「六十秒，就這麼簡單」：以色列與美國合作的精準行動刺殺哈梅內伊（2/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

‘Sixty seconds, that’s all it took’: the clinical Israeli-US operation to kill Ali Khamenei (2/2)

Mission that took just one minute to carry out was decades in making, but experts say it could be major strategic error

 US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

The Guardian - Jason Burke in Jerusalem

Sun 1 Mar 2026 14.27 EST

(continue)

The Mossad, an abbreviation of the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations in Hebrew, has been focused on Iran for decades, and has built deep networks of informants, agents and logistics there. This has allowed a series of operations including the assassination with a remote-controlled automatic machine gun of a top Iranian nuclear scientist travelling at speed in a car on a remote road, the infection with malware of computers running key parts of Iran’s nuclear programme and the theft of an archive of nuclear documents. The political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in 2024 with a bomb placed in his favorite room in a government guesthouse in Tehran.

During the 12-day war in June, Israeli agents managed to identify the homes of Iranian nuclear scientists, intelligence officials and military commanders – information that allowed dozens to be killed in a first wave of surprise attacks.

Melman said the Mossad had made a key change of strategy almost 20 years ago, deciding to recruit local agents within Iran who were given state-of-the-art equipment and high levels of training.

David Barnea, who has led the Mossad since 2021, built a special department for a “foreign legion” of agents who have been deployed across the Middle East on sensitive missions.

Such agents were easier to recruit in Iran, where many people were opposed to the ruling regime, than elsewhere, Melman said.

Israel was poised to assassinate Khamenei last year, but Trump was reluctant to risk regional escalation and the reaction of allies concerned by the killing of a head of state. Such reservations appear to have disappeared in the months since the brief conflict last year, which ended shortly after US bombers attacked Iranian nuclear facilities.

Israeli military officials said there had since been “really very enhanced cooperation” between Israel and the US on Iran.

The flow of information from the Mossad’s networks on the ground in Iran would have been merged last week with intelligence gathered through communications intercepted by the US.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they locked on to a variety of means to track [Khamenei],” said Gerecht. “The Iranians are pretty sloppy. They love their phones. So maybe the supreme leader had a stack of burner phones but it’s about people he was calling regularly.”

Finally, information would have been fed through to the US and Israeli militaries to allow precise targeting information to be compiled and the orders to be given for that brief but deadly and destructive minute.

“Sixty seconds. That’s all it took for this operation, but it is the product of years in the making,” said Oded Ailam, a former head of the Mossad’s counter-terrorism division and a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. “The modern battlefield is no longer defined only by tanks and aircraft. It is defined by data, access, trust and timing. One minute can change a region.”

The CIA veteran said they believed the assassination was a mistake: “I think it was the wrong thing to do. Not from an ethical perspective – I have been fine with killing people, a lot of them in fact – but from a long-term strategic perspective.

“I know that when you take out someone’s leader you don’t solve the problem. You just create a new one.”

Translation

「六十秒，就這麼簡單」：以色列與美國合作的精準行動刺殺哈梅內伊（2/2）

這項僅用一分鐘就完成的任務，籌劃了數十年，但專家表示，這可能是個重大的策略失誤。

（繼續）

摩薩德(Mossad) ，即希伯來語「情報與特種作戰研究所」的縮寫，數十年來一直將目光聚焦在伊朗，並在伊朗建立了龐大的線人、特工和後勤網絡。這使得摩薩德得以實施一系列行動，包括用遙控自動機槍暗殺一名在偏僻道路上高速行駛的伊朗頂級核科學家、用惡意軟體感染運行伊朗核計劃關鍵部分的計算機，以及竊取一份核文件檔案。哈馬斯政治領袖伊斯梅爾·哈尼亞(Ismail Haniyeh)於2024年在德黑蘭一家政府招待所內他最喜歡的房間裡被炸彈暗殺。

在6月份為期12天的戰爭中，以色列特工成功鎖定了伊朗核科學家、情報官員和軍事指揮官的住所 - 這項訊息使以色列得以在第一波突襲中殺死數十人。

Melman表示，摩薩德在近20年前做出了關鍵戰略調整，決定在伊朗境內招募本地特工，並為他們配備最先進的裝備和高水準的訓練。

自2021年起擔任摩薩德局長的David Barnea建立了一個專門負責「外籍軍團」特工的部門，這些特工已被部署到中東各地執行敏感任務。

Melman說，在伊朗招募這類特工比在其他地方更容易，因為伊朗國內許多人反對執政政權。

去年，以色列曾準備暗殺哈梅內伊，但特朗普不願冒著地區局勢升級的風險，也不願承受盟友對暗殺國家元首的擔憂。自去年短暫衝突結束以來，這種顧慮似乎已經消失。那場衝突在美國轟炸機攻擊伊朗核設施後不久便結束。

以色列軍方官員表示，此後以色列和美國在伊朗問題上的合作「確實得到了極大的加強」。

上週，來自摩薩德在伊朗地面網路的資訊流與美國截獲的通訊情報進行了整合。

Gerecht說: 「如果他們利用各種手段追蹤[哈梅內伊]，我不會感到驚訝」; 「伊朗人做事相當馬虎。他們很喜歡用手機。所以，最高領袖可能有一堆一次性手機，但關鍵在於他經常聯繫的人」。

最終，相關訊息會傳遞給美國和以色列軍方，以編纂精確的目標資訊，並下達命令，執行那短暫但致命且具毀滅性的一分鐘打擊。

前摩薩德反恐部門負責人、耶路撒冷安全與外交事務中心研究員Oded Ailam說道: 「僅僅60秒。這次行動只花了這麼短的時間，但它卻是多年籌備的結果」;「現代戰場不再僅僅由坦克和飛機定義，它由數據、資訊獲取管道、信任和時機所決定。一分鐘就能改變一個地區」。

這位中情局老兵表示，他認為這次暗殺是個錯誤：「我認為這是錯的。不是從道德角度出發 - 我並不反對殺人，事實上，我殺過很多人 - 而是從長遠的戰略角度來看」。

“我知道，除掉一個領導人並不能解決問題，只會製造新的問題。”

              So, the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the culmination of decades of painstaking intelligence gathering by Israeli secret services. One objective of the attack by Israel and the US is to motivate a regime change in Tehran, another objective is to stop Iran to build its nuclear arsenal. While it is quite likely that when you take out someone’s leader you don’t solve the problem as it may just create a new one, the concrete immediate benefit of this attack is that Iran will need some time to restart its nucleus program. Apparent, this attack shows that the 21^st century battlefield is less defined by tanks and aircraft and more by missiles, drones, and all kinds of intelligence works plus data analysis and good timing. 

「六十秒，就這麼簡單」：以色列與美國合作的精準行動刺殺哈梅內伊（1/2）

Recently the Guardian reported the following:

‘Sixty seconds, that’s all it took’: the clinical Israeli-US operation to kill Ali Khamenei (1/2)

Mission that took just one minute to carry out was decades in making, but experts say it could be major strategic error

 US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

The Guardian - Jason Burke in Jerusalem

Sun 1 Mar 2026 14.27 EST

The assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was the culmination of decades of painstaking intelligence gathering by Israeli secret services, with crucial technological resources and manpower provided over the last six months by the CIA and other US intelligence services, which culminated in a single concentrated burst of lethal violence to decapitate the Iranian regime, according to experts, veteran spies and officials in Israel and the US.

Khamenei was killed along with seven “members of the top Iranian security leadership who had gathered at several locations in Tehran” and about a dozen members of his family and close entourage in near-simultaneous strikes within 60 seconds, military officials in Israel said. Forty other senior Iranian leaders also died in the attack.

