Must be something to do with the hurricanes and typhoons — or maybe it's the street demos in New York — but it took longer than usual for me to get in touch with my late friend, James Jesus Angleton. The ouija board kept giving me a "no service available" message, but finally I got through. There was a lot of static on the line.

ML: Lots to talk about, huh?

JJA: I'll say! I knew counterintelligence had been gutted, but I had no idea how bad it was.

ML: Don't you believe the stories about a mole hunt in the Pentagon?

JJA: Of course there are mole hunts. That's what CI people do. But they're supposed to be secret. Once you go public with the story, you've alerted your targets, and sabotaged your own investigation.

ML: So you're not impressed with all the news stories?

JJA: Look, as you've said, if the FBI has a real case, they don't go whispering to the press about it. They go to the grand jury. They don't leak, they indict and prosecute.

ML: Plus, they promised their media agents — I mean the journalists — that there would be arrests, and pronto. Nobody's been arrested, and some of the latest stories even quote the "sources" as saying that the Pentagon target — my pal Larry Franklin — may well be exonerated. That's quite a turnaround in a couple of days, isn't it?[...]