Investigations

Former RFK Jr. Adviser Says Career Officials Circulate OSS Sabotage Manual

Calley Means alleged on Joe Rogan that career federal employees are circulating a World War II OSS sabotage guide. The historical manual is real; the circulation claim remains an allegation.

Shadow Dossier

November 9, 2026

Historical Library of Congress photograph of Col. William J. Donovan during his wartime service era. Contextual to OSS history, not a modern event photo. Credit: Library of Congress. License: Public domain (Library of Congress). Source page. Image file.

A World War II sabotage handbook written for occupied Europe has reappeared in a very different argument: whether career federal employees are trying to slow-walk a sitting U.S. administration from inside the bureaucracy.

In a Joe Rogan Experience episode released Friday, Nov. 7, 2026, Calley Means — a former White House adviser who worked with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — alleged that career officials were circulating the Office of Strategic Services “Simple Sabotage Field Manual.” Means resigned on Oct. 22, 2026. He described the document as a guide to “be a bad bureaucrat and subvert an institution from within,” and said career officials “hate President Trump.”

Those statements are Means’s allegations. They are not independent proof that a coordinated sabotage campaign is underway across the federal workforce. The White House did not immediately respond when the Daily Caller News Foundation asked for comment. Separately, Means’s resignation was previously reported by outlets including Politico as tied to frustration over the pace of nutrition and “Make America Healthy Again” policy work — a different explanation from the sabotage claim he later aired on Rogan’s show.

Wartime U.S. federal workforce context from Library of Congress collections. Credit: Library of Congress / FSA-OWI. License: Public domain. Source page. Image file.

The manual itself is real, and it is a U.S. government historical document. The Central Intelligence Agency has publicly discussed it under the title “The Art of Simple Sabotage,” describing how the OSS — the wartime precursor to the CIA — trained ordinary people in nonviolent disruption of enemy institutions during World War II. The guide’s workplace tactics include delaying telephone calls, promoting inefficient workers, referring decisions to oversized committees, and slowing production through needless complexity.

That history matters because it separates three things that are often blurred in political commentary: (1) the authenticated existence of the OSS manual; (2) Means’s claim that career officials are circulating it now; and (3) any inference that circulating a historical PDF equals an organized conspiracy to nullify an elected president. Only the first point is firmly documented in official CIA public materials. The second is an allegation by a former adviser. The third requires evidence that has not been publicly produced.

Federal Triangle buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Credit: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress. License: Public domain. Source page. Image file.

Means also framed the scale of the problem in blunt terms. He said Kennedy oversees roughly 90,000 employees and that Trump oversees on the order of two million federal workers, describing the “infrastructure” around them as compromised. Rogan asked whether staff were “completely compromised.” Means answered that “especially the whole infrastructure” was. Those are sweeping characterizations. They do not identify specific offices, memos, distribution lists, or dates beyond Means’s description of a circulating “CIA manual.”

Readers should also note a contemporaneous dispute. After Means’s comments drew attention, White House deputy chief of staff James Blair publicly disputed related claims on X and said he had warned Means about potential defamation. That exchange does not settle the sabotage allegation, but it does show that Means’s account is contested inside the same political coalition, not only by outside critics.

Large federal department headquarters exterior in Washington, D.C. Credit: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress. License: Public domain. Source page. Image file.

Why the story travels is easy to understand. Midterm losses, staff turnover, and slow policy delivery create demand for a simple villain. A wartime sabotage pamphlet is a vivid prop. The evidence-first version is less cinematic: the OSS manual is authentic history; Means says career officials are using it as a playbook; no public primary document has yet shown a White House-wide distribution campaign; and Means’s own departure has also been explained in terms of policy delay rather than discovered sabotage rings.

For Shadow Dossier’s purposes, the useful reporting standard is narrow. Confirm the primary document. Attribute the accusation. Separate resignation reporting from podcast rhetoric. And treat “career officials hate the president” as a political claim unless contemporaneous records — emails, IG complaints, authenticated internal memos — establish something more specific.

As of this writing, the public record supports the existence of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual and the fact that Means made the circulation allegation after leaving the White House. It does not yet independently confirm a government-wide sabotage operation. That distinction is the difference between documenting a claim and amplifying it as settled fact.