The killing of Khamenei, 86, opened the air offensive launched this weekend by Israel and the US in an effort to overthrow the radical clerical regime in Tehran, plunging the Middle East into renewed chaos and violence.

Some experts and intelligence veterans, however, described a possible strategic error that could alienate potential supporters or open the way for more radical opponents in the future.

“The problem is that Israel is in love with assassinations … and we never learn that it is not the solution. We have killed all the leaders of Hamas. They are still there. It’s the same with Hezbollah. The leaders are always replaced,” said Yossi Melman, a respected Israeli analyst and author specialising in intelligence.

Israel has a long history of conducting assassinations overseas, but has never before killed a head of state.

Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel’s military intelligence service, said the strike was “a tactical surprise, an operational surprise” because the general expectation was that Israel would attack in darkness, replicating the surprise strike which opened the 12-day war in June.

The timing of the assassination was determined by information the CIA gleaned about a meeting of top Iranian officials at a leadership compound in the heart of Tehran scheduled for Saturday morning. Most critically, the CIA was able to tell Israeli counterparts that Khamenei would be at the site and the timing of the meeting, according to the New York Times.

Israeli spies had also been tracking Khamenei for many years, building a minutely detailed file on his daily routine and those of his family members, associates, allies and those charged with keeping him safe.

“It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle. You are putting all these scraps of information together. Where you don’t have [reliable data] you look further into those. It will be everything: how do they get food, what happens to their trash … We all get up and go to bed, we all eat and drink,” said a former CIA veteran with decades of experience in tracking high-profile terrorist targets.

“We are in a world where information and data is so multi-layered that there is no one who doesn’t leave some kind of trail. Everything you do leaves a print.”

Reuel Gerecht, a former CIA targeting officer who worked on Iran and an analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said the US would have been able to bring significant technological assets into play, though it was Israel that had built the networks of agents on the ground capable of supplying human intelligence and carrying out covert operations within Iran.

Gerecht said reports in the Israeli media that a photograph of Khamenei’s remains were shown to Donald Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were plausible.

“The technological capacity of the US is extremely impressive and the tech does matter a lot, but I don’t think that the [CIA] had a lot to bring to the table in terms of [human intelligence] or covert action networks,” he said.

“If you combine the technological capacity with the networks on the ground that would certainly amplify its effectiveness.”

(to be continued)

Translation

「六十秒，就這麼簡單」：以色列與美國合作的精準行動刺殺哈梅內伊（1/2）

這項僅用一分鐘完成的任務，籌劃了數十年，但專家表示，這可能是個重大的戰略失誤。

據以色列和美國的專家、資深間諜和官員稱，刺殺伊朗最高領袖哈梅內伊，是以色列情報機構數十年來艱苦卓絕的情報收集工作的最終成果。在過去六個月裡，美國中央情報局和其他情報機構提供了關鍵的技術資源和人力，最終促成了這次集中而致命的暴力行動，旨在剷除伊朗政權。

以色列軍方官員稱，哈梅內伊與七名「聚集在德黑蘭各處的伊朗高級安全領導人」以及約十幾名他的家人和隨行人員在60秒內幾乎同時遭到空襲身亡。另有四十名伊朗高階領導人也在攻擊中喪生。

86歲的哈梅內伊遇害，拉開了以色列和美國本週末發起的空襲的序幕，這場空襲旨在推翻德黑蘭的激進神權政權，空襲使中東再次陷入混亂和暴力之中。

然而，一些專家和資深情報人員指出，這可能是戰略失誤，可能會疏遠潛在的支持者，或為未來更激進的反對派打開方便之門。

以色列著名情報分析家兼作家Yossi Melman說道。「問題在於以色列熱衷於暗殺……而我們始終不明白，暗殺並非解決之道。我們殺死了哈馬斯的所有領導人，但他們依然存在。真主黨也是如此，領導人總是會被替換」。

以色列在海外進行暗殺行動由來已久，但此前從未暗殺國家元首。

以色列前軍事情報局局長Amos Yadlin表示，此次襲擊是“一次戰術上的突襲，一次行動上的出其不意”，因為人們普遍預期以色列會在夜間發動襲擊，重演6月份那場開啟12天戰爭的突襲行動。

這次暗殺行動的時機是由美國中央情報局根據先前掌握的情報確定的，情報顯示，伊朗高級官員將於週六上午在德黑蘭市中心的一處領導人住所舉行會議。根據《紐約時報》報道，最關鍵的是，中央情報局能夠提前告知以色列方面哈梅內伊將出席會議地點以及會議時間。

以色列間諜多年來一直在追蹤哈梅內伊，建立了一份極其詳盡的檔案，記錄著他及其家人、同僚、盟友以及負責保護他的人的日常生活。

一位在中央情報局工作數十年、擁有追踪資深恐怖分子目標經驗的資深人士說道:「這就像一個巨大的拼圖遊戲。你要把所有這些零碎的信息拼湊起來。對於沒有可靠數據的地方，你要進一步調查。這涵蓋方方面面：他們如何獲取食物，他們的垃圾如何處理……我們每天都要起床睡覺，都要吃飯喝水」。

“我們身處一個資訊和數據那麼大量疊加的世界，令沒有人能不留任何痕跡。你做的每一件事都會留下印記。”

曾任中央情報局（CIA）伊朗問題目標定位官員、現任保衛民主基金會分析師的Reuel Gerecht表示，美國本可以投入大量技術資源，但以色列才是建立起在伊朗境內提供人力情報並開展秘密行動的特工網絡的人。

Gerecht稱，以色列媒體報道稱，特朗普和以色列總理內塔尼亞胡曾看過哈梅內伊遺體的照片的說法是可信的。

他說:「美國的技術能力令人印象深刻，技術的確至關重要，但我認為（CIA）在 [人力情報]或秘密行動網絡方面並沒有太多貢獻」。

“如果將技術能力與實地網絡相結合，無疑會大大提升行動的有效性。”

（待續）

揭開聽覺奧秘的A. James Hudspeth逝世，享年79歲 (2/2)

Recently The New York Times picked up the following:

A. James Hudspeth, Who Unlocked Mysteries Behind Hearing, Dies at 79 (2/2)

He was pivotal in discovering how sound waves are converted into signals that the brain can perceive as a whisper, a symphony or a thunderclap.

The New York Times -By Jeré Longman

Sept. 5, 2025

(continue)

His 50-year career deciphering the process of hearing began by accident, he said. He was more interested in brain research. But, while he was in graduate school, one of his professors asked him to deliver a paper on hearing and balance.

“I was so amazed that so little was known about hearing, yet it’s so manifestly important,” he said in a 2020 Kavli Prize lecture.

Torsten Wiesel, a Nobel laureate who was Dr. Hudspeth’s graduate faculty adviser at Harvard, described him as impatient with small talk but brilliant and brimming with ideas. He said an interview that he had nominated Dr. Hudspeth for a Nobel Prize three times, including this year, adding, “I hoped he would get the prize before he died.”

In the mid-1970s, while Dr. Hudspeth was at the California Institute of Technology, he and his lab began to explore whether the movement of the bundles atop hair cells created electric signals. A challenge for studying the human cochlea is that it is tiny, fragile and inaccessible, so Dr. Hudspeth studied the dissected inner ear of bullfrogs. Under a microscope, he used a small glass rod to push gently against the tips of hair bundles.

He continued his work at the University of California, San Francisco, in the 1980s. For one experiment, he needed a quiet space so one of his postdoctoral students could conduct extraordinarily sensitive measurements of how far trap doors move when opening to allow ions to flow into the cells and create an electrical signal. (The answer: one ten-thousandth of the width of a human hair.)

