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The Age
03-05-2025
- The Age
The 10 former no-go countries that are now must-see destinations
Bad times You know the whole thing with Cuba: the 1959 revolution, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, the Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, the embargo with the US and the island nation's isolation from the rest of the world. Good times Okay. 'Good times' is probably putting things a little strongly. Relations with the US are not at their highest point, and Americans still have difficulty visiting Cuba. Australians, however, are free to do so, and have been visiting in increasing numbers. Don't miss Cuba is famous as a time warp, with its vintage American cars and its crumbling Spanish-era facades. There's more to the island than that, however: music is a huge part of Cuban life, and the live scene here is heady and inspiring; there's natural beauty, from mountains to the Caribbean coastline; and the country's network of ' casas particulares ', or bed and breakfast accommodation, allows visitors a natural entry into typical Cuban life that's far more attractive than its government-run hotel network. Good to go Cuba is tricky to get to from Australia right now. On January 12, 2021, Cuba was designated a 'State Sponsor of Terrorism' by the US State Department, meaning the US will need to be avoided on your journey, and after entering Cuba you will no longer be eligible for the US's visa-waiver program. That will mean either flying with LATAM via South America ( or Air Canada ( with the best time to visit Cuba is its dry season from November to April. See and Croatia Bad times It seems difficult to believe that not so long ago, Croatia was a warzone. After the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Croatia went through a war of independence and wasn't at peace until 1995. Good times This country is now a firm favourite among travellers, rated green by DFAT, a peaceful nation that boasts some incredibly beautiful scenery, not to mention historic sites and more Game of Thrones filming locations that you can poke some Valyrian steel at. Don't miss Dubrovnik is the place everyone wants to go – to the point where the city is now suffering a little from over-tourism. So why not spread your wings and check out similarly beautiful coastal cities such as Zadar and Split, or go island hopping in the Aegean, or check out gorgeous Plitvice Lakes, or spend time in Croatia's underrated capital, Zagreb? Find Roman ruins, too, in Split, Salona, Pula and Burnum. Good to go Turkish Airlines has flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Dubrovnik, via Kuala Lumpur and Istanbul ( Summer is high season in Croatia, though spring and autumn, and even winter, are pleasant and will help you beat the bulk of the crowds. See South Africa Bad times This country wasn't just a figurative no-go zone – for the best part of four decades, from the 1960s until its first post-apartheid elections in 1994, there was a worldwide boycott of South Africa taking in sport, academia, trade and tourism. Good times Post-1994 the country has opened to mass tourism and has proved extremely popular, despite lingering security concerns. The Cape region in particular has been a big drawcard, as well as the well-known likes of Kruger National Park. Don't miss Of course those game parks are a huge draw, and deservedly so: Kruger is amazing, though also very busy; Sabi Sabi, Madikwe, Pilanesberg, Shamwari and Phinda also deliver incredible wildlife experiences. Elsewhere, the wine-producing regions of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek are very much worth a visit, Cape Town speaks for itself as an attraction, and the Drakensberg provides some truly stunning highland scenery. Good to go Qantas flies direct from Sydney to Johannesburg, and offers connecting flights from Melbourne ( The ideal time to visit is May to September, when game viewing is at its best and the days are clearest. See Cambodia Bad times It almost seemed impossible, in the latter half of the 20th century, to consider Cambodia as a future tourist destination. The country was ruled by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, who inflicted incredible harm on the nation and its people. Loading Good times After the collapse of the Khmer Rouge in the 1990s, the country stabilised and tourists returned to Cambodia, a trickle that soon became a flood: in 1994 just 176,000 foreign visitors arrived; last year that number was 6.7 million. Don't miss The temples of Angkor are justifiably one of the most famous historical landmarks on Earth, a series of ruins dating back a thousand years to the height of the Khmer Empire. There are several more heritage-listed