The Naked Intelligence Officer

 John Alejandro King

a.k.a.

The Covert Comic

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Naked intelligence officer  ('nā-kəd in-'te-lə-jən(t)s 'ä-fə-sər)

1 : an intelligence officer in a state of undress <'Hey, look at that naked intelligence officer'>

2 : an intelligence officer whose cover has been compromised

3 : an intelligence officer, in reality fully clothed, disguised as a naked person for operational purposes

4 : [Secret]

The following is a collection of declassified quotes, decrypted quips, and bare-faced truths by, well, officially I'm not authorized to reveal the name of the author; however, if you've ever seen that person without clothes (his clothes or yours – it really makes no difference), you'll immediately recognize the creative source behind The Naked Intelligence Officer.

Note: for maximum intelligence value, please read this book naked (you or the book – it really makes no difference).

Near Washington DC

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Reality is a covert action.

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Secret 29815281.  The environment evolves to match the camouflage.

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They say truth is stranger than fiction.  If that’s true, it’s stranger than it would be if it wasn’t.

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Francis Bacon: Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.

The Covert Comic: As attractive as Bacon's thesis is, it would have been sexier if he had left something to the imagination.

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This morning I was downtown, and I happened to see an office building just as it was deliberately imploded.

For a second I thought: "Whoa, did I do that?"

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As an Agency employee, whenever I hear that the CIA is programming people’s minds, I have to laugh.

I don’t want to laugh when I hear this, but I have to.

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Remember in the film Marathon Man, when the old Nazi war criminal went to 47^th street in New York hoping to sell a bunch of stolen diamonds, and instead got recognized by several of his former concentration camp victims, and then had to kill several people to create a diversion in order to escape?  As an IT manager, my job is like that pretty much every day.

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You say 'naked intelligence briefing' like there's some other kind.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer 

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The job knew I was dangerous when it took me.

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There's a famous saying: 'If 99 percent was good enough, gravity wouldn't work for 14 minutes every day.'

I did the calculation, and it's actually 14 minutes and 24 seconds.

… Which can only mean that, for the person who wrote that saying, 97.2 percent was good enough.

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A government that's big enough to give you everything you want is a government that's big enough to give you even more.

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Better over the top than under the bottom.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer 

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Secret 2791716.  You can only scandalize people on their own terms.

Naked people stand out in a crowd.

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Naked Intelligence Report

On the topic of nakedness, you may have read about those perverted individuals who take pleasure in exposing themselves to unsuspecting citizens in public.  Such individuals are commonly referred to as 'flashers.'

I hereby state for the record that The Covert Comic, a.k.a. John Alejandro King (officially not an employee of the CIA), is not a flasher.

True, flashers are known to creep around dressed in overcoats (like many intelligence officers).  And true, a typical flasher is prone to suddenly remove his 'cover,' then just as suddenly replace it, often in close vicinity to members of the female gender (like many, many intelligence officers).  And yes, it's also true that flashers sometimes work for intelligence agencies (like many intelligence officers).

However, these and possibly other totally coincidental similarities notwithstanding, there are important differences between intelligence officers (or at least between your humble spook, The Covert Comic) and flashers.  While these differences are (and must obviously remain) classified for the time being, I confidently predict that they will be fully revealed soon, quite possibly in a time and place you least expect.

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Clothes make the man ... naked.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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One aspect of Latino culture I personally find problematic is the mañana attitude people take toward everything.

… I mean, why the big hurry???

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As a CIA tech ops officer assigned to FBI Liaison, I imagine J. Edgar Hoover must be spinning in his grave right about now.

…  OK, I know he’s spinning in his grave.

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The key to effective anger management is learning to avoid doing things that piss me off in the first place.

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They say you can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

I say: any man I want to?
 

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Only a naked spy can truly come in from the cold.  

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Albert Einstein said: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

Here's one mediocre mind that thinks we ought to give Einstein's ideas a fair hearing.

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The French having a word for something: don't the French have a word for that?

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Secret 4418009.1.  There's a fine line between a prophet and a really bad motivational speaker. 