So Dr. Hudspeth set up a lab in an abandoned swimming pool in the basement of his office building. Dr. Corey of Harvard said that Dr. Hudspeth had truckloads of cement brought in to fill and stabilize the pool.

“It worked absolutely brilliantly,” Jonathon Howard, his postdoctoral student and now a professor of physics at Yale University, told The Transmitter, an online publication devoted to neuroscience. “We were just absolutely single-mindedly going after it.”

In the latter stages of his career, Dr. Hudspeth and colleagues found a way to keep a sliver of the cochlea of a gerbil functioning outside the body, which was related to his study of potential ways to reverse hearing loss.

Once human hair cells die — from such means as repeated exposure to loud noises, aging, and certain diseases and medications — they do not regenerate. An estimated 1.5 billion people experience some degree of hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization.

Dr. Hudspeth explored — along with many other scientists — possible ways to restore hair cells, which many nonmammalian animals like fish and birds can do. One method involved druglike compounds that release the genetic brake that stops cells from multiplying during development.

Along with his wife, Dr. Hudspeth is survived by a daughter, Ann Hudspeth; a son, James Hudspeth; a grandson; and his brother, Tom.

Just before Dr. Hudspeth died, the Rockefeller University optioned technology regarding promising research into restoring hair cells in mice and rabbits. The technology, developed in Dr. Hudspeth’s lab, has been enhanced by one of his former postdoctoral researchers, Ksenia Gnedeva, now a professor at the University of Southern California.

“If all goes well,” Dr. Gnedeva said in an email, “these compounds will soon be tested in human clinical trials. It pains me deeply that Jim will not be here to see where our work leads.”

(Jeré Longman is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk who writes the occasional sports-related story.)

Translation

揭開聽覺奧秘的A. James Hudspeth逝世，享年79歲 (2/2)

他在發現聲波如何轉換成大腦能夠感知的訊號例如耳語、交響樂或雷鳴方面發揮了關鍵作用

（繼續）

他表示，自己50年來致力於解讀聽覺過程的職業生涯始於偶然。他原本對大腦研究更有興趣。然而，在研究院期間，一位教授邀請他發表一篇關於聽覺和平衡的論文。

他在2020年 Kavli Prize 的演講中說道: 「我很驚訝，人們對聽覺的了解如此之少，但它卻如此重要」。

諾貝爾獎得主 Torsten Wiesel 曾是 Hudspeth 博士在哈佛大學的研究生導師。Wiesel形容Hudspeth 博士不耐煩閒聊，但才華洋溢，充滿創意。他在訪談中表示，自己曾三度提名 Hudspeth 博士獲得諾貝爾獎，包括今年的提名。他還補充道： “我希望他能在去世前獲獎。”

1970年代中期，Hudspeth 博士在加州理工學院工作時，他和他的實驗室開始探索毛細胞頂端毛束的擺動是否會產生電訊號。研究人類耳蝸的一大挑戰是它是微小、脆弱且難以接近，因此Hudspeth博士研究了牛蛙解剖後的內耳。在顯微鏡下，他用一根細小的玻璃棒輕輕按壓毛束的尖端。 

1980年代，他在加州大學舊金山分校繼續他的研究工作。為了進行一項實驗，他需要一個安靜的空間，以便他的一名博士後學生能夠進行極其靈敏的測量，測量活門打開時移動的距離，從而允許離子流入細胞並產生電信號。 （答案：人類頭髮寬度的萬分之一。）

因此，Hudspeth 博士在他辦公大樓地下室的一個廢棄游泳池裡設立了一個實驗室。哈佛大學的 Corey 博士說，Hudspeth 博士用卡車運送水泥來填充和固定游泳池。

他的博士後學生、現任耶魯大學物理學教授的 Jonathon Howard 告訴專注於神經科學的線上刊物《Transmitter》說: 「它運作非常出色」; 「我們當時一心一意地追求它」。

在職業生涯的後期，Hudspeth 博士和同事找到了一種方法，可以讓沙鼠耳蝸的一小部分在體外保持功能，這與他研究逆轉聽力損失的潛在方法息息相關。

人類的毛細胞一旦死亡 - 例如由於反覆暴露於高噪音、老化以及某些疾病和藥物等原因 - 就無法再生。根據世界衛生組織估計，全球約有15億人患有不同程度的聽力損失。

Hudspeth 博士與許多其他科學家一起探索了修復毛細胞的可能方法，許多非哺乳動物，例如魚類和鳥類，都可以做到這一點。其中一種方法是使用類似藥物的化合物來釋放基因制動器，阻止細胞在成長其間增多。

Hudspeth博士身後留下了妻子、女兒 Ann Hudspeth、兒子 James Hudspeth、孫子和弟弟 Tom。

就在Hudspeth博士去世前不久，洛克斐勒大學選擇了一項相當有前景的研究，用於修復小鼠和兔子的毛細胞。這項技術由 Hudspeth博士的實驗室開發，並由他之前的博士後研究員、現任南加州大學教授的 Ksenia Gnedeva進行了改良。

Gnedeva博士在一封電子郵件中寫道： “如果一切順利，這些化合物將很快在人體臨床試驗中進行測試。Jim不能親眼看到我們的工作會帶來什麼成果，這讓我深感痛心。”

So, Dr. Hudspeth has been pivotal in discovering how sound waves are converted to electrical signals in the inner ear that the brain can perceive as a whisper, a symphony or a thunderclap. Apparent, his research is very crucial to us in understanding how our ears operate.

揭開聽覺奧秘的 A. James Hudspeth 逝世，享年79歲（1/2）

Recently the New York times picked up the following:

A. James Hudspeth, Who Unlocked Mysteries Behind Hearing, Dies at 79 (1/2)

He was pivotal in discovering how sound waves are converted into signals that the brain can perceive as a whisper, a symphony or a thunderclap.

By Jeré Longman

Sept. 5, 2025

Dr. A. James Hudspeth, a neuroscientist at the Rockefeller University in Manhattan who was pivotal in discovering how sound waves are converted in the inner ear to electrical signals that the brain can perceive as a whisper, a symphony or a thunderclap, died on Aug. 16 at his home in Manhattan. He was 79.

His wife, Dr. Ann Maurine Packard, said the cause was glioblastoma, a brain cancer.

Scientists have long understood how sound waves enter the ear canal and cause the eardrum to vibrate. They have also understood how the vibrations travel through the three small bones of the middle ear, then to the cochlea in the inner ear, a tiny organ about the size of a chickpea that is filled with fluid and is shaped like a snail’s shell.

And they have long known that microscopic receptor cells in the cochlea play a role in the process of hearing. But by the time Dr. Hudspeth began his research in the 1970s, it was still unclear how these cells — known as hair cells (the name derives from tufts of cylindrical, hairlike rods known as stereocilia) — transformed the mechanical vibrations of sound waves into nerve impulses that the brain could interpret as, say, a child crying or a dog barking.

Dr. Hudspeth “provided the major framework” for this understanding, the committee that awarded him and two other scientists (Robert Fettiplace and Christine Petit) the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for their pioneering work on the processes of hearing wrote in its citation in 2018.

Each cochlea contains about 16,000 hair cells. Atop each cell, 20 to 300 of these rods are gathered in a bundle — the shortest to the tallest — in rows that resemble a staircase or a pipe organ. Hair cells line the cochlea, with each tuned to a narrow frequency range that collectively decodes the broad spectrum of tones in every sound.

As sound waves enter the cochlea, the stereocilia rods begin to slide next to one another. Dr. Hudspeth theorized that this motion toward the tallest rods created tension on elastic tethers that pulled open tiny pores — essentially trap doors — on the tips of the stereocilia.

