Permanently Deleted

  • LamontCranston [any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Angleton was gone by the time this guy defected in the 1980s. I read Bob Woodwards book Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987 and while its a pretty crappy book as Woodward spends most of the time being an uncritical court historian and documenting petty office politics there were a few nuggets in it. One was that William Casey and other high ranking administration officials were absolutely devoted to the writings of Claire Sterling. She had written a book The Terror Network alleging that the Soviets were the masterminds behind every terrorist organization and every act they perpetrated, and every revolutionary group and war going on in the 1970s and '80s and it was all a giant plot to subvert countries to their control and destroy the USA. They refused to believe CIA analysts reports that nothing of the sort was going on, her were had no basis, and was in some instances based on stories the CIA had itself planted in the foreign press. Casey would tell them they needed to be more “imaginative”. But this guy was a grifter, someone was paying for him to stay in the USA be it the birchers or whoever else and it wouldn't be very helpful if he didn't tell them something they wanted to hear.

    • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I figured the Active Measures conspiracy would've been an old one in the CIA at that point, and I mentioned Angleton because he was notoriously paranoid to the point of making up these insane conspiracy theories. I definitely don't know that much about the inner politics of the CIA of the 1980s lol.

      But yeah this dude is obviously being paid to scare Americans into loving the CIA and fearing anything left wing.

      • LamontCranston [any]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        The accusations been around since the beginning, the Birchers in the 1950s were accusing Civil Rights organizers of being Communist plants under Soviet control and even accused Eisenhower of being a Soviet mole. Its just standard for anyone who thinks they're absolutely right, cant comprehend disagreement, cant handle they're not in the majority, and jumps to the conclusion it is all a big plot.

        • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Ironically some of that shit is true. Communists were a huge force in civil rights organizing before WWII and I imagine a lot of the people working on it in the postwar era were Communists who left the party (which was most of them).

          There idea of Eisenhower as a soviet mole is funny as fuck though.

          • LamontCranston [any]
            ·
            4 years ago

            communist =/= taking orders from moscow to dilute our precious bodily fluids