>Do not make them feel uncomfortable, instead protect them from harm.
"To atone for your insensitive transgressions, get on your knees in front of these women, apologize and comfort them to their satisfaction.
Afterwards, say nothing as they beat the ever-living shit out of you on the woman's sport team of their choice."
"The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Onto the Hot Florida Sands"
By Robert Pear
Aug. 13, 2004
Porter J. Goss and a band of brothers, secret agents in cold-war Europe, settled here in retirement three decades ago and used the political skills they had learned in the Central Intelligence Agency to create and run a new community.
They established a profitable newspaper from scratch. They set up a local government to protect pristine beaches from commercial development. And they nursed the political career of Mr. Goss, the Republican Florida congressman named this week by President Bush to be director of central intelligence.
In interviews in the last two days, old friends of Mr. Goss recalled his years as a spy and a budding politician, who rose from City Council to county commission to Congress. In the late 1960's, they said, Mr. Goss was in London as a clandestine services officer for the C.I.A., recruiting and supervising spies and foreign agents, much as he had done earlier in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Donald F. Whitehead, a onetime professor of political science and international relations, was working for the C.I.A. in Paris at the time, said his widow, Grace E. Whitehead. And Fred Valtin was working for the agency in Germany.
His widow, Jane C. Valtin, said: Fred helped the Germans establish a postwar government under the auspices of the C.I.A. He hung around with Willy Brandt and helped build the Social Democratic Party.
The three men ended up on Sanibel Island, a short drive from Fort Myers in southwest Florida. The Whiteheads arrived first, in 1969. They helped Mr. Goss recuperate on the island when his intelligence career was cut short by a nearly fatal infection in 1971. Mr. Valtin arrived a little later.
Mrs. Whitehead said the men had become friends in Europe and founded the weekly newspaper, The Island Reporter, in 1973. They supported stringent land use planning and the incorporation of Sanibel as a way for the city to control its destiny and prevent developers from spoiling its lush tropical vegetation and beaches.
The retired spies three spooks on an island, in the words of a friend used all their skills to manage this place, said Mrs. Whitehead, 86, who still lives in the area.
Developers were none too happy. They complained that the C.I.A. was coming down here, was buying up property and would take over the island, Mrs. Whitehead recalled.
The owners of the newspaper were adept at gathering political intelligence. Porter went to meetings of the Lee County commissioners and brought back information, Mrs. Whitehead said. My husband, who was editor of the paper, wrote it up.
Mr. Whitehead, a former intelligence case officer, recruited Mr. Valtin to be business manager of the paper. From his years at the agency, Mr. Valtin knew how to take care of money, Mrs. Whitehead said…..
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Mrs. Valtin said her husband was budget director of the C.I.A., at its headquarters in Northern Virginia, when he retired in 1973.
Mr. Valtin was born in Germany, but he and two brothers came to the United States in 1938 and served in the United States Army in World War II. Their father, a dentist, served in the German Army. Their mother, a Quaker, worked in this country at the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Mark R. Twombly, who went to work for the newspaper in 1974, fresh out of college, said: This was a worldly group of people with a secretive background. They were expert at not saying anything about their C.I.A. past. That added to the intrigue and character of the place.
In a preview issue of The Island Reporter, the owners said: We don't want to be too sophisticated, but neither do we want to be sloppy. We'll not be crusaders, predicting gloom as the byproduct of all growth. But we'll not be silent if we think that the overall interests of the community are being needlessly jeopardized by an individual or group.
Mrs. Valtin said: The Island Reporter started in our house. Gracie addressed envelopes in our garage and it was showing a profit in six months.
After Sanibel was incorporated in 1974, Mr. Goss was elected to the City Council and became the first mayor. He served on the Lee County Commission from 1983 to 1988, when he was elected to Congress.
Mr. Goss, 65, has been a member of the United States House of Representatives since 1989. One of his four children, R. Mason Goss, 36, said the Whiteheads and the Valtins seemed like part of his family as he was growing up in Sanibel, which felt then like an idyllic little fishing village.
Mason Goss said his knowledge of his father's career was sketchy, based mostly on surmise and speculation.
