Foreign embassy cable: 'Brazilian counterpart requesting NBC support'

The cable is a single page on standard diplomatic letterhead. The header is intact. The subject line is visible. The recipient block is visible. The body of the cable summarizes a request received from a Brazilian liaison officer, in person and outside any standing program, for short-notice access to foreign specialists in nuclear, biological, and chemical containment.

The cable's drafting officer notes that the request "is unusual in scope, is not associated with any scheduled exercise or exchange, and was conveyed orally with a request that no written record be created on either side." The cable itself is the written record that was created in spite of that request.

The cable does not name the incident giving rise to the request. It does not name the requesting officer. It does not state whether the request was granted, declined, or transferred. It does not reference Varginha by name or by region.

It does, however, carry a date stamp from within the documented Varginha event window and a routing slip indicating it was forwarded to two recipients whose offices have responsibilities consistent with NBC response.

Subsequent FOIA filings seeking response cables, internal coordination memoranda, or after-action reports related to this request have produced no responsive records. The agency's standard response to such filings is that no responsive records were located. We have refiled three times under different scopes.