Cites Galore
Delivery people at various Domino's pizza outlets in and around Washington claim that they have learned to anticipate big news baking at the White House or the Pentagon by the upsurge in takeout orders. Phones usually start ringing some 72 hours before an official announcement. "We know," says one pizza runner. "Absolutely. Pentagon orders doubled up the night before the Panama attack; same thing happened before the Grenada invasion." Last Wednesday, he adds, "we got a lot of orders, starting around midnight. We figured something was up." This time the news arrived quickly: Iraq's surprise invasion of Kuwait."And Bomb the Anchovies", Time, p. 13, 8/13/90
Note the claims by "pizza runners". I assume that Time took
the trouble to interview someone other than local pizza tycoon
Frank Meeks.
"At the White House, we used to deliver 50 a day. Now it's 125," he says. "The big increase
is late at night. We used to deliver nothing (there) after about 9 or 10, but now we've had to
keep on extra people to handle late night at the White House."
The State Department's usual pizza order has doubled, he says, and the Pentagon's has "dramatically
increased. Normally it's about 50 a day, and now it's about 300, with much of the increase late
at night." "WASHINGTON AT WAR: SECURITY IS UP, PARTIES ARE OUT AND PIZZA MAY HAVE TO BE RATIONED", Janet Cawley, Chicago Tribune, 2/17/91 When I spoke with Cyrus Krohn, he claimed that Domino's pizza was not prefered by
the daytime staff which typically went for more upscale foods and restaurants nearby. Is this a
case of Mr. Meeks blowing his own horn?
Another thing I find interesting about this cite is the mention of late night lights burning at
federal buildings. As a bit of Cold War trivia, I recall a KGB officer who defected during Andropov's
reign. The officer was stationed at the Soviet embassy in London. Soviet officials alarmed by
Reagan's confrontations convinced themselves that NATO was preparing to attack. Some of the
intelligenct he collected was the number of lights on late at night in Whitehall and Britain's
blood stockpiles collected through the Red Cross. I can't recall the defector's name but he may have
been the guy who defected and then re-defected back to the Soviet Union.
"Crusty D.C. Veteran Says War is Near", Chicago Tribune, 1/16/91
Mr. Meeks is at it again. Mr. Meeks did not make his pizza prognostications
known before or after Panama, Grenada, or the Marcos ouster as far as I was
able to determine.
"That certainly doesn't indicate that we're not keeping busy," CIA "SLICE OF LIFE: PIZZA ORDERS SOAR IN D.C.", Los Angeles Times, 1/16/91 Mr. Meeks is in with the CIA. Note that the CIA spokesman does not deny
that Domino's Pizza delivers to Langely but that just may be the CIA sowing
disinformation.
Meeks said he has sales data for the invasions of Panama and Grenada, the
toppling of Ferdinand Marcos, and confrontations in the Middle East proving
that when the going gets tough in the nerve center of a democracy, the tough
get pizza. "PIZZA POLITICS", Susan Trausch, Boston Globe, 8/30/91 Mr. Meeks cites some slightly different figures for pizza deliveries, though these figures
are specifically for late night deliveries.
If Wired is so damn hip, why are they two years late with this story? You don't have
to fact check when you say it's from "net.rumor".
Prognostication by pizzas first gained national attention during the Reagan administration when
Domino's franchises noted that late-night orders to the White House, CIA, Pentagon and other
institutions greatly increased on the eves of international crises. "DOMINO EFFECT: GLIMPSE OF D.C. UPPER CRUST", Cox News Service (appearing in the Roanoke Times), 12/24/93 I couldn't find a cite of the Pizza Meter prior to 1990. This casts some doubt on the
claim of a "4th annual" pizza meter. Nor was there "national attention" paid the pizza
meter during the Reagan administration that I could find. Could this be an example of
Domino's HQ trying to capitalize on Frank Meeks' success?
"It is very loosely scientific," McIntyre said.
Researchers at Domino's Ann Arbor, Mich., headquarters asked questions such
as, "Did you deliver to anyone who answered the door in their underwear this
year? Please identify theh underwear." (That's how Domino's found out that
the majority of underwear-clad orderers wear Calvin Klein briefs.)
Domino's came up with the idea during the Reagan administration.
"We were noticing a trend in Washington, that pizza orders to the White
House, Pentagon and FBI would spike one or two days before elections and
international political events," McIntyre said. "The Gulf War was big."
Another dramatic spike came 15 minutes prior to the afternoon verdict
reading in the O.J. Simpson trial. The surge ended abruptly at 1 p.m. -- the
precise monent at which a court clerk proclaimed innocence for the football
hero accused of murder.
"We could barely believe it," McIntyre said, "but not a single pizza was
ordered was ordered in the United States for five minutes between 1 o'clock and
1:05." "DOMINO'S DELIVERS NEW LOOK AT U.S. ATTITUDES", Chicago Tribune, 12/28/95 Yea, right. Domino's HQ is after a little free ink like Frank Meeks.
The age of the Pizza Meter seems a little suspect. The article from the
Roanoke Times cited the "4th annual" Pizza Meter which would date it to 1989.
This article claims the Pizza Meter is nine years old, dating it to 1985. Again,
I have to note that I found no mention of the Pizza Meter prior to 1990. The O.J.
angle to the Pizza Meter is clever.