His hunch was supported by another scientist, James Pickles, who discovered that each rod is attached to neighboring rods by an elastic protein filament, a kind of microscopic rubber band or spring.

Dr. Hudspeth revealed that when the trap doors open, positively charged ions of potassium and calcium flood into the cells, creating an electrical signal that is carried by the auditory nerve to the brain.

The opening and closing of the trap doors, Dr. Hudspeth found, happens in microseconds, a speed 1,000 times as fast as that of our other senses. The stereocilia, he said, can create a signal that the brain detects by moving only the width of a water molecule.

He showed that hearing depends not only on speed but also on a built-in amplifier system, which can boost a sound signal by about 1,000-fold and sharpens frequency tuning, making it easier to tell voices apart and understand nuances in speech.

Dr. Hudspeth “was the one who really figured out how hair cells worked,” David Corey, a neuroscientist at Harvard and one of his former graduate students, said in an interview.

Albert James Hudspeth was born on Nov. 9, 1945, in Houston. His father, Chalmers Hudspeth, was a lawyer. His mother, Demaris (De Lange) Hudspeth ran the household.

From an early age, Jim, as he was known to his colleagues, was drawn to the orderliness of nature. He and his brother, Tom, amassed a menagerie at home of 200 animals, including box turtles, toads, raccoons, opossums and armadillos.

He attended Harvard, where he received a bachelor’s degree in biomechanical sciences in 1967, a master’s degree in neuroscience in 1969, a Ph.D. in neuroscience in 1973 and a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1974. He joined the Rockefeller University’s faculty in 1995 and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Translation

揭開聽覺奧秘的 A. James Hudspeth 逝世，享年79歲（1/2）

他在發現聲波如何轉換成大腦可以感知為耳語、交響樂或雷鳴的信號方面發揮了關鍵作用

曼哈頓洛克菲勒大學的神經科學家 A. James Hudspeth 博士於8月16日在曼哈頓的家中去世，享年79歲。他在發現聲波如何在內耳轉換成大腦可以感知為耳語、交響樂或雷鳴的電訊號方面發揮了關鍵作用。

他的妻子 Ann Maurine Packard 博士表示，他的死因是腦癌 - 膠質母細胞瘤。

科學家早已了解聲波如何進入耳道並引起耳膜振動。他們也了解振動是如何通過中耳的三塊小骨頭傳遞到內耳的耳蝸的。耳蝸是一個鷹嘴豆大小的微小器官，充滿液體，形狀像蝸牛殼。

科學家們早就知道耳蝸中的微小受體細胞在聽覺過程中發揮作用。但到了1970年代 Hudspeth 博士開始他的研究時，人們仍然不理解清楚這些被稱為毛細胞（毛細胞的名稱源於一簇圓柱形、毛狀的桿狀細胞，稱為立體纖毛）的細胞是如何將聲波的機械振動轉化為大腦可以解讀為例如是孩子哭聲或狗吠聲的神經脈衝。

2018年，Kavli神經科學獎授予了 Hudspeth 博士和另外兩位科學家（Robert Fettiplace 和Christine Petit）。委員會在頒獎詞中寫道，Hudspeth 博士「為這一理解提供了重要的框架」而表彰他們在聽覺過程方面的開創性工作。

每個耳蝸包含約16,000個毛細胞。每個毛細胞頂部，有20到300個桿形細胞聚集成束－從最短到最長－排列成行，形狀像樓梯或管風琴。毛細胞排列在耳蝸內，每個毛細胞都調諧到一個較窄的頻率範圍，共同解碼每個聲音中的廣泛音調。

當聲波進入耳蝸時，立體纖毛桿開始彼此並排滑動。Hudspeth博士推測，這種向最高桿形細胞的移動會在彈性繫繩上產生張力，從而拉開立體纖毛尖端的微小孔隙 - 它本質上是個活門。

另一位科學家 James Pickles 也支持了他的推測。Pickles 發現，每根桿狀細胞都透過一根彈性蛋白絲（一種微型橡皮筋或彈簧）與相鄰的桿狀細胞連接。

Hudspeth 博士透露，當活門打開時，帶正電的鉀離子和鈣離子會湧入細胞，產生電訊號，並透過聽覺神經傳遞到大腦。

Hudspeth 博士發現，活門的開啟和關閉以微秒為單位，速度是我們其他感官的1,000倍。他說，立體纖毛只需移動一個水分子的寬度就能產生大腦所能感知的訊號。

他指出，聽覺不僅取決於速度，還取決於一個內建的擴大機系統，可以將聲音訊號增強約1,000倍，並銳化頻率調較，從而更容易區分聲音並理解言語中的細微差別。

哈佛大學神經學家、Hudspeth 博士以前的研究生之一 David Corey 在一次採訪中說道, Hudspeth博士 “是真正弄清毛細胞工作原理的人” 。

Albert James Hudspeth 於1945年11月9日出生於休士頓。他的父親 Chalmers Hudspeth 是一名律師。母親 Demaris (De Lange) Hudspeth 則負責日常家庭事務。

被同事們都這稱呼為Jim的他從小就被大自然的秩序所吸引。他和弟弟Tom在家裡養了200隻動物，包括箱龜、蟾蜍、浣熊、負鼠和犰狳。

他畢業於哈佛大學，1967年獲得生物力學學士學位，1969年獲得神經科學碩士學位，1979年獲得博士學位。 1973年獲得神經科學博士學位，1974年獲得醫學博士學位。 1995年加入洛克斐勒大學任教，並曾是美國國家科學院院士。

（待續）

特朗普簽署行政命令，公佈更多有關約翰甘迺迪、羅拔甘迺迪和馬丁路德金遇刺事件的文件

 Recently CNN News on-line reported the following:

Trump signs executive order to release more JFK, RFK, MLK assassination files

By Alejandra Jaramillo and Kevin Liptak, CNN

Published 5:03 PM EST, Thu January 23, 2025

CNN

 —

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to release files related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

“That’s a big one. Lot of people are waiting for this a long, for years, for decades,” Trump said signing the executive order in the Oval Office.

“Give that to RFK Jr.,” he said, indicating that the pen he used to sign the order should be given to his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, who is the son of the former attorney general and nephew of the late president.

“All will be revealed,” Trump added.

Many of the files related to the JFK assassination have already been disclosed, including a tranche of 13,000 documents released during the Biden administration. Many of the documents have been redacted, however.

“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay,” reads the order from the White House.

The records will not be released immediately. “Within 15 days of the date of this order, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General shall, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Counsel to the President, present a plan to the President for the full and complete release of records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” the order reads.

The timeline is within 45 days for RFK and MLK files.

In 2023, the National Archives concluded its review of the classified documents related to the 1963 assassination of JFK, with 99% of the records having been made publicly available, as CNN reported.

President Joe Biden then released a memo certifying that the archivist had completed the review and affirmed the remaining documents authorized to be declassified had been released to the public – meeting a previously set deadline.

Despite previous pledges from presidents, including Trump, to release those records, the CIA, Pentagon and State Department still have documents they’ve refused to release. The justification for those documents remaining classified largely stems from efforts to protect the identities of confidential sources who are still alive, or might be alive, and protecting methods.

When Trump was president, he agreed at the time not to release the full tranche of records related to Kennedy’s assassination at the request of national security agencies. But Trump on the 2024 campaign trail said he would release the remaining documents.

