Intelligence Services

Israeli agents who kidnapped Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960 also found the notorious death camp doctor Josef Mengele but let him get away, one of the operatives said. Rafi Eitan, 81, an Israeli Cabinet minister, said he and other Mossad agents found Mengele living in Buenos Aires. But they decided that trying to nab him would risk sabotaging the capture of Eichmann. Mengele died in 1979 in Brazil.

U.S. intelligence analysts eavesdropped on personal calls between Americans overseas and their families back home and monitored the communications of workers with the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations, according to two military linguists involved in U.S. surveillance programs. The accounts are the most detailed to date to challenge the assertions of President Bush, CIA Director Michael V.

The man is nervous. He's from the "President's Office," and that doesn't mean serving tea to Robert Mugabe. It's Zimbabwe's version of the KGB: the Central Intelligence Organization. He says all his phones -- cell and land-line -- are bugged, so we're meeting in secret at a house belonging to a go-between in suburban Harare. His voice is barely audible, and he can't sit still. As loyalty to Mugabe wanes, disillusioned insiders like the CIO man are becoming more willing to speak out.

A new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies predicts that American influence in the world will decline over the next two decades as surging powers such as China and India, as well as independent entities including tribes and criminal networks, gain international clout. The report, meant to serve as a guidepost for President-elect Barack Obama's administration, offers a vision of a future in which the U.S., while the most powerful, is but "one of a number" of important players in the world.

With stylish offices featuring a portrait of the Soviet secret police founder and a prestigious location alongside Red Square, Vladimir Lutsenko is one of the top go-to guys for "security" advice in today's Russia. The former military intelligence officer shrugs and laughs when asked about allegations, made by a former Russian agent before he died of radiation poisoning in November, that his men were hired out to do dirty work for the Russian special services.

The abrupt departure of John D. Negroponte as the nation's spy chief prompted angry responses from Capitol Hill and triggered new debate Thursday over whether a position created to fix the nation's intelligence problems is itself fundamentally flawed. President Bush is expected to announce today that Negroponte will become the top deputy at the State Department. Bush also is set to nominate retired Navy Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell to be the next director of national intelligence.

President Bush's nominee to be the next director of national intelligence is a spy agency veteran who is a master of the intricacies of the trade, from the technology of intercepting electronic signals to the financial sleight of hand of hidden, or "black," budgets. The main question surrounding J. Michael McConnell's nomination to be the next intelligence chief is whether he is forceful enough to keep an already illdefined job from sliding into irrelevancy.

Iran has exploited the war in Iraq and a proxy fight with Israel to emerge as a more powerful and confident foe of the United States and is casting a growing "shadow" of influence across the Middle East, the nation's top intelligence official testified Thursday. During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on national security threats, National Intelligence Director John D.

By his own account, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was a very busy man on July 10, 2003. That day, according to his calendar, he had a senior staff meeting; an intelligence briefing with his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney; a CIA briefing; and lunch with Cheney and then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

Jury selection in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby turned into an assessment of the credibility of the Bush administration Tuesday, with lawyers for the former White House aide asking potential jurors how they feel about the war in Iraq and whether they think present and former administration officials who may be called to testify can be believed.