THE BELTWAY BOG

Reflection, Rumination & Rhetoric from the Road

Once in a while I need to check in with the usual suspects to find out what’s really going on.  That means a pilgrimage to The Swamp—a place I referred to in espionage novels (long before Donald Trump’s nickname for DC) as “The Beltway Bog."

Everyone knows our nation’s capital was built (by founding-father Freemasons) on a swamp. But few know why the Potomac River is so brown and polluted these days. 

Here’s the reason: Poultry farmers north of DC in Maryland are allowed to dump as much fowl waste in the river (heading downstream) as they need. (Thank their powerful lobbyists for this.)

So: If you always wanted to know why Washington, D.C. is a chicken-shit town, now you do.

I've been staying at The Georgetown Inn for over 45 years. I first learned of its existence while a student at American University in 1975 when a prominent photographer for Playboy (Sam Wu, I think) was reported to be luring coeds to his Georgetown Inn suite and photographing them for that magazine's “Campus Issue.”

It wasn't until four years later I had enough bread to stay there myself.  And I've been returning ever since to this colonial landmark in the heart of historic Georgetown.

Room with a View

During the late 1990s I rused Cuban “diplomats” (intelligence officers) for FBI Counterintelligence inside The Daily Grill (the Inn’s former restaurant).

On another occasion, in this same bar, as part of a well-planned operation, I disrupted a Russian SVR agent from gaining the secrets of a rogue Western intelligence officer.

Later, in the mid-2000s, this inn became the de facto Washington station of the Monaco Intelligence Service, which I created for Prince Albert II of Monaco.

1789 (the bar): Some folks just don’t like saying cheese

The Georgetown Inn is also where I first met legendary CIA spymaster Clair George, and got initiated by him into the wilderness of smoke and mirrors—or as CIA legend John MacGaffin prefers to call it, "smoke and urinals.”