[...]
Military personnel, who probably lost any sort of discriminating palate
long ago were less critical. One military type who did not want to be
named said, "I like it [Pentagon cafeteria food], but then I'm a poor
judge because I like all food."
[...]
The Pentagon has two cafeterias-one serves fast food, the other more
traditional fish, poultry and beef entrees. It also has five smaller
24-hour snack bars.
[...]
But ARA [the government contractor providing food services in the Pentagon] must
be doing something right. Of the roughly 21,000 Pentagon employees, ARA gets 18,000
to 19,000 customers daily. Sure, the nearest restaurants are farther away than most
government buildings, but workers could always bring a lunch and usually don't. "GOVERNMENT WORKERS RESORT TO CAFETERIA DINING", Rich Dvorack, Chicago Tribune, 4/21/94 This may explain the claimed popularity of Domino's pizza at the Pentagon.
Jim Harkins < jharkins@sagpd1.UUCP > at http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10.15.html#subj8 Ross Alan Stapleton, "CFP'93 - Three Perspectives on the Information Technologies and National Security: War Fighting, Diplomacy and Intellicence", http://www.cpsr.org/dox/conferences/cfp93/stapleton.html According to The Washington Times of August 21, 1991, during the early
hours of the abortive Kremlin coup in August, Domino's "Pizza Meter"
registered 102 deliveries to the Pentagon, breaking the Gulf War
record by one; the White House ordered 52 pizzas, breaking its Gulf
War record by seven.
The CIA, by contrast, learned its OPSEC lesson: There were only two
orders, and they were quickly cancelled.
http://deja-vu.oldiron.cornell.edu/~djw8/text/dominos.html
http://tamos.gmu.edu/~buddy/mail/junk/00135
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/LIFE/funC.nsmail
WASHINGTON - The pizza index indicates military action is imminent in
the gulf, a Domino's delivery official said today.
Record numbers of late-night pizza deliveries have been made to the
White House, Pentagon and State Department, said Frank Meeks, owner of
several Washington-area Domino's outlets. Similar patterns came
immediately before the invasions of Panama and Grenada, he said.
The record for late-night deliveries to CIA headquarters came the
night before Iraq invaded Kuwait last August, Meeks said.
(from our local newspaper, who got it "from Star-Bulletin news services") http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/91q1/toppizzadex.html
Amid the tightened security are signs of longer-than-usual workdays -
offices still lit at midnight, for example. And then, of course, there are the less-traditional
indicators of a changed climate, such as the pizza index. Frank Meeks, who owns 45 Domino's pizza
stores in the Washington area, reports a bonanza in the number of pizza deliveries to key federal
buildings since the war broke out.
The previous record for Pentagon deliveries came the night President
Ferdinand Marcos and his wife fled the Philippines, according to
Meeks.
The one-night record for late-night deliveries at the CIA--21
pizzas--was set Aug. 1, the night before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Meeks said.
However, deliveries after 10 p.m. have dropped since Jan. 9, when they
reached 15.
spokesman Mark Mansfield said. "I want to make clear that we're working
very hard here."
Frank Meeks, owner of 43 Domino's shops in the D.C. area told the AP that
during the week before the war started, late-night deliveries to the Pentagon
increased from three to 101. Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. on the eve of the
conflict, 55 pizzas went to the White House, breaking all records.
Nobody Knows Like Domino's: Net.rumor has it that Domino's Pizza in
Washington DC always knows when the military brass is gearing up for
action. The tip-off: a sudden surge of late-night orders from the
Pentagon. Too bad McDonald's doesn't deliver.
These findings are reported in the 4th annual Pizza Meter, a year in review based on Domino's sales
data and a survey of more than 200 of the firm's delivery drivers.
McIntyre emphasized that the 9-year-old Pizza Meter is
not facetious. It's based on interviews of 500 deliverers nationwide.
Take the Pentagon, for example. The
nearest restaurants are at the Pentagon City shopping mall, which is about a
10-minute walk and two security checks from the building.
Driving to work this morning there was an interesting story on the
radio. It seems the Domino's Pizza joint closest to the Pentagon can
accurately predict when a major operation is about to take place.
Evidently the planning meetings go on long into the night, and the
best place to get food is Domino's. They interviewed someone from
Domino's and he said that prior to the Panama invasion deliveries to
the Pentagon jumped 25%. I'm glad I'm not in security.....
It is worth noting in closing the proof of one very low-tech approach
to garnering military intelligence by traffic analysis: in 1991 the
news reported on "pizza intelligence" - the observation that Pentagon
orders from the local Dominos pizzeria shot through the roof in the
hours after the decisions to deploy US forces to Greneda, Panama and
the Persian Gulf were made! As more information is bought and sold -
and it is hardly a stretch to imagine that pizza company's traffic
statistics used both internally and sold to others who could benefit
from the demographic data - more such relationships will be exposed,
to anyone who cares (and pays) to look.
Earlier this year we reported that Domino's Pizza claims it can
predict when the government is about to undertake some sort of major
activity based upon the increase in pizza deliveries to the Pentagon
and the White House. Pizza orders increased substantially just prior
to troop deployments to Grenada, Panama, and the Middle East.
Rising D.C. Pizza Index indicates war
[The Rooster Booster!
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