(Photo: AP)
U.S. News is reporting that the driver's license of Paula Broadwell, David Patraeus' mistress, was recently discovered in Washington D.C.'s Rock Creek Park. A Maryland National Capital Park Police spokesman apparently confirmed that it was seen by a jogger, and while they had planned to hold it for roughly 3 months, after Broadwell's name became national news they alerted the FBI.
Broadwell's attorney Robert F. Muse confirmed that Broadwell lost her ID, but did not comment on Broadwell's current whereabouts or what form of transportation she has been using. Broadwell is known as an avid jogger, though, and has even discussed how she got to know General Petraeus on their long runs together.
Aldrich Ames (Photo: FBI)
But here's the interesting part-- Rock Creek Park has quite a history in world affairs, particularly in the field of espionage.
At least two of the most notorious double-agents in American history have used the park to submit coded messages to the Soviets: Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen.
After he was caught leaving coded messages in his garbage, 31-year CIA veteran Aldrich Ames used the park as a dead-drop site to leave his final message to the Soviets, the Seattle Times relates.
A 2001 Baltimore Sun article says Hanssen, who spied for the Soviets and the Russians for 20 years before being arrested in 2001, left messages underneath a footbridge at the park.
An affidavit from Hansen's case has more:
On Monday, February 18, 1991, the KGB loaded the "CHARLIE" dead drop site with a package containing $10,000 cash and a KGB diskette. The diskette established two new dead drop sites, one of which was codenamed "GRACE" and located under a footbridge in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. It also asked "B" to provide specific classified technical and operational information, and instructed that the next contact would be at the "DORIS" dead drop site. [Emphasis added]
More frighteningly, the remains of the young intern Chandra Levy were discovered in the park in 2002, and though he was never an official suspect, then-U.S. Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.) was under harsh scrutiny by the media for years due to his suspected affair with the girl.
None of this is to say that Broadwell was up to no good (although her affair was considered a possible security risk and classified documents were found on her computer). However, it does add an interesting chapter to the small Washington, D.C. park that has played such a prominent role in world affairs (pun intended).
--
Related:
