BELTWAY BIZ

Just Going by the Book: Author Tom Clancy is depicted visiting their offices on the cover of SPOT Image's corporate newsletter. It came about, says SPOT Prez Ted Nance, after Clancy used a SPOT photo of Russia's Nurek Space Laser Center in The Cardinal of the Kremlin. Turns out two CIA agents visited Clancy's Chesapeake Bay house to check out unauthorized use of classified satellite intelligence. They left chagrined after Clancy showed them a SPOT brochure where he gleaned the high-res photo -- available commercially, while similar U.S. data remained under lock and key!

Transitioning: Sally Scott Marietta, a popular fixture at the Greater Washington Board of Trade, has joined Maryland Governor-elect Glendening's transition team as staff coordinator for the Economic Development Policy Committee, and is expected to wind up in a top economic development slot once the former Prince George's county executive is sworn in. In the meantime, Marietta will be shortening her Columbia commute to offices on Baltimore's St. Paul Street.

The Northern Virginia Technology Council pulled in more than 200 people for their annual Legislative Reception, with Reps. Tom Davis and Frank Wolf joining the Northern Virginia delegation to Richmond to hear a four point plan from BDM's Todd Stottlemeyer and Shaw, Pittman's Tom Hicks between networking and noshing at the McLean Hilton.

Deposed House Science Committee Chairman George Brown has gone public with his fight to preserve the Office of Technology Assessment, under scrutiny from bureau bashers on the other side of aisle.

The GIST of It: There's America OnLine and now there's Russia Online --but it's an Arlington newsletter on the Soviet information infrastructure, launched by David Bain at the policy consulting firm Global Information Services and Technologies.

Insourcing efforts to beef up staff of the Environmental Protection Agency by converting high tech contracts to inhouse projects are being denounced as contrary to the Clinton-Gore Reinventing Government initiative by a bi-partisan team led by Rep. jim Moran and Sen. john Warner --thanks to efforts of the Professional Services Council. Similar leanings at the Dept. of Energy are also under scrutiny.

Dickstein Shapiro's Jim Hughes, former BDM General Counsel and CEO of C3, is being roundly ribbed for legal overkill: when his Mercedes was run off the road and out of commission by another vehicle, Hughes hiked up to the hill to the home of his friend, Litigationmeister Bob Bennett, to call a tow truck. Bennett has been honing his histrionics by kidding his "new client" Hughes