of Langley, 2001), the KGB (Sword and Shield, 1986), U.S. reconnaissance and early warning systems, and the long view of espionage (A Century of Spies, 1995), among 13 or so other volumes.

Frequent and patient FOIA requester, Dr. Richelson never counseled confrontation with the bureaucracy and never engaged in litigation, sometimes to a fault. His technique was that of obsessive mining of the public record, especially the defense and intelligence contractor trade press, arcane military bibliographies, and the Congressional hearing record, leading to targeted FOIA and declassification requests, accompanied by academic (not “gotcha”) interviews and participation in industry conferences. The net result was the liberation of tens of thousands of classified records that without his efforts would still be hidden in the vaults today. An additional result was thatsite, experienced one of its biggest user spikes ever.

Dr. Richelson was also the researcher who forced the government to acknowledge the Acoustic Kitty project, in which the CIA surgically wired cats as surveillance tools, aimed at Soviet diplomats in Lafayette Square in Washington D.C., only to have a taxi splat the first test cat. A medical success, Richelson concluded, but an operational disaster.

Jeff also obtained through FOIA the first public acknowledgement (declassified in 2005) – later confirmed in spades by the Snowden leaks – that the National Security Agency was systematically intercepting the 4th Amendment-protected communications of Americans as it scooped up foreigners’ phone calls and Internet messages after 2001.

A competitive tennis player, passionate softball first baseman, and profound New York Yankees fan – Jeff also contributed significantly