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I said he was a highly reliable source with excellent access.  I never said what he was a highly reliable source with excellent access for.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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It's not a euphemism, it's a positively connoting re-characterization.

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Secret 17913881.  The ultimate burqa is nakedness. 

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If the shoe fits, aren't you already wearing it???

- The well shod intelligence officer

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Secret 66.73.  Any time the Government denies knowledge, it's speaking the truth.

Typical CIA briefing

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The term 'naked aggression' is a redundancy.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Inside an oasis, there are many little deserts.

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Secret 926191.4.  What you are eats you.

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There are people who regularly blow their cover, despite not having any.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Secret 912.1.921.  What goes around comes around only if you fail to maintain sufficient orbital velocity.

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The sheerer the veil, the more concealed the dancer.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Early to bed, early to rise, makes for ineffectual spies.

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Naked Intelligence Report:

The Great Altamont Orange War

6 December 1969

Altamont Speedway

California, Universe, USA

Your humble intelligence officer

Young, but earning his clearances

Observing and dutifully reporting to HQS:

Extremely fat man dancing

Naked to the music

(Also, getting his ass kicked by numerous Hells Angels

... And throwing punches back, by the way)

Throughout the morning, occasional fruits

Fly back and forth

Between humanity-packed hills

Then, in late afternoon

During yet another delay between strip acts

Exchanges of produce increase in frequency

… Major event in cosmic timeline:

Extremely tall hippy rises to his feet

To catch huge, soaring grapefruit

As 300,000 souls suddenly focus on the moment

Object strikes lovingly outstretched hands

And explodes

Deafening, earth-shaking roar – followed by fruit-filled sky

Largest food fight in human history

Duration: a good twenty-two seconds

Winner uncertain

Crowd runs out of fruit to throw

... Or does it?

Roar subsides

As 300,000 souls pause to reflect on this question

Naked to the music

Additional events will occur this evening

Though of little intelligence value

Other than: late fat man sighting

Standing in darkness, stage right, watching and tapping right foot

While Hells Angels and brightly clothed gunman dance

Naked to the music

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When one views a striptease, who is it that’s being exposed?

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Sometimes love isn’t enough.  The rest of the time, it’s overkill.

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Otto Von Bismarck: I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.

The Naked Intelligence Officer: I have seen at least four female CIA officers in their nakedness, and the sight was extremely inspiring.

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Secret 991.976.  A paper tiger can still give a nasty paper cut.

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If you're part of the solution, I'd rather be part of the problem.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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When I was a boy, my father worked two jobs so I could have a better life than he had. 

And as long as he keeps working those two jobs so that I don’t have to do anything strenuous, I’ll continue to have a better life than my father.

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A liaison officer from CSIS asked me what I thought about Canadian intelligence.

I told him I thought it was technically possible.

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We hold these truths to be officially non-self-evident: that all men are crated equal.

- While officially not participating in one of the blackest CIA ops ever

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'Iditarod' is how a person pronounces the word 'idiot' when their lips are frozen.

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An underdressed DI analyst: Though in silence with blighted affection I pine, the lips that touch liquor must never touch mine!

The Naked Intelligence Officer: ... What if I drink through a straw?

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Meet is murder.

- At a naked CIA singles function

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Don’t get eaten by that, you’ll ruin its appetite!

- During a donut break at a briefing presented by CIA Counterintelligence (no oxymoron in the latter term, I'm genuinely sorry to report)

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Technically, your wife is your ex-girlfriend. 

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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When William of Ockham stated his famous principle 'Ockham's Razor' in Summa Logicae, he waited until chapter twelve to say it. 

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I imagine when generations to come study how people in our era thought about the future, they'll shake their collective head in amazement.

... Just that one gigantic, collective head.

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There is no comedian but Allah, and we're all His straight man.

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In the strip search of life, better to be the finger, or even the anus, than the rubber glove.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Remember, you can't get post-traumatic stress disorder as long as you're still being traumatized.

Even more typical CIA briefing

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Whatever it is you take them off for, putting your clothes back on is always at least as embarrassing.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

One Halloween night a millennium ago, while disguised as a Junior Jihadist, running wild in the streets with my fellow spooks, I snatched a three-year-old girl's Halloween candy bag, and kept on going.

