that FSB used techniques known as Zersetzung (literally “corrosion” or “undermining”) which were perfected by the East GermanStasi.[66]
Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy criticised the continuing celebration of the professional holiday of the old and the modern Russian security services on the anniversary of the creation of the Cheka: “The successors of the KGB still haven’t renounced anything; they even celebrate their professional holiday the same day, as during repression, on the 20th of December. It is as if the present intelligence and counterespionage services of Germany celebrated Gestapo Day. I can imagine how indignant our press would be!”[67][68][69] In the same time, in 2007, during a memorial to the victims of the 1937 Great Purge at Butovo firing rangeVladimir Putin honored the victims of the Stalin’s purge and told the audience that the Great Purge was prepared by the years of the previous hostilities of the Soviet regime including extermination of entire strata of the society: clergy, Russian peasantry and the Cossacks. In his speech Putin mainly criticized the Red Terror under the lead of Felix Dzerzhinsky as the then Cheka head, which resulted in the deaths of thousands, including opponents of the regime and the clergy.[70][71]
The title phrase refers to the moment when a con artist finishes the “play” and takes the mark’s money. If a con is successful, the mark does not realize he has been “taken” (cheated), at least not until the con men are long gone. The film is played out in distinct sections with old-fashioned title cards, the lettering and illustrations rendered in a style reminiscent of the Saturday Evening Post. The film is noted for its anachronistic use of ragtime, particularly the melody “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin, which was adapted (along with others by Joplin) for the movie by Marvin Hamlisch (and a top-ten chart single for Hamlisch when released as a single from the film’s soundtrack). The film’s success created a resurgence of interest in Joplin’s work.[4]
The film takes place in 1936, at the height of the Great Depression. Johnny Hooker, a grifter in Joliet, Illinois, cons $11,000 in cash ($189,800 today) in a pigeon drop from an unsuspecting victim with the aid of his partners Luther Coleman and Joe Erie. Buoyed by the windfall, Luther announces his retirement and advises Hooker to seek out an old friend, Henry Gondorff, in Chicago to teach him “the big con”. Unfortunately, their victim was a numbers racket courier for vicious crime boss Doyle Lonnegan. Corrupt Joliet police Lieutenant William Snyder confronts Hooker, revealing Lonnegan’s involvement and demanding part of Hooker’s cut. Having already spent his share, Hooker pays Snyder in counterfeit bills. Lonnegan’s men murder both the courier and Luther, and Hooker flees for his life to Chicago.
Hooker finds Henry Gondorff, a once-great con-man now hiding from the FBI, and asks for his help in taking on the dangerous Lonnegan. Gondorff is initially reluctant, but he relents and recruits a core team of experienced con men to con Lonnegan. They decide to resurrect an elaborate obsolete scam known as “the wire”, using a larger crew of con artists to create a phony off-track betting parlor. Aboard the opulent 20th Century Limited, Gondorff, posing as boorish Chicago bookie Shaw, buys into Lonnegan’s private, high-stakes poker game. Shaw infuriates Lonnegan with his obnoxious behavior, then outcheats him to win $15,000. Hooker, posing as Shaw’s disgruntled employee, Kelly, is sent to collect the winnings and instead convinces Lonnegan that he wants to take over Shaw’s operation. Kelly reveals that he has a partner named Les Harmon (actually con man Kid Twist) in the Chicago Western Unionoffice, who will allow them to win bets on horse races by past-posting.
Meanwhile, Snyder has tracked Hooker to Chicago, but his pursuit is thwarted when he is summoned by undercover FBI agents led by Agent Polk, who orders him to assist in their plan to arrest Gondorff using Hooker. At the same time, Lonnegan has grown frustrated with the inability of his men to find and kill Hooker. Unaware that Kelly is Hooker, he demands that Salino, his best assassin, be given the job. A mysterious figure with black leather gloves is then seen following and observing Hooker.
Kelly’s connection appears effective, as Harmon provides Lonnegan with the winner of one horse race and the trifecta of another race. Lonnegan agrees to finance a $500,000 ($8,629,000 today) bet at Shaw’s parlor to break Shaw and gain revenge. Shortly thereafter, Snyder captures Hooker and brings him before FBI Agent Polk. Polk forces Hooker to betray Gondorff by threatening to incarcerate Luther Coleman’s widow.
The night before the sting, Hooker sleeps with Loretta, a waitress from a local restaurant. As Hooker leaves the building the next morning, he sees Loretta walking toward him. The black-gloved man appears behind Hooker and shoots her dead – she was Lonnegan’s hired killer, Loretta Salino, and the gunman was hired by Gondorff to protect Hooker.
Armed with Harmon’s tip to “place it on Lucky Dan”, Lonnegan makes the $500,000 bet at Shaw’s parlor on Lucky Dan to win. As the race begins, Harmon arrives and expresses shock at Lonnegan’s bet, explaining that when he said “place it” he meant, literally, that Lucky Dan would “place” (i.e., finish second). In a panic, Lonnegan rushes the teller window and demands his money back. A moment later, Agent Polk, Lt. Snyder, and a half dozen FBI officers storm the parlor. Polk confronts Gondorff, then tells Hooker he is free to go. Gondorff, reacting to the betrayal, shoots Hooker in the back. Polk then shoots Gondorff and orders Snyder to get the ostensibly-respectable Lonnegan away from the crime scene. With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Hooker and Gondorff rise amid cheers and laughter. Agent Polk is actually Hickey, a con man, running a con atop Gondorff’s con to divert Snyder and provide a solid “blow off”. As the con men strip the room of its contents, Hooker refuses his share of the money, saying “I’d only blow it”, and walks away with Gondorff.
Filming on location in Pasadena, California. Stand-ins are used to set up the shot.
The movie was filmed on the Universal Studios backlot, with a few small scenes shot in Wheeling, West Virginia, some scenes filmed at the Santa Monica Pier, in Pasadena, and in Chicago at Union Station and the former LaSalle Street Station prior to its demolition.[5][6] Lonnegan’s limp was authentic; Shaw had slipped on a wet handball court at the Beverly Hills Hotel a week before filming began and had injured the ligaments in his knee. He wore a leg brace during production which was hidden under the wide 1930s style trousers. This incident was revealed by Julia Phillips in her 1991 autobiography You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. She stated that Shaw saved The Sting, since no other actor would accept the part; Paul Newman hand-delivered the script to Shaw in London in order to ensure his participation. Philips’s book asserts that Shaw was not nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award because he demanded that his name follow those of Newman and Redford before the film’s opening title.
Rob Cohen (later director of action films such as The Fast and the Furious) years later told of how he found the script in the slush pile when working as a reader for Mike Medavoy, a future studio head, but then an agent. He wrote in his coverage that it was “the great American screenplay and … will make an award-winning, major-cast, major-director film.” Medavoy said that he would try to sell it on that recommendation, promising to fire Cohen if he could not. Universal bought it that afternoon, and Cohen keeps the coverage framed on the wall of his office.[7]
Roy Huggins, creator and chief writer of the TV western-comedy “Maverick“, noted during interview that the first half of “The Sting” bore resemblance to his script for the episode “Shady Deal at Sunny Acres“.[8]
Reception
The film received rave reviews and was a box office smash in 1973–74, taking in more than US$160 million ($800 million today). As of October 2016, it is the 22nd highest-grossing film in the United States adjusted for ticket price inflation.[9] In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #39 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.[10]
Awards
Wins
The film won seven Academy Awards and received three other nominations.[11] At the 46th Academy Awards, Julia Phillips became the first female producer to be nominated for and to win Best Picture.[12]
The soundtrack album, executive produced by Gil Rodin, included several Scott Joplinragtime compositions, adapted by Marvin Hamlisch. According to Joplin scholar Edward A. Berlin, ragtime had experienced a revival in the 1970s due to several separate, but coalescing events:
The New York Public Library issued a two-volume collection of Joplin’s music, thereby giving the stamp of approval of one of the nation’s great institutions of learning.
Treemonisha received its first full staging, as part of a Afro-American Music Workshop at Morehouse College, in Georgia.
Inspired by Schuller’s recording, the producer of the movie The Sting had Marvin Hamlisch score Joplin’s music for the film, thereby bringing Joplin to a mass, popular public.[4]
There are some variances from the film soundtrack, as noted. Joplin’s music was no longer popular by the 1930s, although its use in The Sting evokes the 1930s gangster movie, The Public Enemy, which featured Joplin’s music.[citation needed] The two Jazz Age-style tunes written by Hamlisch are chronologically closer[citation needed] to the film’s time period than are the Joplin rags:
“Luther”—same basic tune as “Solace”, re-arranged by Hamlisch as a dirge
“Pine Apple Rag” / “Gladiolus Rag” medley (Joplin)
“The Entertainer” (Joplin)—piano version
“The Glove” (Hamlisch)—a Jazz Age style number; only a short segment was used in the film
“Little Girl” (Madeline Hyde, Francis Henry)—heard only as a short instrumental segment over a car radio
“Pine Apple Rag” (Joplin)
“Merry-Go-Round Music” medley; “Listen to the Mocking Bird”, “Darling Nellie Gray”, “Turkey in the Straw” (traditional)—”Listen to the Mocking Bird” was the only portion of this track that was actually used in the film, along with a segment of “King Cotton”, a Sousa march, a segment of “The Diplomat”, another Sousa march, a segment of Sousa’s Washington Post March, and a segment of “The Regimental Band”, a Charles C. Sweeleymarch, all of which were not on the album. All six tunes were recorded from the Santa Monica Pier carousel’s band organ.
The album sequence differs from the film sequence, a standard practice with vinyl LPs, often for aesthetic reasons. Some additional content differences:
Selected snippets of Joplin’s works, some appearing on the album and some not, provided linking music over the title cards that introduced major scenes. (The final card, “The Sting”, introducing the film’s dramatic conclusion, had no music.)
Some tunes in the film are different takes than those on the album.[citation needed]
A Joplin tune used in the film but not appearing in the soundtrack album was “Cascades”. The middle (fast) portion of it was played when Hooker was running from Snyder along the ‘L’ train platform.
The credits end with “The Rag-time Dance” (Joplin) medley which features a ‘stop-time’ motif similar to a later work “Stop-Time Rag” (Joplin).
A sequel with different players, The Sting II, appeared in 1983. In the same year a prequel was planned, exploring the earlier career of Henry Gondorff. Famous confidence man Soapy Smith was scripted to be Gondorff’s mentor. When the sequel failed, the prequel was scrapped.
A deluxe DVD, The Sting: Special Edition (part of the Universal Legacy Series) was released in September 2005, including a “making of” featurette called “The Art of the Sting” with interviews from the cast and crew. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in 2012, as a part of Universal’s 100th anniversary string of releases.
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Remembering John Glenn, space pioneer and American statesman
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History in the First Person: Building the Mercury Capsule
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Published on Oct 11, 2013
From the 1983 Phillip Kaufman film “The Right Stuff” with Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris & Dennis Quaid. The film tells the story of the Mercury Seven Astronauts.
Chuck Yeager breaks The Sound Barrier (from THE RIGHT STUFF)
The Right Stuff (edited last scene) – Absolutely Awe-Inspiring !!
Mercury Capsule Without a Window
The Right Stuff – Glenn’s Launch Aborted
The Right Stuff. Godspeed Ed Harris – I mean, John Glenn.
The Right Stuff – The Bell X-1 (with Levon Helm as CPT Jack Ridley)
The Right Stuff (Part 2)
The Right Stuff (Part 3)
The Right Stuff (Part 4)
The Right Stuff (Part 5)
The Right Stuff (Part 6)
The Right Stuff (Part 7)
Annie Glenn: An amazing life
Mercury Space Project: ” The Astronauts”, the Real Right Stuff, training and development (1960)
Mercury astronaut launch in “The Right stuff” movie cut, 1983
Eighty-Nine Year Old Chuck Yeager • F-15 Eagle Honor Flight
An Evening With Two Mercury Astronauts
Godspeed, John Glenn
John Glenn, American hero, aviation icon and former U.S. senator, dies at 95
By Joe Hallett
The Columbus Dispatch • Thursday December 8, 2016 5:35 PM
His legend is otherworldly and now, at age 95, so is John Glenn.
An authentic hero and genuine American icon, Glenn died this afternoon surrounded by family at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus after a remarkably healthy life spent almost from the cradle with Annie, his beloved wife of 73 years, who survives.
He, along with fellow aviators Orville and Wilbur Wright and moon-walker Neil Armstrong, truly made Ohio first in flight.
“John Glenn is, and always will be, Ohio’s ultimate hometown hero, and his passing today is an occasion for all of us to grieve,” said Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich. “As we bow our heads and share our grief with his beloved wife, Annie, we must also turn to the skies, to salute his remarkable journeys and his long years of service to our state and nation.
“Though he soared deep into space and to the heights of Capitol Hill, his heart never strayed from his steadfast Ohio roots. Godspeed, John Glenn!” Kasich said.
Glenn’s body will lie in state at the Ohio Statehouse for a day, and a public memorial service will be held at Ohio State University’s Mershon Auditorium. He will be buried near Washington, D.C., at Arlington National Cemetery in a private service. Dates and times for the public events will be announced soon.
Glenn lived a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! life. As a Marine Corps pilot, he broke the transcontinental flight speed record before being the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 and, 36 years later at age 77 in 1998, becoming the oldest man in space as a member of the seven-astronaut crew of the shuttle Discovery.
He made that flight in his 24th and final year in the U.S. Senate, from whence he launched a short-lived bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984. Along the way, Glenn became moderately wealthy from an early investment in Holiday Inns near Disney World and a stint as president of Royal Crown International.
In one of his last public appearances, Glenn, with Annie by his side, sat in the Port Columbus airport terminal on June 28 as officials renamed it in his honor — the John Glenn Columbus International Airport.
In addition to his world-famous career in aviation and aerospace, Glenn had a relationship with that particular airport that is likely second to none. Glenn, who turned 8 the month that Port Columbus opened in July 1929, recalled asking his parents to stop at the airport so he could watch the planes come and go while he was growing up in New Concord, 70 miles east of Columbus.
Glenn recalled “many teary departures and reunions” at the airport’s original terminal on Fifth Avenue during his time as a military aviator during World War II. He and his wife Annie, who had been married 73 years, later kept a small Beechcraft plane at Lane Aviation on the airport grounds for many years, and he only gave up flying his own plane at age 90.
Privately, this man who had been honored by presidents and immortalized in history books and movies, told friends that for an aviator, seeing his name on the Columbus airport was the highest honor he could imagine.
Glenn, who lived with Annie for the past decade in a Downtown Columbus condo, dedicated his life to public service, devoting many of his later years to Ohio State University, which in 2005 converted the century-old Page Hall into the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and the School of Public Policy and Management. It is now the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.
“He was very proud of the Glenn College,” said Jack Kessler, chairman of the New Albany Company, a former Ohio State trustee and longtime friend of the Glenns. “It’s a legacy that will carry on his mission toward good public policy.”
While Glenn held office as a Democrat, he wasn’t partisan, Kessler said. “I never heard him say a bad thing about anyone. Some of his best friends were Republicans, and he could work with anyone.”
Surrounded by dozens of students striving to earn master’s and doctoral degrees from the institute, Glenn said at its dedication, “If we inspire a few young people into careers of public service and politics, this will all be worth it.”
Remarkably physically fit and energetic, Glenn only began encountering health problems in 2013 when he had a pacemaker implanted and missed some public appearances due to vertigo.
In 2011, he and Annie both had knee-replacement surgery, which kept them from repeating a planned road trip like the impromptu 8,400-mile journey throughout the West they took a year earlier in their Cadillac when she was 89 and he 88.
Raised in New Concord, where he and Annie both went to Muskingum College, Glenn aspired to be a medical doctor, but World War II sidetracked that ambition and launched a life of uncommon achievement and bravery. At age 8, he took his first ride in an open-cockpit airplane and ended up virtually living life in the sky, continuing to fly until 2011 when he put up for sale the twin-engine Beech Baron he had owned since 1981.
“I miss it,” Glenn told The Dispatch in 2012 “I never got tired of flying.”
Glenn flew 149 combat missions in World War II and Korea, where his wingman and eventual lifelong friend was baseball legend Ted Williams. In Korea, Glenn earned the nickname “Old Magnet Ass” due to his skill in landing his airplane under any condition, even after it was riddled with bullets and had blown tires.
Born not far from New Concord in Cambridge on July 18, 1921, Glenn and his parents moved about 10 miles west in 1923 to New Concord. His father was a plumber and his mother a teacher who joined a social group called the Twice 5 Club, which got together once a month. Another couple in the club had a daughter, Annie Castor, who was a year older than Glenn, and the two toddlers often shared a playpen while their parents played cards.
Their relationship evolved into a quintessential American love story, with the spark between them first igniting when they were in junior high school.
“To write a story about either of them, if it doesn’t include the other, then it just isn’t complete,” their daughter, Lyn, told The Dispatch in 2007. She and her brother, David, a California doctor, survive.
John and Annie were married on April 6, 1943, and the next January, as they held each other searching for something to say as he prepared to ship out for combat in the South Pacific, John said, “I’m just going down to the corner store to get a pack of gum.”
From that day on, she kept a gum wrapper in her purse.
To many with disabilities, Annie became a heroine in her own right as she struggled to conquer near-debilitating stuttering.
For more than half of her life, she counted on others to speak for her, publicly uncommunicative in a world that demanded more from her as her husband’s fame ascended.
Through it all, John stood by Annie, who, in 1973, underwent an innovative treatment regimen that dramatically improved her speech to the extent that she was delivering speeches on behalf of her husband’s 1984 presidential candidacy.
Glenn, who received his pilot’s license in 1941, was at home in the sky, soon evident after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and he left Muskingum College to enlist in the Marine Air Corps. In the Pacific, he flew 59 missions over the Marshall Islands.
After being stationed in China and Guam when World War II ended, Glenn was a flight instructor in Texas before being transferred to Virginia. When the Korean War broke out, Glenn applied for combat duty, and flew 90 missions. Overall, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross six times and was awarded the Air Medal with 18 clusters.
After returning from Korea, Glenn became a test pilot. He set a coast-to-coast speed record in 1957, piloting a Navy jet fighter from California to New York in 3 hours and 23 minutes. In 1959, he was selected as one of the country’s first seven astronauts, a historic group immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book The Right Stuff, the basis for a movie of the same name.
The United States was enveloped in a cold war with the Soviet Union, and after a series of U.S. rockets had blown up, the American psyche was dealt a blow in 1961 when Russian Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space and the first to orbit Earth.
The third American in space after suborbital missions by Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, Glenn finally equaled Gagarin’s achievement by blasting off on Feb. 20, 1962, after weather and mechanical problems caused his mission to be postponed 10 times.
Crammed into the 7-foot-wide Friendship 7 space capsule atop a 100-foot-tall Atlas rocket loaded with 250,000 pounds of explosive fuel, Glenn launched 160-miles into space, orbiting the world three times at 17,500 miles per hour.
Reflecting many years later, Glenn would say that computers were the greatest technological achievement during his life, but there were none on Friendship 7, and deep into the flight he had to take manual control of the capsule when systems malfunctioned.
As the capsule descended for a watery landing, mission control feared that its heat shield was peeling off. Well past four hours into the flight, Glenn was told of the problem and knew he could be burned alive in an instant (Annie was notified to expect the worst), but the astronaut stayed focused even as fiery pieces of his spacecraft flew by his window.
“You didn’t really have time to think about it,” he told students at COSI Columbus 45 years later. “Long before you actually got to the flight itself, you sort of made peace with mortality.”
Safely splashing in the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles southeast of Bermuda, Glenn’s historic flight invigorated the nation and catapulted him into American lore. He addressed a joint session of Congress and rode in a convertible with Annie as 4 million people cheered him in a Manhattan ticker-tape parade.
In 2007, 45 years after his historic orbital mission, Glenn told a Columbus audience how much he longed to return to space right away, only to learn years after leaving the space program that President John F. Kennedy, fearing the worst, secretly had barred him from other flights to spare the country the potential loss of a national hero.
Glenn admitted in that speech that he was jealous in 1969 when fellow Ohioan Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon.
In 1964, only two years after his famous flight on Friendship 7, Glenn ran in the Democratic Senate primary against incumbent Sen. Stephen M. Young. But only six weeks after announcing his candidacy, Glenn dropped out of the race after damaging his inner ear in a bathroom fall, an injury that caused severe dizziness and balance problems. He recovered eight months later.
Glenn ran for the Senate again in 1970, but lost in the primary to Howard M. Metzenbaum, whom he defeated in a rematch four years later. He handily won election that fall over Cleveland Mayor Ralph Perk and won re-election by huge margins in 1980 and 1986.
After winning re-election in 1980 by the largest margin in Ohio history, Glenn ran for president in 1984. He was seen as the leading challenger to former Vice President Walter F. Mondale for the Democratic nomination, and was the candidate many considered to have the best chance of defeating President Ronald Reagan in the general election.
But plagued by a disorganized campaign and with a centrist theme ill-suited to a liberal-dominated Democratic primary process, Glenn finished back in the pack in the important Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. He borrowed $2 million to compete in the Southern primaries, but he didn’t win a state and dropped out of the race.
The debt remaining from that race, which rose to more than $3 million, became a campaign issue for Glenn in subsequent Senate races and nagged him until 2006 when the Federal Elections Commission finally allowed him to close the books on it after years of chipping away.
The third term of his four in the Senate was dominated by a Senate investigation into allegations that he improperly interceded with S&L regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, who had raised or donated $242,000 to Glenn’s political committees. Glenn personally spent more than $500,000 to defend his honor, and the Senate Ethics Committee cleared him of wrongdoing.
“I spend half a million dollars on my defense, and I wouldn’t pull back a penny of it,” Glenn said then. “The reason I felt so strongly about it was that it involved my honor, and if I had to sell everything I had and mortgaged the house, I would have done everything I could to see the truth come out.”
In his final year as a U.S. senator in 1998, Glenn was reborn as an astronaut. At 77, he orbited the Earth with six astronauts aboard shuttle Discovery, once again rendering his body and mind to the study of science, providing insight into how the oldest man ever launched into space held up. Glenn, remarkably fit, became an inspiration once again to mankind.
The events of John Glenn’s life, and his footprint on history, are chronicled in countless books and beyond. The Friendship 7 capsule is in the Smithsonian, his papers and memorabilia are archived at Ohio State, and his life with Annie — and much more — are displayed at the Glenn Historic Site in New Concord.
Joe Hallett is a retired reporter and senior editor of The Dispatch.
John Glenn was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, the son of John Herschel Glenn, Sr. (1895–1966) and Clara Teresa (née Sproat) Glenn (1897–1971).[1][2] He was raised in nearby New Concord.[3]
After graduating from New Concord High School in 1939, he studied Engineering at Muskingum College. He earned a private pilot license for credit in a physics course in 1941.[4] Glenn did not complete his senior year in residence or take a proficiency exam, both requirements of the school for the Bachelor of Science degree. However, the school granted Glenn his degree in 1962, after his Mercury space flight.[5]
Glenn’s USAF F-86F that he dubbed “MiG Mad Marine” during the Korean War, 1953
During the Korean War, Glenn was assigned to VMF-311, flying the new F9F Panther jet interceptor. He flew his Panther in 63 combat missions, gaining the nickname “magnet ass” from his alleged ability to attract enemy flak.[9] On two occasions, he returned to his base with over 250 holes in his aircraft.[10] For a time, he flew with Marine reservist Ted Williams, a future Hall of Fame baseball player for the Boston Red Sox, as his wingman. He also flew with future Major General Ralph H. Spanjer.[11]
Glenn returned to NAS Patuxent River, appointed to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (class 12), graduating in 1954.[13] He served as an armament officer, flying planes to high altitude and testing their cannons and machine guns.[14] He was assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (now Bureau of Naval Weapons) as a test pilot on Navy and Marine Corps jet fighters in Washington, D.C., from November 1956 to April 1959, during which time he also attended the University of Maryland.[15]
Glenn had nearly 9,000 hours of flying time, with approximately 3,000 hours in jet aircraft.[15]
On July 16, 1957, Glenn completed the first supersonictranscontinental flight in a Vought F8U-3P Crusader.[16] The flight from NAS Los Alamitos, California, to Floyd Bennett Field, New York, took 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8.3 seconds. As he passed over his hometown, a child in the neighborhood reportedly ran to the Glenn house shouting “Johnny dropped a bomb! Johnny dropped a bomb! Johnny dropped a bomb!” as the sonic boom shook the town.[17]Project Bullet, the name of the mission, included both the first transcontinental flight to average supersonic speed (despite three in-flight refuelings during which speeds dropped below 300 mph), and the first continuous transcontinental panoramic photograph of the United States. For this mission Glenn received his fifth Distinguished Flying Cross.[18]
While Glenn was on duty at Patuxent and Washington, Glenn began to read everything he could about space. His office was requested to furnish a test pilot to be sent to the Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to make some runs on a spaceflight simulator, which was a part of NASA research on reentry vehicle shapes. The officer would also be sent to the Naval Air Development Center in Johnsville, Pennsylvania. The test pilot would be subjected to high g-forces in a centrifuge to compare to the data collected in the simulator. Glenn requested this position and was granted it. He spent a few days at Langley and a week in Johnsville for the testing.[19]
Prior to Glenn’s appointment as an astronaut in the Mercury program, he participated in the capsule design. NASA had requested that military service members participate in planning the mockup of the capsule. Since Glenn had participated in the research at Langley and Johnsville, combined he with his experience sitting on mock-up boards in the Navy and his knowledge of the capsule procedures, he was sent to the McDonnell plant in St. Louis and acted as a service adviser on the mock-up board.[19]
In 1958, the newly formed NASA began a recruiting program for astronauts,[a] and Glenn just barely met the requirements as he was close to the age cutoff of 40 and also lacked the required science-based degree at the time. He remained an officer in the United States Marine Corps after he was selected in 1959.[8]:43 After his selection, he was assigned to the NASA Space Task Group in 1959, which was located at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.[20] The task force was moved to Houston in 1962 and became a part of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center.[20] Glenn was a backup pilot to Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, on the Freedom 7 and Liberty Bell 7 respectively.[20] Astronauts were given an additional role in the spaceflight program, and Glenn’s was the cockpit layout and control functioning, not only for Mercury but also early designs for Apollo.[20]
Glenn (center) with President John F. Kennedy and General Leighton I. Davis celebrating Glenn’s orbital flight, 1962
Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962, on the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission, circling the globe three times during a flight lasting nearly five hours.[21] This made Glenn the third American in space and the fifth human being in space.[22][23][24][b] For Glenn the day became the “best day of his life,” while it also renewed America’s confidence.[30] His voyage took place while America and the Soviet Union were in the midst of the Cold War and competing in the “Space Race.”[31]
During the flight, Glenn’s heat shield had been thought to have come loose and likely to fail during re-entry, which would cause the entire space capsule to burn up. Flight controllers had Glenn modify his re-entry procedure by keeping his retrorocket pack on over the shield to help keep it in place. He made his splashdown safely, and afterwards it was determined that the indicator was faulty.[22] Glenn’s flight and fiery splashdown was portrayed in the 1983 film The Right Stuff.[32]
In July 1962 Glenn testified before the House Space Committee in favor of excluding women from the NASA astronaut program. Although NASA had no official policy prohibiting women, in practice, the requirement that astronauts had to be military test pilots excluded them entirely.[34][c]
Glenn resigned from NASA on January 16, 1964, and the next day announced his candidacy as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio. On February 26, 1964, Glenn suffered a concussion from a slip and fall against a bathtub; this led him to withdraw from the race on March 30.[36][37] Glenn then went on convalescent leave from the Marine Corps until he could make a full recovery, necessary for his retirement from the Marines. He retired on January 1, 1965, as a colonel and entered the business world as an executive for Royal Crown Cola.[22]
Political career
U.S. Senate
This section is missing information about what Glenn did during his 24 years in the Senate. Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(December 2016)
NASA psychologists had determined during Glenn’s training that he was the astronaut best suited for public life.[38]Attorney GeneralRobert F. Kennedy suggested to Glenn and his wife in December 1962 that he should run against incumbent United States SenatorStephen M. Young of Ohio in the 1964 Democraticprimary election. In 1964 Glenn announced that he was resigning from the space program to run against Young, but withdrew when he hit his head on a bathtub. Glenn sustained a concussion and injured his inner ear, and recovery left him unable to campaign.[39] Glenn remained close to the Kennedy family and was with Robert Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1968. He served as a pallbearer at Kennedy’s funeral.[3]:80
In 1970, Glenn was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary for nomination for the Senate by fellow Democrat Howard Metzenbaum, by a 51% to 49% margin. Metzenbaum lost the general election race to Robert Taft, Jr. In 1974, Glenn rejected Ohio governor John J. Gilligan and the Ohio Democratic party’s demand that he run for Lieutenant Governor. Instead, he challenged Metzenbaum again, whom Gilligan had appointed.[39]
In the primary race, Metzenbaum contrasted his strong business background with Glenn’s military and astronaut credentials, saying his opponent had “never held a payroll”. Glenn’s reply came to be known as the “Gold Star Mothers” speech. He told Metzenbaum to go to a veterans’ hospital and “look those men with mangled bodies in the eyes and tell them they didn’t hold a job. You go with me to any Gold Star mother and you look her in the eye and tell her that her son did not hold a job.” Many felt the “Gold Star Mothers” speech won the primary for Glenn.[40][41] Glenn won the primary by 54 to 46%. After defeating Metzenbaum, Glenn defeated Ralph Perk, the Republican Mayor of Cleveland, in the general election, beginning a Senate career that would continue until 1999. In 1980, Glenn won re-election to the seat, defeating Republican challenger Jim Betts, by over 40 percentage points.[42]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Glenn and Metzenbaum had strained relations. There was a thaw in 1983, when Metzenbaum endorsed Glenn for president, and again in 1988, when Metzenbaum was opposed for re-election by Cleveland mayorGeorge Voinovich. Voinovich accused Metzenbaum of being soft on child pornography. Voinovich’s charges were criticized by many, including Glenn, who now came to Metzenbaum’s aid, recording a statement for television rebutting Voinovich’s charges. Metzenbaum won the election by 57% to 41%.[43] In 1997, Glenn announced that he would retire from the Senate at the end of his then-current term.[44]
Savings and loan scandal
Glenn was one of the five U.S. senators caught up in the Lincoln Savings and Keating Five Scandal after accepting a $200,000 contribution from Charles Keating. Glenn and Republican senator John McCain were the only senators exonerated. The Senate Commission found that Glenn had exercised “poor judgment”. The association of his name with the scandal gave Republicans hope that he would be vulnerable in the 1992 campaign. Instead, Glenn defeated Lieutenant GovernorMike DeWine to keep his seat.[45]
Presidential politics
In 1976, Glenn was a candidate for the Democratic vice presidential nomination. However, Glenn’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention failed to impress the delegates and the nomination went to veteran politician Walter Mondale.[46] Glenn also ran for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination.[47]
Glenn and his staff worried about the 1983 release of The Right Stuff, a film about the original seven Mercury astronauts based on the best-selling Tom Wolfebook of the same name. The book had depicted Glenn as a “zealous moralizer”, and he did not attend the film’s Washington premiere on October 16, 1983. Reviewers saw Ed Harris‘ portrayal of Glenn as heroic, however, and his staff immediately began to emphasize the film to the press. Aide Greg Schneiders suggested an unusual strategy, similar to Glenn’s personal campaign and voting style, in which he would avoid appealing to narrow special interest groups and instead seek to win support from ordinary Democratic primary voters, the “constituency of the whole”.[39] Mondale defeated Glenn for the nomination however, and he was left with $3 million in campaign debt for over 20 years before he was granted a reprieve by the Federal Election Commission.[48][49] He was a potential vice presidential running mate in 1984, 1988, and 1992.[50]
Senator-astronaut John Glenn on the shuttle Discovery, 1998
Glenn returned to space on the Space Shuttle on October 29, 1998, as a Payload Specialist on Discovery‘s STS-95 mission, becoming, at age 77, the oldest person to go into space. According to The New York Times, Glenn “won his seat on the Shuttle flight by lobbying NASA for two years to fly as a human guinea pig for geriatric studies”, which were named as the main reasons for his participation in the mission.[55] Shortly before the flight, researchers learned that Glenn had to be disqualified from one of the flight’s two main priority human experiments (about the effects of melatonin) because he did not meet one of the study’s medical conditions; he still participated in two other experiments about sleep monitoring and protein use.[55][56]
Glenn states in his memoir that he had no idea NASA was willing to send him back into space when NASA announced the decision.[57] His participation in the nine-day mission was criticized by some in the space community as a political favor granted to Glenn by President Clinton, with John Pike, director of the Space Policy Project for the Federation of American Scientists noting “If he was a normal person, he would acknowledge he’s a great American hero and that he should get to fly on the shuttle for free…He’s too modest for that, and so he’s got to have this medical research reason. It’s got nothing to do with medicine.”[22][58]
In a 2012 interview, Glenn said that the purpose of his flight was “to make measurements and do research on me at the age of 77 […] comparing the results on me in space with the younger [astronauts] and maybe get [insights] on the immune system or protein turnover or vestibular functions and other things — heart changes.[56] He regretted that NASA did not follow up on this research about aging by sending more people from this age range into space.[56]
Upon the safe return of the STS-95 crew, Glenn (and his crewmates) received another ticker-tape parade, making him the tenth, and latest, person to have received multiple ticker-tape parades in a lifetime (as opposed to that of a sports team).[59] Just prior to the flight, on October 15, 1998, and for several months after, the main causeway to the Johnson Space Center, NASA Road 1, was temporarily renamed “John Glenn Parkway”.[60]
In 2001, Glenn vehemently opposed the sending of Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist, to the International Space Station on the grounds that Tito’s trip served no scientific purpose.[61]
Public affairs institute
Glenn helped found the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at The Ohio State University in 1998 to encourage public service. On July 22, 2006, the institute merged with OSU’s School of Public Policy and Management to become the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, and Glenn held an adjunct professorship at the Glenn School.[62] In February 2015, it was announced that the School would become the John Glenn College of Public Affairs beginning in April 2015.[63]
Personal life
Glenn and his wife Anna in 1965
On April 6, 1943, Glenn married his high school sweetheart, Anna Margaret Castor (b. 1920). Both Glenn and his wife attended Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, where he was a member of the Stag Club Fraternity.[64] Together, they had two children, John David and Carolyn Ann, and two grandchildren.[3]:31 They remained married until his death. His boyhood home in New Concord has been restored and made into an historic house museum and education center.[65]
He set an example of someone whose faith began before he became an astronaut, and whose faith was reinforced after traveling in space.
“To look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible,” said Glenn, after his second and final space voyage.[67] He stated that he saw no contradiction between believing in God and the knowledge that evolution is “a fact”, and that he believed evolution should be taught in schools.[68] He explained:
I don’t see that I’m any less religious that I can appreciate the fact that science just records that we change with evolution and time, and that’s a fact. It doesn’t mean it’s less wondrous and it doesn’t mean that there can’t be some power greater than any of us that has been behind and is behind whatever is going on.[69]
Henri doesn’t talk about it much. It was years before he spoke about it with me and then only because of an accident. We were down in Florida during the space program. Everyone was wearing short-sleeved Ban-Lon shirts—everyone but Henri. Then one day I saw Henri at the pool and noticed the number on his arm. I told Henri that if it were me I’d wear that number like a medal with a spotlight on it.[72]
Public appearances and ceremonies
Glenn appears with President Kennedy and Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov, 1962
Glenn was an honorary member of the International Academy of Astronautics; a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Marine Corps Aviation Association, Order of Daedalians, National Space Club Board of Trustees, National Space Society Board of Governors, International Association of Holiday Inns, Ohio Democratic Party, State Democratic Executive Committee, Franklin County (Ohio) Democratic Party, and 10th District (Ohio) Democratic Action Club.[4]
In 2001, Glenn appeared as a guest star on the American television sitcom Frasier, as himself.[73]
On February 20, 2012, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Friendship 7 flight, Glenn was surprised with the opportunity to speak with the orbiting crew of the International Space Station while Glenn was on-stage with NASA AdministratorCharlie Bolden at The Ohio State University, where the public affairs school is named for him.[75]
Senator John Glenn at the ceremony transferring the Space Shuttle Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution.
In June 2016 the Columbus, Ohio airport known for many years as Port Columbus was officially renamed the John Glenn Columbus International Airport. Just before his 95th birthday, Glenn and his wife Annie attended the ceremony, and he spoke about how visiting that airport as a child inspired his interest in flying.[77]
At the beginning of December 2016, Glenn was hospitalized at the James Cancer Hospital of OSU Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.[79][80][81] A family source said that Glenn had been in declining health, and that his condition was grave. His wife, Annie, and their children and grandchildren had joined him at the hospital.[82]
Glenn died December 8, 2016, at the OSU Wexner Medical Center.[83][84] No cause of death has yet been disclosed. Glenn will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery after lying in state at the Ohio Statehouse and a memorial service at Mershon Auditorium at The Ohio State University.[83]
Tributes
Glenn looks into a celestial training device before his 1962 launch.
Among those honoring Glenn were President Barack Obama, who said that Glenn, “the first American to orbit the Earth, reminded us that with courage and a spirit of discovery there’s no limit to the heights we can reach together.”[85] Tributes were also given by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,[86] and President-elect Donald Trump.[87]
The phrase “Godspeed,” that hailed Glenn’s historic launch into space, became a social media hashtag. Past and current astronauts added their own tributes, along with NASA Administrator and former shuttle astronaut, Charles Bolden, who added that “John Glenn’s legacy is one of risk and accomplishment, of history created and duty to country carried out under great pressure with the whole world watching.”[88]
Image gallery
Glenn at the Mercury Control Center on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base
Medical debriefing of Major John H. Glenn, Jr., USMC after orbital flight of Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Randolph (CVS-15). The debriefing team for Lt. Colonel Glenn (center) was led by Commander Seldon C. “Smokey” Dunn, MC, USN (FS) (RAM-qualified) (far right w/EKG in hands).
