MOON OVER LIBYA 121went away for good. I shredded it when I got back to the station. Although
my method was unorthodox, I’m sure he never bothered the CIA again.
Manuel’s fake news worked. Until he got caught.Looking back, I realize there were other CA, propaganda, and “fake news”
moments throughout my CIA career, going all the way back to training at
the Farm. During the ops course, my good “Pakistani” buddy R. J. and I
created and printed up dozens of copies of an (unclassified) satirical news-
letter we’d created, focused on training and life at the Farm. The Onion-like
articles and photos were suggestive of some of the romantic and training
shenanigans that went on among classmates, but they did not explicitly
identify anyone. Since our training took place in a fictional country called
Victoria, the newsletter was called Victoria Daily—the VD You Won’t Want to
Get Rid Of.
R. J. and I set our alarms for 3:00 a.m. one night, got up, and distrib-
uted the subversive newsletter under the doors of everyone’s rooms. By
8:00 a.m., all of our classmates (and instructors), assembled in a lecture
hall, were intrigued and trying to figure out who was behind the prank.
VD was the talk of the Farm. Keep in mind, this took place in the halcyon
days before cell phones, internet, and 24/7 news, and we were further cut
off from the outside world by virtue of the fact we were all ensconced on
an isolated base. This unsanctioned CA op was nothing less than semi-
scandalous. To this day, no one knows that R. J. and I were behind it. We
even lampooned ourselves in the newsletter to divert any possible suspicion
away from us.
Many years later, I did much of the writing for an April Fools’ edition
of an American expat newsletter in the Balkans. One satirical segment
was a list of books ostensibly written by various American personnel and
their dependents. The titles were ironic or humorous riffs on that person’s
well-known and sometimes unflattering traits or characteristics. The wife
of the defense attaché, for example, was always complaining to anyone
who would listen that the American embassy didn’t provide curtains for
her bathroom, which overlooked the Libyan embassy. The title of her book
was Moon over Libya.