Not only that, I took her candy out of the bag and ate it.

Don't worry, people: I choked on that candy, alright.  In fact, I still choke on it, at least once every week or so.

When I finally cast aside my earthly costume and stand in the Light, every detail of my life utterly divulged, I hope the spirit of that little girl (now all grown up, of course) is there to meet me.  And after I sincerely apologize to her, I pray she'll tell me that getting her candy snatched that Halloween night taught her an important life lesson, made her a stronger person, and ultimately helped her become happier and more loving.

And if I’m really lucky, her spirit will neither confirm nor deny that getting her candy snatched that Halloween night when she was three years old set in motion a series of events that culminated in her becoming a CIA officer, and that she spent her entire, highly successful professional existence working only a few cubicles away from your humble spook.

… Oh, and also that, during the course of her career at Langley, she stole innumerable Halloween bags worth of candy from the candy jar on my desk, which I dutifully kept filled with sweets offered free for the taking.

I can both confirm and not deny that I’d willingly strip naked in public for it.

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To be overdressed, is this not to be naked?

And to be naked, is this not to be overdressed?

- At CIA Headquarters on 'Casual Day'

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He who claims to have nothing to lose has the most precious thing of all to lose: that claim.

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Do as I CIA, not as I DO.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Compared to the rest of America, the rest of America isn't doing too badly.

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The most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or touched.

... At least not without paying for dinner and a movie first.

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Secret 159951.  Moderation is defined by end points.

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It's amazing how many people are intimidated by the simple act of sincerely professing the truth.

... I mean, you’d think there would be at least one or two.

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Ann Landers wrote that the naked truth is always better than the best dressed lie.

And according to a well-placed source with excellent access, she was wearing a sheer bareback teddy when she wrote this.

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The friend of my friend is my enemy.

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They say Washington DC is filled with beautiful, intelligent young women looking for husbands.

... Hey, I’m a husband.

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Explosive-sniffing dog?

… I thought you said 'Explosive sniffing dog.'

- Following an international incident involving a Peruvian Hairless

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The New York Times says torture is illegal and immoral.

Alexander Woollcott said that anything good in life is either illegal, immoral or fattening.

... So if we can just figure out a way to make it fattening, torture will be a good thing.

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It's not a real surprise party unless you don't know who you're giving it for. 

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Secret 13402.  All breasts are fake.

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Then again, if I didn't tell you, I'd probably still have to kill you.

- If I told you, I'd have to be clothed by you

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You can blow my cover any time.

- A semi-clothed CIA case officeress, to the Naked Intelligence Officer

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The naked truth has stretch marks.

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Secret 11241.99.1.  If they can't have the briefing in your absence, the real topic of the briefing is you.

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There's nothing wrong with the CIA that can't be fixed by what's even more wrong with the CIA.

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What's more naïve: thinking 'autoerotic' refers to cars, or thinking it doesn't?

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What strange power there is in clothing. 

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

What strange clothing there is in power.

 The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Naked Intelligence Report:

Operation Universal Freedom

It is recorded in the Cosmic Intelligence Annals

That thanks to relativity, and the slowness of the speed of light

About the time the rebel alliance briefly and illegally disrupted Imperial rule

News of the Empire’s previous overthrow of the old republic

Was just reaching a majority of the universe’s inhabitants

Upon which, certain disaffected elements

Unlawfully deserting their home planets in order to engage in terrorism

Were met by regrouping units of Imperial soldiers and intelligence agents

Who, astutely taking stock of the situation, declared themselves to be rebels too

And proceeded to lead that motley collective

In routing the usurpers

Once the Imperial Fleet had fully restored law and order

And thanks to relativity, and the slowness of the speed of light

The original communiqué from the rebel alliance announcing the Empire’s ‘defeat’

Was just reaching a majority of planets in the universe

Thus, even as our beloved Emperor once again happily surveyed His vast realm

Rebel sympathizers were rejoicing across a trillion star systems

And in our own era still solemnly observe

Universal Liberation Day

It is believed that this cycle of events has been repeated

On countless worlds throughout prehistory

Moreover, it is the confident assessment of Our Lord’s Cosmic Intelligence Agency

That in the extremely unlikely event our Empire experiences political challenges in the future

This basic property of space-time may again be exploited

With similarly favorable results

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In the Bollywood musical that is the world of official diplomatic cover, a UN posting is the wet sari scene.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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If global warming was outlawed, only outlaws would warm their globes.