“Best regards and many thanks for all the help, ‘Smokey’
John H. Glenn Jr
Mercury Astronaut
a good date — 20 February 62”
In 2000, Glenn received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.[98]
Jump up^Requirements were that each had to be a military test pilot between the ages of 25 and 40 with sufficient flight hours, no more than 5’11” in height, and possess a degree in a scientific field. 508 pilots were subjected to rigorous mental and physical tests, and finally the selection was narrowed down to seven astronauts (Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton), who were introduced to the public at a NASA press conference in April 1959.
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the U.S. Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted twenty unmanned developmental flights (some using animals), and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from the god of travel in Roman mythology, cost $277 million in 1965 US dollars, and involved the work of 2 million people.[1] The astronauts were collectively known as the “Mercury Seven“, and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a “7” by its pilot.
The Space Race began with the 1957 launch of the Soviet satelliteSputnik 1. This came as a shock to the American public, and led to the creation of NASA to expedite existing U.S. space exploration efforts, and place most of them under civilian control. After the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958, manned spaceflight became the next goal. The Soviet Union put the first human, cosmonautYuri Gagarin, into a single orbit aboard Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. Shortly after this, on May 5, the U.S. launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, on a suborbital flight. Soviet Gherman Titov followed with a day-long orbital flight in August, 1961. The U.S. reached its orbital goal on February 20, 1962, when John Glenn made three orbits around the Earth. When Mercury ended in May 1963, both nations had sent six people into space, but the Soviets led the U.S. in total time spent in space.
The Mercury space capsule was produced by McDonnell Aircraft, and carried supplies of water, food and oxygen for about one day in a pressurized cabin. Mercury flights were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on launch vehicles modified from the Redstone and Atlas D missiles. The capsule was fitted with a launch escape rocket to carry it safely away from the launch vehicle in case of a failure. The flight was designed to be controlled from the ground via the Manned Space Flight Network, a system of tracking and communications stations; back-up controls were outfitted on board. Small retrorockets were used to bring the spacecraft out of its orbit, after which an ablative heat shield protected it from the heat of atmospheric reentry. Finally, a parachute slowed the craft for a water landing. Both astronaut and capsule were recovered by helicopters deployed from a U.S. Navy ship.
After a slow start riddled with humiliating mistakes, the Mercury project gained popularity, its missions followed by millions on radio and TV around the world. Its success laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which carried two astronauts in each capsule and perfected space docking maneuvers essential for manned lunar landings in the subsequent Apollo program announced a few weeks after the first manned Mercury flight.
Project Mercury was officially approved on October 7, 1958 and publicly announced on December 17.[2][3] Originally called Project Astronaut, President Dwight Eisenhower felt that gave too much attention to the pilot.[4] Instead, the name Mercury was chosen from classical mythology, which had already lent names to rockets like the Greek Atlas and Roman Jupiter for the SM-65 and PGM-19missiles.[3] It absorbed military projects with the same aim, such as the Air Force Man In Space Soonest.[5][n 1]
Following the end of World War II, a nuclear arms race evolved between the U.S. and the Soviet Union (USSR). Since the USSR did not have a large fleet of bomber planes to deliver such weapons to the U.S., or bases in the western hemisphere from which to deploy them, Joseph Stalin decided to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, which drove a missile race.[7] The rocket technology in turn enabled both sides to develop Earth-orbiting satellites for communications, and gathering weather data and intelligence.[8] Americans were shocked when the Soviet Union placed the first satellite into orbit in October 1957, leading to a growing fear that the U.S. was falling into a “missile gap“.[9][8] A month later, the Soviets launched Sputnik 2, carrying a dog into orbit. Though the animal was not recovered alive, it was obvious their goal was manned spaceflight.[10] Unable to disclose details of military space projects, President Eisenhower ordered the creation of a civilian space agency in charge of civilian and scientific space exploration. Based on the federal research agency National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), it was named the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.[11] It achieved its first goal, an American satellite in space, in 1958. The next goal was to put a man there.[12]
The limit of space was defined at the time as a minimum altitude of 62 mi (100 km), and the only way to reach it was by using rocket powered boosters.[13][14] This created risks for the pilot, including explosion, high g-forces and vibrations during lift off through a dense atmosphere,[15] and temperatures of more than 10,000 °F (5,500 °C) from air compression during reentry.[16]
In space, pilots would require pressurized chambers or space suits to supply fresh air.[17] While there, they would experience weightlessness, which could potentially cause disorientation.[18] Further potential risks included radiation and micrometeoroid strikes, both of which would normally be absorbed in the atmosphere.[19] All seemed possible to overcome: experience from satellites suggested micrometeoroid risk was negligible,[20] and experiments in the early 1950s with simulated weightlessness, high g-forces on humans, and sending animals to the limit of space, all suggested potential problems could be overcome by known technologies.[21] Finally, reentry was studied using the nuclear warheads of ballistic missiles,[22] which demonstrated a blunt, forward-facing heat shield could solve the problem of heating.[22]
T. Keith Glennan had been appointed the first Administrator of NASA, with Hugh L. Dryden (last Director of NACA) as his Deputy, at the creation of the agency on October 1, 1958.[23] Glennan would report to the president through the National Aeronautics and Space Council.[24] The group responsible for Project Mercury was NASA’s Space Task Group, and the goals of the program were to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth, investigate the pilot’s ability to function in space, and to recover both pilot and spacecraft safely.[25] Existing technology and off-the-shelf equipment would be used wherever practical, the simplest and most reliable approach to system design would be followed, and an existing launch vehicle would be employed, together with a progressive test program.[26] Spacecraft requirements included: a launch escape system to separate the spacecraft and its occupant from the launch vehicle in case of impending failure; attitude control for orientation of the spacecraft in orbit; a retrorocket system to bring the spacecraft out of orbit; drag braking blunt body for atmospheric reentry; and landing on water.[26] To communicate with the spacecraft during an orbital mission, an extensive communications network had to be built.[27] In keeping with his desire to keep from giving the U.S. space program an overly military flavor, President Eisenhower at first hesitated to give the project top national priority (DX rating under the Defense Production Act), which meant that Mercury had to wait in line behind military projects for materials; however, this rating was granted in May 1959.[28]
Twelve companies bid to build the Mercury spacecraft on a $20 million ($163 million adjusted for inflation) contract.[29] In January 1959, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation was chosen to be prime contractor for the spacecraft.[30] Two weeks earlier, North American Aviation, based in Los Angeles, was awarded a contract for Little Joe, a small rocket to be used for development of the launch escape system.[31][n 2] The World Wide Tracking Network for communication between the ground and spacecraft during a flight was awarded to the Western Electric Company.[32] Redstone rockets for suborbital launches were manufactured in Huntsville, Alabama by the Chrysler Corporation[33] and Atlas rockets by Convair in San Diego, California.[34] For manned launches, the Atlantic Missile Range at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida was made available by the USAF.[35] This was also the site of the Mercury Control Center while the computing center of the communication network was in Goddard Space Center, Maryland.[36] Little Joe rockets were launched from Wallops Island, Virginia.[37] Astronaut training took place at Langley Research Center in Virginia, Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio, and Naval Air Development Center Johnsville in Warminster, PA.[38] Langley wind tunnels[39] together with a rocket sled track at Holloman Air Force Base at Alamogordo, New Mexico were used for aerodynamic studies.[40] Both Navy and Air Force aircraft were made available for the development of the spacecraft’s landing system,[41] and Navy ships and Navy and Marine Corps helicopters were made available for recovery.[n 3] South of Cape Canaveral the town of Cocoa Beach boomed.[43]From here, 75,000 people watched the first American orbital flight being launched in 1962.[43]
Wallops Island test facility, 1961
Mercury Control Center, Cape Canaveral, 1963
Location of production and operational facilities of Project Mercury
The Mercury spacecraft’s principal designer was Maxime Faget, who started research for manned spaceflight during the time of the NACA.[44] It was 10.8 feet (3.3 m) long and 6.0 feet (1.8 m) wide; with the launch escape system added, the overall length was 25.9 feet (7.9 m).[45] With 100 cubic feet (2.8 m3) of habitable volume, the capsule was just large enough for a single crew member.[46] Inside were 120 controls: 55 electrical switches, 30 fuses and 35 mechanical levers.[47] The heaviest spacecraft, Mercury-Atlas 9, weighed 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) fully loaded.[48] Its outer skin was made of René 41, a nickel alloy able to withstand high temperatures.[49]
The spacecraft was cone shaped, with a neck at the narrow end.[45] It had a convex base, which carried a heat shield (Item 2 in the diagram below)[50] consisting of an aluminum honeycomb covered with multiple layers of fiberglass.[51] Strapped to it was a retropack (1)[52] consisting of three rockets deployed to brake the spacecraft during reentry.[53] Between these were three minor rockets for separating the spacecraft from the launch vehicle at orbital insertion.[54] The straps that held the package could be severed when it was no longer needed.[55] Next to the heat shield was the pressurized crew compartment (3).[56] Inside an astronaut would be strapped to a form-fitting seat, with instruments in front and his back to the heat shield.[57] Underneath the seat was the environmental control system supplying oxygen and heat,[58] scrubbing the air of CO2, vapor and odors, and (on orbital flights) collecting urine.[59][n 4] The recovery compartment (4)[61] at the narrow end of the spacecraft contained three parachutes: a drogue to stabilize free fall and two main chutes, a primary and reserve.[62] Between the heat shield and inner wall of the crew compartment was a landing skirt, deployed by letting down the heat shield before landing.[63] On top of the recovery compartment was the antenna section (5)[64] containing both antennas for communication and scanners for guiding spacecraft orientation.[65] Attached was a flap used to ensure the spacecraft was faced heat shield first during reentry.[66]A launch escape system (6) was mounted to the narrow end of the spacecraft[67] containing three small solid-fueled rockets which could be fired briefly in a launch failure to separate the capsule safely from its booster. It would deploy the capsule’s parachute for a landing nearby at sea.[68] (See also Mission profile for details.)
The Mercury spacecraft did not have an on-board computer, instead relying on all computation for re-entry to be calculated by computers on the ground, with their results (retrofire times and firing attitude) then transmitted to the spacecraft by radio while in flight.[69][70] All computer systems used in the Mercury space program were housed in NASA facilities on Earth.[69] The computer systems were IBM 701 computers.[71][72](See also Ground control for details.)
The astronaut lay in a sitting position with his back to the heat shield, which was found to be the position that best enabled a human to withstand the high g-forces of launch and re-entry. A form-fitted fiberglass seat was custom-molded from each astronaut’s space-suited body for maximum support. Near his left hand was a manual abort handle to activate the launch escape system if necessary prior to or during liftoff, in case the automatic trigger failed.[73]
To supplement the onboard environmental control system, he wore a pressure suit with its own oxygen supply, which would also cool him.[74] A cabin atmosphere of pure oxygen at a low pressure of 5.5 psi (equivalent to an altitude of 24,800 feet (7,600 m)) was chosen, rather than one with the same composition as air (nitrogen/oxygen) at sea level.[75] This was easier to control,[76] avoided the risk of decompression sickness (known as “the bends”),[77][n 5] and also saved on spacecraft weight. Fires (which never occurred) would have to be extinguished by emptying the cabin of oxygen.[59] In such case, or failure of the cabin pressure for any reason, the astronaut could make an emergency return to Earth, relying on his suit for survival.[78][59]The astronauts normally flew with their visor up, which meant that the suit was not inflated.[59] With the visor down and the suit inflated, the astronaut could only reach the side and bottom panels, where vital buttons and handles were placed.[79]
The astronaut also wore electrodes on his chest to record his heart rhythm, a cuff that could take his blood pressure, and a rectal thermometer to record his temperature (this was replaced by an oral thermometer on the last flight).[80] Data from these was sent to the ground during the flight.[74] The astronaut normally drank water and ate food pellets.[81][n 6]
Once in orbit, the spacecraft could be rotated in three directions: along its longitudinal axis (roll), left to right from the astronaut’s point of view (yaw), and up or down (pitch).[82] Movement was created by rocket-propelled thrusters which used hydrogen peroxide as a fuel.[83][84] For orientation, the pilot could look through the window in front of him or from a screen connected to a periscope which could be turned 360°.[85]
The Mercury astronauts had taken part in the development of their spacecraft, and insisted that manual control, and a window, be elements of its design.[86] As a result, spacecraft movement and other functions could be controlled three ways: remotely from the ground when passing over a ground station, automatically guided by onboard instruments, or manually by the astronaut, who could replace or override the two other methods. Experience validated the astronauts’ insistence on manual controls. Without them, Gordon Cooper’s manual reentry during the last flight would not have been possible.[87]
Spacecraft production in clean room at McDonnell Aircraft, St. Louis
The Mercury spacecraft design was modified three times by NASA between 1958 and 1959.[88] After bidding by potential contractors had been completed, NASA selected the design submitted as “C” in November 1958.[89] After it failed a test flight in July 1959, a final configuration, “D”, emerged.[90] The heat shield shape had been developed earlier in the 1950s through experiments with ballistic missiles, which had shown a blunt profile would create a shock wave that would lead most of the heat around the spacecraft.[91] To further protect against heat, either a heat sink, or an ablative material, could be added to the shield.[92] The heat sink would remove heat by the flow of the air inside the shock wave, whereas the ablative heat shield would remove heat by a controlled evaporation of the ablative material.[93] After unmanned tests, the latter was chosen for manned flights.[94] Apart from the capsule design, a rocket plane similar to the existing X-15 was considered.[95] This approach was still too far from being able to make a spaceflight, and was consequently dropped.[96][n 7] The heat shield and the stability of the spacecraft were tested in wind tunnels,[39] and later in flight.[100] The launch escape system was developed through unmanned flights.[101] During a period of problems with development of the landing parachutes, alternative landing systems such as the Rogallo glider wingwere considered, but ultimately scrapped.[102]
The spacecraft were produced at McDonnell Aircraft, St. Louis, Missouri in clean rooms and tested in vacuum chambers at the McDonnell plant.[103] The spacecraft had close to 600 subcontractors, such as Garrett AiResearch which built the spacecraft’s environmental control system.[30][58] Final quality control and preparations of the spacecraft were made at Hangar S at Cape Canaveral.[104][n 8] NASA ordered 20 production spacecraft, numbered 1 through 20.[30] Five of the 20, Nos. 10, 12, 15, 17, and 19, were not flown.[107]Spacecraft No. 3 and No. 4 were destroyed during unmanned test flights.[107] Spacecraft No. 11 sank[107] and was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after 38 years.[108] Some spacecraft were modified after initial production (refurbished after launch abort, modified for longer missions, etc.)[n 9] A number of Mercury boilerplate spacecraft(made from non-flight materials or lacking production spacecraft systems) were also made by NASA and McDonnell.[111] They were designed and used to test spacecraft recovery systems and the escape tower.[112] McDonnell also built the spacecraft simulators used by the astronauts during training.[113]
A small launch vehicle (55 feet (17 m) long) called Little Joe was used for unmanned tests of the launch escape system, using a Mercury capsule with an escape tower mounted on it.[114][115] Its main purpose was to test the system at a point called max-q, at which air pressure against the spacecraft peaked, making separation of the launch vehicle and spacecraft most difficult.[116] It was also the point at which the astronaut was subjected to the heaviest vibrations.[117] The Little Joe rocket used solid-fuel propellant and was originally designed in 1958 by the NACA for suborbital manned flights, but was redesigned for Project Mercury to simulate an Atlas-D launch.[101] It was produced by North American Aviation.[114] It was not able to change direction, instead its flight depended on the angle from which it was launched.[118] Its maximum altitude was 100 mi (160 km) fully loaded.[119] A Scout launch vehicle was used for a single flight intended to evaluate the tracking network; however, it failed and was destroyed from the ground shortly after launch.[120]
The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, an 83-foot (25 m) tall (with capsule and escape system) single-stage launch vehicle used for suborbital (ballistic) flights.[121] It had a liquid-fueled engine that burned alcohol and liquid oxygen producing about 75,000 pounds of thrust, which was not enough for orbital missions.[121] It was a descendant of the German V-2,[33] and developed for the U.S. Army during the early 1950s. It was modified for Project Mercury by removing the warhead and adding a collar for supporting the spacecraft together with material for damping vibrations during launch.[122] Its rocket motor was produced by North American Aviation and its direction could be altered during flight by its fins. They worked in two ways: by directing the air around them, or by directing the thrust by their inner parts (or both at the same time).[33] Both the Atlas-D and Redstone launch vehicles contained an automatic abort sensing system which allowed them to abort a launch by firing the launch escape system if something went wrong.[123] The Jupiter rocket, also developed by Von Braun’s team at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, was considered as well for intermediate Mercury suborbital flights at a higher speed and altitude than Redstone, but this plan was dropped when it turned out that man-rating Jupiter for the Mercury program would actually cost more than flying an Atlas due to scale of economics–Jupiter’s only use other than as a missile system was for the short-lived Juno II launch vehicle and keeping a full staff of technical personnel around solely to fly a few Mercury capsules would result in excessively high costs.[124][125]
Orbital missions required use of the Atlas LV-3B, a man-rated version of the Atlas D which was originally developed as the United States first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)[126] by Convair for the Air Force during the mid-1950s.[127] The Atlas was a “one-and-one-half-stage” rocket fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen (LOX).[126] The rocket by itself stood 67 feet (20 m) high; total height of the Atlas-Mercury space vehicle at launch was 95 feet (29 m).[128]
The Atlas first stage was a booster skirt with two engines burning liquid fuel.[129][n 10] This together with the larger sustainer second stage gave it sufficient power to launch a Mercury spacecraft into orbit.[126] Both stages fired from lift-off with the thrust from the second stage sustainer engine passing through an opening in the first stage. After separation from the first stage, the sustainer stage continued alone. The sustainer also steered the rocket by thrusters guided by gyroscopes.[130] Smaller vernier rockets were added on its sides for precise control of maneuvers.[126]
Shepard became the first American in space by making a suborbital flight in May 1961.[133] He went on to fly in the Apollo program and became the only Mercury astronaut to walk on the Moon.[134] Gus Grissom, who became the second American in space, also participated in the Gemini and Apollo programs, but died in January 1967 during a pre-launch test for Apollo 1.[135] Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in February 1962, then quit NASA and went into politics, serving as a US Senator from 1974 to 1999, and returned to space in 1998 as a Payload Specialist aboard STS-95.[136] Deke Slayton was grounded in 1962, but remained with NASA and was appointed Chief Astronaut at the beginning of Project Gemini. He remained in the position of senior astronaut, in charge of space crew flight assignments among many other responsibilities, until towards the end of Project Apollo, when he resigned and began training to fly on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975, which he successfully did.[137] Gordon Cooper became the last to fly in Mercury and made its longest flight, and also flew a Gemini mission. [138] Carpenter’s Mercury flight was his only trip into space. Schirra flew the third orbital Mercury mission, and then flew a Gemini mission. Three years later, he commanded the first manned Apollo mission, becoming the only person to fly in all three of those programs.
One of the astronauts’ tasks was publicity; they gave interviews to the press and visited project manufacturing facilities to speak with those who worked on Project Mercury.[139] To make their travels easier, they requested and got jet fighters for personal use.[140] The press was especially fond of John Glenn, who was considered the best speaker of the seven.[141] They sold their personal stories to Life magazine which portrayed them as patriotic, God-fearing family men.[142] Life was also allowed to be at home with the families while the astronauts were in space.[142] During the project, Grissom, Carpenter, Cooper, Schirra and Slayton stayed with their families at or near Langley Air Force Base; Glenn lived at the base and visited his family in Washington DC on weekends. Shepard lived with his family at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia.
Other than Grissom, who was killed in the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, the other six survived past retirement [143] and died between 1993 and 2016.
It was first envisaged that the pilot could be any man or woman willing to take a personal risk.[144] However, the first Americans to venture into space were drawn, on President Eisenhower’s insistence, from a group of 508 active duty military test pilots,[145] who were either USN or USMCnaval aviation pilots (NAPs), or USAFpilots of Senior or Command rating. This excluded women, since there were no female military test pilots at the time.[4] It also excluded civilian NASA X-15 pilot Neil Armstrong, though he had been selected by the U.S. Air Force in 1958 for its Man In Space Soonest program, which was replaced by Mercury.[146] Although Armstrong had been a combat-experienced NAP during the Korean War, he left active duty in 1952.[4][n 11] Armstrong became NASA’s first civilian astronaut in 1962 when he was selected for NASA’s second group,[148]and became the first man on the Moon in 1969.[149]
It was further stipulated that candidates should be between 25 and 40 years old, no taller than 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m), and hold a college degree in a STEM subject.[4] The college degree requirement excluded the USAF’s X-1 pilot, then-Lt Col (later Brig Gen) Chuck Yeager, the first person to exceed the speed of sound.[150] He later became a critic of the project, ridiculing especially the use of monkeys as test subjects.[150][n 12] USAF Capt (later Col) Joseph Kittinger, a USAF fighter pilot and stratosphere balloonist, met all the requirements but preferred to stay in his contemporary project.[150] Other potential candidates declined because they did not believe that manned spaceflight had a future beyond Project Mercury.[150][n 13] From the original 508, 110 candidates were selected for an interview, and from the interviews, 32 were selected for further physical and mental testing.[153] Their health, vision, and hearing were examined, together with their tolerance to noise, vibrations, g-forces, personal isolation, and heat.[154][155] In a special chamber, they were tested to see if they could perform their tasks under confusing conditions.[154] The candidates had to answer more than 500 questions about themselves and describe what they saw in different images.[154] Navy LT (later CAPT) Jim Lovell, a NAP who was later an astronaut in the Gemini and Apollo programs, did not pass the physical tests.[150] After these tests it was intended to narrow the group down to six astronauts, but in the end it was decided to keep seven.[156]
The astronauts went through a training program covering some of the same exercises that were used in their selection.[38] They simulated the g-force profiles of launch and reentry in a centrifuge at the Naval Air Development Center, and were taught special breathing techniques necessary when subjected to more than 6 g.[140] Weightlessness training took place in aircraft, first on the rear seat of a two-seater fighter and later inside converted and padded cargo aircraft.[157] They practiced gaining control of a spinning spacecraft in a machine at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory called the Multi-Axis Spin-Test Inertia Facility (MASTIF), by using an attitude controller handle simulating the one in the spacecraft.[158][159] A further measure for finding the right attitude in orbit was star and Earth recognition training in planetaria and simulators.[160]Communication and flight procedures were practiced in flight simulators, first together with a single person assisting them and later with the Mission Control Center.[161] Recovery was practiced in pools at Langley, and later at sea with frogmen and helicopter crews.[162]
Profile. See timetable for explanation. Dashed line: region of weightlessness.
A Redstone rocket was used to boost the capsule for 2 minutes and 30 seconds to an altitude of 32 nautical miles (59 km) and let it continue on a ballistic curve after booster-spacecraft separation.[163][164] The launch escape system was jettisoned at the same time. At the top of the curve, the spacecraft’s retrorockets were fired for testing purposes; they were not necessary for re-entry because orbital speed had not been attained. The spacecraft landed in the Atlantic Ocean.[165] The suborbital mission took about 15 minutes, had an apogee altitude of 102–103 nautical miles (189–191 km), and a downrange distance of 262 nautical miles (485 km).[138][166] From the time of booster-spacecraft separation until reentry where air started to slow down the spacecraft, the pilot would experience weightlessness as shown on the image.[n 14] The recovery procedure would be the same as an orbital mission.
Profile. A-C: launch. D: insert into orbit. E-K: re-entry and landing
Preparations for a mission started a month in advance with the selection of the primary and back-up astronaut; they would practice together for the mission.[167] For three days prior to launch, the astronaut went through a special diet to minimize his need for defecating during the flight.[168] On the morning of the trip he typically ate a steak breakfast.[168] After having sensors applied to his body and being dressed in the pressure suit, he started breathing pure oxygen to prepare him for the atmosphere of the spacecraft.[169] He arrived at the launch pad, took the elevator up the launch tower and entered the spacecraft two hours before launch.[170][n 15] Once the astronaut was secured inside, the hatch was bolted, the launch area evacuated and the mobile tower rolled back.[171] After this, the launch vehicle was filled with liquid oxygen.[171] The entire procedure of preparing for launch and launching the spacecraft followed a time table called the countdown. It started a day in advance with a pre-count, in which all systems of the launch vehicle and spacecraft were checked. After that followed a 15-hour hold, during which pyrotechnics were installed. Then came the main countdown which for orbital flights started 6½ hours before launch (T – 390 min), counted backwards to launch (T = 0) and then forward until orbital insertion (T + 5 min).[170][n 16]
On an orbital mission, the Atlas’ rocket engines were ignited 4 seconds before lift-off. The launch vehicle was held to the ground by clamps and then released when sufficient thrust was built up at lift-off (A).[173] After 30 seconds of flight, the point of maximum dynamic pressure against the vehicle was reached, at which the astronaut felt heavy vibrations.[174]After 2 minutes and 10 seconds, the two outboard booster engines shut down and were released with the aft skirt, leaving the center sustainer engine running (B).[170] At this point, the launch escape system was no longer needed, and was separated from the spacecraft by its jettison rocket (C).[53][n 17] The space vehicle moved gradually to a horizontal attitude until, at an altitude of 87 nautical miles (161 km), the sustainer engine shut down and the spacecraft was inserted into orbit (D).[176] This happened after 5 minutes and 10 seconds in a direction pointing east, whereby the spacecraft would gain speed from the rotation of the Earth.[177][n 18] Here the spacecraft fired the three posigrade rockets for a second to separate it from the launch vehicle.[179][n 19] Just before orbital insertion and sustainer engine cutoff, g-loads peaked at 8 g (6 g for a suborbital flight).[174][181] In orbit, the spacecraft automatically turned 180°, pointed the retropackage forward and its nose 14.5° downward and kept this attitude for the rest of the orbital phase of the mission, as it was necessary for communication with the ground.[182][183][n 20]
Once in orbit, it was not possible for the spacecraft to change its trajectory except by initiating reentry.[185] Each orbit would typically take 88 minutes to complete.[186] The lowest point of the orbit called perigee was at the point where the spacecraft entered orbit and was about 87 nautical miles (161 km), the highest called apogee was on the opposite side of Earth and was about 150 nautical miles (280 km).[166] When leaving orbit (E) the angle downward was increased to 34°, which was the angle of retrofire.[182] Retrorockets fired for 10 seconds each (F) in a sequence where one started 5 seconds after the other.[179][187] During reentry (G), the astronaut would experience about 8 g (11–12 g on a suborbital mission).[188] The temperature around the heat shield rose to 3,000 °F (1,600 °C) and at the same time, there was a two-minute radio blackout due to ionization of the air around the spacecraft.[189][55] After re-entry, a small, drogue parachute (H) was deployed at 21,000 ft (6,400 m) for stabilizing the spacecraft’s descent.[65] The main parachute (I) was deployed at 10,000 ft (3,000 m) starting with a narrow opening that opened fully in a few seconds to lessen the strain on the lines.[190] Just before hitting the water, the landing bag inflated from behind the heat shield to reduce the force of impact (J).[190] Upon landing the parachutes were released.[62] An antenna (K) was raised and sent out signals that could be traced by ships and helicopters.[62] Further, a green marker dye was spread around the spacecraft to make its location more visible from the air.[62][n 21]Frogmen brought in by helicopters inflated a collar around the craft to keep it upright in the water.[192][n 22] The recovery helicopter hooked onto the spacecraft and the astronaut blew the escape hatch to exit the capsule.[61] He was then hoisted aboard the helicopter that finally brought both him and the spacecraft to the ship.[n 23]
Mercury manned launches
John Glenn in orbit (Mercury-Atlas 6)
Friendship 7 in orbit (artist concept)
Recovery seen from helicopter (Mercury-Redstone 3)
Inside Control Center at Cape Canaveral (Mercury-Atlas 8)
The number of personnel supporting a Mercury mission was typically around 18,000, with about 15,000 people associated with recovery.[193][194][n 24] Most of the others followed the spacecraft from the World Wide Tracking Network, a chain of 18 stations placed around the equator, which was based on a network used for satellites and made ready in 1960.[196] It collected data from the spacecraft and provided two-way communication between the astronaut and the ground.[197] Each station had a range of 700 nautical miles (1,300 km) and a pass typically lasted 7 minutes.[198] Mercury astronauts on the ground would take part of the Capsule Communicator or CAPCOM who communicated with the astronaut in orbit.[199][200][n 25] Data from the spacecraft was sent to the ground, processed at the Goddard Space Center and relayed to the Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral.[201] In the Control Center, the data was displayed on boards on each side of a world map, which showed the position of the spacecraft, its ground track and the place it could land in an emergency within the next 30 minutes.[183]
The World Wide Tracking Network went on to serve subsequent space programs, until it was replaced by a satellite relay system in the 1980s[202] Mission Control Center was moved from Cape Canaveral to Houston in 1965.[203]
On April 12, 1961 the Soviet cosmonautYuri Gagarin became the first person in space on an orbital flight.[204] Alan Shepard became the first American in space on a suborbital flight three weeks later, on May 5, 1961.[133] John Glenn, the third Mercury astronaut to fly, became the first American to reach orbit on February 20, 1962, but only after the Soviets had launched a second cosmonaut, Gherman Titov, into a day-long flight in August 1961.[205] Three more Mercury orbital flights were made, ending on May 16, 1963 with a day-long, 22 orbit flight.[138] However, the Soviet Union ended its Vostok program the next month, with the human spaceflight endurance record set by the 82-orbit, almost 5-day Vostok 5 flight.[206]
All of the 6 manned Mercury flights were successful though some intended flight were cancelled during the project (see below).[207] The main medical problems encountered were simple personal hygiene, and post-flight symptoms of low blood pressure.[193] The launch vehicles had been tested through unmanned flights, therefore the numbering of manned missions did not start with 1.[208] Also, since two different launch vehicles were used, there were two separate numbered series: MR for “Mercury-Redstone” (suborbital flights), and MA for “Mercury-Atlas” (orbital flights). These names were not popularly used, since the astronauts followed a pilot tradition, each giving their spacecraft a name. They selected names ending with a “7” to commemorate the seven astronauts.[53][132] Times given are Universal Coordinated Time, local time + 5 hours.
The 20 unmanned flights used Little Joe, Redstone, and Atlas launch vehicles.[132] They were used to develop the launch vehicles, launch escape system, spacecraft and tracking network.[208] One flight of a Scout rocket attempted to launch an unmanned satellite for testing the ground tracking network, but failed to reach orbit. The Little Joe program used seven airframes for eight flights, of which three were successful. The second Little Joe flight was named Little Joe 6, because it was inserted into the program after the first 5 airframes had been allocated.[225][168]
Nine of the planned flights were cancelled. Suborbital flights were planned for four other astronauts but the number of flights was cut down gradually and finally all remaining were cancelled after Titov’s flight.[256][257][n 37] Mercury-Atlas 9 was intended to be followed by more one-day flights and even a three-day flight but with the coming of the Gemini Project it seemed unnecessary. The Jupiter booster was, as mentioned above, intended to be used for different purposes.
The project was delayed by 22 months, counting from the beginning until the first orbital mission.[193] It had a dozen prime contractors, 75 major subcontractors, and about 7200 third-tier subcontractors, who together employed two million people.[193] An estimate of its cost made by NASA in 1969 gave $392.6 million ($1.74 billion adjusted for inflation), broken down as follows: Spacecraft: $135.3 million, launch vehicles: $82.9 million, operations: $49.3 million, tracking operations and equipment: $71.9 million and facilities: $53.2 million.[266][267]
Today the Mercury program is commemorated as the first manned American space program.[268] It did not win the race against the Soviet Union, but gave back national prestige and was scientifically a successful precursor of later programs such as Gemini, Apollo and Skylab.[269][n 40] During the 1950s, some experts doubted that manned spaceflight was possible.[n 41] Still when John F. Kennedy was elected president, many including he had doubts about the project.[272] As president he chose to support the programs a few months before the launch of Freedom 7,[273] which became a great public success.[274][n 42] Afterwards, a majority of the American public supported manned spaceflight, and within a few weeks, Kennedy announced a plan for a manned mission to land on the Moon and return safely to Earth before the end of the 1960s.[278] The six astronauts who flew were awarded medals,[279] driven in parades and two of them were invited to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.[280] As a response to the selection criteria, which ruled out women, a private project was founded in which 13 women pilots successfully underwent the same tests as the men in Project Mercury.[281] It was named Mercury 13 by the media[282][n 43]Despite this effort, NASA did not select female astronauts until 1978 for the Space Shuttle.[283]
In 1964, a monument commemorating Project Mercury was unveiled near Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, featuring a metal logo combining the symbol of Mercury with the number 7.[284] In 1962, the United States Postal Service honored the Mercury-Atlas 6 flight with a Project Mercury commemorative stamp, the first U.S. postal issue to depict a manned spacecraft.[285][n 44] On film, the program was portrayed in The Right Stuff a 1983 adaptation of Tom Wolfe‘s 1979 book of the same name.[287] On February 25, 2011, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the world’s largest technical professional society, awarded Boeing (the successor company to McDonnell Aircraft) a Milestone Award for important inventions which debuted on the Mercury spacecraft.[288][n 45]
The spacecraft that flew, together with some that did not are on display in the United States. Friendship 7 (capsule No. 13) went on a global tour, popularly known as its “fourth orbit”. [289]
Mercury 7 astronaut assignments. Schirra had the most flights with three; Glenn, though being the first to leave NASA, had the last with a Space Shuttle mission in 1998.[291] Shepard was the only one to walk on the Moon.
Ground track and tracking stations for Mercury-Atlas 8. Spacecraft starts from Cape Canaveral in Florida and moves east; each new orbit-track is displaced to the left due to the rotation of the Earth. It moves between latitudes 32.5° north and 32.5° south.[292] Key: 1–6: orbit number. Yellow: launch. Black dot: tracking station. Red: range of station; Blue: landing.
The control panels of Friendship 7.[293] The panels changed between flights, among others the periscope screen that dominates the center of these panels was dropped for the final flight.
Drop of boilerplate spacecraft in training of landing and recovery. 56 such qualification tests were made together with tests of individual steps of the system.[41]
Story 1: Stop Believing The Lying Lunatic Left: Hillary Clinton: “It Was Allowed.”, Receiving And Sending Classified Documents on Personal Email Server Is Not Allowed — It is A Serious Federal Crime Under Title 18 U.S. Code § 1924 and § 793 — Hillary Clinton’s Race To The White House or Sing Sing Prison — October Surprise on October 22 in Congressional Hearing on Benghazi! — Videos
Savannah Guthrie Grills Hillary on Emails
NBC’s Savannah Guthrie grilled Hillary Clinton during a Today show town hall Monday, asking pointedly if she realized how bad her private email looked to an outside observer.
Guthrie noted that while Clinton had apologized for using a private email, she also kept saying that it was an invented issue used by Republicans to attack her. “And I guess my question to you is, which is it?” she said. “If you’re blaming the Republicans, some might wonder how genuine is that apology?”
“Well, actually it’s both,” Clinton said. “I mean, I’m sorry that I made a choice that has resulted in this kind of situation, and I’ve said I’ve made a mistake. Obviously if I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t. It was allowed and everybody has confirmed that. But it’s also, as we now know very clearly, the way that the Republicans are trying to bring my– as they admit– poll numbers down.”
“So it’s really both, Savannah,” Clinton said. “It’s both, ‘Hey, you know what, turn the clock back, it was allowed.’ I was thinking about many other things [than] my email account when I became Secretary of State.”
“It’s allowed, but you know, anybody who works in government knows it’s really not encouraged to use your personal email. And I just — do you get how bad it looks?” Guthrie asked.
“It looks like you set up a personal server, you set up your own email so that you would have control of those emails and you and you alone would decide when to release, whether to release them. And that’s in fact what happened,” she continued.
“Well, Savannah, first of all, it was allowed,” Clinton said. “And I’ve said it wasn’t the best choice. And every government official gets to decide what is personal and work-related.”
Another Tech Company Joins FBI Clinton Email Probe
Democrats on the Select Committee on Benghazi released a new video and fact sheet rebutting claims made by Chairman Trey Gowdy that the Committee is not focused on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The new video and fact sheet come after Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy admitted on national television that the purpose of the Select Committee has always been to damage Hillary Clinton’s bid for President.
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Ex-Counter Intel Agent Nails Hillary Clinton With Two Laws She Broke
Chris Farrell, a former Army counterintelligence agent and now director of investigations for Judicial Watch, argues Hillary Clinton has violated two national security laws.
The first is Title 18 of U.S. Code Sec. 1924 which outlaws the unauthorized removal and storage of classified information. Penalties include fines and imprisonment for up to one year.
The second is Title 18 of U.S. Code Sec. 793, a more serious felony, which outlaws people from misusing national defense information, and carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Liberal media not buying Hillary Clinton’s email excuses?
Judge Orders State Dept To Help FBI Recover Hillary Clinton’s Deleted Emails America’s News HQ
Hillary Clinton Explains What’s in Her Classified Emails
Rep. Trey Gowdy on Hillary Clinton’s widening email scandal – FoxTV Political News
• Criminal Charges Hang Over Clinton • “Hillary Blew It” – Chuck Todd • 7/24/15 •
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NSA Whistleblower William Binney on how they target us, abuse us, spy on us
NSA Whistleblower William Binney: The Future of FREEDOM
A 36-year veteran of America’s Intelligence Community, William Binney resigned from his position as Director for Global Communications Intelligence (COMINT) at the National Security Agency (NSA) and blew the whistle, after discovering that his efforts to protect the privacy and security of Americans were being undermined by those above him in the chain of command.
The NSA data-monitoring program which Binney and his team had developed — codenamed ThinThread — was being aimed not at foreign targets as intended, but at Americans (codenamed as Stellar Wind); destroying privacy here and around the world. Binney voices his call to action for the billions of individuals whose rights are currently being violated.
William Binney speaks out in this feature-length interview with Tragedy and Hope’s Richard Grove, focused on the topic of the ever-growing Surveillance State in America.