Translation

特朗普簽署行政命令，公佈更多有關約翰甘迺迪、羅拔甘迺迪和馬丁路德金遇刺事件的文件

總統特朗普週四簽署行政命令，公佈與約翰甘迺迪、羅拔甘迺迪和馬丁·路德·金遇刺事件有關的文件。

特朗普在橢圓形辦公室簽署行政命令時表示: “這是一個大事： “很多人等待這一刻已經很久了，幾年、幾十年了。”

他說: 「把它交給少羅拔甘迺迪 (RFK Jr.) 」，暗示他用來簽署命令的筆應該交給他挑選的衛生和公眾服務部負責人，他是前司法部長的兒子，也是已故總統的姪子。

特朗普補充說： “一切真相都會揭露。”

許多與甘迺迪遇刺事件有關的文件已經被揭露，其中包括拜登政府期間發布的 13,000 份文件。然而，許多文件是已被刪輯。

白宮的行政命令寫道： “他們的家人和美國人民應該得到透明和真相。最終毫不拖延地公佈與這些暗殺事件有關的所有記錄是符合國家利益。”

這些記錄不會立即公佈。命令中寫道: 「在本命令發布之日起 15 天內，國家情報總監和司法部長應與總統國家安全事務助理和總統法律顧問協調​​，向總統提交一份去全面公佈與約翰·肯尼迪總統遇刺事件有關的記錄的全面實施計劃」。

羅拔甘迺迪 和 馬丁·路德·金 文件檔案的時間進程表是在 45 天之內。

根據美國有線電視新聞網 (CNN) 報道，2023 年，美國國家檔案館結束了對 1963 年甘迺迪遇刺事件相關機密文件的審查，已把其中 99% 的記錄公開。

總統拜登隨後發布了一份備忘錄，證明檔案管理員已經完成審查，並確認餘下獲準解密的文件已向公眾發佈 - 符合先前設定的時限。

儘管包括特朗普在內的多位總統先前承諾公佈這些記錄，但中情局、五角大廈和國務院仍持有拒絕公佈的文件。這些文件仍保持機密狀態的理由很大程度上是為了保護仍然活著, 或可能還活著的機密消息來源的身份，和保護方法。

特朗普擔任總統時，曾應國家安全機構的要求同意不公佈與甘迺迪遇刺案有關的全部紀錄。但在2024年競選時他表示將公佈剩餘的文件。

So, Trump has signed an executive order to release files related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Despite previous pledges from presidents, including Trump, to release those records, the CIA, Pentagon and State Department still have documents they’ve refused to release in an effort to protect the identities of confidential sources who are still alive, or might be alive, and protecting methods. I am wondering whether the new information will attraction attention of historians.

觀點：愚弄希特勒的人 (2/2)

Recently CNN News on-line reported the following:

Opinion: The man who fooled Hitler (2/2)

CNN - Opinion by Tim Naftali

 9 minute read

Updated 11:30 AM EDT, Sun June 16, 2024

(Editor’s Note: Tim Naftali is a CNN presidential historian and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion on CNN. The CNN Original Series “Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game” airs on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.)

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Decades ago, as I was researching what ultimately became my dissertation, I had the good fortune to meet some of the surviving British MI-5 officers who were in charge of these Double-Cross agents.  These were inventive, disciplined intelligence officers whose talent was not only managing the agents captured in England, but also brilliantly imitating the way they reported to their Nazi case officers and figuring out how to weave reality and falsehood into messages that would be plausible to the ultimate intelligence consumer in Berlin.

I also met the man who came up with the D-Day deception, Roger Fleetwood Hesketh, who was a trained architect. He told me that for the D-Day deception, codenamed Fortitude South, he had drawn on different talents. He had grown up with one sibling on a big estate (where he still lived when I visited him in the 1980s) near Liverpool. He and his sister compensated for not having many friends their own age nearby by creating a fantasy world of playmates. A sandbox conspiracy, if you will, that seemed very real to them but, of course, only existed in their own minds.

Besides being creative, one of the keys to the brilliant counterespionage campaigns in World War II was the codebreaking that allowed the Allies to assess whether their efforts were working, and double down once it became clear the Nazis were taking the bait. Not only could the US read what the Japanese were saying about how Hitler viewed the progress of the war in Europe, but US and British codebreakers could also read what German intelligence officers were saying amongst themselves about the trustworthiness of its agents in the UK — part of Ultra, the UK-led intelligence project against all high-level Nazi military communications. Codebreakers at the British facility Bletchley Park, chief among whom was the computing and LGBTQ pioneer Alan Turing, routinely broke the codes and ciphers that the Germans unsuccessfully used to disguise their most important messages. From Ultra, allied counterspies learned that German intelligence trusted double agents’ disinformation campaign about the invasion of France.

While much of the counterespionage during WWII remained a secret to the public for nearly 30 years after June 6, 1944, these tactics were well known among intelligence officers and widely used during the Cold War. The Soviets learned about the Double-Cross network from two well-placed spies of their own — moles Anthony Blunt in MI5 and Kim Philby in MI6’s counterespionage service, Section V or XB.

The D-Day achievement would set a very high-bar for those who learned the craft of counterespionage in fighting Hitler. What they couldn’t possibly have known in 1944 was that they were living through a golden age in counterespionage and strategic deception. As depicted dramatically in CNN’s new original series “Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game,” the Cold War would provide a more evenly matched, and, therefore, more difficult environment for the spy v. spy game.

Evaluating human intelligence is always messy and challenging. If you are a case officer — the manager of a particular agent — it can be incredibly difficult to know whether he or she is telling the truth. In other words, when dealing with double agents, being certain about their ultimate loyalty is a virtual impossibility.

With one major exception, neither the Western powers nor the Soviets had a reliable window into what their adversaries’ spies were up to for most of the decades-long conflict between the US and USSR.

Finding traitors during the Cold War got harder, and intelligence services became more susceptible to futile “mole” hunts and the paranoia that those naturally inspired. It also permitted the moles that did exist to secretly influence how the adversaries understood each other. Sometimes, as in the case of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer working for the British, it worked to the benefit of world peace and stability as Gordievsky gave timely warning to London and Washington of the Kremlin’s nuclear paranoia.

Sometimes, however, the insufficiency of counterespionage made the world a more dangerous place. For 20 years, starting in 1979, the top US counterespionage officer working on the Soviet target in America, the FBI’s Robert Hanssen, was himself a Soviet agent. As was the CIA’s counterintelligence officer who managed security for its agents in the Soviet Union, Aldrich Ames.

The crisis in US counterespionage against the USSR in the 1980s — largely due to the simultaneous activities of Hanssen and Ames — hampered efforts in the West to monitor and understand fully the Soviet Union as it underwent a massive period of reform and, ultimately, collapse. Fortunately, Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985, did much of his most significant work overtly — trying to signal that he was a different kind of leader to the West as much as to his own people.

Now, 80 years after D-Day and 35 years after the end of the Cold War, fake identities and disinformation are no longer relegated to the concerns of counterespionage agents. They are part of our daily online feeds. In a sense, each of us has become our own counter-deception officer, trying to distinguish misinformation from what’s real. A strategy once perfected to save lives and defeat arguably the worst dictator the world has ever known has become commonplace online — and eroded our trust in institutions and each other.