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"What makes you think the whole world revolves around you?!" my mother asked me, as I slowly rotated my gaze to maintain eye contact.

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To ride a tiger is easy if you're a flea.

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The word for 'banal' should be replaced every five years on principle.

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If I'm reincarnated as a male ladybug, I think I'll just go ahead and fly straight into a spider's web the very first day.

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The road to hell is paved – what more do you need to know?

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Freedom isn't free.  But thank God liberty is still libertine.

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If my writing makes one person afraid to leave their cubicle, I've done my job.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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WWJR: What would Jesus redact?

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Naked Intelligence Report

One Saturday afternoon late in summer, not long after my official confirmation as a Junior Jihadist, I went with my family to the park.

I remember walking around by myself, sometimes through the dark, cool green of the forest, other times out in the hot open sunny spaces – just looking at everything.

At one point I came to a clearing that opened onto a play area with tan bark, teeter-totters and a big jungle-jim.  From where I stood I could see a large group of children – mostly six and seven years old – swinging single file through the steel jungle-jim rings, laughing and yelling.

As I watched I noticed that the last child in the line was a little boy about three years of age.  He had followed the older kids and, in his determination to keep up, had somehow managed to climb up the steps of the jungle-jim and swing himself out onto the first ring.  The problem was, the little guy’s arms were far too short to grab the next ring, and his legs far too stubby to get back to the steps.  The only way out was a drop straight down to the ground, which from that little boy's frame of reference amounted to a death plunge.  The poor kid was terrified.

Now the other children had all successfully navigated the rings and run off to the next adventure, completely oblivious to the boy’s plight.  Helpless, he hung there perfectly straight, whimpering softly.

I walked out of the clearing, came up behind him, put my arms around his waist and calmly whispered: Let go.

He let go.

I gently set him down on the ground, and watched him run after the other kids.  He never even looked back to see who had rescued him.

For all that little boy knew, the person who had saved his life was a spy, or even completely naked. 

Or both.

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Come to think of it, having a bottle in front of me, and a frontal lobotomy, really aren't all that different.

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If we can’t peacefully resolve our differences, let us at least violently resolve our similarities.

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Secret 27916221.  The buck hops here.

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People ask if it's possible to find love after age 40.  The answer is yes – you just have to reach your hand down a little lower.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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Will Rogers: I don't make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts.

The Naked Intelligence Officer: I don't just watch the facts and report jokes, I make governments.

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Secret 33115962111650.  It can change every ten minutes, and still be eternal truth.

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The sign 'Abandon hope, all who enter' also hangs at the gates of heaven.

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My uncle once offered me the following advice: "Only you can live your life; don't let others live it for you."

I said: "So in other words, don't let other people do what you just said is impossible anyway."

My uncle pretty much leaves me alone now.

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Secret 6781.7.8.  Reality is a striptease.

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Naked Intelligence Report

I can neither confirm nor deny that I personally have written items for the President's Daily Brief.

I can both confirm and deny that I was naked when I wrote this one.

