The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
Politics
 pentagon pizza




From: warinner@flood.xnet.com (Andrew Warinner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: MILSPEC G-452-F-009 Procurement guidelines for third party foodstuffs
Date: 23 Aug 1996 20:59:07 GMT

Consider the following entry from the AFU FAQ:

F. You can tell if a big op. is happening at US gov't by level of pizza orders.

First, this is a specific incarnation of the common "locals know about secret military operations" wartime rumor/urban factoid. There are plenty of instances local to any war and place.

The Pentagon pizza delivery patterns story made the rounds in 1990 - 1991 and has continued to pop up sporadically since. Here's a couple of typical cites:

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

The pizza index indicates military action is imminent in Persian Gulf, a Domino's delivery official said Tuesday.

Record numbers of late-night pizza have been delivered this week to the White House, Pentagon and State Department, said Frank Meeks, owner of several Washington-area Domino's outlets.

Similar order patterns came immediately before the invasions of Panama and Grenada, Meeks said.

The increase on pizza orders at key government buildings after 10 p.m. is "very unusual," Meeks said. "I don't think they're sitting around watching Redskins reruns."

The previous record for Pentagon deliveries came the night President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife fled the Philippines, according to Meeks.

"Crusty D.C. Veteran Says War is Near", Chicago Tribune, 1/16/91

It has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times[1], the Chicago Tribune[2], the Boston Globe[3], Wired[4], the Roanoke Times[5], and probably quite a few other papers via the wire services. It has done at least two tours of duty in rec.humor[6,7], appeared in comp.risks[8], appeared on ClariNet[6,7], and is cited in several Web pages[9, 10]. While it appears to have its heyday in 1991, I have found cites of it as recently as December 1995[11]. One of the more interesting cites I found is this:

From The OPSEC Indicator, Fall 1991:

PIZZA INTELLIGENCE: AN UPDATE

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.

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.[9,10]

I have not been able to track down "The OPSEC Indicator". It does not appear to be a military journal. While there is an OPSEC professional organization[12], its publication is called the "OPS Journal". As I found two identical cites on the Web, I suspect that the "OPSEC Indicator" may be an instance of email lore propagated through rec.humor much like the more popular "Darwin Awards".

After looking into this potentially important issue of OPSEC (operations security in milspeak), I haven't found anything that justifies the decisive "F" it is tagged with in the FAQ. Here's what I was able to determine:

T. Government institutions, including the Pentagon, do order Domino's

Pizza and other delivered food.[13]

T. The Pentagon has two cafeterias and five snack bars[14].

Tb. Only the snacks bars are open round the clock in the Pentagon.[14]

T. Over 21,000 people work in the Pentagon.

T. The choice of restaurants that deliver food in late night D.C.

is limited.[13]

T. Frank Meeks owns over forty Domino's Pizza franchises in the

D.C. area.[1,2,3,5]

T. Frank Meeks claims that pizza orders from government institutions

go up during a crisis.[1,2,3,5]

Since the AFU Seekrit Kabal lacks the power to subpoena Domino's Pizza sales receipts (for now), I can't see any good way to determine the voracity of Mr. Meeks' claims. If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Frank Meeks as the originator of this particular urban factoid, intent on earning his 15 minutes of fame and some free ink for Domino's.

Given the above, I propose that the FAQ be amended to:

Fb. You can tell if a big op. is happening at US gov't by level of pizza orders.

or if we're feeling generous:

U. You can tell if a big op. is happening at US gov't by level of pizza orders.

or if we're feeling really, really generous:

P. You can tell if a big op. is happening at US gov't by level of pizza orders.

Finally, while ransacking the U.S. Army military intelligence Web pages, I came across this guide that I feel should be added to Ms. Tepper's "How to Understand AFU" post:

How to Submit an Article 

      1.Select a relevant topic of interest to the military intelligence
        community.
      2.Write an outline to organize your work. Put the bottom line up front
      and write clear, concise introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
      3.Follow proper rules of grammar. Consult DA Pamphlet 600-67 or
      William A. McIntosh's Guide to Effective Writing, if necessary.
      4.Maintain the active voice as much as possible. Write "Congress cut
        the budget" rather than "the budget was cut by Congress." (See DA
        Pamphlet 600-67, Effective Writing for Army Leaders, paragraph
        3-2,b[1].)
      [...]
      6.Remember, content is the most important part of your article. When
        in doubt, send us your article we can work out the details.[15]

I have gathered all the supporting material and references in the course of this search, so check out

http://www.xnet.com/~warinner/pizza.html

and judge for yourself.

Notes:

[1] "SLICE OF LIFE: PIZZA ORDERS SOAR IN D.C.", Los Angeles Times, 1/16/91 [2] "WASHINGTON AT WAR: SECURITY IS UP, PARTIES ARE OUT AND PIZZA MAY

HAVE TO BE RATIONED", Chicago Tribune, 2/17/91 [3] "PIZZA POLITICS", Boston Globe, 8/30/91 [4] http://www.hotwired.com/wired/1.3/departments/flux.html [5] "DOMINO EFFECT: GLIMPSE OF D.C. UPPER CRUST", Cox News Service (appearing

in the Roanoke Times), 12/24/93
[6] http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/92q2/opsec.html [7] http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/91q1/toppizzadex.html [8] http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/10.15.html#subj8 [9] http://deja-vu.oldiron.cornell.edu/~djw8/text/dominos.html [10] http://tamos.gmu.edu/~buddy/mail/junk/00135 [11] "DOMINO'S DELIVERS NEW LOOK AT U.S. ATTITUDES", Chicago Tribune, 12/28/95 [12] http://www.cais.com/zhi/OPSHomePage.html [13] Conversation with Cyrus Krohn, former White House intern. [14] "GOVERNMENT WORKERS RESORT TO CAFETERIA DINING", Chicago Tribune, 4/21/94 [15] http://huachuca-usaic.army.mil/SCHOOL/DOTD/MIPB/admin.html

Thanks to Dave Kisor and James B. Ellsworth for help with the OPSEC Indicator.

Andrew "mole in Domino's" Warinner
warinner@xnet.com
warinner@ttd.teradyne.com
http://www.xnet.com/~warinner
Visit the Sphinx's Nose page: http://www.xnet.com/~warinner/sphinx.html


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