Porter Goss did serve on Hispaniola, in the Dominican Republic, perhaps gathering intelligence on Cuba, the son said. And his father spent some time in Miami working for the agency. The Cuban missile crisis was coming up right around then, said the son, who now teaches history and politics as headmaster of a private school here.
I had no idea my father was even in the C.I.A. until I was 10 or 11 years old, in 1978 or 1979, Mason Goss said.
Mr. Whitehead and Mr. Valtin had retired after long careers in the agency. By contrast, Porter Goss retired after 10 years, when he was just 34.
I wondered why, Mason Goss said. My mother just said he was ill, and that's why we got to come down here to Florida. That's what we were told.
Some people have speculated that Mr. Goss's mysterious illness might have resulted from foul play in the spy wars. But Mrs. Whitehead, a nurse, and Mason Goss said they had never heard that. We sort of understood that we didn't need to ask more questions about that, the younger Mr. Goss said.
Mrs. Whitehead said Porter Goss had a terrible infection, spent four months in a hospital, received vast doses of antibiotics and had blood clots in his chest and his legs. A doctor told him he had to do nothing but sit in the sun, she added.
The ex-spies joined together in another business venture that was less successful than the newspaper. They operated Island Boat Rental, in the Sanibel marina. Mrs. Whitehead said the main purpose of the business was to give Porter something to do out in the sunshine.
Mr. Twombly said: From a business point of view, it was a disaster. I don't think it ever made money.
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/us/the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-cold-and-onto-the-hot-florida-sands.html
Not as sinister as it sounds.
And Actually not quite so secret!
As you reach the entrance of the Magic Kingdom, you probably won’t even notice that you have been walking up a slight incline ever since you got off the monorail or ferry-boat.
You would also be forgiven for not realizing you are walking on the roof-top of a sprawling city below. A secret Disney underworld.
You probably wouldn’t have the slightest idea that by the time you reach the iconic Castle, you are already at third floor level. And that there was a whole system of Disney world tunnels underfoot.
Those clever and sneaky Disney Imagineers!
They created the Disney World tunnels. A secret network of underground Magic Kingdom tunnels completely hidden from peeping public eyes.
So how did the Disney World Tunnels come about?
Rumor Control has it that as Mr Walt Disney was wandering through Tomorrowland in Disneyland California, a Cast Member (Disney-speak for staff) dressed as a cowboy walked by him on his way to his position at Frontierland.
One glance told Walt that a cowboy dressed in checked shirt, bandana and cowboy boots twirling a six shooter looked totally out of place in Tomorrowland.
This was supposed to be the future world and not the middle 1800s.
Walt racked his brain for a solution.
He didn’t want anything distracting visitors from their magical experience. How could his cast members be transported to their designated work stations without being seen by the general public?
An underworld Disney was the answer. An impossibility in Disneyland California which was too small. But the much larger Walt Disney World planned for Florida was a different story.
So plans were hatched to build these Disney World tunnels (Utilidors) under the new Magic Kingdom.
Or rather, to build Magic Kingdom on top of the underworld tunnels.
The projected cost of creating the Magic Kingdom was rumored to be $4 million. The addition of the underworld tunnels raised that to $9 million.
Due to Florida’s high water table, digging out a basement would have been practically impossible. Disney improvised by building the tunnels at ground level and creating the public world right on top.
To build this mini-mountain, 8 million tons of earth were excavated from the area in front of the Magic Kingdom. That big void was transformed into Seven Seas Lagoon and gave the surrounding resort hotels prime water-front positions.
Genius!
The excavated earth was then distributed and molded to form a gentle incline, barely noticeable, to create a ground level illusion for visitors who were actually 15 feet above ground level.
Creating the Disney Underworld Tunnels
The resulting Disney Utilidors are today 9 acres of underworld tunnels in the form of a circle with spokes leading off in various directions. There’s a central path right down the middle.
The tunnel walls are color coded to make it easier for Cast Members to navigate their way underneath the park to their desired location.
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https://orlandoinsidervacations.com/the-secret-underworld-of-walt-disney-world/