sites in Cambodia, as well as spectacular national parks, and modern culture in the likes of Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Battambang and Kampot. River cruising, too, is becoming increasingly popular, with many vessels travelling the Mekong from Siem Reap into Vietnam. Good to go Singapore Airlines has connecting flights from major Australian ports to Phnom Penh ( Dry season in Cambodia is November to April, when the heat is also at bay. See Germany Bad times You remember the Cold War, right? Until the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany was split into east and west, with the German Democratic Republic – the eastern side – essentially off limits to all but the hardiest tourists from the Western world. Good times Germany reunified in 1990, and has since become one of the most visited countries on the planet, the world's eighth most popular destination in 2023. The unified country is now listed as orange by DFAT due to several isolated acts of terrorism, though it remains a favourite destination. Don't miss The former east hosts some of modern-day Germany's most underrated tourist attractions. East Berlin – the likes of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, and Friedrichshain – is a hub of counter-culture; Leipzig is filled with art galleries and high-quality restaurants; Dresden is historic and fascinating, as is Weimar; and the Harz Mountains provide natural beauty. Good to go Qatar Airways flies from major Australian ports to Berlin, via Doha ( High season in Germany is summer – June to August – though spring and autumn are also very pleasant. See Saudi Arabia Bad times The problem in Saudi Arabia wasn't so much that no one wanted to come (though the country's poor human rights record and extensive restrictions on women's freedoms didn't help) – it was that no one was allowed in. Until 2019, Saudi authorities only rarely issued tourist visas to visitors travelling for reasons other than religious pilgrimages. Loading Good times Though the above mentioned issues remain for Saudi Arabia, tourism is being touted as an important source of future income for the country, which is part of why it has now thrown its doors open to the outside world, issuing tourist visas to citizens of 49 countries since 2019. Don't miss Saudi Arabia is littered with incredible historic sites: the Nabatean ruins of Mada'in Salih rival those of nearby Petra in Jordan; At-Turaif, on the outskirts of Riyadh, was the original home of the Saudi royal family; Jeddah is an ancient port town; and Al-Ahsa Oasis is filled with archaeological sites. Saudi Arabia also has Red Sea coast, desert wadis, and hyper-modern structures such as the mirror-clad Maraya Concert Hall in Al-Ula. Good to go Etihad flies from Australian ports to Riyadh via Abu Dhabi ( The best time to visit Saudi Arabia is in winter, from December to March with providing advice on visas. See Countries we would love to see bounce back Syria This could be a crucial period in Syria's strife-torn history, as a new regime seeks to establish itself after 24 years under Bashar al-Assad. How that plays out is still undecided, though we would love to see Syria restored to peace and prosperity, and reopen to the world as the remarkable tourist destination that it once was, and could be again. Myanmar For a while there, Myanmar was back. After a decades-long tourism boycott encouraged by Aung San Suu Kyi, in 2012 the country began reopening to the world, with fair elections, and tourism to the likes of Bagan and Yangon blooming. Since a military coup in 2021, however, Myanmar has been back off limits, and is now rated 'do not travel' by DFAT. Ukraine The issues in Ukraine are well publicised – the country was invaded by Russia in early 2022, and has since been locked in a drawn-out war. This was once a great tourism destination, with visitors flocking to the capital, Kyiv, to the Black Sea coast at Odessa, and the Carpathian Mountains. We hope for better days when those visits are possible again. Loading Venezuela Pop quiz: where is the world's highest waterfall? It's in Venezuela, and it's called Angel Falls, where water plunges an incredible 979 metres. Only, you would have to be a pretty hardy traveller to see it right now, as Venezuela is rated 'do not travel' by DFAT, due to political instability, food and water shortages and high crime rates. Ethiopia This is a very unfortunate case because Ethiopia almost made our main list here – only, DFAT recently upgraded its travel advice to 'reconsider your need to travel' to Ethiopia, with many regions, including those home to major tourist attractions, rated 'do not travel'. This is due to the threat of terrorist attacks and kidnapping, a sad situation for a truly amazing country.