On January 22, 2015: (Berlin, Germany) – The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is proud to announce that retired NSA Technical Director and GAP client, William “Bill” Binney, will accept the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award today in Berlin, Germany. The award is presented annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) to a professional who has taken a strong stand for ethics and integrity. http://whistleblower.org/press/nsa-wh…
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Gowdy: Clinton to testify in October before Benghazi panel, all questions ‘asked’ and ‘answered’
South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy said Sunday that Hillary Clinton will indeed testify Oct. 22 about her activities as secretary of state at the time of the Benghazi attacks but suggested that her demand for a one-time appearance will result in a long, hard day.
“We have agreed on the date,” Gowdy, a Republican and chairman of House’s Select Committee on Benghazi, told “Fox News Sunday.”
“And the ground rules are simple: You’re going to stay there until all of the questions are asked and answered with respect to Benghazi,” he continued. “If she’s going to insist that she’s only coming once, I’m going to insist that once be fully constructed, which means she’s going to be there for a while.”
Gowdy said questions about Clinton’s growing email controversy will be part of the hearing only because they’re relevant to his task of finding out what Clinton knew prior to the fatal Sept. 11, 2012, terror attacks on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attacks.
Clinton was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Among questions still being pursued are how much did the Obama administration know about the possibility of a terror attack and did the outpost have adequate security.
The email controversy essentially centers on Clinton using a private server and email accounts while serving as the country’s top diplomat.
“Had she not had this email arrangement with herself, you wouldn’t be talking to me this morning,” Gowdy told Fox on Sunday. “So, my focus is on the four murdered Americans in Benghazi. But before I can write the final definitive accounting of that, I have to make sure that the public record is complete.”
Clinton, the front running Democratic presidential candidate, has said she had no knowledge of sending or receiving information marked as classified, that she has done nothing wrong and intends to cooperate with investigations.
However, thousands of pages of her emails publicly released in recent months show she received messages later marked classified, including some that contained material regarding the production and dissemination of U.S. intelligence information.
And a recent inspector general probe raised concerns about whether classified information had traversed the email system, resulting in a counterintelligence referral being sent to the Justice Department. However, the referral did not allege criminal wrongdoing.
Intentionally transmitting classified information through an unsecured system would appear to be a violation of federal regulations.
This weekend, Clinton suggested the email controversy is also politically motivated.
“I won’t get down in the mud with them,” she said. “I won’t play politics with national security or dishonor the memory of those who we lost. I won’t pretend that this is anything other than what it is, the same old partisan games we’ve seen so many times before.”
Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, has repeatedly declined to comment on whether he thinks Clinton broke federal law with what he calls her “unique email arrangement.”
However, he said Sunday that he has confidence in the FBI’s handling of the server, which Clinton turned over last week, after repeated requests, and that the agency will be the neutral observer for which he has asked.
“I think (the FBI is) the premiere law enforcement agency in the world,” Gowdy said. “I think that they’re as apolitical as anything can be in this culture, and I think they’re going to go wherever the facts take them.”
Clinton will testify before Benghazi panel on Oct. 22
Circle Oct. 22 with a red pen on the calendar: That’s when Hillary Clinton will testify before the Select Committee on Benghazi, the panel confirmed on Wednesday.
The former Secretary of State will answer questions about her role in the events that led up to the 2012 Benghazi, Libya terrorist attack that left four Americans dead — and, more than likely, her email practices that have come under fire in recent weeks.
Story Continued Below
“Secretary Clinton’s attorney, Mr. David Kendall, late today confirmed she has accepted the Select Committee’s offer to appear before the committee, which will take place Oct. 22nd,” spokesman Jamal Ware said in a statement. “Members of the Committee will question the former Secretary about Libya, Benghazi and her email arrangement consistent with the scope and jurisdiction of the Committee laid out in the House Resolution.”
Clinton’s campaign had made a similar announcement last Saturday following a series of reports calling into question the 2016 Democratic front-runner’s handling of classified information.
But the panel balked at the announcement, saying Kendall and the panel hadn’t agreed on the scope of what could be asked. They worried Kendall would demand that the panel stay away from questions about her email practices. Clinton used a home-brewed email server for work instead of a State.gov account as is required under government transparency rules.
Second IT firm agrees to give Clinton’s server data to FBI
Former secretary of state hired Datto Inc. to provide a private cloud backup of her emails
FBI asked the Connecticut company to turn over data. It agreed.
State Department also asking again whether she turned over all of her business emails
BY GREG GORDON AND ANITA KUMAR
Hillary Clinton hired a Connecticut company to back up her emails on a “cloud” storage system, and her lawyers have agreed to turn whatever it contains over to the FBI, a person familiar with the situation said Tuesday.
The disclosure came as a Republican Senate committee chairman, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, also asked the firm to turn over to the committee copies of any Clinton emails still in its possession.
There were conflicting accounts as to whether the development could lead to recovery of any of Clinton’s more than 31,000 personal emails, which she said she deleted from her private server upon turning over her work-related emails to the State Department, at its request, in December 2014.
Congressional Republicans have voiced skepticism as to whether the 30,940 business emails that the Democratic presidential candidate handed over represented all of those related to her position as secretary of state. The FBI is separately investigating whether Clinton’s arrangement put classified information at risk but has yet to characterize it as a criminal inquiry.
Datto Inc., based in Norwalk, Conn., became the second data storage firm to become entangled in the inquiry into Clinton’s unusual email arrangement, which has sparked a furor that has dogged her campaign. In August, Clinton and the firm that had managed her server since June 2013, Colorado-based Platte River Networks, agreed to surrender it for examination by the FBI.
On Friday, Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, and Platte River agreed to allow Datto to turn over the data from the backup server to the FBI, said the person familiar with Datto’s storage, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Datto said in a statement that “with the consent of our client and their end user, and consistent with our policies regarding data privacy, Datto is working with the FBI to provide data in conjunction with its investigation.”
The source said, however, that Platte River had set up a 60-day retention policy for the backup server, meaning that any emails to which incremental changes were made at least 60 days prior would be deleted and “gone forever.” While the server wouldn’t have been “wiped clean,” the source said, any underlying data likely would have been written over and would be difficult to recover.
Since Clinton has said she deleted all of her personal emails, the configuration might complicate any attempt by FBI forensics experts to resurrect emails from the backup. However, Bloomberg reported recently that the FBI has recovered some of Clinton’s emails, apparently from the server they seized from Platte River.
In laying out facts gathered by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chairs, Johnson offered the first public confirmation that Clinton or her representatives had arranged for a backup of her email server after she left office in early 2013.
His letter also cited internal emails recounting requests in late 2014 and early 2015 from Clinton representatives for Colorado-based Platte River Networks, the firm managing Clinton’s primary server, to direct Datto to reduce the amount of her emails it was backing up. These communications led a Platte River employee to air suspicions that “this whole thing really is covering up some shaddy (sic) shit,” according to an excerpt of an email cited by Johnson.
The controversy seems sure to come up on Oct. 22, when Clinton is scheduled to testify to a House committee investigating the fatal 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya. It was the panel’s chairman who first declared last March that she had “wiped” her server clean based on a letter from Clinton’s attorney.
Spokesmen for Clinton’s campaign declined to respond to requests for comment about Johnson’s letter Tuesday.
On May 31, 2013, four months after Clinton left office, the Clinton Executive Service Corp., which oversaw her email server contracts, hired Platte River to maintain her account. Its New Jersey-based server replaced the server in her New York home that had handled her emails throughout her tenure as secretary of state.
Several weeks ago, Platte River employees discovered that her private server was syncing with an offsite Datto server, he said.
When Datto acknowledged that was the case, a Platte River employee replied in an email: “This is a problem.”
Johnson said that “Datto apparently possessed a backup of the server’s contents since June 2013.”
Upon that discovery, Platte River “directed Datto to not delete the saved data and worked with Datto to find a way to move the saved information . . . back to Secretary Clinton’s private server.”
CLINTON WILL TESTIFY ON CAPITOL HILL ABOUT HER EMAIL PRACTICES OCT. 22
The letter also noted that Platte River employees were directed to reduce the amount of email data being stored with each backup. Late this summer, Johnson wrote, a Platte River employee took note of this change and inquired whether the company could search its archives for an email from Clinton Executive Service Corp. directing such a reduction in October or November 2014 and then again around February, advising Platte River to save only emails sent during the most recent 30 days.
Those reductions would have occurred after the State Department requested that Clinton turn over her emails.
IT IS UNCLEAR WHY SECRETARY CLINTON’S REPRESENTATIVES APPARENTLY DIRECTED (PLATTE RIVER) TO REDUCE THE BACKUP TIME PERIOD OF HER EMAILS AROUND THE SAME TIME PERIOD OR IN THE MONTHS FOLLOWING THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S REQUEST.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, in letter to Datto
It was here that a Platte River employee voiced suspicions about a cover-up and sought to protect the company. “If we have it in writing that they told us to cut the backups,” the employee wrote, “and that we can go public with our statement saying we have had backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30 days, it would make us look a WHOLE LOT better,” according to the email cited by Johnson.
In the letter to Austin McChord, Datto’s CEO, Johnson asked the firm to produce copies of all communications it had relating to Clinton’s server, including those with Platte River and the Clinton firm.” He also asked whether Datto and its employees were authorized to store and view classified information and for details of any cyberattacks on the backup server.
In an ongoing review of Clinton’s work emails, the State Department and intelligence agencies have found more than 400 containing classified information, including at least two declared “Top Secret,” the most sensitive national security data. Clinton has said none of the emails were marked classified during her tenure although some communications by their nature are classified at creation.
In other developments, the State Department is asking Clinton to search again for any emails, regardless of format, from the first two months of her tenure, according to a document filed Tuesday by the State Department in response to a lawsuit about her emails.
The request to Clinton attorney David Kendall, dated Oct. 2, comes weeks after the State Department obtained a series of emails that Clinton did not turn over despite her claim that she sent the agency all her work-related correspondence.
TO THE EXTENT HER EMAILS MIGHT BE FOUND ON ANY INTERNET SERVICE AND EMAIL PROVIDERS, WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO CONTACT THEM.
Patrick Kennedy, under secretay of state for management
The chain of emails, dating from Jan. 10, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2009, were exchanged with former Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military’s U.S. Central Command, responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and mostly relate to personnel matters.
“These emails are now in our possession and will be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said last week. “Furthermore, we asked the IG to incorporate this matter into the review Secretary Kerry requested in March. We have also informed Congress of this matter.”
Clinton said she was unable to turn over emails she sent or received from late January to March 18, 2009, because she continued to use the AT&T Blackberry account she had when she was a senator. But after the Petraeus emails surfaced and showed she had not turned over emails sent or received on her new account, aides said said she could not turn over emails because they had not been captured on her private server.
Clinton’s campaign and Kendall did not immediately respond to questions about Johnon’s letter or the State Department’s new request.
18 U.S. Code § 1924 – Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material
(a)
Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
(b)
For purposes of this section, the provision of documents and materials to the Congress shall not constitute an offense under subsection (a).
(c)
In this section, the term “classified information of the United States” means information originated, owned, or possessed by the United States Government concerning the national defense or foreign relations of the United States that has been determined pursuant to law or Executive order to require protection against unauthorized disclosure in the interests of national security.
18 U.S. Code § 793 – Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
(a)
Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, goes upon, enters, flies over, or otherwise obtains information concerning any vessel, aircraft, work of defense, navy yard, naval station, submarine base, fueling station, fort, battery, torpedo station, dockyard, canal, railroad, arsenal, camp, factory, mine, telegraph, telephone, wireless, or signal station, building, office, research laboratory or station or other place connected with the national defense owned or constructed, or in progress of construction by the United States or under the control of the United States, or of any of its officers, departments, or agencies, or within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, or any place in which any vessel, aircraft, arms, munitions, or other materials or instruments for use in time of war are being made, prepared, repaired, stored, or are the subject of research or development, under any contract or agreement with the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or with any person on behalf of the United States, or otherwise on behalf of the United States, or any prohibited place so designated by the President by proclamation in time of war or in case of national emergency in which anything for the use of the Army, Navy, or Air Force is being prepared or constructed or stored, information as to which prohibited place the President has determined would be prejudicial to the national defense; or
(b)
Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, and with like intent or reason to believe, copies, takes, makes, or obtains, or attempts to copy, take, make, or obtain, any sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, document, writing, or note of anything connected with the national defense; or
(c)
Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, receives or obtains or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain from any person, or from any source whatever, any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note, of anything connected with the national defense, knowing or having reason to believe, at the time he receives or obtains, or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain it, that it has been or will be obtained, taken, made, or disposed of by any person contrary to the provisions of this chapter; or
(d)
Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; or
(e)
Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; or
(f)
Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(g)
If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.
(h)
(1)
Any person convicted of a violation of this section shall forfeit to the United States, irrespective of any provision of State law, any property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds the person obtained, directly or indirectly, from any foreign government, or any faction or party or military or naval force within a foreign country, whether recognized or unrecognized by the United States, as the result of such violation. For the purposes of this subsection, the term “State” includes a State of the United States, the District of Columbia, and any commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States.
(2)
The court, in imposing sentence on a defendant for a conviction of a violation of this section, shall order that the defendant forfeit to the United States all property described in paragraph (1) of this subsection.
(3)The provisions of subsections (b), (c), and (e) through (p) of section 413 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. 853(b), (c), and (e)–(p)) shall apply to—
(A)
property subject to forfeiture under this subsection;
(B)
any seizure or disposition of such property; and
(C)
any administrative or judicial proceeding in relation to such property,
if not inconsistent with this subsection.
(4)
Notwithstanding section 524(c) of title 28, there shall be deposited in the Crime Victims Fund in the Treasury all amounts from the forfeiture of property under this subsection remaining after the payment of expenses for forfeiture and sale authorized by law.
In 1970, the name of the facility was changed to “Ossining Correctional Facility” and, in 1985, it received its present name.[3] “Sing Sing” was derived from the name of a Native American Nation, “Sinck Sinck” (or “Sint Sinck”), from whom the land was purchased in 1685.[4]
Sing Sing prison confines about 1,700 prisoners.[5] There are plans to convert the original 1825 cell block into a time specific museum.[6]
Story 1: Race Racketeers Shakedown SONY — Reverend Rat Al Sharpton of The Alinsky A Team On The Case — National Action Network Payday — Remember What Happened To Al Capone Reverend Rat — Obama Says SONY Made A Mistake — SONY Responds — Cyber Warfare Is An Act of War Not A Criminal Act — CIA Take Out Anyone? — Lights Out — Videos
U.S. Blames North Korea for Hack Attack Against Sony
White House considers response to Sony attack
Bureau 121: North Korea has secret cyberwar network
Obama Criticizes Sony + Hackers Push the Blackmail + Another Movie Cancelled – The Know
Obama vows response to ‘N Korea cyber attack’
PRIME TIME NEWS 22:00 FBI blames N. Korea for Sony hacking
How did North Korea pull off cyberattack?
Bill Whittle: Lights Out! The Chaos When Our Grid Goes Down
Greta: Sony chief Pascal pathetic for meeting with Sharpton
Amy Pascal fell for the Rev. Al Sharpton’s bait and met with him for racially insensitive emails leaked during the Sony hack attack. But that doesn’t solve anything
Watch the video about On Air, Entertainment, On The Record, Personality, Greta Van Susteren, Movies,
The Interview Official Trailer (2014) – Seth Rogen, James Franco Movie HD
“Yes, I think they made a mistake.” President Obama on Sony Hack (C-SPAN)
Sony CEO: We did not make a mistake
Sony Pictures execs apologize for slamming Jolie, Obama
Bill Whittle THE NEW BARBARISM, Obama, Wric Holder, Al Sharpton
Andrew Klavan: Black Leader Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton is a Dirty Rat…
Barack Obama is a CRIMINAL (Still Lying About Benghazi)…
Al Sharpton — Hollywood’s Like the Rockies … The Higher Up It Goes, the Whiter it Looks
Al Sharpton, Sony Co-chief Meet Over Racist Emails
Al Sharpton wades into Sony hacking scandal
Al Capone Downfall
Al Capone sentenced to 11 years in jail for tax evasion HD Stock Footage
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Team America the best scene
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Sony Responds To President Obama’s Criticism: “We Had No Choice,” Still Hope To Release ‘The Interview’
by Jen Yamato
Following a public rebuke from President Obama for caving to terrorist demands, Sony Pictures restated their commitment to getting The Interviewseen by audiences. Here’s the studio’s official statement, on the heels of CEO Michael Lynton’s defensive appearance on CNN:
“Sony Pictures Entertainment is and always has been strongly committed to the First Amendment. For more than three weeks, despite brutal intrusions into our company and our employees’ personal lives, we maintained our focus on one goal: getting the film The Interview released. Free expression should never be suppressed by threats and extortion.
The decision not to move forward with the December 25 theatrical release of The Interview was made as a result of the majority of the nation’s theater owners choosing not to screen the film. This was their decision.
Let us be clear – the only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theaters, after the theater owners declined to show it. Without theaters, we could not release it in the theaters on Christmas Day. We had no choice.
After that decision, we immediately began actively surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform. It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so.”
PREVIOUS, 12:44 PM: “We have notcaved,” Sony CEO Michael Lynton said today, defending his company from President Obama’s comment that the studio had “made a mistake” in bowing to terrorist demands over the North Korea-skewering The Interview. “We have not caved. We have not given in. We have persevered, and we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie.”
Lynton today explained that when theaters started dropping out, “we had no alternative but to not proceed with the theatrical release on the 25th of December. And that’s all we did.” After the top five exhibitor chains bowed out this week, the studio said on Wednesday they would not be releasing the film.
“The unfortunate part is… The President, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened. We do not own movie theaters. We cannot decide what will be played in movie theaters,” Lynton told CNN.
In his CNN interview set to air in full on Anderson Cooper’s AC360 at 5PM PT/8PM ET, Lynton made a point of contradicting Obama’s statement that Sony had not asked for his help.
“I did reach out,” said Lynton, who said Sony indeed sought assistance from the President. “We definitely spoke to a senior advisor in the White House to talk about the situation. The White House was certainly aware of the situation.”
In less than four weeks the Sony hacking has devastated the studio, exposing embarrassing and damaging emails, trade secrets, and the personal information of thousands of current and former employees – all supposedly over the political comedy, in which two bumbling journalists are asked to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Would Lynton make the movie again if he had the chance to do this all over?
“Yeah, I would make the movie again,” he said. “I think, you know, for the same reasons we made it in the first place – it was a funny comedy, it served as political satire. I think we would have made the movie again. Knowing what I know now, we might have, uh, done some things slightly differently, but I think a lot of events have overtaken us in a way that we had no control over the facts.”
Lynton says Sony still wants The Interview to be seen and is considering their options. Those include DVD and Blu-ray home video, YouTube, VOD, and other digital platforms but “there has not been one major VOD distributor, one major e-commerce site that has stepped forward and said they are willing to distribute this movie for us,” he said.
“We would still like the public to see this movie, absolutely.”
Story 1: Ebola Spreading with Reproductive Number, R0 or R Naught Exceeding 1 — Obama Sends 3,000 U.S. Troops to Liberia — worst-case hypothetical scenario, should the outbreak continue with recent trends, the case burden could gain an additional 77,181 to 277,124 cases by the end of 2014! — Videos
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Ebola mathematics stark warning of disease’s spread
The Ebola epidemic in Africa has continued to expand since I last wroteabout it, and as of a week ago, has accounted for more than 4,200 cases and 2,200 deaths in five countries: Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. That is extraordinary: Since the virus was discovered, no Ebola outbreak’s toll has risen above several hundred cases. This now truly is a type of epidemic that the world has never seen before. In light of that, several articles were published recently that are very worth reading.
The most arresting is a piece published last week in the journal Eurosurveillance, which is the peer-reviewed publication of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the EU’s Stockholm-based version of the US CDC). The piece is an attempt to assess mathematically how the epidemic is growing, by using case reports to determine the “reproductive number.” (Note for non-epidemiology geeks: The basic reproductive number — usually shorted to R0 or “R-nought” — expresses how many cases of disease are likely to be caused by any one infected person. An R0 of less than 1 means an outbreak will die out; an R0 of more than 1 means an outbreak can be expected to increase. If you saw the movie Contagion, this is what Kate Winslet stood up and wrote on a whiteboard early in the film.)
The Eurosurveillance paper, by two researchers from the University of Tokyo and Arizona State University, attempts to derive what the reproductive rate has been in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. (Note for actual epidemiology geeks: The calculation is for the effective reproductive number, pegged to a point in time, hence actually Rt.) They come up with an R of at least 1, and in some cases 2; that is, at certain points, sick persons have caused disease in two others.
You can see how that could quickly get out of hand, and in fact, that is what the researchers predict. Here is their stop-you-in-your-tracks assessment:
In a worst-case hypothetical scenario, should the outbreak continue with recent trends, the case burden could gain an additional 77,181 to 277,124 cases by the end of 2014.
That is a jaw-dropping number.
What should we do with information like this? At the end of last week, two public health experts published warnings that we need to act urgently in response.
First, Dr. Richard E. Besser: He is now the chief health editor of ABC News, but earlier was acting director of the US CDC, including during the 2009-10 pandemic of H1N1 flu; so, someone who understands what it takes to stand up a public-health response to an epidemic. In his piece in the Washington Post, “The world yawns as Ebola takes hold in West Africa,” he says bluntly: “I don’t think the world is getting the message.”
He goes on:
“The level of response to the Ebola outbreak is totally inadequate. At the CDC, we learned that a military-style response during a major health crisis saves lives…
“We need to establish large field hospitals staffed by Americans to treat the sick. We need to implement infection-control practices to save the lives of health-care providers. We need to staff burial teams to curb disease transmission at funerals. We need to implement systems to detect new flare-ups that can be quickly extinguished. A few thousand U.S. troops could provide the support that is so desperately needed.”
Aid ought to be provided on humanitarian grounds alone, he argues – but if that isn’t adequate rationale, he adds that aid offered now could protect us in the West from the non-medical effects of Ebola’s continuing to spread: “Epidemics destabilise governments, and many governments in West Africa have a very short history of stability. US aid would improve global security.”
Should we really be concerned about the global effect of this Ebola epidemic? In the New York Times, Dr. Michael T. Osterholm of the University of Minnesota* – an epidemiologist and federal advisor famous forinadvertently predicting the 2001 anthrax attacks – says yes, we should. In “What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola,” he warns: “The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done.”
He goes on:
“There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.
“The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years. It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages. But there has been a 300 percent increase in Africa’s population over the last four decades, much of it in large city slums…
“The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air… viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.”
Like Besser, Osterholm says that the speed, size and organisation of the response that is needed demands a governmental investment, but he looks beyond the US government alone:
“We need someone to take over the position of “command and control.” The United Nations is the only international organisation that can direct the immense amount of medical, public health and humanitarian aid that must come from many different countries and nongovernmental groups to smother this epidemic. Thus far it has played at best a collaborating role, and with everyone in charge, no one is in charge.
“A Security Council resolution could give the United Nations total responsibility for controlling the outbreak, while respecting West African nations’ sovereignty as much as possible. The United Nations could, for instance, secure aircraft and landing rights…
“The United Nations should provide whatever number of beds are needed; the World Health Organization has recommended 1,500, but we may need thousands more. It should also coordinate the recruitment and training around the world of medical and nursing staff, in particular by bringing in local residents who have survived Ebola, and are no longer at risk of infection. Many countries are pledging medical resources, but donations will not result in an effective treatment system if no single group is responsible for coordinating them.”
I’ve spent enough time around public health people, in the US and in the field, to understand that they prefer to express themselves conservatively. So when they indulge in apocalyptic language, it is unusual, and notable.
When one of the most senior disease detectives in the US begins talking about “plague,” knowing how emotive that word can be, and another suggests calling out the military, it is time to start paying attention.
As of 2014, an epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) is ongoing in West Africa. The outbreak began in Guinea in December 2013 after which it spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. The outbreak is caused byEbola virus (EBOV). It is the most severe outbreak of Ebola in terms of the number of human cases and deaths since the discovery of the virus in 1976,[4] with the number of cases from the current outbreak now outnumbering the combined cases from all known previous outbreaks.[5] Another outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has 62 possible and confirmed cases and 35 deaths as of 9 September 2014, is believed to be unrelated to the West African outbreak.[6]
As of 10 September 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a total of 4,846 suspected cases and 2,375 deaths (2,898 cases and 1,386 deaths being laboratory confirmed).[2][3] Many experts believe that the official numbers substantially understate the size of the outbreak because of families’ widespread reluctance to report cases.[7] On 28 August, the WHO reported an overall case fatality rate (CFR) estimate of 52%, considerably lower than an average of the rates reported from previous outbreaks. However, difficulties in collecting information and the methodology used in compiling it may be resulting in an artificially low number.[8] A more accurate method that observed patient outcomes in Sierra Leone found a CFR of 77%.[9]
Affected countries have encountered many difficulties in their attempt to control the spread of this Ebola epidemic, the first that West African nations have experienced. In some areas, people have become suspicious of both the government and hospitals; some hospitals have been attacked by angry protestors who believe that the disease is a hoax or that the hospitals are responsible for the disease. Many of the areas that have been infected are areas of extreme poverty without even running water or soap to help control the spread of disease.[10] Other factors include belief in traditional folk remedies, and cultural practices that predispose to physical contact with the deceased, especially death customs such as washing the body of the deceased.[11][12][13] Some hospitals lack basic supplies and are understaffed, which has increased the likelihood of staff catching the virus themselves. In August, the WHO reported that ten percent of the dead have been health care workers.[14]
By the end of August, the WHO reported that the loss of so many health workers was making it difficult for them to provide sufficient numbers of foreign medical staff.[15] By September 2014, Médecins Sans Frontières, the largest NGO working in the affected regions, had grown increasingly critical of the international response. Speaking on 3 September, the international president spoke out concerning the lack of assistance from the United Nations member countries saying, “Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it”.[16] A United Nations spokesperson has stated “they could stop the Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 6 to 9 months, but only if a ‘massive’ global response is implemented.”[17] The Director-General of the WHO, Margaret Chan, called the outbreak “the largest, most complex and most severe we’ve ever seen” and said that it “is racing ahead of control efforts”.[17] On 12 September Chan stated, “In the three hardest hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the number of new cases is moving far faster than the capacity to manage them in the Ebola-specific treatment centers. Today, there is not one single bed available for the treatment of an Ebola patient in the entire country of Liberia.”[18]
Researchers believe that the first human case of the Ebola virus disease leading to the 2014 outbreak was a 2-year-old boy who died 6 December 2013 in the village of Meliandou, Guéckédou Prefecture, Guinea. His mother, sister and grandmother then became ill with symptoms consistent with Ebola infection and died. People infected by those victims spread the disease to other villages.[1][19]
On 19 March, the Guinean Ministry of Health acknowledged a local outbreak of an undetermined viral hemorrhagic fever; the outbreak, ongoing since February, had sickened at least 35 people and killed 23. Ebola was suspected,[20] and on 25 March, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the Ministry of Health of Guinea had reported an outbreak of Ebola virus disease in four southeastern districts, with suspected cases in the neighbouring countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone being investigated. In Guinea, a total of 86 suspected cases, including 59 deaths (case fatality ratio: 68.5%), had been reported as of 24 March.[21]
On 31 March, the U.S. CDC sent a five-person team to assist Guinea Ministry of Health and WHO to lead an international response to the Ebola outbreak. On that date, the WHO reported 112 suspected and confirmed cases including 70 deaths. Two cases were reported from Liberia of people who had recently traveled to Guinea, and suspected cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone were being investigated.[21] On 30 April, Guinea’s Ministry of Health reported 221 suspected and confirmed cases including 146 deaths. The cases included 25 health care workers with 16 deaths. By late May, the outbreak had spread to Conakry, Guinea’s capital, a city of about two million inhabitants.[21] On 28 May, the total cases reported had reached 281 with 186 deaths.[21]
Subsequent spread
Situation in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone as of 4 September 2014.[22]
The outbreak next spread to Sierra Leone and progressed rapidly. The first cases were reported on 25 May in the Kailahun District, near the border with Guéckédou in Guinea.[28] By 20 June, there were 158 suspected cases, mainly in Kailahun and the adjacent district of Kenema, but also in the Kambia, Port Loko, and Western districts in the north west of the country.[29] By 17 July, the total number of suspected cases in the country stood at 442, and had overtaken those in Guinea and Liberia.[30] By 20 July, cases of the disease had additionally been reported in the Bo District;[31] the first case in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, was reported in late July.[32][33]
Nigeria
The first case in Nigeria was reported by the WHO on 25 July:[34] Patrick Sawyer, who flew from Liberia to Nigeria after exposure to the virus, and died at Lagos soon after arrival.[35] As part of the containment efforts, 353 possible contacts were monitored in Lagos and 451 in Port Harcourt. As at 16 September, the outbreak appears to have stabilised with 22 confirmed cases and 8 deaths, no new cases having been confirmed for 2 weeks.[36]
Senegal
On 29 August, the Senegalese Health minister, Awa Marie Coll Seck, announced the first case of Ebola in Senegal. [37][38] This case has subsequently recovered, but 67 possible contacts are being monitored in order to prevent further spread of the disease.[36]
Ebola virus disease is caused by four of five viruses classified in the genus Ebolavirus, family Filoviridae, order Mononegavirales. The four disease-causing viruses are Bundibugyo virus, Sudan virus, Taï Forest virus, and one called simply, Ebola virus (formerly and often still called the Zaire Ebola virus). Ebola virus is the most dangerous of the known Ebola disease-causing viruses, as well as being responsible for the largest number of outbreaks.[39]The strain of virus affecting people in the current outbreak is a member of the Ebolus virus (Zaire) lineage.[40] An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine on-line in April 2014 asserted that while the Ebola virus in Guinea shared 97% of its genetic code with the Zaïre lineage, it was of a different clade than the strains from outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon, and constituted a new strain indigenous to Guinea, and was not imported from Central Africa to West Africa.[19] This result, however was contradicted by two subsequent reports.
The first of these reports reached the conclusion that the outbreak “is likely caused by a Zaire ebolavirus (Ebola virus) lineage that has spread from Central Africa into Guinea and West Africa in recent decades, and does not represent the emergence of a divergent and endemic virus.”[41] A second report published in June 2014 also supports the latter view, determining that it was “extremely unlikely that this virus falls outside the genetic diversity of the Zaïre lineage” and that their analysis “unambiguously supports Guinea 2014 EBOV as a member of the Zaïre lineage.”[40]
Among 78 patients diagnosed with the Ebola virus during the first 24 days of the outbreak in Sierra Leone, 300 genetic changes were found that make the 2014 Ebola virus distinct from previous outbreaks. It is still unclear whether these differences are related to the severity of the current outbreak.[9][42]
Containment efforts
Various aid organisations and international bodies, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the U.S. CDC and the European Commission have donated funds and mobilised personnel to help counter the outbreak; charities including Médecins Sans Frontières, the Red Cross,[43] and Samaritan’s Purse are also working in the area. At the end of August, the WHO reported that the loss of so many health workers was making it difficult for them to provide sufficient numbers of foreign medical staff, and the African Union launched an urgent initiative to recruit more health care workers from among its members.[15]
Médecins Sans Frontières described the situation as being “totally out of control” in late June. Urging the world to offer aid to the affected regions, the Director-General said, “Countries affected to date simply do not have the capacity to manage an outbreak of this size and complexity on their own. I urge the international community to provide this support on the most urgent basis possible.”[44]
Disease reports accelerated in August with 40% of the total cases reported in a period of only three weeks. The WHO stated that the acceleration could see the number of cases reported exceed 20,000.[47][48]
Speaking at a United Nations (UN) briefing on 2 September, Joanne Liu, international president of Médecins Sans Frontières, criticized the lack of assistance from UN member countries.
“Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it. In West Africa, cases and deaths continue to surge. Riots are breaking out. Isolation centers are overwhelmed. Health workers on the front lines are becoming infected and are dying in shocking numbers. Others have fled in fear, leaving people without care for even the most common illnesses. Entire health systems have crumbled. Ebola treatment centers are reduced to places where people go to die alone, where little more than palliative care is offered. It is impossible to keep up with the sheer number of infected people pouring into facilities. In Sierra Leone, infectious bodies are rotting in the streets.”[14]
Speaking in September after visiting Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. CDC, said, “There is a window of opportunity to tamp this down, but that window is closing … we need action now to scale up the response.”[49] On 16 September, United States President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. military will take the lead in overseeing the response to the epidemic.[50]
Travel restrictions
On 8 August, a cordon sanitaire, a disease fighting practice that forcibly isolates affected regions, was established in the triangular area where Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are separated only by porous borders and where 70 percent of the known cases had been found.[7] By September, the closure of borders had caused a collapse of cross-border trade and was having a devastating effect on the economies of the involved countries. A United Nations spokesperson reported that the price of some food staples had increased by as much as 150% and warned that if they continue to rise widespread food shortages can be expected.
