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To RSVP and receive a Zoom link, please email Fay Iudicello at [email protected] by Thursday, April. 14. Those who RSVP should expect to receive the invitation at 9 a.m. on April 16. "Code Girls" chronicles the collective stories of the thousands of American women who served as codebreakers for the U.S. Army and Navy during World War II. Working in code-breaking centers in Washington and Arlington from 1942 to 1945, they cracked a crucial Japanese code that give the U.S. military an advantage in the Battle of Midway and changed the course of the war in the Pacific. Books & Brunch…
Books & Brunch to discuss "Code Girls" at April 16 virtual meeting
Books & Brunch will discuss "Code Girls" by journalist and New York Times best-selling author Liza Mundy at noon on Saturday, April 16, via Zoom.
Type: News
Communicators team to discuss combating global disinformation with defense and diplomacy officials on April 14
The National Press Club's Communicators Team will host a virtual “Candid Conversation on Combating Global Disinformation” at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 14. Disinformation has infiltrated nearly every aspect of society. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown that this problem reaches the highest geopolitical, military and diplomatic levels. Speakers from the Department of Defense, State Department and National Security Agency will discuss how they are navigating increasingly complex and muddied information environments. This program is free and only open to Club members. Members should …
Type: News
Powers, who was 12 when his father died in a helicopter crash in California, began looking into the U-2 incident while a philosophy student at California State University. There were rumors at the time that his father may have defected to the Soviets because he did not self-destruct his spy plane or use CIA-supplied poison to kill himself. While generally pleased with the 2015 movie "Bridge of Spies" on which he served as a consultant, Powers said one inaccuracy was perpetuating the suicide myth: U-2 pilots were not expected to kill themselves to avoid capture, but could commit suicide to…
The senior Powers was an Air Force fighter pilot when recruited by the CIA for top secret high-altitude spy flights over the Soviet Union and other hostile countries in the years before sophisticated spy satellites. He flew 27 missions over four years before a Soviet missile crippled his plane at 7,500 feet deep inside Russian territory. He was unable to reach a self-destruct button while struggling to bail out of the tumbling aircraft, Powers said. His father misled harsh KGB interrogators about the U-2's capacities before receiving a 10-year prison sentence. He was freed in a prisoner…
Son of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers recounts dad's saga
The rumors surrounding U-2 spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers' mission and capture in the Soviet Union 60 years ago were the "fake news of the time," Powers' son Francis Gary Powers Jr. told a gathering of the National Press Club American Legion Post 20 on April 11. The younger Powers, born five years after his father's shoot-down at the height of the Cold War, told a packed room of Post members and guests that his 30-year quest to dispel doubts about his father's actions "goes to show that it's never too late to set the record straight. His reputation is now intact." He said his father's…
Type: News
"I wanted to capture and share the internal and external challenges Sri Lanka was facing,” Abeyagoonasekera told a virtual audience April 6 at a Headliners Member-Author event. The book reveals domestic political disputes, terrorist attacks and national security challenges faced by Sri Lanka. It delves into security problems that have plagued the country, from dealing with Islamist extremists to “challenges in the aerial, maritime and cyber domains,” Abeyagoonasekera said. The priority for Sri Lanka is national security both at home and in negotiations with foreign powers, he said. Sri Lanka…
Amid deteriorating economic conditions, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has refused to step down despite widespread protests and mass resignations from lawmakers, according to the BBC, instead first choosing to impose a curfew, “a draconian emergency law and a ban on social media” but he backed down when protests continued. His next move was to fire everyone in his cabinet except Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is his brother. “This is an Arab Spring moment to defeat authoritarianism, corruption, and poverty,” Abeyagoonasekera said. He said he hoped the country would move away from ultra-…
National Press Club member-author writes about Sri Lanka’s struggles in new book
National Press Club member Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, author of "Conundrum of an Island: Sri Lanka’s Geopolitical Challenges," said he was motivated to write the book after “having first-hand witnessed the almost three-decade civil war, a youth insurrection and narrowly escaping the terror attack on Easter Sunday," that struck three churches and three luxury hotels in 2019.
Type: News