Sydney Morning Herald
03-05-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
The 10 former no-go countries that are now must-see destinations
Bad times You know the whole thing with Cuba: the 1959 revolution, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, the Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, the embargo with the US and the island nation's isolation from the rest of the world. Good times Okay. 'Good times' is probably putting things a little strongly. Relations with the US are not at their highest point, and Americans still have difficulty visiting Cuba. Australians, however, are free to do so, and have been visiting in increasing numbers. Don't miss Cuba is famous as a time warp, with its vintage American cars and its crumbling Spanish-era facades. There's more to the island than that, however: music is a huge part of Cuban life, and the live scene here is heady and inspiring; there's natural beauty, from mountains to the Caribbean coastline; and the country's network of ' casas particulares ', or bed and breakfast accommodation, allows visitors a natural entry into typical Cuban life that's far more attractive than its government-run hotel network. Good to go Cuba is tricky to get to from Australia right now. On January 12, 2021, Cuba was designated a 'State Sponsor of Terrorism' by the US State Department, meaning the US will need to be avoided on your journey, and after entering Cuba you will no longer be eligible for the US's visa-waiver program. That will mean either flying with LATAM via South America ( or Air Canada ( with the best time to visit Cuba is its dry season from November to April. See and Croatia Bad times It seems difficult to believe that not so long ago, Croatia was a warzone. After the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Croatia went through a war of independence and wasn't at peace until 1995. Good times This country is now a firm favourite among travellers, rated green by DFAT, a peaceful nation that boasts some incredibly beautiful scenery, not to mention historic sites and more Game of Thrones filming locations that you can poke some Valyrian steel at. Don't miss Dubrovnik is the place everyone wants to go – to the point where the city is now suffering a little from over-tourism. So why not spread your wings and check out similarly beautiful coastal cities such as Zadar and Split, or go island hopping in the Aegean, or check out gorgeous Plitvice Lakes, or spend time in Croatia's underrated capital, Zagreb? Find Roman ruins, too, in Split, Salona, Pula and Burnum. Good to go Turkish Airlines has flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Dubrovnik, via Kuala Lumpur and Istanbul ( Summer is high season in Croatia, though spring and autumn, and even winter, are pleasant and will help you beat the bulk of the crowds. See South Africa Bad times This country wasn't just a figurative no-go zone – for the best part of four decades, from the 1960s until its first post-apartheid elections in 1994, there was a worldwide boycott of South Africa taking in sport, academia, trade and tourism. Good times Post-1994 the country has opened to mass tourism and has proved extremely popular, despite lingering security concerns. The Cape region in particular has been a big drawcard, as well as the well-known likes of Kruger National Park. Don't miss Of course those game parks are a huge draw, and deservedly so: Kruger is amazing, though also very busy; Sabi Sabi, Madikwe, Pilanesberg, Shamwari and Phinda also deliver incredible wildlife experiences. Elsewhere, the wine-producing regions of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek are very much worth a visit, Cape Town speaks for itself as an attraction, and the Drakensberg provides some truly stunning highland scenery. Good to go Qantas flies direct from Sydney to Johannesburg, and offers connecting flights from Melbourne ( The ideal time to visit is May to September, when game viewing is at its best and the days are clearest. See Cambodia Bad times It almost seemed impossible, in the latter half of the 20th century, to consider Cambodia as a future tourist destination. The country was ruled by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, who inflicted incredible harm on the nation and its people. Loading Good times After the collapse of the Khmer Rouge in the 1990s, the country stabilised and tourists returned to Cambodia, a trickle that soon became a flood: in 1994 just 176,000 foreign visitors arrived; last year that number was 6.7 million. Don't miss The temples of Angkor are justifiably one of the most famous historical landmarks on Earth, a series of ruins dating back a thousand years to the height of the Khmer Empire. There are several more heritage-listed sites in Cambodia, as well as spectacular national parks, and modern culture