On 2 September, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan advised against travel restrictions saying that they are not justified and that they are preventing medical experts from entering the affected areas and “marginalizing the affected population and potentially worsening [the crisis]”. UN officials working on the ground have also criticized the travel restrictions saying the solution is “not in travel restrictions but in ensuring that effective preventive and curative health measures are put in place.” [14] Médecins Sans Frontières, also speaking out against the closure of international borders, called it “another layer of collective irresponsibility”: “The international community must ensure that those who try to contain the outbreak can enter and leave the affected countries if need be. A functional system of medical evacuation has to be set up urgently.”[16]
Difficulties faced in attempting to contain the outbreak include the outbreak’s multiple locations across country borders,[44]Dr Peter Piot, the scientist who co-discovered the Ebola virus, has stated that the present outbreak is not following its usual linear patterns as mapped out in previous outbreaks. This time the virus is “hopping” all over the West African epidemic region.[51] Furthermore, past epidemics have occurred in remote regions, but this outbreak has spread to large urban areas which has increased the number of contacts an infected person may have and has also made transmission harder to track and break. [15][15]
Adequate equipment has not been provided for medical personnel,[52] with even a lack of soap and water for hand-washing and disinfection.[53] Containment efforts are further hindered because there is reluctance among country people to recognize the danger of infection related to person-to-person spread of disease, such as burial practices which include washing of the body of one that has died.[11][12][13][32] A condition of dire poverty exists in many of the areas that have experienced a high incidence of infections. According to the director of the NGOPlan International in Guinea, “The poor living conditions and lack of water and sanitation in most districts of Conakry pose a serious risk that the epidemic escalates into a crisis. People do not think to wash their hands when they do not have enough water to drink.”[10]
Denial in some affected countries has often made containment efforts difficult.[54] Language barriers and the appearance of medical teams in protective suits has sometimes exaggerated fears of the virus.[55] There are reports that some people believe that the disease is caused by sorcery and that doctors are killing patients.[56] In late July, the former Liberian health minister, Peter Coleman, stated that “people don’t seem to believe anything the government now says.”[57] Acting on a rumor that the virus was invented to conceal “cannibalistic rituals” (due to medical workers preventing families from viewing the dead), demonstrations were staged outside of the main hospital treating Ebola patients in Kenema, Sierra Leone. The demonstrations were broken up by the police and resulted in the need to use armed guards at the hospital.[58] In Liberia, a mob attacked an Ebola isolation centre stealing equipment and “freeing” patients while shouting “There’s no Ebola”.[59] Red Cross staff was forced to suspend operations in southeast Guinea after they were threatened by a group of men armed with knives.[60]
Contact tracing is an essential method to tamp down the spread of the disease. It involves finding everyone who had close contact with an Ebola case, and track them for 21 days. However this requires careful record keeping by properly trained & equipped staff.[61] WHO Assistant Director-General for Global Health Security, Keiji Fukuda, said on 3 September “We don’t have enough health workers, doctors, nurses, drivers, and contact tracers to handle the increasing number of cases.”[62]
Healthcare providers
Healthcare providers caring for people with Ebola and family and friends in close contact with people with Ebola are at the highest risk of getting infected because they may come in direct contact with the blood or body fluids of the sick person. In some places affected by the current outbreak, care may be provided in clinics with limited resources (for example, no running water, no climate control, no floors, and inadequate medical supplies), and workers could be in those areas for several hours with a number of Ebola infected patients.[63]In August, it was reported that healthcare workers have represented nearly 10 percent of the cases and fatalities, significantly impairing the ability to respond to the outbreak in a country which already faces a severe shortage of doctors.[64] In August, the WHO reported that more than 240 health care workers had developed Ebola and more than 120 had died; by 7 September, the cases had risen to 301 with 144 deaths.[65] According to the WHO, the high proportion of infected medical staff can be explained by lack of the number of medical staff needed to manage such a large outbreak, shortages of protective equipment, or improperly using what is available, and “the compassion that causes medical staff to work in isolation wards far beyond the number of hours recommended as safe.”.[15]
Comparing the present Ebola outbreak to some in the past, the WHO notes that many of the most recent districts in which epidemics have occurred were in remote areas where the transmission had been easier to track and break. This outbreak is different in that large cities have been affected as well, where tracking has been difficult and medical staff may not suspect Ebola disease when they make a diagnosis. Several infectious diseases endemic to West Africa, such as malaria and typhoid fever, mimic the symptoms of Ebola disease, and doctors and nurses may see no need to take protective measures.[15] Also, without recent past experience with the disease, people have become intensely fearful and have, in some cases, attacked medical staff, believing that they cause the disease.[15]
The WHO reports that in the hardest hit areas there have historically been only one or two doctors available to treat 100,000 people, and these doctors are heavily concentrated in urban areas; the loss of so many health workers has made it difficult for the WHO to provide sufficient numbers of medical staff. Among the fatalities is Samuel Brisbane, a former advisor to the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, described as “one of Liberia’s most high-profile doctors.”[66] In July, leading Ebola doctor Sheik Umar Khan from Sierra Leone died in the outbreak. His death was followed by two more deaths in Sierra Leone: Modupe Cole, a senior physician at the country`s main referral facility,[67] and Sahr Rogers, who worked in Kenema.[68][68][69][70] The African Union has launched an urgent initiative to recruit more health care workers from among its members.[15]
Two American health workers that contracted the disease in Liberia and later recovered said that their team of workers had been following “to the letter all of the protocols for safety that were developed by the CDC and WHO”, including a full body coverall, several layers of gloves, and face protection including goggles. One of the two, a physician, had worked with patients, but the other was working to help workers get in and out of their protective gear, while wearing protective gear herself. In an interview she stated, “At this time we have not been able to confirm 100 percent the method of contagion. We are working closely with CDC and WHO to investigate. It is just an incredibly contagious disease.”[71]
In late August, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called the situation “chaotic” and the medical response “inadequate”. They report that they have expanded their operations but have been unable to keep up with the rapidly increasing need for assistance which has forced them to reduce the level of care they are able to offer: “It is not currently possible, for example, to administer intravenous treatments.” Calling the situation “an emergency within the emergency”, MSF reports that many hospitals have had to shut down due to lack of staff or fears of the virus among patients and staff which has left people with other health problems without any care at all. Speaking from a remote region, a MSF worker said that a shortage of protective equipment was making the medical management of the disease difficult and that they had limited capacity to safely bury bodies.[78] By September, treatment for Ebola patients had become unavailable in some areas. Speaking on 12 September, WHO director-general Margaret Chan said, “In the three hardest hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the number of new cases is moving far faster than the capacity to manage them in the Ebola-specific treatment centers. Today, there is not one single bed available for the treatment of an Ebola patient in the entire country of Liberia.”[18]
Experimental treatments
The unavailability of treatments in the most-affected regions has spurred controversy, with some calling for experimental drugs to be made more widely available in Africa on a humanitarian basis, and others warning that making unproven drugs widely available would be unethical, especially in light of past experimentation conducted in developing countries by Western drug companies.[79][80] As a result of the controversy, an expert panel of the WHO on 12 August endorsed the use of interventions with as-yet-unknown effects both for treatment and for prevention of Ebola, and also said that deciding which treatments should be used and how to distribute them equitably were matters that needed further discussion.[81] Subsequently the WHO assistant director-general for health systems and innovation said on 5 September that transfusion of whole blood or purified serum from Ebola survivors is the therapy with the greatest potential to be implemented immediately on a large scale in West Africa, although there is little information on the efficacy of such treatment.[82] In mid-September the sale of black market blood from survivors of the disease has been noted as a new trend in the Ebola-affected regions. While serum derived blood from surviving victims has been used under strict control in certain cases, this trend in an uncontrolled manner could lead to other infectious diseases. This treatment must be properly implemented as a medical treatment under strict control and screening of possible donors. Margaret Chan of the WHO has criticized the use of this practice in a black market environment, noting concerns over “storage and collection methods”.[83]
A number of experimental treatments are being studied or will undergo trials proximately:[84]
ZMapp, a monoclonal antibody vaccine. The limited supply of the drug has been used to treat a small number of individuals infected with the Ebola virus. Although some of these have recovered the outcome is not considered statistically significant.[85] ZMapp has proved highly effective in a trial involving rhesus macaque monkeys.[86]
Favipiravir, a drug approved in Japan for stockpiling against influenza pandemics.[88] The drug appears to be useful in a mouse model of the disease[89][90] and Japan has offered to supply the drug if requested by the WHO.[91]
The Jenner Institute has announced a first phase I trial of a vaccine targeted at the Zaire strain of Ebola virus that is causing the current outbreak, to commence mid-September.[92]
According to a website for collaborative analysis and discussion about the Ebola emergence, as of 7 August, attempts to create an accurate Case Fatality Rate (CFR) had been unreliable due to differences in testing policies, the inclusion of probable and suspected cases, and primarily the rate of new cases that have not run their course.[93] However, on 28 August, the WHO made their first overall case fatality rate estimate of 52%. It ranges from 42% in Sierra Leone to 66% in Guinea.[94][95] Compared to previous Zaire strain outbreaks, this number is quite low. The twelve Zaire strain outbreaks since the first one reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976 have had an average CFR of about 76%. Even the Sudan ebolavirus species, known to be less virulent than the Zaire species of the Ebola virus, has had an average CFR of about 57%.[96] However, a weakness of the WHO figures is that they simply divide the number of deaths by the total number of total cases; this will underestimate the CFR as it includes recent diagnoses who may not survive.[8]
Projections
The basic reproduction number is a statistical measure of the number of people who are expected to be infected by one person who has the disease in question. If the rate is less than 1, the infection will die out in the long run. But if the rate is greater than 1 the infection will be able to spread in a population.[97] Using data supplied by the WHO, an August study found that an estimate for this virus was between 1.4 and 1.7 at that time, meaning that each newly infected individual had subsequently infected 1.4 to 1.7 more. The time between initial infection and the infecting of others for this virus is short. The basic reproduction number coupled with a short transfer time for this epidemic is of great concern [98] According to a research paper released in August, in the hypothetical worst-case scenario, if a reproduction number of over 1.0 continues for the remainder of the year we would expect to observe a total of 77,181 to 277,124 additional cases within 2014.[99]
On 28 August, the WHO released its first estimate of the possible total cases (20,000) from the outbreak as part of its roadmap for stopping the transmission of the virus.[100][101] The WHO roadmap states “[t]his Roadmap assumes that in many areas of intense transmission the actual number of cases may be 2 – 4 fold higher than that currently reported. It acknowledges that the aggregate case load of EVD could exceed 20,000 over the course of this emergency. The Roadmap assumes that a rapid escalation of the complementary strategies in intense transmission, resource-constrained areas will allow the comprehensive application of more standard containment strategies within 3 months.”[101] It does not provide details of how it made this total casualty estimate or a more detailed projection of how Ebola casualty statistics might evolve over time. It includes an assumption that some country or countries will pay the required cost of their plan, estimated at half a billion dollars.[101] However, while the WHO has projected a total of 20,000 cases, some of the United States’ leading epidemiologists predict a much higher number. Writing in the NYT on 12 September, Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech, said that researchers at various universities who have been using computer models to track the growth rate say that at the virus’s present rate of growth, there could easily be close to 20,000 cases in one month, not in nine. [102]
On 3 September, Thomas Kenyon]], Director of the U.S. CDC’s Center for Global Health, said “The highly virulent disease, which has claimed more than 1,900 lives so far, is spreading faster than health workers in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone can manage”.[103] Similar comments were made by Anthony Fauci, Director of [the US] NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said that 42 percent of the cases have occurred in the last month and that the outbreak is “completely out of control”. He further noted that the rate of infection is exponential: “The number of cases per unit time is dramatically increasing.”[104] On 8 September, the WHO warned that the number of new cases in Liberia was increasing exponentially, and would increase by “many thousands” in the following 3 weeks.
On 9 September, Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine controversially announced that the containment fight in Sierra Leone and Liberia has already been “lost” and that the disease will “burn itself out” after, eventually, infecting nearly the entire population, with half of them, or around five million deaths.[105]
Epidemiology
Countries with local transmission
Guinea
Researchers believe that the first human case of the Ebola virus disease leading to the 2014 outbreak was a 2-year-old boy who died 6 December 2013 in the village of Meliandou, Guéckédou Prefecture. In early August, Guinea closed its borders with both Sierra Leone and Liberia to help contain the spread of the disease, as more new cases were being reported in those countries than in Guinea.
Thinking that the virus was contained, Médecins Sans Frontières closed its treatment centers in May leaving only a small skeleton staff to handle the Macenta region. However, high numbers of new cases reappeared in the region in late August. According to Marc Poncin, a coordinator for MSF, the new cases are related to persons returning to Guinea from neighbouring Liberia or Sierra Leone.[51]
Liberia
In Liberia, the disease was reported in Lofa and Nimba counties in late March.[106] By 23 July, the Liberian health ministry began to implement measures to improve the country’s response to the outbreak.[107] On 27 July, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian president, announced that Liberia would close its borders, with the exception of a few crossing points, such as the country’s principal airport, where screening centres would be established, and the worst-affected areas in the country would be placed under quarantine.[57]Footballevents were banned, because large gatherings and the nature of the sport increase transmission risks.[108] Three days after the borders were closed, Sirleaf announced the closure of all schools nationwide, including the University of Liberia,[109] and a few communities were to be quarantined.[110] Sirleaf declared a state of emergency on 6 August, partly because the disease’s weakening of the health care system has the potential to reduce the system’s ability to treat routine diseases such as malaria; she noted that the state of emergency might require the “suspensions of certain rights and privileges.”[111] On the same day, the National Elections Commission announced that it would be unable to conduct the scheduled October 2014 senatorial election and requested postponement,[112] one week after the leaders of various opposition parties had publicly taken different sides on the question.[113] On 30 August, Liberia’s Port Authority cancelled all “shore passes” for sailors from ships coming into the country’s four seaports.[114]
On 18 August, a mob of residents from West Point, an impoverished area of Monrovia, descended upon a local Ebola clinic to protest its presence. The protesters turned violent, threatening the caretakers, removing the infected patients, and looting the clinic of its supplies, including blood-stained bed sheets and mattresses. Police and aid workers expressed fear that this would lead to mass infections of Ebola in West Point.[115][116] On 19 August, the Liberian government quarantined the entirety of West Point and issued a curfew state-wide.[117][118] Violence again broke out on 22 August after the military fired on protesting crowds.[119] The quarantine blockade of the West Point area was lifted on 30 August. The Information Minister, Lewis Brown, said that this step was taken to ease efforts to screen, test, and treat residents for the disease.[120]
On 8 September, an offer from U.S. President Barack Obama to provide military support to assist in establishing isolation units and providing security for health workers was accepted by the Liberian government.[121]
The first reported Ebola case in Nigeria was an imported case of a Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, who travelled by air from Liberia and became violently ill upon arriving in the city of Lagos. Sawyer died five days later, on 25 July. In response, the Nigerian government observed all of Sawyer’s contacts for signs of infection and increased surveillance at all entry points to the country; health officials were placed at entry points to conduct tests on people arriving in the country.[124] On 19 August, it was reported that the doctor who treated Sawyer, Ameyo Adadevoh, had also died of Ebola disease.[125][126] Adadevoh, a descendant of Herbert Macaulay[127][128] andSamuel Ajayi Crowther[129] was posthumously praised for preventing the index case (Sawyer) from leaving the hospital at the time of diagnosis, thereby playing a key role in curbing the spread of the virus in Nigeria. On 6 August, Nigerian authorities confirmed the Ebola death of a nurse who had also treated Sawyer.[130]
In July, Arik Air, Nigeria’s main airline, stopped flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone.[57]
On 9 August, the Nigerian National Health Research Ethics Committee, the organization regulating research ethics in the country, issued a statement waiving the regular administrative requirements that limit the international shipment of any biological samples out of Nigeria.[131] The statement also supports the use of non-validated treatments without prior review and approval by a health research ethics committee.[131]
On 19 August, the Commissioner of Health in Lagos announced that Nigeria had seen twelve confirmed cases; four died (including the index case) while another five, including two doctors and a nurse, were declared disease-free and released.[122][132] Other than increased surveillance at the country’s borders, the Nigerian government states that they have also made attempts to control the spread of disease through an improvement in tracking, providing education to avert disinformation and increase accurate information, and the teaching of appropriate hygiene measures: “Efforts are currently ongoing to scale up and strengthen all aspects of response, including contact tracking, public information and community mobilization, case management and infection prevention and control, and coordination. There is now increased disease surveillance system in a bid to monitor, control, and prevent any occurrence of the disease”.[122]
On 22 August, a doctor who treated a Liberian diplomat (Olubukun Koye) in the Mandate Hotel [133]—who had contact with Patrick Sawyer—died in Port Harcourt from Ebola. The BBC report said the diplomat had escaped from quarantine in Lagos and traveled to the city for medical treatment where he survived after being treated. As at the end of August, the total number of deaths from Ebola in Nigeria stood at six. The Good Heart Hospitalwhere the doctor had been admitted before his death and the hotel where he treated the diplomat were shut down. As a result, suspected contacts were subsequently quarantined.[134][135][136] On 11 September, Nigeria announced that it no longer has even a single case of Ebola, but will need to wait for about a week more before declaring itself completely Ebola-free.[137][138]
Sierra Leone
The first person recorded to be infected with Ebola was a tribal healer who had treated an infected person, or persons, in her area and was reported to have died on 26 May. According to tribal tradition, her body was washed for her burial and several women from neighboring towns became infected.[139]
On 1 April, Sierra Leone instituted a temporary measure which included reactivation of its “Active Surveillance Protocol” that would see all travellers into the country from either Guinea or Liberia subjected to strict screening to ascertain their state of health.[140] The government of Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency on 30 July and deployed troops to quarantine the hot spots of the epidemic.[141]
On 29 July, well-known physician Sheik Umar Khan, Sierra Leone’s only expert on hemorrhagic fever, died after contacting Ebola at his clinic in Kenema. Khan had long worked with Lassa fever, which kills over 5,000 a year in Africa, and had expanded his clinic to accept Ebola patients when the disease broke out. At his death, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma celebrated Khan as a “national hero”.[139]
In August, awareness campaigns in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, were delivered over the radio or through car loudspeakers.[142] Also in August, Sierra Leone passed a law that will subject a two-year jail term on anyone found to be hiding a person who is believed to be infected with Ebola disease. The new measure was announced as a top parliamentarian lashed out at neighbouring countries for failing to do more to curtail the outbreak.[143]
On 26 August, the WHO said it had shut down one of its two laboratories in Sierra Leone after a health worker there was infected with Ebola. The laboratory is situated in the Kailahun district, one of the worst affected areas in Sierra Leone. This may disrupt efforts to increase the global response to the outbreak of the disease in the district.[144] “It’s a temporary measure to take care of the welfare of our remaining workers,” WHO spokesperson Christy Feig announced. He did not specify how long the closure would last, but they will return after the WHO assessment of the situation. The medical worker is one of the first WHO staff infected by the Ebola Virus. The worker was first treated at a government hospital in Kenema and then evacuated to Germany for further treatment.[144][145]
Senegal
In March, the Senegal Ministry of Interior ordered all movements of people through the southern border with Guinea to be suspended indefinitely to prevent the spread of the disease, according to a statement published on 29 March by state agency APS.[146]
On 29 August, the Senegalese Health minister, Awa Marie Coll Seck, announced the first case of Ebola in the country. The patient arrived from the neighbouring country Guinea, where the virus was first reported. The case has been confirmed in Senegal.[37][38] The patient, a university student from Guinea, is being treated in Dakar. Samples were sent to the Institut Pasteur, where Ebola was confirmed. The WHO was informed of the situation on 30 August [147] and is treating the situation “as a top priority emergency”, and it has now dispatched operational personnel to Dakar.[148]
On 27 August, a Health Ministry official said that 112 Indian citizens and four Nepalese citizens had landed in Mumbai and Delhi from Liberia.[149] Of the 17 who had arrived in Delhi, one had fever symptoms and had been quarantined at the Airport Health Organisation (APHO), an airport medical facility. Six others were screened for Ebola, and five passengers who arrived on routine flights from affected countries showing fever symptoms had also been quarantined. Earlier, it was reported that an isolation facility with 120 beds was being created in the Hindu Hriday Samrat Jogeshwari trauma care hospital by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).[150] On 28 August, the Health Ministry reported that 821 people were being monitored and tracked for the Ebola virus.[151]
Spain
On 5 August, the Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God confirmed that the Spanish Brother Miguel Pajares was infected with the Ebola virus while volunteering in Liberia. His repatriation, coordinated by the Spanish Ministry of Defence, occurred on 6 August 2014.[152]Spanish authorities confirmed that the patient would be treated in the ‘Carlos III’ hospital in Madrid. The decision attracted some controversy, amid questions as to the authorities’ ability to guarantee no risk of transmission.[153] Brother Pajares died from the virus on 12 August.[154]
United Kingdom
In August, an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in North London was prepared to treat patients with highly infectious diseases. On 24 August, William Pooley, a British citizen, was medically evacuated from Sierra Leone for treatment in the newly created unit. Pooley, a British health worker, is the first British citizen confirmed to have contracted the disease in Sierra Leone.[155] On 3 September, the 29-year old Pooley was discharged from hospital after a making full recovery from the disease.[156]
United States
American aid worker Kent Brantly, a physician, became infected with Ebola, while working in a Monrovia treatment centre as medical director for the aid group Samaritan’s Purse; Nancy Writebol, one of Brantly’s missionary co-workers, became infected at the same time.[71][157][158] Both were flown to the United States at the beginning of August for further treatment in Atlanta‘s Emory University Hospital, near the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control.[159] On 21 August, both Brantly and Writebol were discharged from Emory University Hospital, having recovered from the virus.[160]
On 4 September, a Boston physician, Rick Sacra, was airlifted from Liberia to be treated in the United States. He is the third US missionary, working for Serving In Mission (SIM), who has tested positive for the disease. Sacra is being treated in Omaha at the Nebraska Medical Center.[161] The doctor did not get infected while treating Ebola patients, but was exposed to the virus while delivering babies at a hospital in Liberia.[162] On 9 September, it was reported that Sacra is receiving an experimental therapy (not ZMapp) and it was later announced that he had received a blood transfusion from Kent Brantly, an American physician who has recovered from the disease. It has been theorized that transfusing blood products from former Ebola patients may assist a diseased person’s immune system to fight the disease. As of 11 September, he has shown “remarkable” improvement though recovery remains uncertain.[163][164]
On 9 September, the fourth U.S. citizen who contracted the Ebola virus arrived at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment. The patient was airlifted from Sierra Leone and landed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base. The identity of the patient, a male doctor working for the WHO in Sierra Leone, has not been released. According to doctors at the hospital, he will not be receiving any experimental treatment and will only receive supportive care to boost his immune system. The patient exited the ambulance and was assisted into the hospital while walking on his own.[165]
Timeline
A timeline of the outbreak follows, using data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[166] and the WHO.[167] The table also includes suspected cases that have yet to be confirmed for the virus. The reports are sourced from official information from the affected countries’ health ministries. WHO has stated the reported numbers “vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak”.[168] Cases in remote areas may also be missed.[169]
Note that numbers for cases and deaths are in constant flux. Numbers reported for cases may include probable or suspected cases; numbers are revised downward if a suspected case turns out to be negative.
Cumulative totals of cases and deaths over time
Cumulative totals in log scale
Average new cases and deaths per day (between WHO reporting dates)
Cumulative number of cases by country, using a linear scale.
Cumulative number of cases by country, using a logarithmic scale.
Date is the “as of” date from the reference. A single source may report statistics for multiple “as of” dates.
Total cases and deaths before 1 July 2014 are calculated.
Numbers with ± are deltas from a previous report. The deltas may not be consistent.
Numbers with a ↓ indicate cases that were eliminated.
Liberia:
29 Mar: LI data is confused. Earlier, there were 8 suspected cases and 6 deaths (no confirmed cases). Seven suspected cases were tested by 29 Mar, and five were not Ebola. That should take suspected cases to 3, but a total was not stated; it also implies deaths should be at most 3. The report states only 2 suspected deaths were tested, and one was not Ebola.[224]
21 Apr: reduced deaths by 2: one in Guinea total and one case discarded. 26 samples negative for Ebola.[214]
24 Apr: stated it was reviewing its 27 suspected cases and may toss all of them;[213]
On 20 August, several people, including four health care workers, were reported to have died of Ebola-like symptoms in the remote northern Équateur province, a province that lies about 750 miles north of the capitalKinshasa.[232] By 21 August, 13 people were reported to have died with similar symptoms. On 26 August, the Équateur Province Ministry of Health confirmed an outbreak of Ebola to the WHO.[233] The initial case was a woman from Ikanamongo Village who became ill with symptoms of Ebola after she had butchered a bush animal that her husband had killed. She was treated in a private clinic, but on 11 August she died of a then-unidentifiedhemorrhagic fever. The following week relatives of the woman, several health-care workers who had treated the woman, and individuals that they had been in contact with came down with similar symptoms. Five health care workers subsequently died.[233]
On 26 August, the WHO reported that between 28 July and 18 August a total of 24 suspected cases of Ebola virus disease, including 13 deaths, had been reported. The index case and the 80 contacts had no history of travel to the Ebola-affected countries or history of contact with individuals from the affected areas, and it was believed that the outbreak in DRC was unrelated to the ongoing outbreak in West Africa.[233]
On 2 September, the WHO said that there were currently 31 deaths in the Northern Boende area in the province of Équateur and 53 confirmed, suspected or likely cases.[231] The WHO confirmed that the current strain of the virus in the Boende District is the Zaire Ebola species. This strain is common in the country and similar to the 1995 Kikwit outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The virology results and epidemiological findings indicated no connection to the current epidemic in West Africa Region or Nigeria.[234]
On 9 September, the WHO raised the number of cases to 62 and the death toll to 35 from possible or confirmed Ebola cases. Included in this number are 9 health-care workers with 7 deaths among them. In total 386 contacts have been listed and 239 contacts are being followed up. The outbreak is still contained in Jeera county in the Boende region.[6]
Economic effects
In addition to the loss of life, the outbreak is having a number of significant economic impacts.
Markets and shops are closing, due to travel restrictions, cordon sanitaire, or fear of human contact, leading to loss of income for producers and traders.[235]
Movement of people away from affected areas has disturbed agricultural activities.[236][237]
Tourism is directly impacted in affected countries.[238] Other countries in Africa which are not directly affected by the virus have also reported adverse effects on tourism.[239]
Foreign mining companies have withdrawn non-essential personnel, deferred new investment, and cut back operations.[237][240][241]
Many airlines have experienced reduced traffic. Some airlines have suspended flights to the area.[242]
Forecasts of economic growth have been reduced.[243] An initial World Bank-IMF assessment for Guinea projects a full percentage point fall in GDP growth from 4.5 percent to 3.5 percent[244]
The outbreak is straining the finances of governments, with Sierra Leone using Treasury bills to fund the fight against the virus.[245]
The IMF is considering expanding assistance to Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia as their national deficits balloon and their economies contract sharply. [247]
Responses
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization‘s (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Luis Sambo, visited the affected countries from 21 to 25 July, meeting with political leaders, ministers of health, NGOs, and other agencies. He stressed the need to “promote behavioural change while respecting cultural practices.”[34] On 24 July, WHO’s Director General met with agencies and donors in Geneva to facilitate an increase in funding and manpower to respond to the outbreak.[34]
WHO declared the outbreak an international public health emergency on 8 August, after a two-day teleconference of experts.[45] On 11 August, they emphasised lack of supplies and capacity as one of the problems, while local awareness of the disease had increased.[248] Revised guidelines on how to prevent the spread of the disease were released, updating guidelines from 2008.[249]
On 28 August, the WHO said it is seeking $490 million in funding to fight the outbreak.[250] They report that they “are on the ground establishing Ebola treatment centres and strengthening capacity for laboratory testing, contact tracing, social mobilization, safe burials, and non-Ebola health care” and “continue to monitor for reports of rumoured or suspected cases from countries around the world.” Other than cases where individuals are suspected or have been confirmed of being infected with Ebola, or have had contact with cases of Ebola, the WHO does not recommend any travel or trade restrictions.[15]
On 16 September WHO Assistant Director General, Bruce Aylward, announced that the cost for combating this disease epidemic will spiral to a staggering $1 billion. “We don’t know where the numbers are going on this,” according to Aylward. In addition aid workers have predicted an “explosive” increase in new case numbers in the following days in the epidemic area.[251]
US Centers for Disease Control
On 31 July, US health officials from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a travel advisory for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, warning against non-essential travel.[252] By 26 August, the CDC had issued a Level 3 travel warning for Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia and a Level 2 travel warning for Nigeria.[253] The Level 3 warning is the highest that can be issued and will be in place until 27 February 2015. It means that United States residents must avoid nonessential travel to the three countries worst hit by the virus.
By the beginning of August, the US Centers for Disease Control had placed staff in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria to assist the local Ministries of Health and WHO-led response to the outbreak.[122] On 6 August, the Centers for Disease Control moved its Ebola response to Level 1 (the highest on a scale from 1 to 6) to increase the agency’s ability to respond to the outbreak.[254]
On 29 August, the CDC issued a Level 2 travel warning for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), warning against contact with body fluids of people with Ebola.[255]
Médecins Sans Frontières
The humanitarian aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) started its Ebola intervention in West Africa in March 2014 and is now present in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. By the end of August, the organization ran five Ebola case management centers with a total capacity of 415 beds. Since March, MSF has admitted a total of 1,885 patients. Of these patients 907 tested positive for Ebola and 170 recovered. MSF has deployed 184 international staff to the region and employs 1,800 nationally hired personnel.[78] On 29 August MSF described the international response as slow and derisory.[256]
Samaritan’s Purse
Samaritan’s Purse is also providing direct patient care in multiple locations in Liberia.[257] At a congressional committee hearing on 7 August 2014, the head of Samaritan’s Purse stated that “The disease is uncontained and out of control in West Africa.”[258]
World Food Program
On 18 August, World Food Program announced plans to mobilise food assistance for an estimated 1 million people living in restricted access areas.[259]
World Bank Group
The World Bank Group has pledged up to US $200 million in emergency funding to help Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone contain the spread of Ebola infections, help their communities cope with the economic impact of the crisis, and improve public health systems throughout West Africa.[244]
Response by countries
Australia
On 14 August, the Australian ambassador to the People’s Republic of China revealed that the Australian government would donate US$1 million to the World Health Organization, in addition to its annual support, to assist in combating the Ebola outbreak.[260]
Brazil
Brazil has donated three kits to Guinea, five to Sierra Leone and five more to Liberia. They are waiting for the United Nations to indicate how and when to ship. Each kit can handle up to 500 people for three months which contains gloves, hats, saline and more.[261]
Canada
On 12 August, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) announced that the country would donate between 800 and 1,000 doses of an untested vaccine (VSV-EBOV) to the WHO.[262] The offer was made by the Minister of Health directly to the Director General of the WHO as part of the country’s commitment to containment efforts. The Government of Canada holds the intellectual property associated with the vaccine, but has licensed BioProtection Systems of Ames, Iowa to develop the product for use in humans.[263]
As of 12 August, Canada’s contribution to address the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa is estimated at $5,195,000. This includes resources dedicated to humanitarian, security, and public health interventions.[264]
On 26 August, the PHAC said it is preparing to bring home three members from their mobile laboratory in Sierra Leone. The three Canadians were among six workers at the mobile lab. The team is from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. The recall follows the diagnoses of three persons, staying at the same hotel as the team members, with the Ebola virus. The team members had no direct contact with the infected persons and are not showing any signs of the disease. The team members will be monitored as they travel back to Canada and will remain in voluntary isolation until cleared, officials from the PHAC said.[265]
On 6 September, the Public Health Agency of Canada announced that they will be resuming work at the Kailahun mobile laboratory after recalling them in late August for safety reasons. A three person team have been sent to the laboratory in eastern Sierra Leone. The team will rotate on a monthly basis.[266]
Chad
The Prime Minister of Chad, Kalzeubet Pahimi Deubet, said it will follow in the footsteps of South Africa and impose travel restrictions to and from the countries currently affected by the Ebola outbreak. Chad will close all its borders to Nigeria to prevent the spread of the disease to the country. He added that this would have an economic impact to Chad and the region, but the restrictions are necessary.[267]
China
A Chinese plane carrying supplies worth 30 million yuan (4.9 million US dollars) arrived in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia on 11 August.[268][269] This is their second Ebola relief after the first batch delivered in May to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau. The supplies include medical protective clothes, disinfectants, thermo-detectors, and medicines. China also sent three expert teams composed of epidemiologists and specialists in disinfection and protection as well as medical supplies to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone despite high risk of infection.[270][271] Before their arrival, eight members of a Chinese medical team sent to assist patients in Sierra Leone’s hospitals were quarantined after treating Ebola patients.
Some Chinese companies in West Africa also joined the relief efforts. China Kingho Group, a leading exploration and mining company in Sierra Leone, donated 400 million Leones (about $90,000) to the Government and People of Sierra Leone on 15 August.[272]
On 16 August, Chinese President Xi Jinping and UN Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon on Saturday discussed several hot issues, including Ebola, in their fourth meeting this year. The meeting in Nanjing, capital of east China’s Jiangsu Province, was held before they attended the opening ceremony of the 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games. Xi said China will continue to make joint efforts with the international community to prevent and control the Ebola virus outbreak that has hit West Africa. China has provided emergency medical assistance to Ebola-hit countries and sent expert groups. China’s medical teams in the countries are working with local staff, according to Xi. Xi also spoke highly of the measures taken by the United Nations and WHO and its professional institutions, and called for more assistance and input for medical and health services in African countries.[273]
Colombia
On 8 August, the Vice Minister of Health and Social Protection of Colombia, Fernando Ruiz, assured the public that the Government is preparing itself to face the virus even though Colombia’s given conditions don’t give Ebola the chance to natively spread since “the bat species in charge of transmitting the disease nor the practice of eating it aren’t present in Colombia.”[274] Ruiz also stated that Colombians travelling to the affected parts of West Africa are being warned to take appropriate precautions.[275] Previously, on 5 August, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection issued a press release stating that “since the month of April the National Government has been closely following and monitoring the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa and the State has decided to adopt word by word the contingency plan prepared by the WHO.”[276]
Cuba
On 10 September, Cuba announced its willingness to help curtail the spread of the disease. Cuba will be sending 165 doctors and nurses to Sierra Leone on a six month rotation starting early October. Infection control specialists will be among the group.[277]
Germany’s Foreign Office issued travel warnings for all affected countries at the end of July,[279] Spain did so on 2 August[280] and the UK did on 20 August.[281]
Ghana
On 30 August, the Ghanaian Presidency released a press statement, announcing the country’s willingness to use Accra as a support base to help fight Ebola in the stricken countries. This agreement follows a telephonic meeting with the United Nations chief, Ban Ki-moonand John Dramani Mahama, the President of Ghana. Accra will serve as a base for air lifting medical and other supplies to countries affected by the Ebola outbreak, as well as personnel to curtail the disease.[282]
India
On 8 August, India placed all of its airports on high alert and stepped up surveillance of all travellers entering the country from Ebola-affected regions. The Union Health Minister, Harsh Vardhan, issued a statement, “There is no cause for panic. We have put in operation the most advanced surveillance and tracking systems.” From 9 August, passengers coming from Ebola-affected countries will have to complete a form before landing; the form has a check-list for symptoms and asks travellers from West Africa for information about places visited, length of stay and other important information.
“The form is ready and will be officially released by Saturday. We will request all airlines to direct their staff to distribute the form in-flight, like immigration forms are given before arrival,” said Jagdish Prasad, director general of health services, Union Ministry of Health. In New Delhi, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi has been designated as a treatment centre for Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) cases. A 24-hour emergency helpline will also be functional from Saturday. Its numbers are (011)-23061469, 3205 and 1302. The estimated 47,000 Indians in the affected countries are being contacted by area diplomatic missions and supplied with educational material about the disease.[283]
Ivory Coast
The Ivory Coast, on 22 August, released a statement on state-owned television announcing the closure of its borders to the neighbouring countries affected by the Ebola outbreak. Attempting to prevent the Ebola outbreak of the virus from spreading to the Ivory Coast, the government announced the closure of all its land based borders to the country’s West African neighbours Guinea and Liberia.[284]
The Ivory Coast previously placed a ban on all flights to and from Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.[285] Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is allowing shipping commerce to enter the port of Abidjan from the affected countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Vessels coming from those countries are required to undergo a medical inspection by a boarding team prior to entry.[286]
Japan
In April, the Government of Japan gave $520,000 through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to support the Ebola outbreak response in Guinea.[287] In August, another $1.5 million in additional support was provided to be disbursed via the WHO, UNICEF andRed Cross, and will be used for measures to prevent Ebola infections and to provide medical supplies.[288]
On 25 August, Japanese authorities announced that they would be willing to provide access to an anti-influenza drug currently under development called favipiravir to try to treat EVD patients.[289] Fujifilm Holdings Corp and MediVector have reportedly approached the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to request approval for this experimental use of favipiravir. Up to 20,000 doses of favipiravir would currently be available.
Kenya
The Kenyan government banned people travelling from or through Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia for all ports of entry.[290]
Malaysia
Malaysia plans to send more than 20 million medical gloves to Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone to alleviate a shortage of medical supplies in the affected countries. Malaysia will also send medical gloves to the Democratic Republic of Congo which is also dealing with an Ebola outbreak unrelated to the one affecting West Africa.[291]
Morocco
Beginning in April, Morocco reinforced medical surveillance at the Casablanca airport, a regional hub for flights from and to West Africa.[292][293] In early August, Liberian interior minister Morris Dukuly announced the Ebola death of a Liberian man in the country,[294] but the Moroccan Ministry of Health announced that the person died of a heart attack, rather than Ebola.[295]
Philippines
The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs has raised Alert Level 2 in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone and has temporarily halted the sending of Filipino workers to the affected countries since 30 June. Filipino seafarers are also cautioned about potentially contracting Ebola when their ships dock in affected countries.[296] The Department of Health expressed its willingness to send medical workers to Ebola-affected countries to help contain the outbreak.[297] On 23 August, the Philippines announced that it is pulling out its 115 UN peacekeepers stationed in Liberia due to the increasing health risk the troops face due to the outbreak.[298]
Qatar
Qatar has banned the import of live animals, food and meat products from Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria as a precaution against Ebola.[299]
Seychelles
Seychelles introduced a visa requirement for the citizens of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Congo, D.R. Congo, Gambia, Mauritania, and Senegal. Citizens of these countries will require a visa until the Ebola outbreak is declared over.[300] Members of the Sierra Leone national football team were refused visas over the outbreak.[301]
Saudi Arabia
On 1 April, Saudi Arabia stopped issuing visas for the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca to people from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.[302]
On 5 August, Saudi Arabia announced that it would block issuance of Hajj and Umrah visas to the citizens of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.[303]
On 6 August, the Saudi Ministry of Health advised citizens and residents of Saudi Arabia to avoid travelling to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea until further notice.[304]
South Africa
On 21 August, South Africa announced a ban on all travelers from the three Ebola-hit West African nations. A government spokesman confirmed they are following other countries responses to the disease outbreak. The health ministry of South Africa confirmed that the country’s citizens would be asked to limit travel to absolutely essential needs, if going to the countries involved in the current outbreak. All South Africans returning from these countries would only be allowed back after undergoing extensive medical tests, and quarantine, if necessary.[305]
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka cancelled visa on-arrival facility on 21 August for citizens of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.[306]
United Kingdom
The UK government has made £2 million available to partners including the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and Médecins Sans Frontières that are operating in Sierra Leone and Liberia to tackle the outbreak.[307] Additionally a £6.5 million rapid response research initiative has been announced jointly by the Department for International Development and the Wellcome Trust to better inform the management of Ebola outbreaks. This includes research which could help tackle the current outbreak.[308]
On 26 August, British Airways extended its ban on flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone until 31 December due to the declining public health situation.[309][310]
The Foreign Office issued updated travel advice in the week ending 24 August urging Britons to evaluate the need to travel to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.[155]
On 8 September Mark Francois, a spokesperson for the Minister of Armed Forces, announced that British troops, medics and equipment will be deployed to help assist Sierra Leone in the containing of the disease. An initial survey team consisting of military engineers will be sent to the country within the next couple of days. The troops will be building a 62 bed treatment facility near Freetown. The Armed Forces’ engineers and medics expect the facility to be completed and operational in two months. The treatment center will be staffed by Armed Forces’ medical personnel and handed over to one of the aid organization in the country.[311]
United States
On 8 September, the United States President, Barack Obama, announced that the U.S. will send US military personnel to the epidemic area. The military will be deployed to assist in the setting up of isolation units and provide additional safety to health workers in the area. The US military will also assist in proving and transportation of medical equipment. President Obama added that the steps are necessary to curtail the spread of the virus. This announcement comes amid fears that the virus might mutate and become more virulent and “represents a serious national security concern.”[312]
In an unprecedented move, it is expected that US President Barack Obama will sent 3,000 additional military personnel to the area in an effort to expand the US involvement in combating the spread of the disease. The total cost of this operation is expected to be $500 million. The funding for this massive response will be allocated from the US Department of Defense’s existing budget, from other efforts including the war on Afghanistan. This announcement is likely to be issued on 16 September, according to a spokesperson for the US government.[315]
Economic Community of West African States
On 30 March, during the 44th Summit of the heads of state and government of West Africa, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) disbursed US$250,000 to deal with the outbreak.[316] At the event in July 2014, the Nigerian government donated US$500,000 to the Liberian government to aid the fight against the virus.[317]
In July, the WHO convened an emergency sub-regional meeting with health ministers from eleven countries in Accra, Ghana.[318] On 3 July, the West African states announced collaboration on a new strategy, and the creation of a WHO sub-regional centre in Guinea “to co-ordinate technical support”;[319] the centre was inaugurated in Conakry on 24 July.[320]
On 31 July, the WHO and West Africa nations announced $100 million in aid to help contain the disease.[321]
European Union
In March, the European Commission (EC) gave €500,000 to help contain the spread of the virus in Guinea and its neighbouring countries. The EC has also sent a health expert to Guinea to help assess the situation and liaise with the local authorities. EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva said: “We are deeply concerned about the spread of this virulent disease and our support will help ensure immediate health assistance to those affected by it. It’s vital that we act swiftly to prevent the outbreak from spreading, particularly to neighbouring countries.”[322]
In April, a mobile laboratory, capable of performing the molecular diagnosis of viral pathogens of risk groups 3 and 4, was deployed in Guinea by the European Mobile Laboratory project (EMLab) as part of the WHO/GOARN outbreak response. Prior samples were analyzed at the Jean Mérieux BSL-4 Laboratory in Lyon.[323]
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
On 10 September, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released $50 million to the United Nations and other international aid agencies fighting the epidemic. The foundation also donated $2 million to the CDC to assist them with their burden. The funds were released with immediate effect. Previous donations consisted of $5 million to the WHO and $5 million to UNICEF to buy medical supplies and fund support efforts in the region. This brings the Seattle-based Foundation’s total contribution to date over $60 million. “We are working urgently with our partners to identify the most effective ways to help them save lives now and stop transmission of this deadly disease,” the Foundation CEO said in a statement.[324]
Paul G. Allen Family Foundation
On 11 September, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, following the footsteps of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, pledged $9 million to the CDC. The funds will be appropriated to build treatment co-ordination centers and assist in training programs. This follows their earlier donation of $2.8 million, in August, to the Red Cross.[325]
Private donations
Aliko Dangote
On 14 August, the Nigerian government said Aliko Dangote had donated 150 million naira to halt the spread of the Ebola virus outbreak.[326]
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
~Oliver Cromwell
CDC: Ebola is not a huge risk for U.S.
CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden talks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta about concerns over Americans with Ebola returning to the U.S.
2014 August 2 Breaking News Ebola Crisis Doctors Without Borders warns outbreak out of control
Fear Works Against Health Workers Trying To Contain Ebola
Unprecedented Ebola outbreak crosses borders in West Africa
More than 100 people have died so far in the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus in years, which began in Guinea before spreading to Liberia. Now health officials are investigating possible cases in Mali and Ghana. Jeffrey Brown talks to Laurie Garrett from the Council on Foreign Relations about past outbreaks and the current challenges for containment.
Global Health and Global Threats with Laurie Garrett — Atlantic Meets the Pacific 2013
Laurie Garrett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, shares her concerns about emerging public health threats, ranging from gain of function research to the effects of climate change on the human microbiome, in an interview with The Atlantic’s Corby Kummer. This program is part of The Atlantic Meets the Pacific 2013 conference presented by The Atlantic and UC San Diego. Series: “The Atlantic Meets The Pacific”
EBOLA: THE PLAGUE FIGHTERS – NOVA – Discovery/Science/History (documentary)
The world’s most dangerous Virus (full documentary)
Monkey Meat and the Ebola Outbreak in Liberia
Hospitals “Full-Up”: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 | Documentary on the Spanish Flu Pandemic in the United States
The Genesis of the 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic
Michael Worobey, Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Arizona
The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 was the most intense outbreak of disease in human history. It killed upwards of 50 million people (most in a six-week period) casting a long shadow of fear and mystery: nearly a century later, scientists have been unable to explain why, unlike all other influenza outbreaks, it killed young adults in huge numbers. I will describe how analyses of large numbers of influenza virus genomes are revealing the pathway traveled by the genes of this virus before it exploded in 1918. What emerges is a surprising tale with many players and plot lines, in which echoes of prior pandemics, imprinted in the immune responses of those alive in 1918, set the stage for the catastrophe. I will also discuss how resolving the mysteries of 1918 could help to prevent future pandemics and to control seasonal influenza, which quietly kills millions more every decade.
Laurie Garrett: What can we learn from the 1918 flu?
Directing evolution: Laurie Garrett at TEDxDanubia 2014
cnn – could a ‘contagion’ event really happen? – population control
Contagion (2011) Official Exclusive 1080p HD Trailer
Contagion Movie Review: Beyond The Trailer
After Armageddon (when deadly virus strikes) in HD & 3D
Outbreak Movie Trailer (1995)
Virus – Full Movie
NEIDL
NEIDL: Biosafety Level 3
NEIDL: Biosafety Level 4
MWV Episode 68 – Threading the NEIDL: TWiV Goes Inside a BSL-4
In the Hot Zone with Virus X – Richard Preston
Elbows-Deep in Ebola Virus – Richard Preston
FLOOD OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS NOT MEDICALLY SCREENED PROPERLY, & SPREADING DISEASE
Obama’s Illegal Immigrants Now Spreading Disease to Americans, Including Children
TB Return of the Plague BBC documentary 2014
Different Types of Tuberculosis and Its Symptoms and Treatment
Tuberculosis spreading at illegal immigrant camps
The Threat of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
A History of Tuberculosis | MSF |
How The Body Reacts To Tuberculosis | MSF |
The White Plague: A Social History of Tuberculosis – Professor Sir Richard J. Evans
1/3 TB or not TB: the Fate of Tuberculosis in the US and India
2/3 TB or not TB: the Fate of Tuberculosis in the US and India
3/3 TB or not TB: the Fate of Tuberculosis in the US and India
What’s The Most Dangerous Place on Earth?
LEAKED CBP REPORT SHOWS ENTIRE WORLD EXPLOITING OPEN US BORDER
A leaked intelligence analysis from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reveals the exact numbers of illegal immigrants entering and attempting to enter the U.S. from more than 75 different countries. The report was obtained by a trusted source within the CBP agency who leaked the document and spoke with Breitbart Texas on the condition of anonymity. The report is labeled as “Unclassified//For Official Use Only” and indicates that the data should be handled as “Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU).”
The numbers provided are in graphics and are broken down into “OFO” and “OBP.” The Customs and Border Protection agency is divided into the Office of Field Operations (OFO) and the Office of Border Patrol (OBP). The OFO numbers reflect anyone either turning themselves in at official U.S. points of entry, or anyone caught while being smuggled at the points of entry. The OBP numbers reflect anyone being caught or turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents between the points of entry, or anyone caught at interior checkpoints by Border Patrol agents. The “OFO Inadmissible” designation to any individual from a nation other than Mexico or Canada means that U.S. authorities took the individuals into custody. Whether they were deported or given a Notice to Appear is unknown. It is important to note these numbers do not include data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The unavailable ICE data are in addition to these numbers.
The report reveals the apprehension numbers ranging from 2010 through July 2014. It shows that most of the human smuggling from Syria and Albania into the U.S. comes through Central America. The report also indicates the routes individuals from North Africa and the Middle East take into the European Union, either to illegally migrate there or as a possible stop in their journey to the United States. The data are broken down further into the specific U.S. border sectors where the apprehensions and contact occurred.
Among the significant revelations are that individuals from nations currently suffering from the world’s largest Ebola outbreak have been caught attempting to sneak across the porous U.S. border into the interior of the United States. At least 71 individuals from the three nations affected by the current Ebola outbreak have either turned themselves in or been caught attempting to illegally enter the U.S. by U.S. authorities between January 2014 and July 2014.
As of July 20, 2014, 1,443 individuals from China were caught sneaking across the porous U.S. border this year alone, with another 1,803 individuals either turning themselves in to U.S. authorities at official ports of entry, or being caught attempting to illegally enter at the ports of entry. This comes amid a massive crackdown by Chinese authorities of Islamic terrorists in the Communist nation.
Twenty-eight individuals from Pakistan were caught attempting to sneak into the U.S. this year alone, with another 211 individuals either turning themselves in or being caught at official ports of entry.
Thirteen Egyptians were caught trying to sneak into the U.S. this year alone, with another 168 either turning themselves in or being caught at official ports of entry.
Four individuals from Yemen were caught attempting to sneak into the U.S. by Border Patrol agents in 2014 alone, with another 34 individuals either turning themselves in or being caught attempting to sneak through official ports of entry. Yemen is not the only nation with individuals who pose terror risks to the U.S. that the report indicates travel from. The failed nation of Somalia, known as a hotbed of Islamic terror activity, was also referenced in the report. Four individuals from Somalia were caught trying to sneak into the U.S. by Border Patrol agents in 2014. Another 290 either turned themselves in or were caught attempting to sneak in at official ports of entry. This reporter previously covered the issue of illegal immigration into the U.S. from Somalia and other nations in the Horn of Africa.
The name Zaire ebolavirus is derived from Zaire (the country in which the Ebola virus was first discovered) and the taxonomicsuffixebolavirus (which denotes an ebolavirus species).[2]
The EBOV genome is approximately 19 kb in length. It encodes seven structural proteins: nucleoprotein (NP), polymerase cofactor (VP35), (VP40), GP, transcription activator (VP30), VP24, and RNA polymerase (L).[3]
Structure
Electron micrographs of EBOV show them to have the characteristic threadlike structure of a filovirus.[4] EBOV VP30 is around 288 amino acids long.[5] The virionsare tubular in general form but variable in overall shape and may appear as the classic shepherd’s crook or eyebolt, as a U or a 6, or coiled, circular, or branched; laboratory techniques, such as centrifugation, may be the origin of some of these formations.[6] Virions are generally 80 nm in diameter with a lipid bilayer anchoring the glycoprotein which projects 7 to 10 nm long spikes from its surface.[7] They are of variable length, typically around 800 nm, but may be up to 1000 nm long. In the center of the virion is a structure called nucleocapsid, which is formed by the helically wound viral genomic RNA complexed with the proteins NP, VP35, VP30, and L.[8] It has a diameter of 80 nm and contains a central channel of 20–30 nm in diameter. Virally encoded glycoprotein (GP) spikes 10 nm long and 10 nm apart are present on the outer viral envelope of the virion, which is derived from the host cell membrane. Between envelope and nucleocapsid, in the so-called matrix space, the viral proteins VP40 and VP24 are located.[9]
Genome
Each virion contains one molecule of linear, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA, 18,959 to 18,961 nucleotides in length. The 3′ terminus is not polyadenylated and the 5′ end is not capped. It was found that 472 nucleotides from the 3′ end and 731 nucleotides from the 5′ end are sufficient for replication.[10] It codes for seven structural proteins and one non-structural protein. The gene order is 3′ – leader – NP – VP35 – VP40 – GP/sGP – VP30 – VP24 – L – trailer – 5′; with the leader and trailer being non-transcribed regions, which carry important signals to control transcription, replication, and packaging of the viral genomes into new virions. The genomic material by itself is not infectious, because viral proteins, among them the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, are necessary to transcribe the viral genome into mRNAs because it is a negative sense RNA virus, as well as for replication of the viral genome. Sections of the NP and the L genes from filoviruses have been identified as endogenous in the genomes of several groups of small mammals.[11]
Entry
Niemann–Pick C1 (NPC1) appears to be essential for Ebola infection. Two independent studies reported in the same issue of Nature showed that Ebola virus cell entry and replication requires the cholesterol transporter protein NPC1.[12][13] When cells from Niemann Pick Type C patients were exposed to Ebola virus in the laboratory, the cells survived and appeared immune to the virus, further indicating that Ebola relies on NPC1 to enter cells. This might imply that genetic mutations in the NPC1 gene in humans could make some people resistant to one of the deadliest known viruses affecting humans. The same studies described similar results with Ebola’s cousin in the filovirus group, Marburg virus, showing that it too needs NPC1 to enter cells.[12][13] Furthermore, NPC1 was shown to be critical to filovirus entry because it mediates infection by binding directly to the viral envelope glycoprotein.[13] A later study confirmed the findings that NPC1 is a critical filovirus receptor that mediates infection by binding directly to the viral envelope glycoprotein and that the second lysosomal domain of NPC1 mediates this binding.[14]
In one of the original studies, a small molecule was shown to inhibit Ebola virus infection by preventing the virus glycoprotein from binding to NPC1.[13][15] In the other study, mice that were heterozygous for NPC1 were shown to be protected from lethal challenge with mouse adapted Ebola virus.[12] Together, these studies suggest NPC1 may be potential therapeutic target for an Ebola anti-viral drug.
Replication
Being acellular, viruses do not grow through cell division; instead, they use the machinery and metabolism of a host cell to produce multiple copies of themselves, and they assemble in the cell.[8]
Encapsidated, negative-sense genomic ssRNA is used as a template for the synthesis (3′ – 5′) of polyadenylated, monocistronic mRNAs
Using the host cell’s machinery, translation of the mRNA into viral proteins occurs
Viral proteins are processed, glycoprotein precursor (GP0) is cleaved to GP1 and GP2, which are heavily glycosylated. These two molecules assemble, first into heterodimers, and then into trimers to give the surface peplomers. Secreted glycoprotein (sGP) precursor is cleaved to sGP and delta peptide, both of which are released from the cell.
As viral protein levels rise, a switch occurs from translation to replication. Using the negative-sense genomic RNA as a template, a complementary +ssRNA is synthesized; this is then used as a template for the synthesis of new genomic (-)ssRNA, which is rapidly encapsidated.
The newly formed nucleocapsids and envelope proteins associate at the host cell’s plasma membrane; budding occurs, destroying the cell.
Types
The five characterised Ebola species are:
Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV; previously ZEBOV)
Also known simply as the Zaire virus, ZEBOV has the highest case-fatality rate of the ebolaviruses, up to 90% in some epidemics, with an average case fatality rate of approximately 83% over 27 years. There have been more outbreaks of Zaire ebolavirus than of any other species. The first outbreak occurred on 26 August 1976 in Yambuku.[17] The first recorded case was Mabalo Lokela, a 44‑year-old schoolteacher. The symptoms resembled malaria, and subsequent patients received quinine. Transmission has been attributed to reuse of unsterilized needles and close personal contact.
Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV; previously SEBOV)
Like the Zaire virus, SEBOV emerged in 1976; it was at first assumed identical with the Zaire species.[18] SEBOV is believed to have broken out first among cotton factory workers in Nzara, Sudan (now South Sudan), with the first case reported as a worker exposed to a potential natural reservoir. The virus was not found in any of the local animals and insects that were tested in response. The carrier is still unknown. The lack of barrier nursing (or “bedside isolation”) facilitated the spread of the disease. The most recent outbreak occurred in May, 2004. Twenty confirmed cases were reported in Yambio County, Sudan (now South Sudan), with five deaths resulting. The average fatality rates for SEBOV were 54% in 1976, 68% in 1979, and 53% in 2000 and 2001.
Reston ebolavirus (RESTV; previously REBOV)
Discovered during an outbreak of simian hemorrhagic fever virus (SHFV) in crab-eating macaques from Hazleton Laboratories (now Covance) in 1989. Since the initial outbreak in Reston, Virginia, it has since been found in non-human primates in Pennsylvania, Texas and Siena, Italy. In each case, the affected animals had been imported from a facility in the Philippines,[19] where the virus has also infected pigs.[20] Despite having a Biosafety status of Level‑4 and its apparentpathogenicity in monkeys, REBOV did not cause disease in exposed human laboratory workers.[21]
Also referred to as Taï Forest ebolavirus and by the English place name, “Ivory Coast”, it was first discovered among chimpanzees from the Taï Forest in Côte d’Ivoire, Africa, in 1994. Necropsies showed blood within the heart was brown, no obvious marks were seen on the organs, and one necropsy showed lungs filled with blood. Studies of tissue taken from the chimpanzees showed results similar to human cases during the 1976 Ebola outbreaks in Zaire and Sudan. As more dead chimpanzees were discovered, many tested positive for Ebola using molecular techniques. Experts believed the source of the virus was the meat of infectedWestern Red Colobus monkeys, upon which the chimpanzees preyed. One of the scientists performing the necropsies on the infected chimpanzees contracted Ebola. She developed symptoms similar to those of dengue fever approximately a week after the necropsy, and was transported to Switzerland for treatment. She was discharged from the hospital after two weeks and had fully recovered six weeks after the infection.[22]
Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV; previously BEBOV)
On 24 November 2007, the Uganda Ministry of Health confirmed an outbreak of Ebolavirus in the Bundibugyo District. After confirmation of samples tested by the United States National Reference Laboratories and the CDC, the World Health Organization confirmed the presence of the new species. On 20 February 2008, the Uganda Ministry officially announced the end of the epidemic in Bundibugyo, with the last infected person discharged on 8 January 2008.[23] An epidemiological study conducted by WHO and Uganda Ministry of Health scientists determined there were 116 confirmed and probable cases of the new Ebola species, and that the outbreak had a mortality rate of 34% (39 deaths). In 2012, there was an outbreak of Bundibugyo ebolavirus in a northeastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There were 15 confirmed cases and 10 fatalities.[24]
History
Zaire ebolavirus is pronounced /zɑːˈɪər iːˈboʊləvaɪərəs/ (zah-eeree-boh-lə-vy-rəs). Strictly speaking, the pronunciation of “Ebola virus” (/iːˌboʊlə ˈvaɪərəs/) should be distinct from that of the genus-level taxonomic designation “ebolavirus/Ebolavirus/ebolavirus”, as “Ebola” is named for the tributary of the Congo River that is pronounced “Ébola” in French,[25] whereas “ebola-virus” is an “artificial contraction” of the words “Ebola” and “virus,” written without a diacritical mark for ease of use by scientific databases and English speakers. According to the rules for taxon naming established by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), the name Zaire ebolavirus is always to be capitalized, italicized, and to be preceded by the word “species”. The names of its members (Zaire ebolaviruses) are to be capitalized, are not italicized, and used without articles.[2]
The species was introduced in 1998 as Zaire Ebola virus.[29][30] In 2002, the name was changed to Zaire ebolavirus.[31][32]
Previous names
Ebola virus was first introduced as a possible new “strain” of Marburg virus in 1977 by two different research teams.[26][27] At the same time, a third team introduced the name Ebola virus.[28] In 2000, the virus name was changed to Zaire Ebola virus,[33][34] and in 2005 to Zaire ebolavirus.[31][35] However, most scientific articles continued to refer to Ebola virus or used the terms Ebola virus and Zaire ebolavirus in parallel. Consequently, in 2010, the name Ebola virus was reinstated.[2]Previous abbreviations for the virus were EBOV-Z (for Ebola virus Zaire) and most recently ZEBOV (for Zaire Ebola virus or Zaire ebolavirus). In 2010, EBOV was reinstated as the abbreviation for the virus.[2]
it has a genome with two or three gene overlaps (VP35/VP40, GP/VP30, VP24/L)
it has a genomic sequence that differs from the type virus by less than 30%
A virus of the species Zaire ebolavirus is an Ebola virus if it has the properties of Zaire ebolaviruses and if its genome diverges from that of the prototype Zaire ebolavirus, Ebola virus variant Mayinga (EBOV/May), by ≤10% at the nucleotide level.[2]
EBOV is one of four ebolaviruses that causes Ebola virus disease (EVD) in humans (in the literature also often referred to as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, EHF). In the past, EBOV has caused the following EVD outbreaks:
A biosafety level is a level of the biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed facility. The levels of containment range from the lowest biosafety level 1 (BSL-1) to the highest at level 4 (BSL-4). In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have specified these levels.[1] In the European Union, the same biosafety levels are defined in a directive.[2]
History
The first prototype Class III (maximum containment) biosafety cabinet was fashioned in 1943 by Hubert Kaempf Jr., then a U.S. Army soldier, under the direction of Dr. Arnold G. Wedum, Director (1944–69) of Industrial Health and Safety at the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories, Camp Detrick, Maryland. Kaempf was tired of his MP duties at Detrick and was able to transfer to the sheet metal department working with the contractor, the H.K. Ferguson Co.[3]
On 18 April 1955, fourteen representatives met at Camp Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. The meeting was to share knowledge and experiences regarding biosafety, chemical, radiological, and industrial safety issues that were common to the operations at the three principal biological warfare (BW) laboratories of the U.S. Army[4][5] Because of the potential implication of the work conducted at biological warfare laboratories, the conferences were restricted to top level security clearances. Beginning in 1957, these conferences were planned to include non-classified sessions as well as classified sessions to enable broader sharing of biological safety information. It was not until 1964, however, that conferences were held in a government installation not associated with a biological warfare program.[6]
Over the next ten years, the biological safety conferences grew to include representatives from all federal agencies that sponsored or conducted research with pathogenic microorganisms. By 1966 it began to include representatives from universities, private laboratories, hospitals, and industrial complexes. Throughout the 1970s, participation in the conferences continued to expand and by 1983 discussions began regarding the creation of a formal organization.[6] The American Biological Safety Association (ABSA) was officially established in 1984 and a constitution and bylaws were drafted the same year. As of 2008, ABSA includes some 1,600 members in its professional association.[6]
Rationale
CDC technician dons an older-model positive-pressure suit before entering one of the CDC’s earlier maximum containment labs.
Biocontainment can be classified by the relative danger to the surrounding environment as biological safety levels (BSL). As of 2006, there are four safety levels. These are called BSL1 through BSL4, with one anomalous level BSL3-ag for agricultural hazards between BSL3 and BSL4. Facilities with these designations are also sometimes given as P1 through P4 (for Pathogen or Protection level), as in the term P3 laboratory. Higher numbers indicate a greater risk to the external environment. See biological hazard.
At the lowest level of biocontainment, the containment zone may only be a chemical fume hood. At the highest level the containment involves isolation of an organism by means of building systems, sealed rooms, sealed containers, positive pressure personnel suits (sometimes referred to as “space suits”) and elaborate procedures for entering the room, and decontamination procedures for leaving the room. In most cases this also includes high levels of security for access to the facility, ensuring that only authorized personnel may be admitted to any area that may have some effect on the quality of the containment zone. This is considered a hot zone.
Levels
Biosafety level 1
This level is suitable for work involving well-characterized agents not known to consistently cause disease in healthy adult humans, and of minimal potential hazard to laboratory personnel and the environment (CDC,1997).[7]
It includes several kinds of bacteria and viruses including canine hepatitis, non-pathogenic Escherichia coli, as well as some cell cultures and non-infectious bacteria. At this level, precautions against the biohazardous materials in question are minimal and most likely involve gloves and some sort of facial protection. The laboratory is not necessarily separated from the general traffic patterns in the building. Work is generally conducted on open bench tops using standard microbiological practices. Usually, contaminated materials are left in open (but separately indicated) waste receptacles. Decontamination procedures for this level are similar in most respects to modern precautions against everyday microorganisms (i.e., washing one’s hands with anti-bacterial soap, washing all exposed surfaces of the lab with disinfectants, etc.). In a lab environment all materials used for cell and/or bacteria cultures are decontaminated via autoclave. Laboratory personnel have specific training in the procedures conducted in the laboratory and are supervised by a scientist with general training in microbiology or a related science.
Biosafety level 2
This level is similar to Biosafety Level 1 and is suitable for work involving agents of moderate potential hazard to personnel and the environment.[7] It includes various bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as C. difficile, most Chlamydiae, hepatitis A,B, and C, orthopoxviruses (other than smallpox), influenza A, Lyme disease, Salmonella, mumps, measles,[8]scrapie, MRSA, and VRSA. BSL-2 differs from BSL-1 in that:
laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic agents and are directed by scientists with advanced training;
access to the laboratory is limited when work is being conducted;
extreme precautions are taken with contaminated sharp items; and
certain procedures in which infectious aerosols or splashes may be created are conducted in biological safety cabinets or other physical containment equipment.
Biosafety level 3
Researcher at US Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia, working with influenza virus under biosafety level 3 conditions, with respirator inside a biosafety cabinet (BSC).
Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone.
All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets, specially designed hoods, or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.
It is recognized, however, that some existing facilities may not have all the facility features recommended for Biosafety Level 3 (i.e., double-door access zone and sealed penetrations). In this circumstance, an acceptable level of safety for the conduct of routine procedures, (e.g., diagnostic procedures involving the propagation of an agent for identification, typing, susceptibility testing, etc.), may be achieved in a biosafety level 2 (P2) facility, providing
the filtered exhaust air from the laboratory room is discharged to the outdoors,
the ventilation to the laboratory is balanced to provide directional airflow into the room,
access to the laboratory is restricted when work is in progress, and
the recommended Standard Microbiological Practices, Special Practices, and Safety Equipment for Biosafety Level 3 are rigorously followed.
The decision to implement this modification of biosafety level 3 recommendations is made only by the laboratory director.
This level is required for work with dangerous and exotic agents that pose a high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections, agents which cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which vaccines or other treatments are notavailable, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and various other hemorrhagic diseases. This level is also used for work with agents such as smallpoxthat are considered dangerous enough to require the additional safety measures, regardless of vaccination availability. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a positive pressure personnel suit, with a segregated air supply, is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a level four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors from opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a biosafety level 4 (or P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Agents with a close or identical antigenic relationship to biosafety level 4 agents are handled at this level until sufficient data are obtained either to confirm continued work at this level, or to work with them at a lower level.
Members of the laboratory staff have specific and thorough training in handling extremely hazardous infectious agents and they understand the primary and secondary containment functions of the standard and special practices, the containment equipment, and the laboratory design characteristics. They are supervised by qualified scientists who are trained and experienced in working with these agents. Access to the laboratory is strictly controlled by the laboratory director.
The facility is either in a separate building or in a controlled area within a building, which is completely isolated from all other areas of the building. A specific facility operations manual is prepared or adopted. Building protocols for preventing contamination often use negatively pressurized facilities, which, even if compromised, would severely inhibit an outbreak of aerosol pathogens.
Within work areas of the facility, all activities are confined to Class III biological safety cabinets, or Class II biological safety cabinets used with one-piece positive pressure personnel suits ventilated by a life support system.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published on October 4, 2007, a total of 1,356 CDC/USDA registered BSL-3 facilities were identified throughout the United States (GAO-08-108T [9]). This represents a very conservative estimate of the number of facilities in the US in 2007. Approximately 36% of these laboratories are located in academia. Only 15 BSL-4 facilities were identified in the U.S. in 2007, including nine at federal labs.[9]
The following is a list of existing BSL-4 facilities worldwide.
Name
Location
Date
established
Description
Virology Laboratory of the Queensland Department of Health
Wuhan Institute of Virology already hosts a BSL-3 laboratory. A distinct BSL-4 facility is currently being built based on P4 standards, the original technology for confinement developed by France.[10][11] It will be the first at level 4 in China, under the direction of Shi Zhengli.[12]
This facility is operated by a research organization supported by both Gabonese (mainly) and French governments, and is West Africa’s only P4 lab (BSL-4).[15]
Located at National Institute for Infectious Diseases, Department of Virology I; this lab has the potential of operating as a BSL-4, however it is limited to perform work on only BSL-3 agents due to opposition from local residents and communities.
Operates as a clean lab at level 3 for training purposes. Scheduled for conversion to a hot level 4 lab in response to a bioterrorism event in the USA.
Garrett graduated from San Marino High School in 1969. She then graduated with honors in biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She attended graduate school in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology at University of California, Berkeley and did research at Stanford University with Leonard Herzenberg. During her PhD studies, Garrett started reporting on science news for radio station KPFA. The hobby soon became far more interesting than graduate school and she took a leave of absence to explore journalism. Garrett never completed her PhD. At KPFA Garrett worked in management, in news, and in radio documentary production. A documentary series she co-produced with Adi Gevins won the 1977 Peabody Award in Broadcasting, and other KPFA production efforts by Garrett won the Edwin Howard Armstrong award. She won a George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 1997 for “Crumbled Empire, Shattered Health” in Newsday, “a series of 25 articles on the public health crisis in the former Soviet Union”.[2] She won another Polk award in 2000 for her book Betrayal of Trust, “a meticulously researched account of health catastrophes occurring in different places simultaneously and amounting to a disaster of global proportions”.[3]
About ICE
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the
principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) and the second largest
investigative agency in the federal government. ICE
enforces over 400 federal statutes to protect our borders,
prevent terrorism, remove dangerous criminals and enhance
national security.
Parental Interests
ICE is committed to intelligent, effective, safe and
humane enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.
ICE seeks to enforce immigration laws fairly and with
respect for a parent’s rights and responsibilities.
Connect with ICE on your Parental Interests Inquiry
ICE Detention Reporting and Information Line: 1-888-351-4024 (8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday)
E-mail: ERO.Info@ice.dhs.gov
Web site: http://www.ice.gov/about/offices/enforcement-removal-operations/parental-directive.htm
These elements include, among others:
1. Designating a specific point of contact within each
ICE field office for parental-interests matters;
2. Promoting complete entry of relevant case
information into ICE’s data and tracking systems;
3. Developing processes to regularly identify and
review cases involving parents, legal guardians, and
primary caretakers;
4. Determining the appropriate detention placement;
5. Facilitating family court participation;
6. Allowing parent/guardian-child visitation; and
7. Accommodating the arrangements of parents, legal
guardians, or primary caretakers who are facing
pending removal for the care and travel
arrangements of their children.
Parental Interests Directive
Fact Sheet
What is the Parental Interests Directive?
The Parental Interests Directive complements ICE’s existing
immigration enforcement priorities and prosecutorial
discretion memoranda, as well as detention standards that
govern the custody and removal of individuals in the United
States illegally, including parents, legal guardians, and
primary caretakers.
The Directive is meant to aid ICE in enforcing immigration
laws fairly and with respect for a parent’s rights and
responsibilities by outlining ICE policies and procedures
concerning the placement, monitoring, accommodation, and
repatriation of alien parents or legal guardians.
Who Does this Directive Affect?
With respect to several of the Directive’s provisions,
particular attention is paid to those who are:
Primary caretakers of minor children without regard to
the dependent’s citizenship;
Parent and legal guardians who have a direct interest in
family court proceedings involving a minor or child
welfare proceedings in the U.S.; or
Parents or legal guardians whose minor children are U.S.
citizens (USCs) or lawful permanent residents (LPRs).
No Private Right Statement
While this Fact Sheet of the Parental Interests Directive
addresses its effect on certain parents, legal guardians,
and primary caretakers, the Directive applies to ICE and
does not create any right or benefit, substantive or
procedural, enforceable at law by any party in any
administrative, civil, or criminal matter. The security
and safety of any ICE employee, detainee, ICE
detention staff or member of the public will be
paramount in the exercise of the procedures and
requirements of the Directive.
How can this Directive Help me?
Segment 0: The Dirty Dozen aka Soros, Obama, Jarrett, Shulman, Kelley, Hall, Lerner, Paz, Thomas, Seck, IRS Agents: White House–IRS Collectivist Conspiracy Targets Pro Israel, Pro Life, Tea Party and Conservative Movement Groups To Suppress Voter Turnout! — Videos
IRS Subject Matter Expert
Holly Paz
Manager
Exempt Organizations Guidance
Holly is a manager in Exempt Organizations’ Guidance office, which is responsible for drafting notices, announcements, revenue procedures, and other guidance on exempt organization matters. Holly’s work often involves coordination with the Office of Chief Counsel and the Treasury Department on legislative and technical issues, as well as providing information to the tax writing committees of Congress.
Before coming to Exempt Organizations, Holly served as an attorney-advisor in the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the Internal Revenue Service that helps taxpayers resolve problems with the IRS. She also worked for eight years as an attorney in private practice focusing on exempt organizations issues. She earned her juris doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
The Dirty Dozen Movie Trailer
Dirty Dozen (1967) – General Inspection
Movie of the Week: Dirty Dozen – Lee Marvin Review by Best Movies By Farr
Glenn Beck » IRS, ObamaCare, And The White House
George Soros Exposed – Puppet master Glenn Beck
George Soros and the economy – GBTV
The Shadow Party – GBTV
Obama Admin Evolution Of A Scandal – IRS Enemies List – Hannity
Reality Check: IRS Scandal Exclusive
Heads are starting to roll at the IRS. Ben is following a story that is going in many directions. With many who are distancing themselves. In fact, He first told
you on March 1, 2012 that Tea Party and Liberty Groups in seven states claimed they were being targeted by the IRS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sit-….
In this Reality Check compilation, Ben goes in-depth on the IRS vs. Tea Party, Liberty groups, and religious organizations.
The IRS apologized. The white House decries the unacceptable actions and any connection to the current administration.
Ben has tracked the chain of command through the Cincinnati office and is going to show you how this situation transitions into the Washington D.C. office, and possibly beyond.
Obama Admin IRS Scandal & Congress Dealing With Scandals – Krauthammer On O’Reilly
IRS Worker At Center Of Targeting Scandal Gets Promoted -RPT – Cavuto – Wake Up America
Goldberg on IRS Scandal on IRS
Stein on IRS Scandal
IRS – May 6th Letter To Conservative Group Suggest Targeting Is Not Over Cavuto
Tea Party Groups Protests The IRS
The Blaze TV “The IRS Tax Scandal” Matt Kibbe & Adam Brandon 5/29/13
Part II – The Blaze TV “The IRS Tax Scandal” Matt Kibbe & Adam Brandon 5/29/13
Tea Party Groups To Sue IRS Over Targeting Of Conservatives – Megyn Kelly -Wake Up America
Katie Pavlich on Shulman’s 159 Visits to WH – IRS Scandal with Neil Cavuto – Fox Business – 5-30-13
IRS Scandal, How High Does It Go? Catastrophic Failure! – Greta On The Record
FreedomWorks VP: IRS Scandal Just Beginning [The Christian Broadcasting Network]
IRS Scandal – New Information On IRS Chain Of Command – Missing Link Cindy Thomas? – Megyn Kelly
IRS Targeting Scandal Sarah Hall Inram Now Running Obamacare Office & Benghazi Update
Glenn Beck » IRS, ObamaCare, And The White House
You are a conspiracy theorist if you blame Obama
Peakaboo Politics: The IRS Scandal — A Timeline of Confusing Statements
IRS Lois Lerner Pleads The Fifth, Dismissed From Scandal Hearing
IRS 5-22-2013 House Oversight Committee 4
TRIFECTA — Targeting Tea: Obama’s IRS Singles Out Conservative Groups
Mark Levin on Hannity: Obama Said Only Learned About IRS Story on Friday
The IRS and Sarah Hall Ingram
The IRS And ObamaCare
Former IRS Commish Shulman cites Easter Egg Roll for visiting White House 118 times
U.S. Treasury Knew About I.R.S. Partisanship
Why IRS Scandal Could Haunt Obama
FTN: NTEU urges political contributions
Why I Serve: Colleen Kelley, National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU)
Fall of America: G. Edward Griffin on Conspiracy Theories
G. Edward Griffin – The Collectivist Conspiracy
PJTV: Obama IRS Scandal Uncovers the Ugly Side of Income Taxes
IRS scandal: GOP looks to seize election opportunity, CBS News Video 5-30-2013
FreedomWorks On Tap “The IRS Tax Terror” 5-16-13
Obama’s Big Oil Scandal with Socialism, Soros and Organized Crime Part 1
“Obama administrations corruption is taking America into socialism just as FDR did. George Soros has had direct financial ties to the gulf oil disaster and media matters in owned by George Soros defending his corrupt socialist agenda. Obama’s Crime Inc is now a network of thieves and it can be traced. To get in office, Socialist Progressives who control and run the Democrat party, always say one thing about being for average person to get elected without any specifics, then once in power, they increase the size of government to create a class system and network where their rich and powerful supporters are given special favors for supporting a socialist regime in America with TAXPAYER DOLLARS. Socialist Progressives are the ones who create the winners and loser in our American economy and have always made it their priority to collapse the US Economy while taking away every American citizens freedoms, except any freedom that in lockstep with destroying the American Culture, the American traditional family, the next generation, and keeping the American people utterly clueless and apathetic. George Soros is to Darth Sidious as Barack Obama is to Darth Vader over our hijacked Democratic Republic called America.”
Obama’s Big Oil Scandal with Socialism, Soros and Organized Crime Part 2
Obama’s Big Oil Scandal with Socialism, Soros and Organized Crime Part 3
Former IRS Chief’s Wife Works for Leftist Campaign Finance Reform Group
On Friday, reports broke that Former IRS chief Doug Shulman’s wife works with a liberal lobbying group, Public Campaign, where she is the senior program advisor. Public Campaign is an “organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.”
The goal of Public Campaign is to target political groups like the conservative non-profits at issue in the IRS scandal. The Campaign says it “is laying the foundation for reform by working with a broad range of organizations, including local community groups, around the country that are fighting for change and national organizations whose members are not fairly represented under the current campaign finance system.”
CEO of Public Campaign Nick Nyhart has offered words of support for the IRS’ targeting: “There are legitimate questions to be asked about political groups that are hiding behind a 501(c)4 status. It’s unfortunate a few bad apples at the IRS will make it harder for those questions to be asked without claims of bias.”
Public Campaign gets its cash from labor unions like AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU, and Move On.
George Soros Gives $1 Million To Barack Obama Super PAC
The Huffington Post | By Paul Blumenthal
The Democrats heavy-hitters are finally coming out of the dugout to play ball in the brave new world of unlimited contributions and super PACs.
A spokesperson for Priorities USA Action, the super PAC backing President Barack Obama’s reelection, confirmed to The Huffington Post Thursday that billionaire investor George Soros has committed $1 million to the PAC. A spokesman for House Majority PAC also confirmed to HuffPost that Soros had given a combined $500,000 to House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC in September.
The New York Times’ Nick Confessore was first to publish the news about the Soros donations. According to Confessore, Soros’ political adviser Michael Vachon announced the contributions at a meeting of the liberal donor group, Democracy Alliance where former President Bill Clinton, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were urging donors — most of whom have refused until now — to give to super PACs. Aside from the Soros donations, another $10 million was promised by donors attending the meeting.
Confessore writes that Soros, who did not attend the meeting, sent an email to Democracy Alliance members explaining his contributions:
“I fully support the re-election of President Obama,” Mr. Soros said in the email. He had not contributed until now, he wrote, because he opposed the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, which paved the way for super PACs and unlimited money in politics. But since then, Mr. Soros wrote, he had become “appalled by the Romney campaign which is openly soliciting the money of the rich to starve the state of the money it needs to provide social services.”
It’s a sharp contrast to where Soros stood shortly after the 2010 midterm elections, when he expressed criticism of the Obama administration before a group of donors at a private meeting and suggested they pledge their money elsewhere.
Soros already has given $1.275 million to super PACs, the majority of which went to the Democratic opposition research hub American Bridge. His announced contributions this election still come nowhere near the amount that he gave to try to unseat President George W. Bush in 2004. Soros donated more than $30 million in that election — a record sum until international casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson dropped more than $70 million this year into a host of super PACs and non-disclosing non-profits.
George Soros: His Influence on the Media and the IRS Scandal
Soros’ Hand in the IRS Scandal
By Russ Jones
New details regarding the IRS scandal that found the nation’s top tax office intentionally targeting conservative groups are surfacing. Like, for example, the fact that George Soros-funded organizations sent letters encouraging the IRS to investigate conservative organizations.
According to findings reported by the Media Research Center (MRC), Soros gave $6.1 million to liberal groups who urged the Internal Revenue Service to investigate conservative non-profit organizations, including various tea party and Christian groups.
Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture for MRC, says the scandal could be traced to a series of letters that two liberal groups — Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy 21 — sent to the IRS in 2010 and 2011 asking for an “investigation” of political consultant Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS.
“What they need to focus on is this timeline,” Gainor suggests. “We actually carry the timeline here, and the timeline is when these lefty operations sent their letters to the IRS and what the IRS did soon after.”
