It’s quitely likely that you have the casuality reversed. The Stein piece was possible only because some of the sources knew that Kappes was retiring. As a writer you have a built in bias towards assuming that words have power over reality (and sometimes they do), but reality usually drives the words.

Retiring to spend more time with the families the CIA has disappeared?

Despite the kind efforts of “Uncle John” Aafia Siddiqui’s youngest, Suleman, is still missing, as are KSM’s children and wife.

You know, that’s a compelling explanation and diagnosis of a cognitive bias. I would just be careful about going too far in the other direction. We don’t really know that Jeff’s sources only talked to them because they knew Kappes was on his way out. It makes sense, that’s not the same thing as asserting it as fact.

As with China, it’s beginning to be true here, that one can be sure something is true only after it has been officially denied.

You are right. I did say it was quite likely and then stated it as fact. The second sentence should have started with the word “Perhaps”. I do strongly suspect that it was easier to get current CIA sources to talk about a powerful manager when they knew he was retiring.