in the likes of Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Battambang and Kampot. River cruising, too, is becoming increasingly popular, with many vessels travelling the Mekong from Siem Reap into Vietnam. Good to go Singapore Airlines has connecting flights from major Australian ports to Phnom Penh ( Dry season in Cambodia is November to April, when the heat is also at bay. See Germany Bad times You remember the Cold War, right? Until the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany was split into east and west, with the German Democratic Republic – the eastern side – essentially off limits to all but the hardiest tourists from the Western world. Good times Germany reunified in 1990, and has since become one of the most visited countries on the planet, the world's eighth most popular destination in 2023. The unified country is now listed as orange by DFAT due to several isolated acts of terrorism, though it remains a favourite destination. Don't miss The former east hosts some of modern-day Germany's most underrated tourist attractions. East Berlin – the likes of Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, and Friedrichshain – is a hub of counter-culture; Leipzig is filled with art galleries and high-quality restaurants; Dresden is historic and fascinating, as is Weimar; and the Harz Mountains provide natural beauty. Good to go Qatar Airways flies from major Australian ports to Berlin, via Doha ( High season in Germany is summer – June to August – though spring and autumn are also very pleasant. See Saudi Arabia Bad times The problem in Saudi Arabia wasn't so much that no one wanted to come (though the country's poor human rights record and extensive restrictions on women's freedoms didn't help) – it was that no one was allowed in. Until 2019, Saudi authorities only rarely issued tourist visas to visitors travelling for reasons other than religious pilgrimages. Loading Good times Though the above mentioned issues remain for Saudi Arabia, tourism is being touted as an important source of future income for the country, which is part of why it has now thrown its doors open to the outside world, issuing tourist visas to citizens of 49 countries since 2019. Don't miss Saudi Arabia is littered with incredible historic sites: the Nabatean ruins of Mada'in Salih rival those of nearby Petra in Jordan; At-Turaif, on the outskirts of Riyadh, was the original home of the Saudi royal family; Jeddah is an ancient port town; and Al-Ahsa Oasis is filled with archaeological sites. Saudi Arabia also has Red Sea coast, desert wadis, and hyper-modern structures such as the mirror-clad Maraya Concert Hall in Al-Ula. Good to go Etihad flies from Australian ports to Riyadh via Abu Dhabi ( The best time to visit Saudi Arabia is in winter, from December to March with providing advice on visas. See Countries we would love to see bounce back Syria This could be a crucial period in Syria's strife-torn history, as a new regime seeks to establish itself after 24 years under Bashar al-Assad. How that plays out is still undecided, though we would love to see Syria restored to peace and prosperity, and reopen to the world as the remarkable tourist destination that it once was, and could be again. Myanmar For a while there, Myanmar was back. After a decades-long tourism boycott encouraged by Aung San Suu Kyi, in 2012 the country began reopening to the world, with fair elections, and tourism to the likes of Bagan and Yangon blooming. Since a military coup in 2021, however, Myanmar has been back off limits, and is now rated 'do not travel' by DFAT. Ukraine The issues in Ukraine are well publicised – the country was invaded by Russia in early 2022, and has since been locked in a drawn-out war. This was once a great tourism destination, with visitors flocking to the capital, Kyiv, to the Black Sea coast at Odessa, and the Carpathian Mountains. We hope for better days when those visits are possible again. Loading Venezuela Pop quiz: where is the world's highest waterfall? It's in Venezuela, and it's called Angel Falls, where water plunges an incredible 979 metres. Only, you would have to be a pretty hardy traveller to see it right now, as Venezuela is rated 'do not travel' by DFAT, due to political instability, food and water shortages and high crime rates. Ethiopia This is a very unfortunate case because Ethiopia almost made our main list here – only, DFAT recently upgraded its travel advice to 'reconsider your need to travel' to Ethiopia, with many regions, including those home to major tourist attractions, rated 'do not travel'. This is due to the threat of terrorist attacks and kidnapping, a sad situation for a truly amazing country.
New York Times
31-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
In Espionage and War, Secure Communication Is Key. Just Ask These Spies.