Pro Publica,The Huffington Post and Mother Jones were just a few of the accomplices that helped instigate IRS investigations. But as of 2010, Pro Publica received a two-year contribution of $125,000 each year from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
“It is a who’s who of far-left organizations,” the MRC spokesman offers. “Remember — this is George Soros, who has given $8.5 billion to charity. Of that … that we could track, $550 million has gone to liberal operations here in the United States.”
Applications of nine organizations applying for tax-exempt status that had yet to be approved were sent to Pro Publica. Unapproved applications are not supposed to be made public.
Soros Gave $6.1 Million to Groups Linked to Pressure on IRS to Target Conservative Nonprofits
By Mike Ciandella (CNS News), May 15, 2013 •
As IRS efforts targeting politically-conservative groups gained momentum, George Soros-funded liberal groups repeatedly called on the IRS to investigate conservative nonprofit organizations.
While the first reported instances of extra IRS scrutiny for conservative groups began in Cincinnati in March of 2010, the attacks began to pick up steam on a national level soon after Soros-funded groups began firing off letters to the IRS in October of that year – following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
The talking points of these groups then bounced around a carefully created progressive “echo chamber,” until they eventually made their way into established media outlets. Key IRS policy changes about how it investigated conservative groups took place soon after it received three separate letters sent by Soros-funded liberal organizations.
Several Soros-funded groups including the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones and Alternet have worked to pressure the IRS to target conservative nonprofit groups. The subsequent IRS investigation flagged more than 100 tea party-related applications for higher scrutiny, including applications that included the words “Tea Party” and “patriot.”
The IRS scandal can be traced back to a series of letters that the liberal groups Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy 21 sent to the IRS back in 2010 and 2011. Both groups were funded by George’s Soros’s Open Society Foundations. The CLC received $677,000 and Democracy 21 got $365,000 from the Soros-backed foundation, according to the Foundation’s 990 tax forms.
The letters specifically targeted conservative Super PACs like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, asking the IRS to scrutinize them more thoroughly to determine whether or not they should retain their tax-exempt status.
On Oct. 5, 2010, when the first letter was sent to the IRS, calling specifically for the agency to “investigate” Crossroads GPS. The letter claimed Crossroads was “impermissibly using its tax status to spend tens of millions of dollars in the 2010 congressional races while hiding the donors funding these expenditures from the American people.” Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer wrote a blog post for the liberal Huffington Post to promote it, and the effort to get the media to notice the anti-conservative campaign began.
On June 27, 2011, a second letter by the CLC and Democracy 21 complained about enforcement of 501(c)(4) tax regulations, asking “that the IRS issue new regulations that better enforce the law.” Two days later, an IRS senior agency official was briefed on a new policy targeting groups which “criticize how the country is being run,” according to a Washington Post story. According to the Post, this policy was later revised.
A third letter by the CLC and Democracy 21, on Sept 28, 2011, got media traction. The letter showed the escalation of the left’s complaint about 501(c)(4) groups. It challenged “the eligibility of four organizations engaged in campaign activity to be treated as 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations.” The four organizations included Crossroads GPS, Priorities USA, American Action Network and Americans Elect.
The Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity ($2,716,328) published a “study” on 501(c)(4) groups, on October 31, which drew heavily from, and referenced, the CLC and Democracy 21. The Center for Public Integrity has strong media connections and boasts an advisory board that includes Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News, and Michele Norris, an NPR host, as well as a board of directors with such prominent names as Huffington Post CEO Arianna Huffington, Steve Kroft of CBS News’s 60 Minutes and Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist).
This study then led to a Mother Jones article about a month later, on November 18, which was reposted on the left-wing blog Alternet on November 21. By December of 2011, the topic had been picked up in a New York Times editorial, and then began receiving other media coverage. That editorial called for “the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on the secret political money already flooding the 2012 campaign from partisan operatives ludicrously claiming to be ‘social welfare’ activists.”
On Jan. 15, 2012, the IRS targeted groups focused on limiting government or educating people about the Constitution and Bill of Rights
Alternet and Mother Jones are both members of The Media Consortium, which is designed to do exactly what happened here. The Media Consortium was created to be a progressive “echo chamber,” where 63 separate left-wing media outlets can network and share ideas, as well as cross-promote stories. Other members of the Consortium include such liberal outlets as The Nation,Democracy Now! and The American Prospect. The consortium has also received $675,000 in Soros funds since 2000. Alternet ($285,000) and Mother Jones ($485,000) have both also received individual funding from Soros’s Open Society Foundations.
This isn’t the only time the IRS has targeted conservative groups recently, nor is it the only connection between the IRS and Soros-funded groups. The IRS gave the left-wing journalism site ProPublica the applications for nine conservative groups pending tax-exempt status.
The IRS also released the confidential donor lists of the National Organization for Marriage to the liberal Human Rights Campaign. Both the Human Rights Campaign ($2,716,328) and ProPublica ($300,000) are also Soros-funded. Despite its blatant liberal leanings, ProPublica boasts a staff of well-known journalists, including veterans of The New York Times and The Wall Street journal, as well as of liberal operations like the Center for American Progress and The Nation, and has even won two Pulitzer Prizes.
Timeline Shows Influence of Soros-Funded Groups:
March 1-17, 2010: First ten reported cases of targeting by the IRS against groups that had ties to the “tea party or similar organizations.”
Sept. 16, 2010: TIME article “The New GOP Money Stampede” quotes Wertheimer;
Sept. 23, 2010: DISCLOSE act, a campaign finance disclosure act specifically targeting a Tea Party group, in the writing of which the CLC participated, fails in the Senate;
Sept. 28, 2010: Democrat Senator Max Baucus writes a letter to the IRS, citing the TIME article;
Oct. 5, 2010: Democracy 21 and Campaign Legal Center petition IRS, Wertheimer writes HuffPo article;
Oct. 7, 2010: Legal brief from HoltzmanVogel PLLC against the Democracy 21 petition;
Oct. 14, 2010: Dick Durbin asks IRS to investigate American Crossroads, HuffPo coverage;
June 27, 2011: Second petition to the IRS by CLC and Democracy 21;
June 29, 2011: IRS senior agency official Lois Lerner briefed on efforts to target groups which “criticize how the country is being run”;
Sept. 28, 2011: CLC and Democracy 21 petition IRS again, this time about four conservative groups;
Oct. 31, 2011: CPI “investigation”;
Nov. 18, 2011: Mother Jones article;
Nov. 21, 2011: Alternet repost of Mother Jones Article;
Dec. 29, 2011: New York Times oped;
Jan. 15, 2012: IRS targeted groups focusing on limiting government or educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights;
February 2012: First articles promoting this issue appear in New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times.
IRS Chain of Command Suggests Scandal Not Limited to ‘Low-Level Employees’
By MARK HEMINGWAY
After the IRS revealed it had wrongly targeted hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups, the agency claimed that the misconduct was limited to “low-level employees” in its Cincinnati office. Yesterday, the attorney for Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations division, told the House Oversight Committee she would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights, making that explanation much less credible.
Now the local Cincinnati Fox affiliate, FOX19, has done some digging and uncovered information suggesting that top officials at the IRS weren’t too far removed from the six low-level employees identified as making unjustified inquiries. Fox19 has not only identified all six IRS agents in question, it turns out that they all have only one supervisor in common:
When an application for tax exempt status comes into the IRS, agents have 270 days to work through that application. If the application is not processed within those 270 days it automatically triggers flags in the system. When that happens, individual agents are required to input a status update on that individual case once a month, every month until the case is resolved. …
So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags? The answer, according to the IRS directory, one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division. Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.
Cindy Thomas’s name is significant, because Thomas is the woman who leaked nine tax documents to the journalism outlet ProPublica last year. The leaking of pending tax documents is a clear violation of the law. After having uncovered the nature of Thomas’s involvement, FOX19 looks at her place in the IRS chain of command:
Former Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller… retires
Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt and Government Entities… retires.
Lois Lerner, Head of Exempt Organization…says she will invoke her 5th amendment right to not incriminate herself when called before Congress on Wednesday.
Holly Paz, Director of Exempt Organizations, subpoenaed to Washington to be interviewed by members of Congress.
All of this IRS leadership, in Washington D.C.
Then one level down is Cindy Thomas, the highest ranking employee in Cincinnati in this Tax Exempt and Government Entities Department that no one in Congress is talking to… yet.
Scandal Watch: New evidence makes it clear that the Internal Revenue Service campaign against conservatives wasn’t the result of two “rogue” agents, but was directed from higher up. The question is, how high up?
The claim that a couple of workers in the bowels of an IRS office in Cincinnati managed to block tax-exempt applications from conservative groups for more than two years, while subjecting them to outrageous, intrusive and improper requests for information, started falling apart days ago.
Last weekend, the Washington Post quoted a staffer saying that “everything comes from the top” at the IRS.
As Colleen Kelley, president of the union that represents IRS agents, told the Associated Press, “No processes or procedures or anything like that would ever be done just by frontline employees without any management involvement.”
And the New York Times reported that IRS accountants got a “directive from their manager” in early 2010 to “be on the lookout” for Tea Party-type groups.
This week, NBC News quoted a former manager of that Cincinnati office who explained how various internal checks and balances would have prevented workers from carrying out such a scheme on their own.
And Cincinnati’s Fox 19 News, which has done more solid reporting on this story than most of the major news outlets, looks to have put the final nail in the “rogue agent” story.
The local news station found that there were six agents — not two as former IRS head Steven Miller insisted just last week — who worked on these tax-exempt applications. These agents, Fox 19 learned, all had different direct managers, who in turn had different territory managers.
That means any directive applying to all these workers would had to have come from at least three levels up the management chain.
That manager turns out to be Cindy Thomas — who the IRS says oversees “exempt organization determinations” nationwide. She also happens to be the same person who ProPublica said signed off on releasing nine confidential tax-exempt applications from conservative groups to that liberal-leaning news website.
So if Thomas ordered the targeting, why? And if someone told her to get it done, who was that?
Fox 19 also learned all these managers would have known that Tea Party applications were being blocked long ago. IRS agents must handle tax-exempt applications within 270 days, after which the system automatically sends out an alert, making the agent provide a status update each month until the case is resolved.
Since the IRS started blocking Tea Party-type applications in April 2010 and didn’t approve a single one for more than two years, “thousands of red flags would have been generated.” Given the 270-day schedule, the first alerts would have hit back in December 2010.
Given all this, it’s not surprising that one top IRS official is now pleading the Fifth, and that the IRS is stonewalling congressional requests for communications relating to the targeting, including crucial emails.
Every new tidbit of information only makes the scandal look worse.
Yesterday I asked in this space, among other questions about the IRS scandal, this:
What was the subject of the Obama-Kelley March 31, 2010 meeting?
I received the following response to my question from the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) — the union for IRS employees headed by ex-14 year agent Colleen Kelley. The response came from union spokesperson Dina Long. It reads, in its entirety, this:
Statement of NTEU
On March 31, 2010, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley attended the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility at the Old Executive Office Building. The forum was attended by approximately 200 attendees including business leaders, workers, policy experts and labor representatives discussing telework and worklife balance issues. Attendees were broken into five groups to discuss workplace issues. The president made opening remarks. President Kelley did not have any direct contact with the president or the first lady. President Kelley has never discussed the tea party with the president.
Below is a description of the March 2010 forum from the White House web site:
On March 31, 2010, President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and the White House Council on Women and Girls hosted the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility. The Forum brought together small business owners, corporate leaders, workers, policy experts, and labor leaders to explore the importance of creating workplace practices that allow America’s working men and women to meet the demands of their jobs without sacrificing the needs of their families. Building on the momentum coming out of that forum, the Administration is hosting follow-up forums around the country and encourages others to convene events in their communities to engage in dialogue and take action on this important issue.”
Sounds reasonable, yes?
Read again. Let’s see how the Washington game is played.
Over here, in a story by the Daily Caller’s Caroline May, the NTEU responded to Ms. May with the exact same statement that was sent to me.
With one difference. This interesting sentence:
President Kelley has never discussed the tea party with the president.
The folks over at the Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson’s site, are no dummies. If that sentence had been included in the otherwise identical response they received from the NTEU, they would have reported it.
So why was that one particular sentence tacked on to the otherwise identical statement from the NTEU? In a response to me?
Because in fact it is an answer — a disturbingly partial answer — to but one question of eight questions that I asked of Ms. Kelley. Let me share with you the exact email I sent to the NTEU for Colleen Kelley:
US News reports today the March 31, 2010 meeting mentioned in the article was a ” ‘Workplace Flexibility Forum,’ a March 2010 event that was about the state of flexible work arrangements.” I realize there are a number of questions here, but under the circumstances of this IRS controversy I want to make sure that Ms. Kelley has the opportunity to answer. I will be happy to publish her answers verbatim in The American Spectator.
Thanks,
Jeff Lord
The American Spectator
US News mentions that it has received no comment from Ms. Kelley. I would like to get a response from Ms. Kelley to the following questions:
• Did the President himself ever, at any time, discuss the Tea Party with Ms. Kelley?
• Did the President ever communicate his thoughts on the Tea Party to Kelley – in any fashion other than a face-to-face conversation such as e-mail, text or by phone?
• Was the Tea Party or any other group opposing the President’s agenda discussed at the March 31st meeting, or before or after that meeting?
• Will Ms. Kelley be asking the White House to release any e-mails, text or phone records that detail Kelley’s contacts with not only Mr. Obama but his staff? Will Ms. Kelley release any of these communications that are in the files of NTEU?
• Will Ms. Kelley ask the IRS to release all e-mail, text or phone records between Kelley or any other leader of the NTEU with IRS employees? With the Oversight Board? IRS employees are federal employees paid with taxpayer dollars.
• Has Ms. Kelley ever been given access to IRS records of Tea Party cases? Has she ever discussed the Tea Party or any conservative organization with IRS employees at any level?
• What did Ms. Kelley discuss with the President or any White House or government official at the December 3, 2009 White House Christmas Party that she attended?
• What role did Executive Order 13522 play in the IRS investigations of the Tea Party and all these other conservative groups?
That would be eight questions for “President Kelley,” as she was called in the NTEU response.
The very first question was:
Did the President himself ever, at any time, discuss the Tea Party with Ms. Kelley?
To which the NTEU responded by simply tacking on the following single sentence to their boilerplate reply to the media:
President Kelley has never discussed the tea party with the president.
But the rest of it? The answers to questions two through eight?
Silence.
Silence from the official NTEU spokesperson Dina Long. Silence from Colleen Kelley herself.
There was no “I’ll get back to you further.” There was no “Give us some time, what’s your deadline?” There was just….silence.
Note as well that when contacted by the Washington Post last week, the NTEU’s Kelley was, in the words of the Post headline, “mum.” Wrote the Post:
So far, the National Treasury Employees Union, which generally is not shy with public comment, has next to nothing to say about that or anything else.
NTEU is working to get the facts but does not have any specifics at this time. Moreover, IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases. We cannot comment further at this time,” NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said via e-mail.
A call to the NTEU office in Cincinnati resulted in a similar response: “We’ve been directed by national office. We have no comment.”
So what do we have here?
This.
A powerful labor union — the union that represents IRS employees — is displaying a pattern of refusing to answer questions. Other than the solitary statement to The American Spectator that “President Kelley has never discussed the tea party with the president.”
Beyond a generic, boilerplate answer to media inquiries, there is silence.
No answers about releasing union e-mails or phone records to or from the White House, the IRS or the IRS Oversight Board (on which board sits a former NTEU president) and no answers on all the rest.
But over here at the Washington Post, we have, buried in a story about the Cincinnati office of the IRS, this key phrase:
“Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”
Got that?
“Everything comes from the top.”
The top is where Colleen Kelley, the head of all those unionized IRS workers in Cincinnati, operates.
The top is the White House, the IRS offices in Washington, D.C., and the IRS Oversight Board.
The top is what makes it possible for the IRS union to have the run of the IRS, to get an Executive Order (# 13522) from the President to “allow employee and unions to have pre-decisional involvement in all workplace matters….”
The top is where Colleen Kelley goes to a White House Christmas party as the guest of President and Mrs. Obama — six days before that Executive Order 13522 is issued.
The top is where Colleen Kelley can be the head of the IRS union that gets its dues, its very survival money, from employees being paid by taxpayer dollars — and not have to answer questions about the details of her “collaboration” with the White House, the Obama-run IRS and the IRS Oversight Board.
And being at the top is what gives Ms. Kelley the belief that she can head an IRS public employees union — and do the old Nixon stonewall.
She isn’t the only one at the top busy stonewalling right now.
And as with Watergate, the place to get to the bottom of the top is Congress.
Where a new version of an old question should be asked:
What did the IRS union president know — and when did she know it?
“My question is who is going to jail?” — House Speaker John Boehner on the IRS Scandal
The President couldn’t even bring himself to breathe a word of the truth.
He could fire some hapless Acting Commissioner, but last night Mr. Obama never came close to discussing that which must never be discussed.
The IRS?
It’s about a union: the National Treasury Employees Union. The NTEU. A left-wing union representing 150,000 employees in 31 separate government agencies, including the IRS. A union that not only endorsed President Obama for election and re-election, but a union whose current president, Colleen Kelly, was a 14-year IRS agent and now is both union president and Obama administration appointee (of which more in a moment).
It’s about 94% of NTEU union contributions going to Democrats in the Senate and House in 2012 — candidates who campaigned as vociferous opponents of the Tea Party.
And the recently released report from the Treasury Inspector General? You will not find a single reference to the NTEU. Whose members are both player and referee in the exploding controversy over the IRS targeting of conservative groups.
Which raises the obvious question: how many NTEU members were involved in the writing of the Inspector General’s report?
Even more to the point, what contact — what coordination — has the Obama White House had with their allies in the NTEU leadership as both the White House and the NTEU race to get on top of a scandal that is rapidly engulfing both?
Did I mention that the NTEU has no comment on all of this? And that when President Obama went in front of cameras to make his statement on the IRS scandal — he never once mentioned his very powerful union buddies that have the run of the IRS? Right down to the control of who gets a Blackberry? Literally.
Let’s first see how the IRS/NTEU game with the Tea Party and conservatives is played, shall we?
In the 2012 election cycle, the IRS union gave its money this way:
For the U.S. Senate: Total to Democrats: $156,750 Total to Republicans: $1,000
For the U.S. House: Total to Democrats: $391,062 Total to Republicans: $23,000
And the candidates on the receiving end of those IRS employee dollars? Yes indeed. They were candidates who were running flat out against the Tea Party, depicting Tea Party-supported candidates as dangerous, extremists, and crazies. Exhibiting exactly the anti-Tea Party antipathy on the campaign trail that has been revealed to be permeating the IRS.
No wonder. These Senate and House races were fueled in part by money donated by IRS employees.
Let’s take a look at specific races where the IRS employee money was involved.
• Wisconsin: One of those IRS employee-backed Senate candidates was Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, who in fact won her Senate race over ex-Republican Governor Tommy Thompson.
The NTEU, the union representing IRS employees, gave Baldwin $8,500. And what was Baldwin’s view of the Tea Party? If you check over here at the Midwest Values PAC, a left-wing political action committee set up by liberal Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, you will find this headline:
National Memo: Tammy Baldwin Runs Straight At The Tea Party
The story begins this way, and I have put the key sentence in bold print:
Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin wants to be the first openly gay candidate elected to the United States Senate. In an exclusive interview with The National Memo over the weekend, she made clear how she means to go about doing it: running straight at the Tea Party.
• Indiana: In the Indiana Senate race, the Democrats’ candidate was Joe Donnelly, who used his $5,000 contribution to run a winning anti-Tea Party race against Republican Richard Mourdock. Donnelly’s campaign website, presumably financed in part with the money contributed by IRS employees, has this headline attacking the Tea Party:
FACT CHECK: Mourdock Trying to Change Subject from Extreme TEA Party Views
The text of the Donnelly press release begins this way, with a direct attack on the Tea Party:
Indianapolis, Ind.—Today, Joe Donnelly’s campaign responded to Richard Mourdock’s latest ad trying to change the subject from his pattern of extreme TEA Party views.
“Hoosier voters are rejecting Richard Mourdock’s pattern of TEA Party extreme positions, so he is desperate to change the subject,” said Paul Tencher, campaign manager. “In fact, Indiana voters are responding to Joe’s message of working with both parties to get things done for middle class families. The only person playing politics in this race is Mr. Mourdock, as he tries to distract voters from his extreme views that are out of the mainstream.”
• Missouri: Over in the Missouri Senate race between Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Todd Akin, the IRS employee money — in the form of a $10,000 contribution to McCaskill — was used by the McCaskill campaign to help send this e-mail to supporters that bluntly attacked the Tea Party as “dangerous”:
Akin’s Rap Sheet Makes It Clear: Tea Party Congressman’s Outside Of The Mainstream Views, Dangerous Policies Are Wrong for Missouri, From his record to his rhetoric, everything about Todd Akin’s Tea Party policies are outside of the mainstream and dangerous for Missouri families.
When Missouri Republicans nominated him last night, they pinned their Senate hopes on a far right, Tea Party Congressman whose candidacy diminishes the party’s prospects for November.
And over in House races? At the very top of the high dollar list were two vividly anti-Tea Party candidates who each received a $10,000 contribution of IRS employee dollars.
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: Pelosi’s strategy was made plain in this interview with liberal columnist Eleanor Clift of the Daily Beast:
Stung by the debt-deal loss, the minority leader plans to get Democrats back on their jobs message and hammer Tea Party lawmakers as extremists who want to destroy government.
• House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer: Hoyer famously attacked the Tea Party this way, as seen with this headline:
Hoyer: Tea Party People Come From Unhappy Families
“There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise.My presumption is they have unhappy families.”
Understanding all of this — that IRS employees themselves are paying, through their union the NTEU, for the election of anti-Tea Party candidates — the absence of any mention whatsoever of the connection between the IRS and the NTEU puts the IG report in a very different light.
For example.
The IG report says — and I will bold print the key phrases — the following:
The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary potentially involving information requests to be issued.
Although the processing of some applications with potential significant political campaign
intervention was started soon after receipt, no work was completed on the majority of these
applications for 13 months. This was due to delays in receiving assistance from the Exempt Organizations function Headquarters office. For the 296 total political campaign intervention applications TIGTA reviewed as of December 17, 2012, 108 had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 were open from 206 to1,138 calendar days (some for more than three years and crossing two election cycles).
More than 20 months after the initial case was identified, processing the cases began in earnest. ….IRS officials stated that any donor information received in response to a request from its Determinations Unit was later destroyed.
Just in these opening statements of the IG report there is one very significant and glaring omission.
Where is the NTEU?
Note the phrases in bold print:
“The IRS”
“identified for review Tea Party and other organizations”
“Ineffective management”
“the processing”
“delays in receiving assistance from”
“approved”
“IRS officials stated”
“request from its Determinations Unit”
In each and every case these phrases identify actions taken by people — by IRS employees. IRS employees are members of the NTEU. The NTEU that is using money from these very same IRS employees to fund the campaigns of anti-Tea Party candidates like Baldwin, Donnelly, McCaskill, Pelosi and Hoyer. Not to mention all the rest of the Democrats who got a piece of the IRS employee money action.
As one would suspect, given the enormous clout of the liberal IRS union, it’s all about the politics. Liberal politics and the financing of the liberal welfare state. A federal version, if you will, of the recent famous struggle between Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and state employee unions.
How powerful is the NTEU within the IRS?
Look no further than this IG report from back in January of this year that discusses the role the union has inside the IRS bureaucracy in the minutia of which IRS employees get to carry a Blackberry. The report notes:
In June 2010, the IRS and the NTEU signed an agreement to standardize IRS policy regarding which IRS employees would be allowed (referred to as a “profiled” position in the agreement) to receive certain information technology equipment, including aircards and BlackBerry® smartphones.
Notice: the NTEU, which gave 94% of its campaign money to anti-Tea Party candidates, has the clout within the IRS to demand a say in who can and cannot carry a Blackberry and receive other high tech communications equipment. The report goes on to say:
Initially, IRS policy limited the assignment of BlackBerry® smartphones to executives and senior/departmental managers. However, the agreement between the IRS and the NTEU expanded availability to employees below the executive and senior/departmental level.
This doesn’t even mention the power the NTEU has inside the IRS to decide everything from promotion rules to size of employee workspaces and on and on.
So the obvious.
If you are working in the IRS, and you are an NTEU member, and you know your union leadership is funneling your union dues to anti-Tea Party candidates, and your union has so much raw power within the IRS that they even control whether you, an IRS employee, can get even such mundane tech gear as a Blackberry — what attitude are you going to display as you review Tea Party applications that must, by law, come in to the IRS for approval?
You already know what to do. And inside the IRS, that’s exactly what was done. The Tea Party, in the vernacular, was screwed. By IRS bureaucrats whose union money is being used to attack the Tea Party. Of course these IRS employees know what to do — most probably without even being asked. There is no need to ask. And if they don’t follow the union program — and want a Blackberry — tough luck.
And what of the NTEU president, Ms. Kelly? The one-time IRS agent also doubles as an Obama appointee (announced here by the Obama White House) to the Federal Salary Council. Identified in the Washington Post as:
…a panel obscure to most Washingtonians but one that performs a vital role in recommending raises for most federal employees.
Got that? The President of the NTEU — a union that has gone out of its way to use IRS employee money to defeat the Tea Party — has a “vital role in recommending raises for most federal employees” — which includes, of course, IRS employees.
As if IRS employees don’t have enough incentive to go after the Tea Party, their anti-Tea Party president has a say in whether they get not just a Blackberry but a raise as well.
Can you say: “conflict of interest”?
Let’s stop here and take a look at a famous incident with the IRS that has made news in the last few days: the Articles of Impeachment filed against President Richard Nixon.
By now, all manner of people have been reminded that President Nixon’s resignation was prompted by the House Judiciary Committee passing Articles of Impeachment, with Article 2, Section One specifically saying:
He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.
But there’s something missing in this recall of the tale of Nixon and the IRS.
In the early 1970s, President Nixon bypassed Congress and postponed salary increases for General Schedule federal employees. This included, of course, the IRS. The NTEU was furious with Nixon and took the President to court in a case called NTEU v. Nixon. The union won, and the federal government was forced to pay $533 million in back pay to federal employees.
So far, so normal in the world of Washington and relationships between a president and federal employees. Right?
Wrong.
Two years later, in 1974, the year the Watergate scandal reached high tide and Nixon was forced to resign, his abuse of the IRS cited in Article 2 as one of the reasons, there was another story out there involving the IRS and Richard Nixon.
As the liberal drive to get Nixon increased to the force of a political hurricane, reporter Jack White of Rhode Island’s Providence Journal-Evening Bulletin received an illegal leak — from the IRS. Specifically, an illegal leak from someone inside the IRS — an IRS employee — that leaked Richard Nixon’s 1970 and 1971 taxes. There was an immediate uproar — not about the leak or the identity of the leaker — but over the accusation that Nixon had underpaid his taxes. The House Judiciary Committee took the information and ran with it, opening an entire line of inquiry about Nixon’s tax deductions. So public was this it resulted in Nixon famously answering a question at a press conference this way:
People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.
And while people are remembering Nixon in the current furor over the IRS because of his own abuse of the IRS and Article 2, there was another Article —Article 4 — that was based on the leaked information from the still-unknown IRS employee to reporter Jack White. Read Article 4:
He knowingly and fraudulently failed to report certain income and claimed deductions in the year 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972 on his Federal income tax returns which were not authorized by law, including deductions for a gift of papers to the United States valued at approximately $576,000.
Nixon vigorously disputed this, of course. But it didn’t matter. He was out the door, forced to resign. A leak from the IRS to the media about Nixon’s taxes one big no-never-mind.
And what happened to reporter Jack White? The man who received the illegal leak of Nixon’s tax returns — a violation of law — and published them?
Jack White was rewarded by his liberal media peers with the 1974 Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for National Reporting.
So.
What’s really going on with the IRS?
The Internal Revenue Service , with all of its mighty taxing and police powers, is in the hands of anti-Tea Party, anti-conservative, political activists. Liberal political activists from the NTEU masquerading as neutral career bureaucrats. The money of IRS employees used to fuel the National Treasury Employees Union’s open and expensive assault on the Tea Party and conservatives.
And comment on all this from the NTEU? Here’s this from the Washington Post:
So far, the National Treasury Employees Union, which generally is not shy with public comment, has next to nothing to say about that or anything else.
“NTEU is working to get the facts but does not have any specifics at this time. Moreover, IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases. We cannot comment further at this time,” NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said via e-mail.
A call to the NTEU office in Cincinnati resulted in a similar response: “We’ve been directed by national office. We have no comment.”
No comment? No wonder.
“IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases”??!! What a joke.
Here in the Wall Street Journal is author James Bovard with a short history of the political manipulation of the IRS by various presidents, and Bovard notes that: “With the current IRS scandal, we may have seen only the tip of the iceberg.”
Aside from Nixon they include FDR, JFK, and Bill Clinton. The difference is the latter three weren’t forced to resign because of it — and Clinton’s abuse of the IRS was not include in the Articles of Impeachment that focused on his lying to a grand jury over that liberal favorite — sexual harassment.
The real question now?
With the IRS assuming serious police powers of Obamacare, in effect the members of one left-wing labor union will have access to the private health care records of every single American.
And notes the Wall Street Journal, again the bold print for emphasis:
This March the IRS Inspector General reiterated that ObamaCare’s 47 major changes to the revenue code “represent the largest set of tax law changes the IRS has had to implement in more than 20 years.” Thus the IRS is playing Thelma to the Health and Human Service Department’s Louise. The tax agency has requested funding for 1,954 full-time equivalent employees for its Affordable Care Act office in 2014.
Got that? The real meaning here is that the NTEU is asking for 1,954 more union members whose union dues will be put to use to “hammer the Tea Party” in the words of Nancy Pelosi.
As James Taranto also noted over in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
The Internal Revenue Service last year supplied a left-leaning nonprofit charity with confidential information about conservative organizations, which the charity disseminated to the public, ProPublica reported yesterday.
Once again, IRS employees — they of the anti-Tea Party union NTEU — were caught leaking private information.
Did I mention they were targeting Billy Graham — 95 year old Billy Graham??!!! Why? Because the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was urging “voters to back ‘candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles….’”
You know what terrifies every liberal in America right now? You want to know the real reason President Obama abruptly felt the need to go on national television last night and fire the Acting Commissioner of the IRS last night as Americans were having their dinner?
The distinct possibility that the IRS and the whole confection of Big Government liberalism built around the federal taxing power is about to implode in scandal.
Big scandal. The kind of scandal that will make Watergate look like a piker.
And the irony?
That in seeking to destroy the credibility of the Tea Party, the Obama administration and its allies have destroyed not just the credibility of the IRS and one very seriously powerful union.
IRS’s Shulman had more public White House visits than any Cabinet member
Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president’s Cabinet.
Obama officials who’ve visited the White House (As prepared by The Daily Caller)
Shulman’s extensive access to the White House first came to light during his testimony last week before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Shulman gave assorted answers when asked why he had visited the White House 118 times during the period that the IRS was targeting tea party and conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny and delays on their tax-exempt applications.
By contrast, Shulman’s predecessor Mark Everson only visited the White House once during four years of service in the George W. Bush administration and compared the IRS’s remoteness from the president to “Siberia.” But the scope of Shulman’s White House visits — which strongly suggests coordination by White House officials in the campaign against the president’s political opponents — is even more striking in comparison to the publicly recorded access of Cabinet members.
An analysis by The Daily Caller of the White House’s public “visitor access records” showed that every current and former member of President Obama’s Cabinet would have had to rack up at least 60 more public visits to the president’s home to catch up with “Douglas Shulman.”
The visitor logs do not give a complete picture of White House access. Some high-level officials get cleared for access and do not have to sign in during visits. A Washington Post database of visitor log records cautions, “The log may include some scheduled visits that did not take place and exclude visits by members of Congress, top officials and others who are not required to sign in at security gates.”
The White House press office declined to comment on which visits by high-ranking officials do and do not get recorded in the visitor log, but it is probable that the vast majority of visits by major Cabinet members do not end up in the public record.
Nevertheless, many visits by current and former Cabinet members are in the logs, and the record depicts an IRS chief uniquely at home in the White House.
Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama’s friend and loyal lieutenant, logged 62 publicly known White House visits, not even half as many as Shulman’s 157.
Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, to whom Shulman reported, clocked in at just 48 publicly known visits.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned a cool 43 public visits, and current Secretary of State John Kerry logged 49 known White House visits in the same timeframe, when he was still a U.S. senator.
Shulman has more recorded visits to the White House than HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (48), DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (34), Education Secretary Arne Duncan (31), former Energy Secretary Steven Chu (22) and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates (17) combined.
The Daily Caller’s analysis includes current, former and presently-nominated members of Obama’s Cabinet.
After Shulman, Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank (86), Asst. Attorney General Thomas Perez (83) and Penny Pritzker (76) — Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary — have the most publicly known White House visits.
Pro-Israel groups felt wrath of Obama IRS, WFB investigation reveals
BY: Alana Goodman
A Washington Free Beacon investigation has identified at least five pro-Israel organizations that have been audited by the IRS in the wake of a coordinated campaign by White House-allied activist groups in 2009 and 2010.
These organizations, some of which are too afraid of government reprisals to speak publicly, say in interviews with the Free Beacon thatthey now believe the IRS actions may have been coordinated by the Obama administration.
Many of the charities openly clashed with the Obama administration’s policy of opposing Israeli settlement construction over the so-called “Green Line,” which marks the pre-1967 boundary between Israel and the West Bank and West and East Jerusalem.
After the Obama administration took up the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as one of its most prominent foreign policy priorities in early 2009, and made a cessation of Israeli settlement construction the cornerstone of its approach, the nonprofits were subjected to a string of unflattering media reports.
White House-allied lobbying groups joined the media criticism by challenged the nonprofits’ tax-exempt status, arguing that they undercut President Barack Obama’s Middle East policies.
“Our concern at that time was that these articles weren’t just appearing by happenstance, but may have reflected an evolving policy shift in the Obama administration to scrutinize charitable giving by organizations on behalf of Jewish communities and institutions over the Green Line,” said Jerusalem-based attorney Marc Zell, who convened a private meeting of pro-Israel groups in August 2009 to discuss these concerns.
Tax-exempt charities that support Israeli settlements have been the subject of controversy for years. But the issue came to a head after Obama made opposition to settlement construction a focus of his Middle East policy in 2009 and demanded Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu halt all construction beyond the Green Line, including in the Israeli capital of Jerusalem.
While it is not illegal for these charities to contribute to groups and individuals across the Green Line, critics say that they should not receive tax-exempt status because they support communities the administration views as antagonistic to administration policy.
The media scrutiny began as early as March 26, 2009, when the Washington Post’s David Ignatius published a column questioning the groups’ tax-exempt status.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) announced the next day that it would begin a campaign of filing legal complaints with the IRS and the Treasury Department to investigate groups “allegedly raising funds for the development of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.”
ADC is closely tied to the Obama White House. The president recorded a video greeting to the group’s annual conference and sent two senior administration officials to attend.
The ADC announced in October 2009 that it had expanded its legal campaign against pro-Israel charities and was “working with a number of coalition partners, both nationally and internationally, in conducting this ongoing campaign.”
The chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority raised the issue two days later during a meeting with U.S. Consul General Daniel Rubenstein, according to a State Department cable revealed by Wikileaks.
“[Palestinian negotiator Ahmad Quraya] gave the Consul General a copy of an article by Uri Blau and Nir Hasson, published in Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper on August 17, entitled ‘American Non-profit Organization Raises Funds for Settlement,’ and asked the USG to review the situation with an eye toward eliminating organizations’ tax exempt status if they are funding settlement activity,” said the cable.
On July 5, 2010, the New York Times published its 5,000-word cover story on the groups, following up with a Room for Debate series two days later. The article quoted an unnamed senior State Department administration official calling such groups “a problem” and “unhelpful to the efforts that we’re trying to make.” The story also quoted a senior Obama Middle East adviser, Daniel Kurtzer, saying the groups “drove us crazy.”
J Street, a pro-Palestinian lobbying group that was closely aligned with the White House in 2009 and 2010, called the following week for an investigation into U.S. charities that contribute to settlements.
One pro-Israel targets was HaYovel, which was featured prominently in the New York Times article. Six months after the article was published, the IRS audited the Nashville-based charity, which sends volunteers to work in vineyards across the Green Line.
“We bookend that [New York Times] story. We were the first [group mentioned]. They really kind of focused on us,” said HaYovel’s founder Tommy Waller. “Then six months later we had an audit.”
Shari Waller, who cofounded HaYovel with her husband, said the couple received a phone call from the IRS in December 2010. She said she was not aware of anything in their tax documents that may have prompted the audit, and added that the additional scrutiny came during the group’s first five years of existence when audits tend to be rare.
“They contacted us the week of Christmas and told us they wanted to audit us, right now,” she said. “The most unusual thing to me was they contacted us at a time [that] for most people is a very hectic time, and we had just returned from Israel. To think about taking calls for an audit on the telephone—official business is usually conducted through the mail.”
Tommy Waller said he found the timing of the audit “suspicious” and believes it may have been politically motivated.
“We 100-percent support Judea and Samaria, and Jewish sovereignty in that area, and the current administration is 100 percent opposed to Jewish sovereignty in that area of Israel,” he said. “That’s why we suspected that we would have to deal with [an audit].”
Two other organizations—the American arm of an educational institution that operates across the Green Line and the American arm of a well-known Israeli charity that was mentioned in the New York Times article—say they were also audited.
Another organization that was criticized in multiple articles during 2009 and 2010 was audited last year. The organization, like many of the groups with whom the Free Beacon spoke, asked to remain anonymous out of fear of political retaliation and concern that exposure would harm fundraising efforts.
“The IRS carried out an examination of our organization, reviewing all of our accounting records, tax returns, bylaws, bank records, grant awards, etc, for the relevant period,” said a senior official of this organization.
“There was no vindictiveness in the audit itself and it was completed within a matter of months. Our feeling at the time was that this order must have come from above. The IRS seemed to be responding to a request or a complaint from higher up.”
Concerns that the IRS was targeting pro-Israel groups were first raised publicly by Z Street, a pro-Israel organization run by Lori Lowenthal Marcus.
