As best as I can make out, 'West Ford' was a young slave of George Washington's family, who (after becoming a freedman) lived up unto the years of the Civil War. Some even allege that he was sired by Washington; they share remarkably similar faces.
Why this particular name was chosen as a code-name for the odd and menacing arms-race technology (cited below), I can't imagine.
Just look at this nonsense.
Apparently --at one point in time --the Pentagon hired MIT to fill the earth's atmosphere with millions (billions?) of tiny, highly-conductive, metal needles.
By this means they hoped to increase the capacity of the ionosphere to reflect military radio beams.
It's just this kind of tomfoolery which makes John LeCarre so stupendous.
Why this particular name was chosen as a code-name for the odd and menacing arms-race technology (cited below), I can't imagine.
Just look at this nonsense.
Apparently --at one point in time --the Pentagon hired MIT to fill the earth's atmosphere with millions (billions?) of tiny, highly-conductive, metal needles.
By this means they hoped to increase the capacity of the ionosphere to reflect military radio beams.
It's just this kind of tomfoolery which makes John LeCarre so stupendous.