Given all the press attention and congressional hearings, the recent leak of war plans in strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen may feel like a singular event. And mistakes aside, as the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, asserted before Congress, the operation itself 'was very successful and continues to be very successful.' So why worry? But consider the career highlights of some of the world's most noteworthy spies in these three new books. The Determined Spy The biggest surprise in Waller's lively biography of Frank Wisner, THE DETERMINED SPY: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner (Dutton, 645 pp., $36), is how stunningly naïve U.S. covert and martial operations have been at times. As Waller shows, Wisner's tenure provides one of the harsher lessons of the world of espionage: What appears to be a success at the time may not prove so over the long run. Wisner was a major figure at the C.I.A. in the 1950s, when the agency toppled the governments of Iran and Guatemala. Washington was so pleased with those results that it contemplated doing the same in Cuba. That's how, in 1961, we ended up with the fiasco known as the Bay of Pigs. That leads to a second harsh lesson that intelligence agencies don't like to talk about much — how frequently their people in the field are incompetent. For example, during part of World War II, the chief of American spying in the continental crossroads city of Istanbul — perhaps the most fruitful location for spies at the time — was Lanning 'Packy' Macfarland, a former savings and loan executive from Illinois who was fond of wearing a trench coat and slouch hat. This 'dangerous buffoon,' as Waller calls him, had two lovers: One worked for the Germans, the other for the Russians. Waller, the author of several books on national security, reports that when Wisner replaced Macfarland in Istanbul, he had almost as little experience, but apparently a great deal more native intelligence and drive. Wisner even stood a good chance of becoming the head of the C.I.A. until he suffered a series of manic highs caused by bipolar disorder. He left the agency and, in 1965, killed himself. The results of his coup in Iran live on even today, with the government there regarding the United States as 'the Great Satan.' Iran's Ministry of Intelligence Today's C.I.A., trying to adjust to the mixed directions that come from President Trump, Elon Musk and the president's other assorted appointees, likely would get a bit of quiet sympathy — but not much — from Iran's Ministry of Intelligence. As described by Ward in IRAN'S MINISTRY OF INTELLIGENCE: A Concise History (Georgetown University Press, 195 pp., paperback, $26.95), Iranian intelligence has frequently found itself torn between the country's unelected supreme leader and its elected president. In 2011, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to push out the intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi, supposedly for wiretapping the president's chief of staff. The supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's displeasure bubbled up through the media, and the chief spook went back to work while Ahmadinejad pouted at home for a week. Two years later, Moslehi was in trouble again, allegedly for spying on a legislator. The country also has intense interagency rivalries, much like the well-documented one that has long persisted in America between the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. The Iranian intelligence ministry, which conducts foreign operations but mainly focuses on suppressing internal dissent, is frequently overshadowed by Iran's more ideological and militaristic Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In 2016, for instance, there was squabbling over who ran better background checks as each agency independently vetted parliamentary candidates ahead of that year's election. By 2023 the tension between the two organizations was so persistent that Khamenei told them in writing to be more cooperative with each other. Overall, Ward's book is thin gruel, featuring only a few interesting tidbits, such as the fact that the details of the Iran-contra scandal — that is, the astonishing report that the Reagan administration was sending weapons to Iran in exchange for American hostages held in Lebanon — were first leaked to a Beirut magazine by a senior Revolutionary Guard official who was unhappy with the shadowy deal. (This dissenting hothead was executed for his intervention, Ward notes.) But the single biggest revelation for me in this book was the author's mention — in an aside — that despite having been a C.I.A. analyst for nearly 30 years specializing in Iranian security issues, he neither speaks nor reads Persian. Imagine an Iranian trying to be an expert on the United States without being able to watch American television and movies, read its books and magazines, and converse with its officials and citizens. Have we learned nothing from the exploits of Packy Macfarland? Watching the Jackals In intelligence, sometimes the most illuminating information comes from unexpected quarters. Of several recent books on covert operations, the most enlightening is WATCHING THE JACKALS: Prague's Covert Liaisons With Cold War Terrorists and Revolutionaries (Georgetown University Press, 350 pp., paperback, $39.95). Richterova, a political scientist at King's College London, lived a researcher's dream: 99 percent of the existing files of the intelligence agencies of Communist Czechoslovakia have been released — and, what's more, without any redactions. She describes how she was the first to read many of these 'freshly declassified files and sift through them as they were brought into the archive reading room on heavy-duty trolleys.' The odd factoids alone are worth the price of admission, demonstrating just how minutely detailed and vivid these documents can be. In 1966, when Che Guevara visited Czechoslovakia for three months as he prepared for his ill-fated mission to Bolivia, he and his companions had only two records to listen to, one by the South African singer Miriam Makeba and the other by the Beatles. In 1977, Abu Daoud, one of the planners of the Munich Olympics massacre five years earlier, checked into Prague's Hotel Intercontinental just as the International Olympic Committee was meeting there — apparently just a macabre coincidence. Two years later, when the volatile Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal accidentally locked himself out of his room at the same hotel, he angrily walked the hallways of the establishment brandishing a large revolver. The heart of Richterova's surprising work lies in the uneasy relationship between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the 'plodding' Czech intelligence services. Czechoslovakia's relationship with the P.L.O. began uncomfortably and worsened with time. 