A noteworthy article from the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence Journal, published in 1979 and declassified last year, describes the use of “remote medical diagnosis” for foreign intelligence purposes.
“Remote medical diagnosis is defined as the identification of the illnesses affecting a person without the benefit of a formal medical examination.”
The authors provide capsule accounts of CIA medical diagnoses of various world leaders, including French President Georges Pompidou, Algerian President Houari Boumediene, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, and Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin.
The technique, such as it is, is far from infallible, the authors note. Although Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir suffered from malignant lymphoma for more than 12 years, “We had been entirely unaware that she had this lethal disease.”
See “Remote Medical Diagnosis: Monitoring the health of Very Important Patients,” Studies in Intelligence, Spring 1979 (1.2 MB PDF file) (thanks to AT).
Good information sources, like collections, must be available and maintained if companies are going to successfully implement the vision of AI for science expressed by their marketing and executives.
Let’s see what rules we can rewrite and beliefs we can reset: a few digital service sacred cows are long overdue to be put out to pasture.
Nestled in the cuts and investments of interest to the S&T community is a more complex story of how the administration is approaching the practice of science diplomacy.
Surprise! It’s a double album drop with the release of both the President’s Budget Request (PBR to us, not Pabst Blue Ribbon) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) last Friday.