Z Street filed a lawsuit against the IRS in 2010, alleging its application for tax-exempt status was delayed because it disagreed with the Obama administration’s Israel policy.
According to the suit, Marcus’s attorney was informed by IRS official Diane Gentry that Z Street’s “application for tax-exempt status has been at least delayed, and may be denied because of a special IRS policy in place regarding organizations in any way connected with Israel, and further that the applications of many such Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office.”
Neither the IRS nor Gentry responded to a request for comment.
Marcus said Z Street has not funded anyone or any groups in the settlements. But, she added, the problems her organization faced could be related to the administration’s concerns over settlement-supporting groups.
Z Street’s application for tax-exempt status first ran into trouble with the IRS on July 19, 2010, two weeks after the lengthy New York Times article was published.
“Even if that is the case, that’s an explanation, but it’s not an answer. It’s not an adequate reason,” said Marcus. “It’s totally inappropriate.”
Zell told the Free Beacon he has not personally witnessed a shift in IRS policy since the 2009 meeting suggesting settlement-supporting nonprofits have been targeted.
However, he said it is a “yellow flag” that at least five of these organizations have been audited since 2009, considering the recent finding by the IRS inspector general that the agency targeted conservative groups.
“Now with the revelations of the IRS abuses vis-a-vis U.S. right-wing organizations, that have been published of late, there is renewed concerned that these kinds of policies, same kinds of policies and procedures, may have been targeted at these organizations [that support settlements],” he said.
Valerie B. Jarrett is a Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama. She oversees the Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and chairs the White House Council on Women and Girls.
Prior to joining the Obama Administration, she was the Chief Executive Officer of The Habitat Company. She also served as Co-Chair of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team, and Senior Advisor to Obama’s presidential campaign.
Ms. Jarrett has held positions in both the public and private sector, including the Chairman of the Chicago Transit Board, the Commissioner of Planning and Development for the City of Chicago, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Richard M. Daley. She also practiced law with two private law firms.
Jarrett also served as a director of corporate and not for profit boards, including Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Stock Exchange, Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees.
Jarrett received her B.A. from Stanford University in 1978 and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981.
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The Pronk Pops Show 810, December 8, 2016, Story 1: Astronaut and Senator John Glenn Dies At 95 — The Right Stuff — Godspeed, John Glenn — Videos
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Story 1: Astronaut and Senator John Glenn Dies At 95 — The Right Stuff — Godspeed, John Glenn — Videos
Remembering John Glenn, space pioneer and American statesman
John Glenn Dead at 95 | Remembering the First American To Orbit Earth
Looking back at John Glenn’s history-making life
Former astronaut John Glenn dead at 95
Astronaut and Sen. John Glenn Dead at 95
John Glenn & President John F. Kennedy
The John Glenn Story (1963)
Senator John Glenn – Biography
THE JOHN GLENN STORY NASA FRIENDSHIP 7 PROJECT MERCURY 45404
First American in Orbit: John Glenn “Friendship 7” Project Mercury 1962 NASA
Project Mercury Summation 1963 NASA; First American Astronauts in Orbit
NASA Project Mercury: 1960’s Manned Spaceflight / Space Documentary S88TV1
Friendship 7 & Astronaut John Glenn – 1962 NASA Educational Documentary – WDTVLIVE42
John Glenn tells the story of Friendship 7
History in the First Person: Building the Mercury Capsule
Flying Mercury-Atlas 6 In Honor Of John Glenn
John Glenn: Earning the Right Stuff as a Decorated Marine Aviator and Navy Test Pilot
Longest Project Mercury Spaceflight: Flight of Faith 7 1963 NASA; MA-9; Gordon Cooper
The Real ‘Right stuff’
Great Books – The Right Stuff [TLC Documantary]
The Right Stuff Theme • Bill Conti
From the 1983 Phillip Kaufman film “The Right Stuff” with Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris & Dennis Quaid. The film tells the story of the Mercury Seven Astronauts.
Chuck Yeager breaks The Sound Barrier (from THE RIGHT STUFF)
The Right Stuff (edited last scene) – Absolutely Awe-Inspiring !!
Mercury Capsule Without a Window
The Right Stuff – Glenn’s Launch Aborted
The Right Stuff. Godspeed Ed Harris – I mean, John Glenn.
The Right Stuff – The Bell X-1 (with Levon Helm as CPT Jack Ridley)
The Right Stuff (Part 2)
The Right Stuff (Part 3)
The Right Stuff (Part 4)
The Right Stuff (Part 5)
The Right Stuff (Part 6)
The Right Stuff (Part 7)
Annie Glenn: An amazing life
Mercury Space Project: ” The Astronauts”, the Real Right Stuff, training and development (1960)
Mercury astronaut launch in “The Right stuff” movie cut, 1983
Eighty-Nine Year Old Chuck Yeager • F-15 Eagle Honor Flight
An Evening With Two Mercury Astronauts
Godspeed, John Glenn
John Glenn, American hero, aviation icon and former U.S. senator, dies at 95
By Joe Hallett
The Columbus Dispatch • Thursday December 8, 2016 5:35 PM
His legend is otherworldly and now, at age 95, so is John Glenn.
An authentic hero and genuine American icon, Glenn died this afternoon surrounded by family at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus after a remarkably healthy life spent almost from the cradle with Annie, his beloved wife of 73 years, who survives.
He, along with fellow aviators Orville and Wilbur Wright and moon-walker Neil Armstrong, truly made Ohio first in flight.
“John Glenn is, and always will be, Ohio’s ultimate hometown hero, and his passing today is an occasion for all of us to grieve,” said Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich. “As we bow our heads and share our grief with his beloved wife, Annie, we must also turn to the skies, to salute his remarkable journeys and his long years of service to our state and nation.
“Though he soared deep into space and to the heights of Capitol Hill, his heart never strayed from his steadfast Ohio roots. Godspeed, John Glenn!” Kasich said.
For more on John Glenn’s life, visit Dispatch.com/JohnGlenn
Glenn’s body will lie in state at the Ohio Statehouse for a day, and a public memorial service will be held at Ohio State University’s Mershon Auditorium. He will be buried near Washington, D.C., at Arlington National Cemetery in a private service. Dates and times for the public events will be announced soon.
Glenn lived a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! life. As a Marine Corps pilot, he broke the transcontinental flight speed record before being the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 and, 36 years later at age 77 in 1998, becoming the oldest man in space as a member of the seven-astronaut crew of the shuttle Discovery.
He made that flight in his 24th and final year in the U.S. Senate, from whence he launched a short-lived bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984. Along the way, Glenn became moderately wealthy from an early investment in Holiday Inns near Disney World and a stint as president of Royal Crown International.
In one of his last public appearances, Glenn, with Annie by his side, sat in the Port Columbus airport terminal on June 28 as officials renamed it in his honor — the John Glenn Columbus International Airport.
In addition to his world-famous career in aviation and aerospace, Glenn had a relationship with that particular airport that is likely second to none. Glenn, who turned 8 the month that Port Columbus opened in July 1929, recalled asking his parents to stop at the airport so he could watch the planes come and go while he was growing up in New Concord, 70 miles east of Columbus.
Glenn recalled “many teary departures and reunions” at the airport’s original terminal on Fifth Avenue during his time as a military aviator during World War II. He and his wife Annie, who had been married 73 years, later kept a small Beechcraft plane at Lane Aviation on the airport grounds for many years, and he only gave up flying his own plane at age 90.
Privately, this man who had been honored by presidents and immortalized in history books and movies, told friends that for an aviator, seeing his name on the Columbus airport was the highest honor he could imagine.
Glenn, who lived with Annie for the past decade in a Downtown Columbus condo, dedicated his life to public service, devoting many of his later years to Ohio State University, which in 2005 converted the century-old Page Hall into the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and the School of Public Policy and Management. It is now the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.
“He was very proud of the Glenn College,” said Jack Kessler, chairman of the New Albany Company, a former Ohio State trustee and longtime friend of the Glenns. “It’s a legacy that will carry on his mission toward good public policy.”
While Glenn held office as a Democrat, he wasn’t partisan, Kessler said. “I never heard him say a bad thing about anyone. Some of his best friends were Republicans, and he could work with anyone.”
Surrounded by dozens of students striving to earn master’s and doctoral degrees from the institute, Glenn said at its dedication, “If we inspire a few young people into careers of public service and politics, this will all be worth it.”
Remarkably physically fit and energetic, Glenn only began encountering health problems in 2013 when he had a pacemaker implanted and missed some public appearances due to vertigo.
In 2011, he and Annie both had knee-replacement surgery, which kept them from repeating a planned road trip like the impromptu 8,400-mile journey throughout the West they took a year earlier in their Cadillac when she was 89 and he 88.
Raised in New Concord, where he and Annie both went to Muskingum College, Glenn aspired to be a medical doctor, but World War II sidetracked that ambition and launched a life of uncommon achievement and bravery. At age 8, he took his first ride in an open-cockpit airplane and ended up virtually living life in the sky, continuing to fly until 2011 when he put up for sale the twin-engine Beech Baron he had owned since 1981.
“I miss it,” Glenn told The Dispatch in 2012 “I never got tired of flying.”
Glenn flew 149 combat missions in World War II and Korea, where his wingman and eventual lifelong friend was baseball legend Ted Williams. In Korea, Glenn earned the nickname “Old Magnet Ass” due to his skill in landing his airplane under any condition, even after it was riddled with bullets and had blown tires.
Born not far from New Concord in Cambridge on July 18, 1921, Glenn and his parents moved about 10 miles west in 1923 to New Concord. His father was a plumber and his mother a teacher who joined a social group called the Twice 5 Club, which got together once a month. Another couple in the club had a daughter, Annie Castor, who was a year older than Glenn, and the two toddlers often shared a playpen while their parents played cards.
Their relationship evolved into a quintessential American love story, with the spark between them first igniting when they were in junior high school.
“To write a story about either of them, if it doesn’t include the other, then it just isn’t complete,” their daughter, Lyn, told The Dispatch in 2007. She and her brother, David, a California doctor, survive.
John and Annie were married on April 6, 1943, and the next January, as they held each other searching for something to say as he prepared to ship out for combat in the South Pacific, John said, “I’m just going down to the corner store to get a pack of gum.”
From that day on, she kept a gum wrapper in her purse.
To many with disabilities, Annie became a heroine in her own right as she struggled to conquer near-debilitating stuttering.
For more than half of her life, she counted on others to speak for her, publicly uncommunicative in a world that demanded more from her as her husband’s fame ascended.
Through it all, John stood by Annie, who, in 1973, underwent an innovative treatment regimen that dramatically improved her speech to the extent that she was delivering speeches on behalf of her husband’s 1984 presidential candidacy.
Glenn, who received his pilot’s license in 1941, was at home in the sky, soon evident after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and he left Muskingum College to enlist in the Marine Air Corps. In the Pacific, he flew 59 missions over the Marshall Islands.
After being stationed in China and Guam when World War II ended, Glenn was a flight instructor in Texas before being transferred to Virginia. When the Korean War broke out, Glenn applied for combat duty, and flew 90 missions. Overall, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross six times and was awarded the Air Medal with 18 clusters.
After returning from Korea, Glenn became a test pilot. He set a coast-to-coast speed record in 1957, piloting a Navy jet fighter from California to New York in 3 hours and 23 minutes. In 1959, he was selected as one of the country’s first seven astronauts, a historic group immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book The Right Stuff, the basis for a movie of the same name.
The United States was enveloped in a cold war with the Soviet Union, and after a series of U.S. rockets had blown up, the American psyche was dealt a blow in 1961 when Russian Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space and the first to orbit Earth.
The third American in space after suborbital missions by Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, Glenn finally equaled Gagarin’s achievement by blasting off on Feb. 20, 1962, after weather and mechanical problems caused his mission to be postponed 10 times.
Crammed into the 7-foot-wide Friendship 7 space capsule atop a 100-foot-tall Atlas rocket loaded with 250,000 pounds of explosive fuel, Glenn launched 160-miles into space, orbiting the world three times at 17,500 miles per hour.
Reflecting many years later, Glenn would say that computers were the greatest technological achievement during his life, but there were none on Friendship 7, and deep into the flight he had to take manual control of the capsule when systems malfunctioned.
As the capsule descended for a watery landing, mission control feared that its heat shield was peeling off. Well past four hours into the flight, Glenn was told of the problem and knew he could be burned alive in an instant (Annie was notified to expect the worst), but the astronaut stayed focused even as fiery pieces of his spacecraft flew by his window.
“You didn’t really have time to think about it,” he told students at COSI Columbus 45 years later. “Long before you actually got to the flight itself, you sort of made peace with mortality.”
Safely splashing in the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles southeast of Bermuda, Glenn’s historic flight invigorated the nation and catapulted him into American lore. He addressed a joint session of Congress and rode in a convertible with Annie as 4 million people cheered him in a Manhattan ticker-tape parade.
In 2007, 45 years after his historic orbital mission, Glenn told a Columbus audience how much he longed to return to space right away, only to learn years after leaving the space program that President John F. Kennedy, fearing the worst, secretly had barred him from other flights to spare the country the potential loss of a national hero.
Glenn admitted in that speech that he was jealous in 1969 when fellow Ohioan Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon.
In 1964, only two years after his famous flight on Friendship 7, Glenn ran in the Democratic Senate primary against incumbent Sen. Stephen M. Young. But only six weeks after announcing his candidacy, Glenn dropped out of the race after damaging his inner ear in a bathroom fall, an injury that caused severe dizziness and balance problems. He recovered eight months later.
Glenn ran for the Senate again in 1970, but lost in the primary to Howard M. Metzenbaum, whom he defeated in a rematch four years later. He handily won election that fall over Cleveland Mayor Ralph Perk and won re-election by huge margins in 1980 and 1986.
After winning re-election in 1980 by the largest margin in Ohio history, Glenn ran for president in 1984. He was seen as the leading challenger to former Vice President Walter F. Mondale for the Democratic nomination, and was the candidate many considered to have the best chance of defeating President Ronald Reagan in the general election.
But plagued by a disorganized campaign and with a centrist theme ill-suited to a liberal-dominated Democratic primary process, Glenn finished back in the pack in the important Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. He borrowed $2 million to compete in the Southern primaries, but he didn’t win a state and dropped out of the race.
The debt remaining from that race, which rose to more than $3 million, became a campaign issue for Glenn in subsequent Senate races and nagged him until 2006 when the Federal Elections Commission finally allowed him to close the books on it after years of chipping away.
The third term of his four in the Senate was dominated by a Senate investigation into allegations that he improperly interceded with S&L regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, who had raised or donated $242,000 to Glenn’s political committees. Glenn personally spent more than $500,000 to defend his honor, and the Senate Ethics Committee cleared him of wrongdoing.
“I spend half a million dollars on my defense, and I wouldn’t pull back a penny of it,” Glenn said then. “The reason I felt so strongly about it was that it involved my honor, and if I had to sell everything I had and mortgaged the house, I would have done everything I could to see the truth come out.”
In his final year as a U.S. senator in 1998, Glenn was reborn as an astronaut. At 77, he orbited the Earth with six astronauts aboard shuttle Discovery, once again rendering his body and mind to the study of science, providing insight into how the oldest man ever launched into space held up. Glenn, remarkably fit, became an inspiration once again to mankind.
The events of John Glenn’s life, and his footprint on history, are chronicled in countless books and beyond. The Friendship 7 capsule is in the Smithsonian, his papers and memorabilia are archived at Ohio State, and his life with Annie — and much more — are displayed at the Glenn Historic Site in New Concord.
Joe Hallett is a retired reporter and senior editor of The Dispatch.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/12/john-glenn/john-glenn.html
John Glenn
January 3, 1987 – January 3, 1995
from Ohio
December 24, 1974 – January 3, 1999
July 18, 1921
Cambridge, Ohio, U.S.
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
University of Maryland, College Park
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Congressional Space Medal of Honor
NASA Distinguished Service Medal
United States Marine Corps
VMF-155
VMF-218
VMA-311
51st Fighter Wing
Korean War
John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American aviator, engineer, astronaut, and United States Senator from Ohio. In 1962 he became the first American to orbit the Earth, circling three times. Before joining NASA, he was a distinguished fighter pilot in both World War II and Korea, with five Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen clusters.
Glenn was one of the “Mercury Seven” group of military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA to become America’s first astronauts. On February 20, 1962, he flew the Friendship 7 mission and became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth person in space. Glenn received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990, and was the last surviving member of the Mercury Seven.
After he resigned from NASA in 1964, Glenn planned to run for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio. A member of the Democratic Party, he first won election to the Senate in 1974 where he served through January 3, 1999.
He retired from the Marine Corps in 1965, after twenty-three years in the military, with over fifteen medals and awards, including the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. In 1998, while still a sitting senator, he became the oldest person to fly in space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs as crew member of the Discovery space shuttle. He was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
Contents
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Early life, education and military service
Glenn’s childhood home in New Concord
John Glenn was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, the son of John Herschel Glenn, Sr. (1895–1966) and Clara Teresa (née Sproat) Glenn (1897–1971).[1][2] He was raised in nearby New Concord.[3]
After graduating from New Concord High School in 1939, he studied Engineering at Muskingum College. He earned a private pilot license for credit in a physics course in 1941.[4] Glenn did not complete his senior year in residence or take a proficiency exam, both requirements of the school for the Bachelor of Science degree. However, the school granted Glenn his degree in 1962, after his Mercury space flight.[5]
World War II
Military portrait of John Glenn
When the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, Glenn quit college to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps. However, he was never called to duty, and in March 1942 enlisted as a United States Navy aviation cadet. He went to the University of Iowa for preflight training, then continued on to NAS Olathe, Kansas, for primary training. He made his first solo flight in a military aircraft there. During his advanced training at the NAS Corpus Christi, he was offered the chance to transfer to the U.S. Marine Corps and took it.[6]
Upon completing his training in 1943, Glenn was assigned to Marine Squadron VMJ-353, flying R4D transport planes. He transferred to VMF-155 as an F4U Corsair fighter pilot, and flew 59 combat missions in the South Pacific.[7] He saw combat over the Marshall Islands, where he attacked anti-aircraft batteries on Maloelap Atoll. In 1945, he was assigned to NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, and was promoted to captain shortly before the war’s end.[3]:35
Glenn flew patrol missions in North China with the VMF-218 Marine Fighter Squadron, until it was transferred to Guam. In 1948 he became a flight instructor at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas, followed by attending the Amphibious Warfare School.[8]:34
Korean War
Glenn’s USAF F-86F that he dubbed “MiG Mad Marine” during the Korean War, 1953
During the Korean War, Glenn was assigned to VMF-311, flying the new F9F Panther jet interceptor. He flew his Panther in 63 combat missions, gaining the nickname “magnet ass” from his alleged ability to attract enemy flak.[9] On two occasions, he returned to his base with over 250 holes in his aircraft.[10] For a time, he flew with Marine reservist Ted Williams, a future Hall of Fame baseball player for the Boston Red Sox, as his wingman. He also flew with future Major General Ralph H. Spanjer.[11]
Glenn flew a second Korean combat tour in an interservice exchange program with the United States Air Force, 51st Fighter Wing. He logged 27 missions in the faster F-86F Sabre and shot down three MiG-15s near the Yalu River in the final days before the ceasefire.[9]
For his service in 149 combat missions in two wars, he received numerous honors, including the Distinguished Flying Cross (six occasions) and the Air Medal with eighteen award stars.[12]
Test pilot
Glenn returned to NAS Patuxent River, appointed to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (class 12), graduating in 1954.[13] He served as an armament officer, flying planes to high altitude and testing their cannons and machine guns.[14] He was assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (now Bureau of Naval Weapons) as a test pilot on Navy and Marine Corps jet fighters in Washington, D.C., from November 1956 to April 1959, during which time he also attended the University of Maryland.[15]
Glenn had nearly 9,000 hours of flying time, with approximately 3,000 hours in jet aircraft.[15]
On July 16, 1957, Glenn completed the first supersonic transcontinental flight in a Vought F8U-3P Crusader.[16] The flight from NAS Los Alamitos, California, to Floyd Bennett Field, New York, took 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8.3 seconds. As he passed over his hometown, a child in the neighborhood reportedly ran to the Glenn house shouting “Johnny dropped a bomb! Johnny dropped a bomb! Johnny dropped a bomb!” as the sonic boom shook the town.[17] Project Bullet, the name of the mission, included both the first transcontinental flight to average supersonic speed (despite three in-flight refuelings during which speeds dropped below 300 mph), and the first continuous transcontinental panoramic photograph of the United States. For this mission Glenn received his fifth Distinguished Flying Cross.[18]
NASA career
John Glenn in his Mercury spacesuit
While Glenn was on duty at Patuxent and Washington, Glenn began to read everything he could about space. His office was requested to furnish a test pilot to be sent to the Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to make some runs on a spaceflight simulator, which was a part of NASA research on reentry vehicle shapes. The officer would also be sent to the Naval Air Development Center in Johnsville, Pennsylvania. The test pilot would be subjected to high g-forces in a centrifuge to compare to the data collected in the simulator. Glenn requested this position and was granted it. He spent a few days at Langley and a week in Johnsville for the testing.[19]
Prior to Glenn’s appointment as an astronaut in the Mercury program, he participated in the capsule design. NASA had requested that military service members participate in planning the mockup of the capsule. Since Glenn had participated in the research at Langley and Johnsville, combined he with his experience sitting on mock-up boards in the Navy and his knowledge of the capsule procedures, he was sent to the McDonnell plant in St. Louis and acted as a service adviser on the mock-up board.[19]
In 1958, the newly formed NASA began a recruiting program for astronauts,[a] and Glenn just barely met the requirements as he was close to the age cutoff of 40 and also lacked the required science-based degree at the time. He remained an officer in the United States Marine Corps after he was selected in 1959.[8]:43 After his selection, he was assigned to the NASA Space Task Group in 1959, which was located at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.[20] The task force was moved to Houston in 1962 and became a part of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center.[20] Glenn was a backup pilot to Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, on the Freedom 7 and Liberty Bell 7 respectively.[20] Astronauts were given an additional role in the spaceflight program, and Glenn’s was the cockpit layout and control functioning, not only for Mercury but also early designs for Apollo.[20]
Glenn (center) with President John F. Kennedy and General Leighton I. Davis celebrating Glenn’s orbital flight, 1962
Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962, on the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission, circling the globe three times during a flight lasting nearly five hours.[21] This made Glenn the third American in space and the fifth human being in space.[22][23][24][b] For Glenn the day became the “best day of his life,” while it also renewed America’s confidence.[30] His voyage took place while America and the Soviet Union were in the midst of the Cold War and competing in the “Space Race.”[31]
During the flight, Glenn’s heat shield had been thought to have come loose and likely to fail during re-entry, which would cause the entire space capsule to burn up. Flight controllers had Glenn modify his re-entry procedure by keeping his retrorocket pack on over the shield to help keep it in place. He made his splashdown safely, and afterwards it was determined that the indicator was faulty.[22] Glenn’s flight and fiery splashdown was portrayed in the 1983 film The Right Stuff.[32]
Glenn is honored by PresidentKennedy at temporary Manned Spacecraft Center facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida, three days after his flight
As the first American in orbit, Glenn became a national hero, met President Kennedy, and received a ticker-tape parade in New York City, reminiscent of that given for Charles Lindbergh and other great dignitaries.[22][33]
Glenn’s fame and political attributes were noted by the Kennedys, and he became a personal friend of the Kennedy family. On February 23, 1962, President Kennedy escorted him in a parade to Hangar S at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where he awarded Glenn with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.[22]
In July 1962 Glenn testified before the House Space Committee in favor of excluding women from the NASA astronaut program. Although NASA had no official policy prohibiting women, in practice, the requirement that astronauts had to be military test pilots excluded them entirely.[34][c]
Glenn resigned from NASA on January 16, 1964, and the next day announced his candidacy as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio. On February 26, 1964, Glenn suffered a concussion from a slip and fall against a bathtub; this led him to withdraw from the race on March 30.[36][37] Glenn then went on convalescent leave from the Marine Corps until he could make a full recovery, necessary for his retirement from the Marines. He retired on January 1, 1965, as a colonel and entered the business world as an executive for Royal Crown Cola.[22]
Political career
U.S. Senate
NASA psychologists had determined during Glenn’s training that he was the astronaut best suited for public life.[38] Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy suggested to Glenn and his wife in December 1962 that he should run against incumbent United States Senator Stephen M. Young of Ohio in the 1964 Democratic primary election. In 1964 Glenn announced that he was resigning from the space program to run against Young, but withdrew when he hit his head on a bathtub. Glenn sustained a concussion and injured his inner ear, and recovery left him unable to campaign.[39] Glenn remained close to the Kennedy family and was with Robert Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1968. He served as a pallbearer at Kennedy’s funeral.[3]:80
In 1970, Glenn was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary for nomination for the Senate by fellow Democrat Howard Metzenbaum, by a 51% to 49% margin. Metzenbaum lost the general election race to Robert Taft, Jr. In 1974, Glenn rejected Ohio governor John J. Gilligan and the Ohio Democratic party’s demand that he run for Lieutenant Governor. Instead, he challenged Metzenbaum again, whom Gilligan had appointed.[39]
In the primary race, Metzenbaum contrasted his strong business background with Glenn’s military and astronaut credentials, saying his opponent had “never held a payroll”. Glenn’s reply came to be known as the “Gold Star Mothers” speech. He told Metzenbaum to go to a veterans’ hospital and “look those men with mangled bodies in the eyes and tell them they didn’t hold a job. You go with me to any Gold Star mother and you look her in the eye and tell her that her son did not hold a job.” Many felt the “Gold Star Mothers” speech won the primary for Glenn.[40][41] Glenn won the primary by 54 to 46%. After defeating Metzenbaum, Glenn defeated Ralph Perk, the Republican Mayor of Cleveland, in the general election, beginning a Senate career that would continue until 1999. In 1980, Glenn won re-election to the seat, defeating Republican challenger Jim Betts, by over 40 percentage points.[42]
In 1986, Glenn defeated challenger U.S. Representative Tom Kindness. Metzenbaum would go on to seek a rematch against Taft in 1976, winning a close race on Jimmy Carter‘s coattails.[43]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Glenn and Metzenbaum had strained relations. There was a thaw in 1983, when Metzenbaum endorsed Glenn for president, and again in 1988, when Metzenbaum was opposed for re-election by Cleveland mayor George Voinovich. Voinovich accused Metzenbaum of being soft on child pornography. Voinovich’s charges were criticized by many, including Glenn, who now came to Metzenbaum’s aid, recording a statement for television rebutting Voinovich’s charges. Metzenbaum won the election by 57% to 41%.[43] In 1997, Glenn announced that he would retire from the Senate at the end of his then-current term.[44]
Savings and loan scandal
Glenn was one of the five U.S. senators caught up in the Lincoln Savings and Keating Five Scandal after accepting a $200,000 contribution from Charles Keating. Glenn and Republican senator John McCain were the only senators exonerated. The Senate Commission found that Glenn had exercised “poor judgment”. The association of his name with the scandal gave Republicans hope that he would be vulnerable in the 1992 campaign. Instead, Glenn defeated Lieutenant Governor Mike DeWine to keep his seat.[45]
Presidential politics
In 1976, Glenn was a candidate for the Democratic vice presidential nomination. However, Glenn’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention failed to impress the delegates and the nomination went to veteran politician Walter Mondale.[46] Glenn also ran for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination.[47]
Glenn and his staff worried about the 1983 release of The Right Stuff, a film about the original seven Mercury astronauts based on the best-selling Tom Wolfe book of the same name. The book had depicted Glenn as a “zealous moralizer”, and he did not attend the film’s Washington premiere on October 16, 1983. Reviewers saw Ed Harris‘ portrayal of Glenn as heroic, however, and his staff immediately began to emphasize the film to the press. Aide Greg Schneiders suggested an unusual strategy, similar to Glenn’s personal campaign and voting style, in which he would avoid appealing to narrow special interest groups and instead seek to win support from ordinary Democratic primary voters, the “constituency of the whole”.[39] Mondale defeated Glenn for the nomination however, and he was left with $3 million in campaign debt for over 20 years before he was granted a reprieve by the Federal Election Commission.[48][49] He was a potential vice presidential running mate in 1984, 1988, and 1992.[50]
Issues
During Glenn’s time in the Senate, he was chief author of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978,[51] served as chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1987 until 1995, sat on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees and the Special Committee on Aging.[52]
Once Republicans regained control of the Senate, Glenn served as the ranking minority member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Maine senator Susan Collins, that looked into illegal foreign donations by China to U.S. political campaigns for the 1996 election.[53] There was considerable acrimony between Glenn and the overseeing committee chair, Fred Thompson of Tennessee.[54]
Return to space
Senator-astronaut John Glenn on the shuttle Discovery, 1998
Glenn returned to space on the Space Shuttle on October 29, 1998, as a Payload Specialist on Discovery‘s STS-95 mission, becoming, at age 77, the oldest person to go into space. According to The New York Times, Glenn “won his seat on the Shuttle flight by lobbying NASA for two years to fly as a human guinea pig for geriatric studies”, which were named as the main reasons for his participation in the mission.[55] Shortly before the flight, researchers learned that Glenn had to be disqualified from one of the flight’s two main priority human experiments (about the effects of melatonin) because he did not meet one of the study’s medical conditions; he still participated in two other experiments about sleep monitoring and protein use.[55][56]
Glenn states in his memoir that he had no idea NASA was willing to send him back into space when NASA announced the decision.[57] His participation in the nine-day mission was criticized by some in the space community as a political favor granted to Glenn by President Clinton, with John Pike, director of the Space Policy Project for the Federation of American Scientists noting “If he was a normal person, he would acknowledge he’s a great American hero and that he should get to fly on the shuttle for free…He’s too modest for that, and so he’s got to have this medical research reason. It’s got nothing to do with medicine.”[22][58]
In a 2012 interview, Glenn said that the purpose of his flight was “to make measurements and do research on me at the age of 77 […] comparing the results on me in space with the younger [astronauts] and maybe get [insights] on the immune system or protein turnover or vestibular functions and other things — heart changes.[56] He regretted that NASA did not follow up on this research about aging by sending more people from this age range into space.[56]
Upon the safe return of the STS-95 crew, Glenn (and his crewmates) received another ticker-tape parade, making him the tenth, and latest, person to have received multiple ticker-tape parades in a lifetime (as opposed to that of a sports team).[59] Just prior to the flight, on October 15, 1998, and for several months after, the main causeway to the Johnson Space Center, NASA Road 1, was temporarily renamed “John Glenn Parkway”.[60]
In 2001, Glenn vehemently opposed the sending of Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist, to the International Space Station on the grounds that Tito’s trip served no scientific purpose.[61]
Public affairs institute
Glenn helped found the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at The Ohio State University in 1998 to encourage public service. On July 22, 2006, the institute merged with OSU’s School of Public Policy and Management to become the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, and Glenn held an adjunct professorship at the Glenn School.[62] In February 2015, it was announced that the School would become the John Glenn College of Public Affairs beginning in April 2015.[63]
Personal life
Glenn and his wife Anna in 1965
On April 6, 1943, Glenn married his high school sweetheart, Anna Margaret Castor (b. 1920). Both Glenn and his wife attended Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, where he was a member of the Stag Club Fraternity.[64] Together, they had two children, John David and Carolyn Ann, and two grandchildren.[3]:31 They remained married until his death. His boyhood home in New Concord has been restored and made into an historic house museum and education center.[65]
A Freemason, Glenn was a member of Concord Lodge # 688 New Concord, Ohio, and DeMolay International, the Masonic youth organization, and was an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church.[66]
He set an example of someone whose faith began before he became an astronaut, and whose faith was reinforced after traveling in space.
“To look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God is to me impossible,” said Glenn, after his second and final space voyage.[67] He stated that he saw no contradiction between believing in God and the knowledge that evolution is “a fact”, and that he believed evolution should be taught in schools.[68] He explained:
Glenn was one of the original owners of a Holiday Inn franchise near Orlando, Florida, that is today known as the Seralago Hotel & Suites Main Gate East.[70][71] His business partner was Henri Landwirth, a Holocaust survivor, who became Glenn’s “best friend.”[72] Glenn recalls learning about Landwirth’s background:
Public appearances and ceremonies
Glenn appears with President Kennedy and Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov, 1962
Glenn was an honorary member of the International Academy of Astronautics; a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Marine Corps Aviation Association, Order of Daedalians, National Space Club Board of Trustees, National Space Society Board of Governors, International Association of Holiday Inns, Ohio Democratic Party, State Democratic Executive Committee, Franklin County (Ohio) Democratic Party, and 10th District (Ohio) Democratic Action Club.[4]
In 2001, Glenn appeared as a guest star on the American television sitcom Frasier, as himself.[73]
On September 5, 2009, John and Annie Glenn dotted the “i” during The Ohio State University’s Script Ohio marching band performance, at the Ohio State–Navy football game halftime show. Other non-band members to have received this honor include Bob Hope, Woody Hayes, Jack Nicklaus and Earle Bruce.[74]
On February 20, 2012, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Friendship 7 flight, Glenn was surprised with the opportunity to speak with the orbiting crew of the International Space Station while Glenn was on-stage with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden at The Ohio State University, where the public affairs school is named for him.[75]
Senator John Glenn at the ceremony transferring the Space Shuttle Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution.
On April 19, 2012, Glenn participated in the ceremonial transfer of the retired Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA to the Smithsonian Institution for permanent display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Speaking at the event, Glenn criticized the “unfortunate” decision to end the Space Shuttle program, expressing his opinion that grounding the shuttles delayed research.[76]
In June 2016 the Columbus, Ohio airport known for many years as Port Columbus was officially renamed the John Glenn Columbus International Airport. Just before his 95th birthday, Glenn and his wife Annie attended the ceremony, and he spoke about how visiting that airport as a child inspired his interest in flying.[77]
Illness and death
In June 2014, Glenn underwent a successful heart valve replacement surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.[78]
At the beginning of December 2016, Glenn was hospitalized at the James Cancer Hospital of OSU Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.[79][80][81] A family source said that Glenn had been in declining health, and that his condition was grave. His wife, Annie, and their children and grandchildren had joined him at the hospital.[82]
Glenn died December 8, 2016, at the OSU Wexner Medical Center.[83][84] No cause of death has yet been disclosed. Glenn will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery after lying in state at the Ohio Statehouse and a memorial service at Mershon Auditorium at The Ohio State University.[83]
Tributes
Glenn looks into a celestial training device before his 1962 launch.
Among those honoring Glenn were President Barack Obama, who said that Glenn, “the first American to orbit the Earth, reminded us that with courage and a spirit of discovery there’s no limit to the heights we can reach together.”[85] Tributes were also given by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,[86] and President-elect Donald Trump.[87]
The phrase “Godspeed,” that hailed Glenn’s historic launch into space, became a social media hashtag. Past and current astronauts added their own tributes, along with NASA Administrator and former shuttle astronaut, Charles Bolden, who added that “John Glenn’s legacy is one of risk and accomplishment, of history created and duty to country carried out under great pressure with the whole world watching.”[88]
Image gallery
Glenn at the Mercury Control Center on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base
Medical debriefing of Major John H. Glenn, Jr., USMC after orbital flight of Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Randolph (CVS-15). The debriefing team for Lt. Colonel Glenn (center) was led by Commander Seldon C. “Smokey” Dunn, MC, USN (FS) (RAM-qualified) (far right w/EKG in hands).
“Best regards and many thanks for all the help, ‘Smokey’
John H. Glenn Jr
Mercury Astronaut
a good date — 20 February 62”
Plaque near Mercury launch pad
Awards and honors
with three stars and eighteen clusters[89]:95
with fifteen stars and eighteen clusters
with two stars
with one star
with two stars
(Korea)
Director Mark K. Updegrove with John Glenn at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2012
Quincy Jones presents platinum copies of “Fly Me to the Moon” (from It Might as Well Be Swing) to Senator John Glenn (left) and Apollo 11Commander Neil Armstrong (right)
The NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio, is named after him. Also, Senator John Glenn Highway runs along a stretch of I-480 in Ohio across from the NASA Glenn Research Center. Colonel Glenn Highway, which runs by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Wright State University near Dayton, Ohio, John Glenn High School in his hometown of New Concord, Ohio, and Col. John Glenn Elementary in Seven Hills, Ohio, are named for him as well. High Schools in Westland and Bay City, Michigan; Walkerton, Indiana; San Angelo, Texas; Elwood, Long Island, New York; and Norwalk, California were also named after him.
The fireboat John H. Glenn Jr. was named for him. This fireboat is operated by the DCFD and protects the sections of the Potomac River and the Anacostia River that run through Washington, D.C.
The USNS John Glenn (T-MLP-2), a mobile landing platform that was delivered to the U.S. Navy on March 12, 2014, is named for him. It was christened February 1, 2014, in San Diego at General Dynamics‘ National Steel and Shipbuilding Company.[95]
In 1961, Glenn received an Honorary LL.D from Muskingum University, the college he had attended before joining the military in World War II.[5] He received Honorary Doctorates from Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan, Wagner College in Staten Island, New York, and New Hampshire College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Glenn was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1976.[96] Glenn was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1977.[24]
In 1990, Glenn was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.[97]
In 2000, Glenn received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.[98]
In 2004, Glenn was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution.[99]
In 2009, Glenn received an Honorary LL.D from Williams College,[100] and in 2010, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Public Service from Ohio Northern University.[101]
In 2013, Flying magazine ranked Glenn No. 26 on their “51 Heroes of Aviation” list.[102]
On September 12, 2016, Blue Origin announced a new rocket named after Glenn, the New Glenn.[103]
See also
Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glenn
Project Mercury
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the U.S. Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted twenty unmanned developmental flights (some using animals), and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from the god of travel in Roman mythology, cost $277 million in 1965 US dollars, and involved the work of 2 million people.[1] The astronauts were collectively known as the “Mercury Seven“, and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a “7” by its pilot.