'It was characterized by dissonance — a mismatch in expectations, objectives and preferred tactics,' she writes. Among other things, she adds, this tends to emphatically disprove the allegations made by the journalist Claire Sterling and others in the 1980s that there was extensive cooperation between the Communist Warsaw Pact states and terrorist organizations. The Palestinians, their skills honed by their ongoing fight with Israeli intelligence, ran circles around Prague's operatives. Richterova notes that the Arabs were veterans in espionage tradecraft, using multiple disguises and passports. Some, working for Carlos the Jackal as bodyguards in Prague, were so bold as to detain and question a Czech intelligence officer who was tailing them. The P.L.O. did try to please Prague, partly by proposing a variety of risky operations. Among these was an offer to kill or kidnap Czech exiles who were critical of the Communist regime, including a former chief of the country's state-run television network. The P.L.O. also said that it could attack the Munich headquarters of Radio Free Europe. Prague listened, but was wary of carrying out such schemes, given the potential blowback from the West. The country's leaders might have had other concerns as well: Czech spies deemed P.L.O. agents especially weak on clandestine communications. At one point in 1983, they suggested a course in cryptology. As Trump administration officials have learned lately, communications security may seem like a minor issue — until it blows up in your face.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The 5 Biggest Revelations from the Declassified Kennedy Assassination Documents
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Earlier this week, the Trump administration released thousands of files related to the 1963 assassination of president John F. Kennedy. JFK's grandson, Jack Schlossberg, criticized the decision. 'The truth is a lot sadder than the myth — a tragedy that didn't need to happen. Not part of an inevitable grand scheme,' he wrote. 'Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he's not here to punch back. There's nothing heroic about it.' While not much new information was expected in the files—many were previously released—there are still a few major revelations. (To read the files yourself, they are accessible on the National Archives website, here.) The biggest headline related to JFK's assassination was about shooter Lee Harvey Oswald. A document dated November 20, 1991 is a report from Russia on Oswald in which KGB official Nikonov confirmed that 'Oswald was at no time an agent controlled by the KGB.' According to document, 'Nikonov doubted that anyone could control Oswald, but noted that the KBG [sic] watched him closely and constantly while he was in the USSR.' Nikonov also added that Oswald had 'a stormy relationship with his Soviet wife' and the KGB files noted that 'Oswald was a poor shot when he tried target firing in the USSR.' The majority of a 15 page memo included in the files, titled 'C.I.A. Reorganization' and written in the wake of the Bay of Pigs plan, was already public, minus one redacted section. That now public section includes a plan to break up the CIA, giving control of covert activities to the State Department. (That never happened.) The biggest revelation of Schlesinger's memo, however, is how many State Department employees were covert CIA operatives. Per the New York Times, 'Mr. Schlesinger describes how roughly 1,500 supposed State Department employees were actually undercover C.I.A. officers who sometimes operated at odds with U.S. ambassadors. He wrote that nearly half of the political officers at U.S. embassies, who were responsible for understanding and advising on their host countries' politics, were working for the C.I.A.' Throughout the files, previously redacted information on CIA operations was declassified, including details about the agents involved in the 1961 assassination of Rafael Trujillo. Another memo released lists the various ways the CIA 'exceeded' its charter, including, per the New York Times 'break-ins at the French Consulate in Washington, planned paramilitary attacks on Chinese nuclear facilities and injections of a 'contaminating agent' in Cuban sugar bound for the Soviet Union.' CIA methods are also detailed throughout. 'One document details the use of fluoroscopic scanning - using X-rays to show images of the inside of an object,' per the BBC. 'The technique was developed to detect hidden microphones possibly used to bug CIA offices. In another document, the CIA describes a system to secretly tag and identify public phone boxes that are tapped, using a paint only visible under ultraviolet light.' One offhand mention of CIA director John A. McCone's 'dealings with the Vatican, including Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI' which 'would and could raise eyebrows in certain quarters,' per a 1973 memo from a CIA employee released in the files, has sparked interest, though no further details have been revealed on what those 'dealings' could be. Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, said, 'This opens a door on a whole history of collaboration between the Vatican and the C.I.A., which, boy, would be explosive if we could get documents about it… Which of course, we will now try to do.' You Might Also Like 12 Weekend Getaway Spas For Every Type of Occasion 13 Beauty Tools to Up Your At-Home Facial Game