Translation

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幾十年前，當我的研究最終成為我的論文時，我有幸見到了一些倖存的英國軍情五處官員，他們是負責這些「欺騙網路」的特工。 這些都是富有創造力、紀律嚴明的情報官員，他們的才能不僅在於管理在英國被抓獲的特工，還出色地模仿他們向納粹個案負責官員報告的方式，並弄清楚如何將現實與虛假編織成資訊, 令在柏林的資訊使用者相信。

我還遇到了諾曼第登陸騙局的發明者 Roger Fleetwood Hesketh，他是一位訓練有素的建築師。他告訴我，在代號為「堅韌南方」的諾曼地登陸欺騙行動中，他動用了不同的人才。他和一個姐妹在利物浦附近的一處大莊園長大（當我在 20 世紀 80 年代拜訪他時，他仍然住在那裡）。在那裡他和他的姊妹透過創造一個幻想的玩伴世界來彌補附近沒有太多同齡朋友的問題。以某一種方式表達來說，一個用沙堆砌出的陰謀對納粹官員來說似乎非常真實，但當然，這只存在於納粹官員自己的想像中。

除了創造性之外，第二次世界大戰中出色的反間諜活動的關鍵之一是密碼破譯，使盟軍能夠評估他們的努力是否有效，並在發現納粹上釣後加倍努力。美國不僅可以讀懂日本人對希特勒如何看待歐洲戰爭進展的言論，而且美國和英國的密碼破譯者也可以讀懂德國情報官員, 關於其駐英國特工可信度的言論 - 這是Ultra的一部分, 是英國領導的針對所有納粹高層軍事通訊的情報項目。英國 Bletchley Park 設施的密碼破譯者（其中主要人物是電腦和 LGBTQ 的先驅者 Alan Turing）經常破解德國人用來掩飾其最重要訊息但未能成功的代碼和密碼。盟軍反間諜從 Ultra 了解到，德國情報部門信任雙重間諜關於入侵法國的假訊息活動。

雖然二戰期間的大部分反間諜活動在 1944 年 6 月 6 日之後的接近 30 年內一直對公眾保密，但這些策略在情報官員中眾所周知，並在冷戰期間廣泛使用。蘇聯人從他們自己的兩名精心佈置的間諜那裡了得知到這雙重間諜網絡的存在 - 即軍情五處的蘇聯潛伏內奸 Anthony Blunt 和軍情六處反間諜部門第五, 或稱為 XB 部門的潛伏內奸 Kim Philby。

諾曼地登陸的成果, 將為那些在對抗希特勒的過程中學會反間諜技巧的人, 設定一個非常高的標準。 在1944 年他們不可能知道自己正處於反間諜和戰略欺騙的黃金時代。正如美國有線電視新聞網 (CNN) 的新原創劇集《秘密與間諜：一場核競賽》中戲劇性地描述的那樣，冷戰將為間諜對疊間諜的競賽提供一個更加勢均力敵、因此更加有挑戦的環境。

去評估人類智力總是混亂且具挑戰性的。如果您是一件個案的官員, 即某一個特工的經理人，要知道他或她是否說真話可能會非常困難的。換句話說，在與雙重間諜打交道時，去確定他們的最終忠誠實際上是不可能的。

除了一個重大例外，西方列強和蘇聯都沒有一個可靠的窗口來了解對方間諜在美蘇之間長達數十年的衝突的大部分時間裡所做的事情。

冷戰期間尋找叛徒變得更加困難，情報部門更容易面對面對徒勞的追捕「內奸」行動及那些自然地會引發出的偏執。它還令確實存在的內奸 去秘密地影響對手如何相互理解。有時，就像為英國工作的 KGB 官員 Oleg Gordievsky 的個案，Gordievsky 及時就克里姆林宮的核偏執向倫敦和華盛頓發出警告而有利於世界和平與穩定。

然而，有時，不足夠的反間諜活動使世界變得更加危險。從 1979 年開始的 20 年來，美國聯邦調查局 (FBI)負責監視蘇聯在美國目標的最高級反間諜官員 Robert Hanssen 一直是一名蘇聯間諜。負責管理美國駐蘇聯特工安全的中央情報局反間諜官員 Aldrich Ames 也是。

20 世紀 80 年代美國針對蘇聯的反間諜工作所面對的危機 - 主要是由於 Hanssen 和 Ames 的同時活動 - 阻礙了西方在蘇聯經歷大規模改革並最終崩潰時, 對其進行監測和全面了解的努力。幸運的是，1985 年上台的 Mikhail Gorbachev 公開地去完成了他最重要的工作 - 試圖向西方和他自己的人民表明，他是一位不同類型的領導人。

如今，諾曼地登陸已過去 80 年，冷戰結束已過去 35 年，虛假身分和假訊息不再是反間諜特工的焦點。它們是我們每日線上資訊的一部分。從某種意義上說，我們每個人都成為了自己的反欺騙官員，試圖去區分失實訊息和真實訊息。曾經為了拯救生命和擊敗可以說是世界上最壞的獨裁者而完善出來的策略, 現在在網上變得司空見慣，並侵蝕了我們對機構和彼此的信任。

So, according to the author, as we remember and celebrate the heroism of the Allied troops on D-Day 80 years ago, it is worth mentioning that even more Allied soldiers would likely have died had it not been for a group of spies working on behalf of the Allies to deceive Hitler. A key objective of the deception was to convince Hitler to keep the 15th Army and tank divisions in reserve, away from the Normandy beaches for as long as possible, so as to give Allied soldiers a fighting chance to secure a beachhead. This is an interesting espionage project that happened in WWII.

觀點：愚弄希特勒的人 (1/2)

Recently CNN news on-line reported the following:

Opinion: The man who fooled Hitler (1/2)

CNN - Opinion by Tim Naftali

 9-minute read

Updated 11:30 AM EDT, Sun June 16, 2024

(Editor’s Note: Tim Naftali is a CNN presidential historian and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion on CNN. The CNN Original Series “Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game” airs on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.)

As we remember and celebrate the heroism of the Allied troops on D-Day 80 years ago, it is worth mentioning that even more of them would likely have died had it not been for a group of spies working on behalf of the Allies.

The odds of D-Day succeeding were never overwhelming. Approximately 50,000 Nazi soldiers defended the five beaches targeted by Allied troops on D-Day. Although eventually 160,000 Allied troops would enter France through those five beachheads that day, the very first to reach the shore were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. But getting past those first Nazi defenders, protected by bunkers and other fortifications of the so-called Atlantic Wall, was only the first challenge.

The second was what would happen once the Germans figured out that the Battle for France had begun. Hitler’s 15th Army was stationed in the Pas des Calais — where the English Channel is at its most narrow — while tank divisions were kept in reserve in northern France and Belgium, all ready to swoop in and destroy any Allied forces that breached the Atlantic Wall. To increase their chance of success, Allied leaders turned to inhabitants of the secret world.

These were unusual spies. First of all, their main job was to get false information to Adolf Hitler — rather than to steal Nazi secrets. And, secondly, some of these spies didn’t actually exist — they were completely made-up creations of British intelligence. A half-century before the internet was widely available, they were the forerunners of fake Facebook and Instagram accounts.

These spies were known to British and US intelligence as the Double-Cross network. They were agents employed by the Nazis, who either turned themselves in to the British or were captured by them in the first years of World War II.

Counterespionage is the most arcane of the dark arts. In its simplest form, it is the way a government protects its secrets by studying the activities of foreign governments who want them. But World War II would see a dramatic expansion of the offensive use of counterspies — not simply to prevent the enemy from knowing things but to actively deceive the enemy by planting disinformation. And although strategic deception, as it was called, would be used a number of times in World War II, the most dramatic and consequential example was part of the planning for D-Day.

The British used members of the Double-Cross network who were doubled back against Berlin to deceive Hitler’s military intelligence service, using radio transmissions from the UK or letters sent from neutral capitals about when and where the Allies planned to launch their anticipated invasion of occupied France.

Central to this deception operation was Juan Pujol García, a Spanish national who was codenamed Garbo, after the great actress Greta Garbo. As it became clear that the Germans not only believed Garbo, but considered him unusually effective, the British began to create fictional sub-agents for him. With the help of his British handler, Garbo would feed disinformation about these completely made-up agents who were supposedly placed in the British government and US bases in the United Kingdom. The British coordinated with the US military and its Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and they bolstered the disinformation Garbo was feeding to Berlin. This included transmitting radio signals from non-existent US military units in Britain and creating “ghost armies” — complete with inflatable tanks, fake radio traffic and sound effects — to deceive German air reconnaissance and divert their attention away from the activities of real units.

