🚀 go-pugleaf

Every so often I tell the story (or someone else tells the story)
about the real estate developer who found out the number of employees
at the then-new CIA headquarters in McLean by calling the then-Soviet
embassy...

mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum) responded to a recent retelling:

>	This story made my brand new Capt. Kelly bullshit detector
>explode violently, ...

I've always based my own telling of the story on the mid-60s report I
read in the Washington Star when the building was under construction.
I don't recall if they actually named the real estate developer (I
think they did), but I definitely recall that they quoted the numbers
and attributed them to a source in the Soviet embassy.

This doesn't guarantee that the story is factual, just that (at least
in my case) it's based on something more than the National Enquirer
or garbled netnews.

The "real truth" behind this story could be anything. Maybe it's true
as stated, though I don't know why the Soviets would be so helpful.
Maybe the developer made up the numbers and wanted free publicity. It
could even be that the developer got the info from a "real" source in
the Govt and attributed it to the Soviets. Then he could publish it
and not get in too much trouble. In any case, published numbers could
help convince investors to loan him money for his housing development.

Rick.
smith@sctc.com        arden hills, minnesota