The Space Race began with the 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1. This came as a shock to the American public, and led to the creation of NASA to expedite existing U.S. space exploration efforts, and place most of them under civilian control. After the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958, manned spaceflight became the next goal. The Soviet Union put the first human, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into a single orbit aboard Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. Shortly after this, on May 5, the U.S. launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, on a suborbital flight. Soviet Gherman Titov followed with a day-long orbital flight in August, 1961. The U.S. reached its orbital goal on February 20, 1962, when John Glenn made three orbits around the Earth. When Mercury ended in May 1963, both nations had sent six people into space, but the Soviets led the U.S. in total time spent in space.
The Mercury space capsule was produced by McDonnell Aircraft, and carried supplies of water, food and oxygen for about one day in a pressurized cabin. Mercury flights were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on launch vehicles modified from the Redstone and Atlas D missiles. The capsule was fitted with a launch escape rocket to carry it safely away from the launch vehicle in case of a failure. The flight was designed to be controlled from the ground via the Manned Space Flight Network, a system of tracking and communications stations; back-up controls were outfitted on board. Small retrorockets were used to bring the spacecraft out of its orbit, after which an ablative heat shield protected it from the heat of atmospheric reentry. Finally, a parachute slowed the craft for a water landing. Both astronaut and capsule were recovered by helicopters deployed from a U.S. Navy ship.
After a slow start riddled with humiliating mistakes, the Mercury project gained popularity, its missions followed by millions on radio and TV around the world. Its success laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which carried two astronauts in each capsule and perfected space docking maneuvers essential for manned lunar landings in the subsequent Apollo program announced a few weeks after the first manned Mercury flight.
Contents
[hide]
Creation[edit]
Project Mercury was officially approved on October 7, 1958 and publicly announced on December 17.[2][3] Originally called Project Astronaut, President Dwight Eisenhower felt that gave too much attention to the pilot.[4] Instead, the name Mercury was chosen from classical mythology, which had already lent names to rockets like the Greek Atlas and Roman Jupiter for the SM-65 and PGM-19 missiles.[3] It absorbed military projects with the same aim, such as the Air Force Man In Space Soonest.[5][n 1]
Background[edit]
Following the end of World War II, a nuclear arms race evolved between the U.S. and the Soviet Union (USSR). Since the USSR did not have a large fleet of bomber planes to deliver such weapons to the U.S., or bases in the western hemisphere from which to deploy them, Joseph Stalin decided to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, which drove a missile race.[7] The rocket technology in turn enabled both sides to develop Earth-orbiting satellites for communications, and gathering weather data and intelligence.[8] Americans were shocked when the Soviet Union placed the first satellite into orbit in October 1957, leading to a growing fear that the U.S. was falling into a “missile gap“.[9][8] A month later, the Soviets launched Sputnik 2, carrying a dog into orbit. Though the animal was not recovered alive, it was obvious their goal was manned spaceflight.[10] Unable to disclose details of military space projects, President Eisenhower ordered the creation of a civilian space agency in charge of civilian and scientific space exploration. Based on the federal research agency National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), it was named the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.[11] It achieved its first goal, an American satellite in space, in 1958. The next goal was to put a man there.[12]
The limit of space was defined at the time as a minimum altitude of 62 mi (100 km), and the only way to reach it was by using rocket powered boosters.[13][14] This created risks for the pilot, including explosion, high g-forces and vibrations during lift off through a dense atmosphere,[15] and temperatures of more than 10,000 °F (5,500 °C) from air compression during reentry.[16]
In space, pilots would require pressurized chambers or space suits to supply fresh air.[17] While there, they would experience weightlessness, which could potentially cause disorientation.[18] Further potential risks included radiation and micrometeoroid strikes, both of which would normally be absorbed in the atmosphere.[19] All seemed possible to overcome: experience from satellites suggested micrometeoroid risk was negligible,[20] and experiments in the early 1950s with simulated weightlessness, high g-forces on humans, and sending animals to the limit of space, all suggested potential problems could be overcome by known technologies.[21] Finally, reentry was studied using the nuclear warheads of ballistic missiles,[22] which demonstrated a blunt, forward-facing heat shield could solve the problem of heating.[22]
Organization[edit]
T. Keith Glennan had been appointed the first Administrator of NASA, with Hugh L. Dryden (last Director of NACA) as his Deputy, at the creation of the agency on October 1, 1958.[23] Glennan would report to the president through the National Aeronautics and Space Council.[24] The group responsible for Project Mercury was NASA’s Space Task Group, and the goals of the program were to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth, investigate the pilot’s ability to function in space, and to recover both pilot and spacecraft safely.[25] Existing technology and off-the-shelf equipment would be used wherever practical, the simplest and most reliable approach to system design would be followed, and an existing launch vehicle would be employed, together with a progressive test program.[26] Spacecraft requirements included: a launch escape system to separate the spacecraft and its occupant from the launch vehicle in case of impending failure; attitude control for orientation of the spacecraft in orbit; a retrorocket system to bring the spacecraft out of orbit; drag braking blunt body for atmospheric reentry; and landing on water.[26] To communicate with the spacecraft during an orbital mission, an extensive communications network had to be built.[27] In keeping with his desire to keep from giving the U.S. space program an overly military flavor, President Eisenhower at first hesitated to give the project top national priority (DX rating under the Defense Production Act), which meant that Mercury had to wait in line behind military projects for materials; however, this rating was granted in May 1959.[28]
Contractors and facilities[edit]
Twelve companies bid to build the Mercury spacecraft on a $20 million ($163 million adjusted for inflation) contract.[29] In January 1959, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation was chosen to be prime contractor for the spacecraft.[30] Two weeks earlier, North American Aviation, based in Los Angeles, was awarded a contract for Little Joe, a small rocket to be used for development of the launch escape system.[31][n 2] The World Wide Tracking Network for communication between the ground and spacecraft during a flight was awarded to the Western Electric Company.[32] Redstone rockets for suborbital launches were manufactured in Huntsville, Alabama by the Chrysler Corporation[33] and Atlas rockets by Convair in San Diego, California.[34] For manned launches, the Atlantic Missile Range at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida was made available by the USAF.[35] This was also the site of the Mercury Control Center while the computing center of the communication network was in Goddard Space Center, Maryland.[36] Little Joe rockets were launched from Wallops Island, Virginia.[37] Astronaut training took place at Langley Research Center in Virginia, Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio, and Naval Air Development Center Johnsville in Warminster, PA.[38] Langley wind tunnels[39] together with a rocket sled track at Holloman Air Force Base at Alamogordo, New Mexico were used for aerodynamic studies.[40] Both Navy and Air Force aircraft were made available for the development of the spacecraft’s landing system,[41] and Navy ships and Navy and Marine Corps helicopters were made available for recovery.[n 3] South of Cape Canaveral the town of Cocoa Beach boomed.[43]From here, 75,000 people watched the first American orbital flight being launched in 1962.[43]
Wallops Island test facility, 1961
Mercury Control Center, Cape Canaveral, 1963
Location of production and operational facilities of Project Mercury
Spacecraft[edit]
The Mercury spacecraft’s principal designer was Maxime Faget, who started research for manned spaceflight during the time of the NACA.[44] It was 10.8 feet (3.3 m) long and 6.0 feet (1.8 m) wide; with the launch escape system added, the overall length was 25.9 feet (7.9 m).[45] With 100 cubic feet (2.8 m3) of habitable volume, the capsule was just large enough for a single crew member.[46] Inside were 120 controls: 55 electrical switches, 30 fuses and 35 mechanical levers.[47] The heaviest spacecraft, Mercury-Atlas 9, weighed 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) fully loaded.[48] Its outer skin was made of René 41, a nickel alloy able to withstand high temperatures.[49]
The spacecraft was cone shaped, with a neck at the narrow end.[45] It had a convex base, which carried a heat shield (Item 2 in the diagram below)[50] consisting of an aluminum honeycomb covered with multiple layers of fiberglass.[51] Strapped to it was a retropack (1)[52] consisting of three rockets deployed to brake the spacecraft during reentry.[53] Between these were three minor rockets for separating the spacecraft from the launch vehicle at orbital insertion.[54] The straps that held the package could be severed when it was no longer needed.[55] Next to the heat shield was the pressurized crew compartment (3).[56] Inside an astronaut would be strapped to a form-fitting seat, with instruments in front and his back to the heat shield.[57] Underneath the seat was the environmental control system supplying oxygen and heat,[58] scrubbing the air of CO2, vapor and odors, and (on orbital flights) collecting urine.[59][n 4] The recovery compartment (4)[61] at the narrow end of the spacecraft contained three parachutes: a drogue to stabilize free fall and two main chutes, a primary and reserve.[62] Between the heat shield and inner wall of the crew compartment was a landing skirt, deployed by letting down the heat shield before landing.[63] On top of the recovery compartment was the antenna section (5)[64] containing both antennas for communication and scanners for guiding spacecraft orientation.[65] Attached was a flap used to ensure the spacecraft was faced heat shield first during reentry.[66]A launch escape system (6) was mounted to the narrow end of the spacecraft[67] containing three small solid-fueled rockets which could be fired briefly in a launch failure to separate the capsule safely from its booster. It would deploy the capsule’s parachute for a landing nearby at sea.[68] (See also Mission profile for details.)
The Mercury spacecraft did not have an on-board computer, instead relying on all computation for re-entry to be calculated by computers on the ground, with their results (retrofire times and firing attitude) then transmitted to the spacecraft by radio while in flight.[69][70] All computer systems used in the Mercury space program were housed in NASA facilities on Earth.[69] The computer systems were IBM 701 computers.[71][72](See also Ground control for details.)
1. Retropack. 2. Heatshield. 3. Crew compartment. 4. Recovery compartment. 5. Antenna section. 6. Launch escape system.
Retropack: Retrorockets with red posigrade rockets
Landing skirt deployment: on release the skirt is filled with air; on impact the air is pressed out again
Pilot accommodations[edit]
John Glenn wearing his Mercury space suit
The astronaut lay in a sitting position with his back to the heat shield, which was found to be the position that best enabled a human to withstand the high g-forces of launch and re-entry. A form-fitted fiberglass seat was custom-molded from each astronaut’s space-suited body for maximum support. Near his left hand was a manual abort handle to activate the launch escape system if necessary prior to or during liftoff, in case the automatic trigger failed.[73]
To supplement the onboard environmental control system, he wore a pressure suit with its own oxygen supply, which would also cool him.[74] A cabin atmosphere of pure oxygen at a low pressure of 5.5 psi (equivalent to an altitude of 24,800 feet (7,600 m)) was chosen, rather than one with the same composition as air (nitrogen/oxygen) at sea level.[75] This was easier to control,[76] avoided the risk of decompression sickness (known as “the bends”),[77][n 5] and also saved on spacecraft weight. Fires (which never occurred) would have to be extinguished by emptying the cabin of oxygen.[59] In such case, or failure of the cabin pressure for any reason, the astronaut could make an emergency return to Earth, relying on his suit for survival.[78][59]The astronauts normally flew with their visor up, which meant that the suit was not inflated.[59] With the visor down and the suit inflated, the astronaut could only reach the side and bottom panels, where vital buttons and handles were placed.[79]
The astronaut also wore electrodes on his chest to record his heart rhythm, a cuff that could take his blood pressure, and a rectal thermometer to record his temperature (this was replaced by an oral thermometer on the last flight).[80] Data from these was sent to the ground during the flight.[74] The astronaut normally drank water and ate food pellets.[81][n 6]
Once in orbit, the spacecraft could be rotated in three directions: along its longitudinal axis (roll), left to right from the astronaut’s point of view (yaw), and up or down (pitch).[82] Movement was created by rocket-propelled thrusters which used hydrogen peroxide as a fuel.[83][84] For orientation, the pilot could look through the window in front of him or from a screen connected to a periscope which could be turned 360°.[85]
The Mercury astronauts had taken part in the development of their spacecraft, and insisted that manual control, and a window, be elements of its design.[86] As a result, spacecraft movement and other functions could be controlled three ways: remotely from the ground when passing over a ground station, automatically guided by onboard instruments, or manually by the astronaut, who could replace or override the two other methods. Experience validated the astronauts’ insistence on manual controls. Without them, Gordon Cooper’s manual reentry during the last flight would not have been possible.[87]
Development and production[edit]
Spacecraft production in clean room at McDonnell Aircraft, St. Louis
The Mercury spacecraft design was modified three times by NASA between 1958 and 1959.[88] After bidding by potential contractors had been completed, NASA selected the design submitted as “C” in November 1958.[89] After it failed a test flight in July 1959, a final configuration, “D”, emerged.[90] The heat shield shape had been developed earlier in the 1950s through experiments with ballistic missiles, which had shown a blunt profile would create a shock wave that would lead most of the heat around the spacecraft.[91] To further protect against heat, either a heat sink, or an ablative material, could be added to the shield.[92] The heat sink would remove heat by the flow of the air inside the shock wave, whereas the ablative heat shield would remove heat by a controlled evaporation of the ablative material.[93] After unmanned tests, the latter was chosen for manned flights.[94] Apart from the capsule design, a rocket plane similar to the existing X-15 was considered.[95] This approach was still too far from being able to make a spaceflight, and was consequently dropped.[96][n 7] The heat shield and the stability of the spacecraft were tested in wind tunnels,[39] and later in flight.[100] The launch escape system was developed through unmanned flights.[101] During a period of problems with development of the landing parachutes, alternative landing systems such as the Rogallo glider wingwere considered, but ultimately scrapped.[102]
The spacecraft were produced at McDonnell Aircraft, St. Louis, Missouri in clean rooms and tested in vacuum chambers at the McDonnell plant.[103] The spacecraft had close to 600 subcontractors, such as Garrett AiResearch which built the spacecraft’s environmental control system.[30][58] Final quality control and preparations of the spacecraft were made at Hangar S at Cape Canaveral.[104][n 8] NASA ordered 20 production spacecraft, numbered 1 through 20.[30] Five of the 20, Nos. 10, 12, 15, 17, and 19, were not flown.[107]Spacecraft No. 3 and No. 4 were destroyed during unmanned test flights.[107] Spacecraft No. 11 sank[107] and was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after 38 years.[108] Some spacecraft were modified after initial production (refurbished after launch abort, modified for longer missions, etc.)[n 9] A number of Mercury boilerplate spacecraft(made from non-flight materials or lacking production spacecraft systems) were also made by NASA and McDonnell.[111] They were designed and used to test spacecraft recovery systems and the escape tower.[112] McDonnell also built the spacecraft simulators used by the astronauts during training.[113]
Shadowgraph of the re-entry shock wavesimulated in a wind tunnel, 1957
Evolution of capsule design, 1958–59
Experiment with boilerplate spacecraft, 1959
Launch vehicles[edit]
Launch vehicles: 1. Mercury-Atlas (orbital flights). 2. Mercury-Redstone (suborbital flights). 3. Little Joe (unmanned tests)
Launch Escape System testing[edit]
A small launch vehicle (55 feet (17 m) long) called Little Joe was used for unmanned tests of the launch escape system, using a Mercury capsule with an escape tower mounted on it.[114][115] Its main purpose was to test the system at a point called max-q, at which air pressure against the spacecraft peaked, making separation of the launch vehicle and spacecraft most difficult.[116] It was also the point at which the astronaut was subjected to the heaviest vibrations.[117] The Little Joe rocket used solid-fuel propellant and was originally designed in 1958 by the NACA for suborbital manned flights, but was redesigned for Project Mercury to simulate an Atlas-D launch.[101] It was produced by North American Aviation.[114] It was not able to change direction, instead its flight depended on the angle from which it was launched.[118] Its maximum altitude was 100 mi (160 km) fully loaded.[119] A Scout launch vehicle was used for a single flight intended to evaluate the tracking network; however, it failed and was destroyed from the ground shortly after launch.[120]
Suborbital flight[edit]
The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, an 83-foot (25 m) tall (with capsule and escape system) single-stage launch vehicle used for suborbital (ballistic) flights.[121] It had a liquid-fueled engine that burned alcohol and liquid oxygen producing about 75,000 pounds of thrust, which was not enough for orbital missions.[121] It was a descendant of the German V-2,[33] and developed for the U.S. Army during the early 1950s. It was modified for Project Mercury by removing the warhead and adding a collar for supporting the spacecraft together with material for damping vibrations during launch.[122] Its rocket motor was produced by North American Aviation and its direction could be altered during flight by its fins. They worked in two ways: by directing the air around them, or by directing the thrust by their inner parts (or both at the same time).[33] Both the Atlas-D and Redstone launch vehicles contained an automatic abort sensing system which allowed them to abort a launch by firing the launch escape system if something went wrong.[123] The Jupiter rocket, also developed by Von Braun’s team at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, was considered as well for intermediate Mercury suborbital flights at a higher speed and altitude than Redstone, but this plan was dropped when it turned out that man-rating Jupiter for the Mercury program would actually cost more than flying an Atlas due to scale of economics–Jupiter’s only use other than as a missile system was for the short-lived Juno II launch vehicle and keeping a full staff of technical personnel around solely to fly a few Mercury capsules would result in excessively high costs.[124][125]
Orbital flight[edit]
Orbital missions required use of the Atlas LV-3B, a man-rated version of the Atlas D which was originally developed as the United States first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)[126] by Convair for the Air Force during the mid-1950s.[127] The Atlas was a “one-and-one-half-stage” rocket fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen (LOX).[126] The rocket by itself stood 67 feet (20 m) high; total height of the Atlas-Mercury space vehicle at launch was 95 feet (29 m).[128]
The Atlas first stage was a booster skirt with two engines burning liquid fuel.[129][n 10] This together with the larger sustainer second stage gave it sufficient power to launch a Mercury spacecraft into orbit.[126] Both stages fired from lift-off with the thrust from the second stage sustainer engine passing through an opening in the first stage. After separation from the first stage, the sustainer stage continued alone. The sustainer also steered the rocket by thrusters guided by gyroscopes.[130] Smaller vernier rockets were added on its sides for precise control of maneuvers.[126]
Gallery[edit]
Little Joe assembling at Wallops Island
Erection of Redstone at Launch Complex 5
Unloading Atlas at Cape Canaveral
Atlas – with spacecraft mounted – on launch pad at Launch Complex 14
Astronauts[edit]
Left to right: Grissom, Shepard, Carpenter, Schirra, Slayton, Glenn and Cooper, 1962
NASA announced the selected seven astronauts – known as the Mercury Seven – on April 9, 1959,[131] they were:[132]
Shepard became the first American in space by making a suborbital flight in May 1961.[133] He went on to fly in the Apollo program and became the only Mercury astronaut to walk on the Moon.[134] Gus Grissom, who became the second American in space, also participated in the Gemini and Apollo programs, but died in January 1967 during a pre-launch test for Apollo 1.[135] Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in February 1962, then quit NASA and went into politics, serving as a US Senator from 1974 to 1999, and returned to space in 1998 as a Payload Specialist aboard STS-95.[136] Deke Slayton was grounded in 1962, but remained with NASA and was appointed Chief Astronaut at the beginning of Project Gemini. He remained in the position of senior astronaut, in charge of space crew flight assignments among many other responsibilities, until towards the end of Project Apollo, when he resigned and began training to fly on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975, which he successfully did.[137] Gordon Cooper became the last to fly in Mercury and made its longest flight, and also flew a Gemini mission. [138] Carpenter’s Mercury flight was his only trip into space. Schirra flew the third orbital Mercury mission, and then flew a Gemini mission. Three years later, he commanded the first manned Apollo mission, becoming the only person to fly in all three of those programs.
One of the astronauts’ tasks was publicity; they gave interviews to the press and visited project manufacturing facilities to speak with those who worked on Project Mercury.[139] To make their travels easier, they requested and got jet fighters for personal use.[140] The press was especially fond of John Glenn, who was considered the best speaker of the seven.[141] They sold their personal stories to Life magazine which portrayed them as patriotic, God-fearing family men.[142] Life was also allowed to be at home with the families while the astronauts were in space.[142] During the project, Grissom, Carpenter, Cooper, Schirra and Slayton stayed with their families at or near Langley Air Force Base; Glenn lived at the base and visited his family in Washington DC on weekends. Shepard lived with his family at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia.
Other than Grissom, who was killed in the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, the other six survived past retirement [143] and died between 1993 and 2016.
Selection and training[edit]
It was first envisaged that the pilot could be any man or woman willing to take a personal risk.[144] However, the first Americans to venture into space were drawn, on President Eisenhower’s insistence, from a group of 508 active duty military test pilots,[145] who were either USN or USMC naval aviation pilots (NAPs), or USAF pilots of Senior or Command rating. This excluded women, since there were no female military test pilots at the time.[4] It also excluded civilian NASA X-15 pilot Neil Armstrong, though he had been selected by the U.S. Air Force in 1958 for its Man In Space Soonest program, which was replaced by Mercury.[146] Although Armstrong had been a combat-experienced NAP during the Korean War, he left active duty in 1952.[4][n 11] Armstrong became NASA’s first civilian astronaut in 1962 when he was selected for NASA’s second group,[148]and became the first man on the Moon in 1969.[149]
It was further stipulated that candidates should be between 25 and 40 years old, no taller than 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m), and hold a college degree in a STEM subject.[4] The college degree requirement excluded the USAF’s X-1 pilot, then-Lt Col (later Brig Gen) Chuck Yeager, the first person to exceed the speed of sound.[150] He later became a critic of the project, ridiculing especially the use of monkeys as test subjects.[150][n 12] USAF Capt (later Col) Joseph Kittinger, a USAF fighter pilot and stratosphere balloonist, met all the requirements but preferred to stay in his contemporary project.[150] Other potential candidates declined because they did not believe that manned spaceflight had a future beyond Project Mercury.[150][n 13] From the original 508, 110 candidates were selected for an interview, and from the interviews, 32 were selected for further physical and mental testing.[153] Their health, vision, and hearing were examined, together with their tolerance to noise, vibrations, g-forces, personal isolation, and heat.[154][155] In a special chamber, they were tested to see if they could perform their tasks under confusing conditions.[154] The candidates had to answer more than 500 questions about themselves and describe what they saw in different images.[154] Navy LT (later CAPT) Jim Lovell, a NAP who was later an astronaut in the Gemini and Apollo programs, did not pass the physical tests.[150] After these tests it was intended to narrow the group down to six astronauts, but in the end it was decided to keep seven.[156]
The astronauts went through a training program covering some of the same exercises that were used in their selection.[38] They simulated the g-force profiles of launch and reentry in a centrifuge at the Naval Air Development Center, and were taught special breathing techniques necessary when subjected to more than 6 g.[140] Weightlessness training took place in aircraft, first on the rear seat of a two-seater fighter and later inside converted and padded cargo aircraft.[157] They practiced gaining control of a spinning spacecraft in a machine at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory called the Multi-Axis Spin-Test Inertia Facility (MASTIF), by using an attitude controller handle simulating the one in the spacecraft.[158][159] A further measure for finding the right attitude in orbit was star and Earth recognition training in planetaria and simulators.[160]Communication and flight procedures were practiced in flight simulators, first together with a single person assisting them and later with the Mission Control Center.[161] Recovery was practiced in pools at Langley, and later at sea with frogmen and helicopter crews.[162]
G-force training, Johnsville, 1960
Weightlessness simulation in a C-131
MASTIF at Lewis Research Center
Flight trainer at Cape Canaveral
Egress training at Langley
Mission profile[edit]
Suborbital[edit]
Profile. See timetable for explanation. Dashed line: region of weightlessness.
A Redstone rocket was used to boost the capsule for 2 minutes and 30 seconds to an altitude of 32 nautical miles (59 km) and let it continue on a ballistic curve after booster-spacecraft separation.[163][164] The launch escape system was jettisoned at the same time. At the top of the curve, the spacecraft’s retrorockets were fired for testing purposes; they were not necessary for re-entry because orbital speed had not been attained. The spacecraft landed in the Atlantic Ocean.[165] The suborbital mission took about 15 minutes, had an apogee altitude of 102–103 nautical miles (189–191 km), and a downrange distance of 262 nautical miles (485 km).[138][166] From the time of booster-spacecraft separation until reentry where air started to slow down the spacecraft, the pilot would experience weightlessness as shown on the image.[n 14] The recovery procedure would be the same as an orbital mission.
Orbital[edit]
Profile. A-C: launch. D: insert into orbit. E-K: re-entry and landing
Preparations for a mission started a month in advance with the selection of the primary and back-up astronaut; they would practice together for the mission.[167] For three days prior to launch, the astronaut went through a special diet to minimize his need for defecating during the flight.[168] On the morning of the trip he typically ate a steak breakfast.[168] After having sensors applied to his body and being dressed in the pressure suit, he started breathing pure oxygen to prepare him for the atmosphere of the spacecraft.[169] He arrived at the launch pad, took the elevator up the launch tower and entered the spacecraft two hours before launch.[170][n 15] Once the astronaut was secured inside, the hatch was bolted, the launch area evacuated and the mobile tower rolled back.[171] After this, the launch vehicle was filled with liquid oxygen.[171] The entire procedure of preparing for launch and launching the spacecraft followed a time table called the countdown. It started a day in advance with a pre-count, in which all systems of the launch vehicle and spacecraft were checked. After that followed a 15-hour hold, during which pyrotechnics were installed. Then came the main countdown which for orbital flights started 6½ hours before launch (T – 390 min), counted backwards to launch (T = 0) and then forward until orbital insertion (T + 5 min).[170][n 16]
On an orbital mission, the Atlas’ rocket engines were ignited 4 seconds before lift-off. The launch vehicle was held to the ground by clamps and then released when sufficient thrust was built up at lift-off (A).[173] After 30 seconds of flight, the point of maximum dynamic pressure against the vehicle was reached, at which the astronaut felt heavy vibrations.[174]After 2 minutes and 10 seconds, the two outboard booster engines shut down and were released with the aft skirt, leaving the center sustainer engine running (B).[170] At this point, the launch escape system was no longer needed, and was separated from the spacecraft by its jettison rocket (C).[53][n 17] The space vehicle moved gradually to a horizontal attitude until, at an altitude of 87 nautical miles (161 km), the sustainer engine shut down and the spacecraft was inserted into orbit (D).[176] This happened after 5 minutes and 10 seconds in a direction pointing east, whereby the spacecraft would gain speed from the rotation of the Earth.[177][n 18] Here the spacecraft fired the three posigrade rockets for a second to separate it from the launch vehicle.[179][n 19] Just before orbital insertion and sustainer engine cutoff, g-loads peaked at 8 g (6 g for a suborbital flight).[174][181] In orbit, the spacecraft automatically turned 180°, pointed the retropackage forward and its nose 14.5° downward and kept this attitude for the rest of the orbital phase of the mission, as it was necessary for communication with the ground.[182][183][n 20]
Once in orbit, it was not possible for the spacecraft to change its trajectory except by initiating reentry.[185] Each orbit would typically take 88 minutes to complete.[186] The lowest point of the orbit called perigee was at the point where the spacecraft entered orbit and was about 87 nautical miles (161 km), the highest called apogee was on the opposite side of Earth and was about 150 nautical miles (280 km).[166] When leaving orbit (E) the angle downward was increased to 34°, which was the angle of retrofire.[182] Retrorockets fired for 10 seconds each (F) in a sequence where one started 5 seconds after the other.[179][187] During reentry (G), the astronaut would experience about 8 g (11–12 g on a suborbital mission).[188] The temperature around the heat shield rose to 3,000 °F (1,600 °C) and at the same time, there was a two-minute radio blackout due to ionization of the air around the spacecraft.[189][55] After re-entry, a small, drogue parachute (H) was deployed at 21,000 ft (6,400 m) for stabilizing the spacecraft’s descent.[65] The main parachute (I) was deployed at 10,000 ft (3,000 m) starting with a narrow opening that opened fully in a few seconds to lessen the strain on the lines.[190] Just before hitting the water, the landing bag inflated from behind the heat shield to reduce the force of impact (J).[190] Upon landing the parachutes were released.[62] An antenna (K) was raised and sent out signals that could be traced by ships and helicopters.[62] Further, a green marker dye was spread around the spacecraft to make its location more visible from the air.[62][n 21] Frogmen brought in by helicopters inflated a collar around the craft to keep it upright in the water.[192][n 22] The recovery helicopter hooked onto the spacecraft and the astronaut blew the escape hatch to exit the capsule.[61] He was then hoisted aboard the helicopter that finally brought both him and the spacecraft to the ship.[n 23]
Mercury manned launches
John Glenn in orbit (Mercury-Atlas 6)
Friendship 7 in orbit (artist concept)
Recovery seen from helicopter (Mercury-Redstone 3)
Ground control[edit]
Inside Control Center at Cape Canaveral (Mercury-Atlas 8)
The number of personnel supporting a Mercury mission was typically around 18,000, with about 15,000 people associated with recovery.[193][194][n 24] Most of the others followed the spacecraft from the World Wide Tracking Network, a chain of 18 stations placed around the equator, which was based on a network used for satellites and made ready in 1960.[196] It collected data from the spacecraft and provided two-way communication between the astronaut and the ground.[197] Each station had a range of 700 nautical miles (1,300 km) and a pass typically lasted 7 minutes.[198] Mercury astronauts on the ground would take part of the Capsule Communicator or CAPCOM who communicated with the astronaut in orbit.[199][200][n 25] Data from the spacecraft was sent to the ground, processed at the Goddard Space Center and relayed to the Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral.[201] In the Control Center, the data was displayed on boards on each side of a world map, which showed the position of the spacecraft, its ground track and the place it could land in an emergency within the next 30 minutes.[183]
The World Wide Tracking Network went on to serve subsequent space programs, until it was replaced by a satellite relay system in the 1980s[202] Mission Control Center was moved from Cape Canaveral to Houston in 1965.[203]
Flights[edit]
Project Mercury landing sites
On April 12, 1961 the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space on an orbital flight.[204] Alan Shepard became the first American in space on a suborbital flight three weeks later, on May 5, 1961.[133] John Glenn, the third Mercury astronaut to fly, became the first American to reach orbit on February 20, 1962, but only after the Soviets had launched a second cosmonaut, Gherman Titov, into a day-long flight in August 1961.[205] Three more Mercury orbital flights were made, ending on May 16, 1963 with a day-long, 22 orbit flight.[138] However, the Soviet Union ended its Vostok program the next month, with the human spaceflight endurance record set by the 82-orbit, almost 5-day Vostok 5 flight.[206]
Manned[edit]
All of the 6 manned Mercury flights were successful though some intended flight were cancelled during the project (see below).[207] The main medical problems encountered were simple personal hygiene, and post-flight symptoms of low blood pressure.[193] The launch vehicles had been tested through unmanned flights, therefore the numbering of manned missions did not start with 1.[208] Also, since two different launch vehicles were used, there were two separate numbered series: MR for “Mercury-Redstone” (suborbital flights), and MA for “Mercury-Atlas” (orbital flights). These names were not popularly used, since the astronauts followed a pilot tradition, each giving their spacecraft a name. They selected names ending with a “7” to commemorate the seven astronauts.[53][132] Times given are Universal Coordinated Time, local time + 5 hours.
mi (km)
mi (km)
mph (km/h)
mi (km)
Shepard’s flight watched on TV in the White House. May 1961.
John Glenn honored by the President. February 1962.
USS Kearsarge with crew spelling Mercury-9. May 1963.
Unmanned[edit]
The 20 unmanned flights used Little Joe, Redstone, and Atlas launch vehicles.[132] They were used to develop the launch vehicles, launch escape system, spacecraft and tracking network.[208] One flight of a Scout rocket attempted to launch an unmanned satellite for testing the ground tracking network, but failed to reach orbit. The Little Joe program used seven airframes for eight flights, of which three were successful. The second Little Joe flight was named Little Joe 6, because it was inserted into the program after the first 5 airframes had been allocated.[225][168]
Little Joe 1B at launch with Miss Sam, 1960
Mercury-Redstone 1: launch escape system lift-off after 4” launch, 1960
Mercury-Redstone 2: Ham, 1961
Mercury-Atlas 5: Enos, 1961
Canceled[edit]
Nine of the planned flights were cancelled. Suborbital flights were planned for four other astronauts but the number of flights was cut down gradually and finally all remaining were cancelled after Titov’s flight.[256][257][n 37] Mercury-Atlas 9 was intended to be followed by more one-day flights and even a three-day flight but with the coming of the Gemini Project it seemed unnecessary. The Jupiter booster was, as mentioned above, intended to be used for different purposes.
Impact and legacy[edit]
Ticker tape parade for Gordon Cooper, 1963
The project was delayed by 22 months, counting from the beginning until the first orbital mission.[193] It had a dozen prime contractors, 75 major subcontractors, and about 7200 third-tier subcontractors, who together employed two million people.[193] An estimate of its cost made by NASA in 1969 gave $392.6 million ($1.74 billion adjusted for inflation), broken down as follows: Spacecraft: $135.3 million, launch vehicles: $82.9 million, operations: $49.3 million, tracking operations and equipment: $71.9 million and facilities: $53.2 million.[266][267]
Today the Mercury program is commemorated as the first manned American space program.[268] It did not win the race against the Soviet Union, but gave back national prestige and was scientifically a successful precursor of later programs such as Gemini, Apollo and Skylab.[269][n 40] During the 1950s, some experts doubted that manned spaceflight was possible.[n 41] Still when John F. Kennedy was elected president, many including he had doubts about the project.[272] As president he chose to support the programs a few months before the launch of Freedom 7,[273] which became a great public success.[274][n 42] Afterwards, a majority of the American public supported manned spaceflight, and within a few weeks, Kennedy announced a plan for a manned mission to land on the Moon and return safely to Earth before the end of the 1960s.[278] The six astronauts who flew were awarded medals,[279] driven in parades and two of them were invited to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.[280] As a response to the selection criteria, which ruled out women, a private project was founded in which 13 women pilots successfully underwent the same tests as the men in Project Mercury.[281] It was named Mercury 13 by the media[282][n 43]Despite this effort, NASA did not select female astronauts until 1978 for the Space Shuttle.[283]
In 1964, a monument commemorating Project Mercury was unveiled near Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, featuring a metal logo combining the symbol of Mercury with the number 7.[284] In 1962, the United States Postal Service honored the Mercury-Atlas 6 flight with a Project Mercury commemorative stamp, the first U.S. postal issue to depict a manned spacecraft.[285][n 44] On film, the program was portrayed in The Right Stuff a 1983 adaptation of Tom Wolfe‘s 1979 book of the same name.[287] On February 25, 2011, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the world’s largest technical professional society, awarded Boeing (the successor company to McDonnell Aircraft) a Milestone Award for important inventions which debuted on the Mercury spacecraft.[288][n 45]
Mercury monument at Launch Complex 14, 1964
Commemorative Project Mercury 4¢ US Postage stamp[n 46]
Displays[edit]
The spacecraft that flew, together with some that did not are on display in the United States. Friendship 7 (capsule No. 13) went on a global tour, popularly known as its “fourth orbit”. [289]
Freedom 7 at the United States Naval Academy, 2010
Liberty Bell 7 at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, 2010
Friendship 7 at the National Air and Space Museum, 2009
Aurora 7 at the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago), 2009
Sigma 7 at the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, 2011
Faith 7 at Space Center Houston, 2011
Patches[edit]
Commemorative patches were designed by entrepreneurs after the Mercury program to satisfy collectors.[290][n 47]
Videos[edit]
John Glenn documentary from 50th Anniversary of Friendship 7, 2012.
Graphics[edit]
Astronauts assignments[edit]
Mercury 7 astronaut assignments. Schirra had the most flights with three; Glenn, though being the first to leave NASA, had the last with a Space Shuttle mission in 1998.[291] Shepard was the only one to walk on the Moon.
Tracking network[edit]
Ground track and tracking stations for Mercury-Atlas 8. Spacecraft starts from Cape Canaveral in Florida and moves east; each new orbit-track is displaced to the left due to the rotation of the Earth. It moves between latitudes 32.5° north and 32.5° south.[292] Key: 1–6: orbit number. Yellow: launch. Black dot: tracking station. Red: range of station; Blue: landing.
Spacecraft cutaway[edit]
Interior of spacecraft
The three axes of rotation for the spacecraft: yaw, pitch and roll
Control panels and handle[edit]
The control panels of Friendship 7.[293] The panels changed between flights, among others the periscope screen that dominates the center of these panels was dropped for the final flight.
3-axis handle for attitude control
Launch complex[edit]
Launch Complex 14 just before launch (service tower rolled aside). Preparations for launch were made at blockhouse.
Earth landing system tests[edit]
Drop of boilerplate spacecraft in training of landing and recovery. 56 such qualification tests were made together with tests of individual steps of the system.[41]
Space program comparison[edit]
NASA illustration comparing boosters and spacecraft from Apollo (biggest), Gemini and Mercury (smallest).
Notes[edit]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury
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Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 785-792
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 777-784
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 769-776
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 759-768
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 751-758
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 745-750
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 738-744
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 732-737
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 727-731
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 720-726
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or DownloadShows 713-719
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 705-712
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 695-704
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 685-694
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 675-684
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 668-674
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 660-667
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 651-659
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 644-650
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 637-643
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 629-636
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 617-628
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 608-616
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 599-607
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 590-598
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 585- 589
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 575-584
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 565-574
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 556-564
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 546-555
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 538-545
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 532-537
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 526-531
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 519-525
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 510-518
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 500-509
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 490-499
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 480-489
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 473-479
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 464-472
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 455-463
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 447-454
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 439-446
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 431-438
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 422-430
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 414-421
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 408-413
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 400-407
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 391-399
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 383-390
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 376-382
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 369-375
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 360-368
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 354-359
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 346-353
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 338-345
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 328-337
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 319-327
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 307-318
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 296-306
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 287-295
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 277-286
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 264-276
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 250-263
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 236-249
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 222-235
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 211-221
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 202-210
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 194-201
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 184-193
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 174-183
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 165-173
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 158-164
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows151-157
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 143-150
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 135-142
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 131-134
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 124-130
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 121-123
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 118-120
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 113 -117
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Show 112
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 108-111
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 106-108
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Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 101-103
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 98-100
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 94-97
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Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Show 92
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Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 88-90
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 84-87
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 79-83
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 74-78
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 71-73
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 68-70
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 65-67
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 62-64
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 58-61
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 55-57
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 52-54
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 49-51
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Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 1-9