In brief: New intelligence director chosen

Washington – James R. Clapper Jr., the Pentagon’s chief official for intelligence, counterintelligence and security matters, has been chosen to become the next director of national intelligence, U.S. officials said Friday.

If confirmed, Clapper, a retired Air Force general, would replace Dennis C. Blair, who resigned last month. Clapper was an early favorite for the post, and would become the fourth director and the third to have a military background.

Created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the national intelligence director coordinates 16 intelligence agencies and is supposed to smooth out areas of conflict. The director also is in charge of the president’s daily intelligence briefing, putting him in close contact with the president.

Blair left when Obama became disenchanted with him in the wake of the failed Christmas bombing on an airliner bound for Detroit and after the recent bungled attempt to set off an explosive device in New York’s Times Square.

Oswald’s getaway cab up for sale

Dallas – The Checker cab once known as presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s getaway car is headed to auction.

Cab 36 is part of the collection that will go up for sale today at the defunct Pate Museum of Transportation in Cresson near Fort Worth.

RM Auctions car specialist Donnie Gould estimates the cab will fetch around $30,000 – rather more than the nickel Oswald paid for his cab fare on Nov. 22, 1963, just moments after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot.

Oswald hailed the cab because the bus he initially tried to escape in got stuck in traffic.