Starting in January 1944, Garbo and his “agents” began to build a fake picture in German minds of a D-Day that would occur in July 1944 in the Pas de Calais. According to the fake intelligence created and spread by the Double-Cross network, the big invasion would be preceded by one or more feints — smaller invasions designed to distract the Germans. To make this two-punch scenario plausible, Allied deception officers worked to make the Germans think that there was a massive buildup of Allied troops in the UK preparing to pounce on the Third Reich, including a completely fake “ghost army” commanded by the real General George Patton from across the Pas de Calais.

A key objective of this deception was to convince Hitler to keep the 15th Army and tank divisions in reserve, away from the Normandy beaches for as long as possible, so as to give Allied soldiers a fighting chance to secure a beachhead. Led by Garbo, the Double-Cross network sang in chorus.

As the real D-Day approached, the Allies could tell that the deception was working. Hitler was uncharacteristically talkative with the Japanese ambassador to Berlin, whose encrypted dispatches to Tokyo were routinely broken and translated by US intelligence. Hitler told the Japanese that the allies intended two attacks across the English Channel in the summer of 1944 and he wasn’t about the be fooled by the first one.

Remarkably, as hoped, the deception held. The Nazis did not divert all of their resources to Normandy, since their military intelligence continued to believe that the big one was still imminent. As late as July 8, 1944, a month after D-Day, Hitler still believed that Normandy was a feint. As such, he refused requests from his generals to throw everything at it. “The enemy has succeeded in landing in Normandy,” Hitler wrote to his commanders. “In spite of the attendant risks, the enemy will probably attempt a second landing in the 15th Army’s sector…”

(to be continued)

Translation

當我們懷緬和慶祝80年前諾曼第登陸日盟軍的英勇行為時，值得一提的是，如果沒有一群代表盟軍的間諜，可能會有更多的人喪生。

諾曼地登陸成功的可能性從來都不是壓倒性的。大約 5 萬名納粹士兵保衛了諾曼第登陸日盟軍瞄準的五個海灘。儘管那天最終有 16 萬名盟軍通過這五個灘頭陣地進入法國，但最先到達海岸的部隊在數量和火力上都遠遠落後敵方。但去越過第一批受到掩護體和所謂大西洋牆其他防禦工事保護的納粹防禦者, 只是盟軍第一個挑戰。

第二個問題是，一旦德國人發現法國之戰已經開始，會發生什麼事。希特勒的第 15 集團軍駐紮在加來海峽 - 英倫海峽最狹窄的地方 - 而坦克師則保留在法國北部和比利時作預備隊，隨時準備突襲並摧毀任何突破大西洋壁壘的盟軍部隊。為了增加成功的機會，盟軍領導人轉向活在機密世界的人。

這些都是不尋常的間諜。首先，他們的主要工作是向希特勒提供虛假信息，而不是竊取納粹機密。其次，其中一些間諜其實並不存在 - 他們完全是英國情報部門捏造出來的。在未有網路廣泛普及的半個世紀前，它們是虛假 Facebook 和 Instagram 帳戶的先驅。

這些間諜被英國和美國情報部門稱為「欺騙網路」。他們曾是納粹僱用的特工，他們要么已向英國自首，要么在二戰初期已被英國俘虜。

反間諜活動是黑暗藝術中最神祕的一環。最簡單的形式是，政府透過研究那些希望獲得機密的外國政府的活動, 來保護自身機密。但在第二次世界大戰中，反間諜的進攻性使用急劇擴大 - 不僅僅是為了阻止敵人了解情況，而是透過散佈假訊息來積極欺騙敵人。儘管所謂的戰略性欺騙在第二次世界大戰中被多次使用，但最戲劇性和最重要的例子是諾曼第登陸計畫的一部分。

英國利用 欺騙網路 的成員來欺騙希特勒的軍事情報部門，成員利用來自英國的無線電傳輸或從中立首都發送的信件來透露出盟軍計劃何時何地對被佔領的法國發動預期的入侵。

這次欺騙行動的核心人物是西班牙人 Juan Pujol García，他的代號是“嘉寶”（Garbo），以出眾女演員 Greta Garbo 的名字命名。隨著德國人不僅相信嘉寶，而且認為他異常高效，英國人開始為他虛構一些副特工。在英國負責人的幫助下，嘉寶將提供有關一些完全虛構的特工的虛假信息，訛稱這些特工被安置在英國政府和美國駐英國基地。英國與美國軍方及其戰略服務辦公室（OSS）一起協調，支援嘉寶向柏林提供的假資訊。這包括從英國境內不存在的美軍部隊發射無線電信號，並創建「幽靈軍隊」 - 配備充氣坦克、虛假無線電通訊和聲音效果 - 以欺騙德國空中偵察，並將他們的注意力遠離真實部隊的活動。

從 1944 年 1 月開始，嘉寶和他的「特工」開始在德國人的腦海中塑造一幅 1944 年 7 月在加萊海峽發生的諾曼第登陸的虛假畫面。由「欺騙網路」製造和傳播的虛假情報顯示，大規模入侵之前會進行一次或多次佯攻 - 旨在分散德國人注意力的較小規模入侵。為了讓這種前後拳的場景變得可信，盟軍的欺騙官員努力讓德國人相信，在英國有大量盟軍集結，準備突襲第三帝國，其中包括一支完全假的 「幽靈軍隊」” ，由真有其人的巴頓將軍向加萊海峽 (Pas de Calais) 作出指揮。

這次欺騙的一個主要目的是說服希特勒將第15集團軍和坦克師保留為預備隊，盡可能長時間地遠離諾曼第海灘，以便為盟軍士兵提供奪取灘頭陣地的戰鬥機會。在嘉寶的帶領下，「欺騙網路」重複多次虛假情報。

隨著真正的諾曼地登陸日的臨近，盟軍發現欺騙正在發揮作用。希特勒與日本駐柏林大使一反常態地健談，日本駐柏林大使發往東京的加密電報常被美國情報部門破解翻譯。希特勒告訴日本人，盟軍打算在 1944 年夏天渡過英吉利海峽發動兩輪襲擊，他不想被第一輪襲擊所愚弄。

令人驚訝的是，正如所期望的那樣，欺騙成功了。納粹並沒有將所有資源轉移到諾曼底，因為他們的軍事情報部門仍然認為大攻勢仍未來臨。直到 1944 年 7 月 8 日，諾曼第登陸一個月後，希特勒仍然認為諾曼第是佯攻。因此，他拒絕了將軍們把一切力量都調動出去的要求。 希特勒在給他的指揮官的信中寫道: 「敵人已經成功登陸諾曼底」; 「儘管有隨之而來的風險，敵人多半會嘗試在第 15 集團軍的防區進行第二次登陸…”

（待續） 

不友善：對 COVID-19 起源的探索如何變得政治上非常不愉快(3/3)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous (3/3)

Associated Press - DAKE KANG and MARIA CHENG

Updated Mon, April 22, 2024 at 6:09 a.m. PDT·14 min read

(continue)

As criticism of China grew, the Chinese government deflected blame. Instead of firing health officials, they declared their virus response a success and closed investigations into the officials with few job losses.

“There were no real reforms, because doing reforms means admitting fault,” said a public health expert in contact with Chinese health officials who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

In late February 2020, the internationally respected doctor Zhong Nanshan appeared at a news conference and said that “the epidemic first appeared in China, but it did not necessarily originate in China.”