The President's Daily Briefs

By

John Alejandro King

a.k.a. The Covert Comic

One morning in the White House Situation Room

I gave an intel briefing that lasted 'till noon

And afterward during the lunch break, I happened to peek

In a drawer where they kept the President's Daily Briefs

They lay in a stack, all pristine and white

It was said he received new ones each morning and night

What a thrill to imagine our Commander In Chief

Handling those very same President’s Daily Briefs

Who knew what secrets those articles contained

They didn’t appear worn, showed no evidence of stain

As I ran my fingers over each fold and crease

I resolved that I must have the President’s Daily Briefs

Perhaps my brush with greatness had robbed me of my wits

For I found the temptation too strong to resist

So looking both ways, I gingerly reached

And swiped me a pair of the President’s Daily Briefs

I carefully placed them in a folder between

Two Senior Executive Intelligence magazines

Then walked down the hallway to return to my seat

All the while feeling the President’s Daily Briefs

But as I was rounding the corner a man

With dark shades and earphone seized hold of my hand

You should have heard the shouts of anger and disbelief

When I was apprehended with the President’s Daily Briefs

I swore they were my own briefs, that there’d been a mistake

But the presidential seal on them guaranteed my fate

They took me to a back room and made me spread my cheeks

All for purloining the President’s Daily Briefs

The news soon reached Langley, where they placed me on leave

Investigations followed, polygraphs without reprieve

For at first they thought they'd found the source of White House leaks

In the person who had ripped off the President’s Daily Briefs

In the end I convinced them I wasn't a spy

My clearances were saved, but in ruins my career would lie

For all around Headquarters I was known as the freak

Who had tried to leave the White House with the President’s Daily Briefs

So now I sweep floors in the CIA basement

But rather than wallow in my debasement

I dream of a transfer, to launder White House sheets

And another chance at glimpsing the President’s Daily Briefs

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Secret 6291613.  Laughter is a subconscious attempt to stop breathing.

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As a CIA employee, I assume that when I die certain classified sections of my life will not pass before my eyes.

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When I was a kid, the nun in Catechism told us that sin is forgiven.

I thought she said ‘Sin is for givin’.’

For a while there in Catechism, I had a heck of a lot of fun.

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We’re all naked in the Light.  But in how many of us is the Light naked?

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I used to say: ‘This too shall pass.’  But after awhile I stopped saying it.

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Whenever God closes one orifice, He opens another.

- The Naked Intelligence Officer

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The day my graduation from the University of [Classified] became official, I rose early and drove my barely operable van to the admin office, where I picked up my diploma.  I then returned to my apartment, loaded my meager belongings, filled my vehicle with gas, and was out of state within two hours. 

I had things to do.

As for the rest of the seniors who stayed behind for two weeks so they could attend the graduation ceremony with their parents, they started their careers two weeks behind me.

Twenty years later, you might think those two weeks are now meaningless.

Truth is, those two weeks get bigger and bigger with every passing month.

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For there is nothing secret that shall not be seen in the light.

- Luke 8:17 (The Nakedest Intelligence Officer)

Owing to a (presumed) typographical error, during the entire span of your humble spook’s career as a CIA operative working under a certain rather sensitive form of cover, my surname has been misspelled on my badge.

The upshot: in addition to my existing cover mechanism, when present at highly classified US Government facilities and briefings, your humble intelligence officer has technically been laboring under a false name.

While I most certainly delight at the inside joke inherent in this situation, the real reason I’ve never ventured from my cube over to Badge Office to get this (presumably) minor snafu corrected is the knowledge that: a) such a process would involve substantial bureaucratic aggravation, and b) it’s only 50-50 that the good folks at BO wouldn’t re-mangle my name anyway (… although, now that I think of it, this might be a great reason to walk over to Badge Office this very moment).

And so I continue, year after year, operating under the deepest cover imaginable. 

Cover within cover within cover.  Cover without end, amen.

… Or should I say, striptease without cease. 

An extremely highly cleared erotic dancer once shamelessly disclosed that, if we perform good deeds for others, not from any desire for personal reward or recognition, but simply out of love (and even in secret), then we are the clothing of the Light in the world.

Say what you will about God, He is no exhibitionist.

Secret 10151917871876.  If this book consists of a series of insights moving more or less progressively (even if somewhat titillatingly) toward revelation of an ultimate truth, then like all burlesque writing, this document basically amounts to a literary striptease.

Moreover, if this book is a striptease, here’s the panty toss:

I can neither confirm nor deny that, as a CIA officer with most excellent access, I'm looking through your clothing even as you read these words.

… Oh, and needless to say, I’m well aware that you’ve been working overcover this entire time.

The Covert Comic.

Get naked with him while you still can!