Days later, Chinese leader Xi ordered new controls on virus research. A leaked directive from China’s Publicity Department ordered media not to report on the virus origins without permission, and a public WeChat account reposted an essay claiming the U.S. military created COVID-19 at a Fort Detrick lab and spread it to China during a 2019 athletic competition in Wuhan. Days later, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson repeated the accusation.

The false claims enraged U.S. President Donald Trump, who began publicly blaming China for the outbreak, calling COVID-19 “the China virus” and the “kung-flu.”

Chinese officials told WHO that blood tests on lab workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were negative, suggesting they hadn’t been previously infected with bat coronaviruses. But when WHO pressed for an independent audit, Chinese officials balked and demanded WHO investigate the U.S. and other countries as well.

By blaming the U.S., Beijing diverted blame. It was effective in China, where many Chinese were upset by racially charged criticism. But outside China, it fueled speculation of a lab leak coverup.

By the time WHO led another visit to Wuhan in January 2021, a year into the pandemic, the atmosphere was toxic.

Liang, the Chinese health official in charge of two earlier WHO visits, continued to promote the questionable theory that the virus was shipped into China on frozen food. He suppressed information suggesting it could have come from animals at the Wuhan market, organizing market workers to tell WHO experts no live wildlife was sold and cutting recent photos of wildlife at the market from the final report. There was heavy political scrutiny, with numerous Chinese officials who weren’t scientists or health officers present at meetings.

Despite a lack of direct access, the WHO team concluded that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.” So it came as an infuriating surprise to Chinese officials when, months later, WHO chief Tedros said that it was “premature” to rule out the lab leak theory, saying such lab accidents were “common,” and pressed China to be more transparent.

China told WHO any future missions to find COVID-19 origins should be elsewhere, according to a letter obtained by AP. Since then, global cooperation on the issue has ground to a halt; an independent group convened by WHO to investigate the origins of COVID-19 in 2021 has been stymied by the lack of cooperation from China and other issues.

Chinese scientists are still under heavy pressure, according to 10 researchers and health officials. Researchers who published papers on the coronavirus ran into trouble with Chinese authorities. Others were barred from travel abroad for conferences and WHO meetings. Gao, the then-director of the China CDC, was investigated after U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a review of COVID-19 data, and again after giving interviews on the virus origins.

New evidence is treated with suspicion. In March 2023, scientists announced that genetic material collected from the market showed raccoon dog DNA mixed with COVID-19 in early 2020, data that WHO said should have been publicly shared years before. The findings were posted, then removed by Chinese researchers with little explanation.

The head of the China CDC Institute of Viral Disease was forced to retire over the release of the market data, according to a former China CDC official who declined to be named to speak on a sensitive topic.

“It has to do with the origins, so they’re still worried,” the former official said. “If you try and get to the bottom of it, what if it turns out to be from China?”

Other scientists note that any animal from which the virus may have originally jumped has long since disappeared.

“There was a chance for China to cooperate with WHO and do some animal sampling studies that might have answered the question,” said Tulane University’s Garry. “The trail to find the source has now gone cold.”

___

Cheng reported from Geneva.

Translation

（繼續）

隨著對中國的批評越來越多，中國政府轉移責任。 他們沒有解僱衛生官員，而是宣布他們的病毒應對措施取得了成功，並結束了對官員的調查，只作出少量解僱。

一位與中國衛生官員有接觸的公共衛生專家表示：「真正的改革沒有發生，因為改革意味著承認錯誤」。由於此事敏感性，專家要求匿名。

2020年2月下旬，國際知名醫生鐘南山出現在記者會上表示，「疫情首先出現在中國，但不一定起源於中國」。

幾天後，中國領導人習近平下令對病毒研究實施新的控制。 中國宣傳部的一份被洩漏被出來指令, 要求媒體未經許可不得報道病毒起源，一個微信公眾號轉發了一篇文章，聲稱美國軍方在 Fort Detrick 實驗室製造了COVID-19，並在2019 年體育比賽期間將其傳播到中國在武漢。 幾天後，中國外交部發言人重申了這項指控。

這些虛假說法激怒了美國總統特朗普，他開始公開指責中國應對疫情爆發負責，稱 COVID-19 為「中國病毒」和「功夫流感」。

中國官員告訴世衛組織，武漢病毒研究所實驗室工作人員的血液檢測呈陰性，顯示他們之前沒有感染過蝙蝠冠狀病毒。 但當世衛組織要求進行獨立審查時，中國官員猶豫不決，並要求世衛組織也對美國和其他國家進行調查。

北京透過指責美國來轉移責任。 這在中國很有效，許多中國人對帶種族歧視的批評感到不安。 但在中國以外，這引發了人們對實驗室洩漏事件被掩蓋的猜測。

2021 年 1 月，即疫情爆發一年後，當世衛組織再次訪問武漢時，那裡的氣紛已經非常不愉快。

負責世衛組織早些時候兩次訪問的姓 Liang 的中國衛生官員繼續宣揚病毒是透過冷凍食品運入中國的不確定理論。 他壓制了有關病毒可能來自武漢市場上的動物的信息，組織市場工作人員告訴世衛組織專家，說沒有出售活體野生動物，並從最終報告中刪除了市場上野生動物的最新照片。 會議受到嚴格的政治審查，許多出席了會議的中國官員都不是科學家或衛生官員。

儘管缺乏直接接觸，世衛組織團隊得出的結論是，實驗室洩漏「極不可能」。 因此，幾個月後，當世界衛生組織總幹事譚德塞表示，現在排除實驗室洩漏理論還 “為時過早” ，稱此類實驗室事故 “很常見” ，並敦促中國提高透明度，這令中國官員感到非常氣憤驚訝。

據美聯社取得的一封信稱，中國告訴世界衛生組織，未來任何尋找 COVID-19 起源的任務都應該在其他地方。 自此之後，全球在這議題上的合作陷入停滯。 世衛組織召集的調查 2021 年 COVID-19 起源的獨立小組，由於缺乏中國的合作和其他問題而受阻。

十名研究人員和衛生官員表示，中國科學家仍面臨巨大壓力。 發表有關冠狀病毒論文的研究人員遇到了中國當局的麻煩。 其他人則被禁止出國參加會議及世衛組織的會議。 在美國總統拜登下令審查 COVID-19 數據後，時任中國疾管中心主任的 Gao 先生受到調查, 他在接受有關病毒起源的採訪後又再次被調查。

新證據受到懷疑。 2023 年 3 月，科學家宣布在 2020 年初從市場收集的遺傳材料顯示貉 DNA與 COVID-19 混合，世衛組織表示這些數據早在幾年前就應該公開分享。 這研究結果被發布，然後被中國研究人員刪除，幾乎沒有任何解釋。

一位不願透露姓名的中國疾病預防控制中心前官員表示，中國疾病預防控制中心病毒病研究所所長因市場數據的發布而被迫退休。

這位前官員說: 「這與起源有關，所以他們仍然擔心」。 「如果你試圖查個水落石出，萬一它是來自中國的話怎麼辦？」

其他科學家指出，任何最初可能傳播病毒的動物早已消失。

杜蘭大學的 Garry說： “中國有機會與世界衛生組織合作，進行一些動物採樣研究，這可能會回答這個問題”; “尋找源頭的路徑現在已經變冷清了。”

So, this report suggests that the hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China. Political infighting has stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus. This report is written by western journalists drawing on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents and interviews. I hope non-government experts in China can also do a similar report based on their data and from their perspective. This report shows that in China there are three groups of people involved: the CCP party officials, the scientists, and the health officials.

This report also suggests that the matter could have played out differently, as shown by the outbreak of SARS, a genetic relative of COVID-19 happened nearly 20 years ago. At that time China initially tried to hide infections, but WHO complained swiftly and publicly. Ultimately, Beijing fired officials and carried out reforms.