Jump to content
The Education Forum

Masters of Deceit: Propaganda, Disinformation and Corruption


John Simkin

Recommended Posts

John, Here's a quote that I find very relevant to the topic of propaganda and Operation Mockingbird:

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

- William Colby, former CIA Director

Guess that would make Colby a logical addition to that section of your website.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 78
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

- William Colby, former CIA Director. Guess that would make Colby a logical addition to that section of your website.

I already have a page on Colby.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SScolby.htm

However, I would like to add the quote to it. Do you know when and where he said it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

- William Colby, former CIA Director. Guess that would make Colby a logical addition to that section of your website.

I already have a page on Colby.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SScolby.htm

However, I would like to add the quote to it. Do you know when and where he said it?

Although there are a multitude of internet references to Colby's quote, tracking down the bona fides are more difficult. Perhaps the attributions are apocryphal. A few websites mentioned that the quote came from a speech Colby gave to CIA recruits in 1988, although they provided no documentation.

As an aside, here are a couple of interesting items on Colby, one from the CIA.

http://www.freedomofthepress.net/journalis...tywurlitzer.htm

https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol47no4/article07.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

- William Colby, former CIA Director. Guess that would make Colby a logical addition to that section of your website.

I already have a page on Colby.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SScolby.htm

However, I would like to add the quote to it. Do you know when and where he said it?

Well for "synergy" on general propaganda subjects, this page has a good overview John.

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com...gory:Propaganda

I'm guessing you know about it since you're referenced on the Operation Mockingbird page:

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com...n_MockingbirdOf

Of course Wiki has one too (they tend to be sort of right wing on specific people, but good for general reference):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

I'll see if I can find a bonafide source for that dubious quote I posted.

(If I can't then maybe you can just post it and claim that "truthiness" is on your side. :lol:

You know, from the gut.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest John Gillespie
Please let me have names of people who should be featured in this section of my website.

______________________________

Yeah, Carl Bernstein....and I'm hardly joking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest John Gillespie
.

Reagan appointed Casey as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this position he was able to arrange the delivery of arms to Iran. These were delivered via Israel. By the end of 1982 all Reagan’s promises to Iran had been made. With the deal completed, Iran was free to resort to acts of terrorism against the United States. In 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists blew up 241 marines in the CIA Middle-East headquarters.

The ultimate Iran-y, of course, was that Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada to cover his retreat from Lebanon. I'd been skeptical that the move into Grenada was so calculated until reading Maggie Thatcher's memoirs. She claimed that Reagan invaded Grenada, a British protectorate, without even discussing it with her, and that the U.S. invasion was unnecessary.

************************************************************

"The ultimate Iran-y, of course, was that Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada to cover his retreat from Lebanon."

I was absolutely appalled when that ridiculous fiasco was going down! They carried on as if it were Pearl Harbor or something, those damned arm chair warriors! How embarrassing to have to claim to be an American after witnessing that total display of ineptitude. Grenada was about as threatening to the sovereignty of the United States as Jamaica, or Bermuda, or Nassau and the Bahamas, for chrissakes! Is that all the Reagan/Regan regime could muster up was to go and invade a resort town? Or, maybe the "Resorts International" front was somehow at risk, or in danger of losing most of its clientel from the in-coming spring-break cruise lines, what with the bad PR being aired on the newswires and all? What a bunch of worthless yahoos!

___________________________

Ha. There was a priceless New Yorker cartoon that showed an overblown General, presumably at home with spouse, in full uniform with a gazillion medals, holding a drink and posturing. His wife says to him:

"you're insufferable after a 'big win.' Anyway, I realize that a heard melody is sweeter.

But the Greneda thing was done to obfuscate matters involving the execution of some Castro associates, including someone named Maurice Bishop (no relation). Two birds, one stone; as usual.

Thank you, Michael.

I guess I really get pissed off by things that inadvertently equate me [as an American citizen] with asinine gov. strategies deployed in my name [as an American citizen], and with my tax dollars. Especially, when these strategies appear to me [as an American citizen] to be a complete exercise in banality, a comedy of errors, and a total embarrassment due to the waste of resources which could have been put to better use on projects here at home.

______________________

"Once again, Terry masters the art of understatement.

I do admire her passion in every one of her posts.

"

________________________

What the heck...I'd probably admire her passion without the posts (you can tell it's a Friday).

JG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I already have a page on Colby.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SScolby.htm

However, I would like to add the quote to it. Do you know when and where he said it?

...I'll see if I can find a bonafide source for that dubious quote I posted.

(If I can't then maybe you can just post it and claim that "truthiness" is on your side. :lol:

You know, from the gut.)

This page lists the source as Colby being quoted by Dave McGowan in Derailing Democracy:

http://mtracy9.tripod.com/cia_media.htm

Ashton

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like this one:

“The business of a journalist now is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, fall at the feet of Mammon and sell himself for his daily bread. We are tools, vessels of rich men behind the scenes, we are jumping jacks. They pull the strings; we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the properties of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

Attributed to John Swainton, Chief of Staff of the New York Times.

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq32.html#_ednref1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

John, Here's a quote that I find very relevant to the topic of propaganda and Operation Mockingbird:

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

- William Colby, former CIA Director

Colby probably was in as good a position to make such a statement as anybody in the world, given that he was chief architect of the biggest public fraud of CIA "confessions" ever perpetrated. I don't know, really, of anything else quite so fitting to the topic of "Propaganda, Disinformation and Corruption."

Just a few months after Colby, as CIA Director for Covert Operations, had crouched with Helms in cowering secrecy over every step of the CIA's Watergate hoax through 1972 (itself very likely a cover for a still-undisclosed CIA assassination in a Mediterranean Muslim country), Colby micro-engineered every step of the post-Watergate CIA "revelations" that ultimately came out during Gerald Ford's so-called presidency.

But Colby's little "let's all go to the confessional booth" melodrama was begun as early as 7 May 1973. By then Colby was CIA's Director of Operations. It was then—with Nixon still in office, with the Watergate hearings raging, and almost precisely coordinated with Daniel Ellsberg's case being thrown out based on the CIA Liddy/Hunt/Fielding op Colby had helped in—that Colby wrote the very memo that was circulated to CIA personnel, inviting them to "come forward with anything the CIA might have done that exceeded the limits of the Agency's charter." The memo that Colby wrote, though, was not circulated over Colby's name, but over then-(briefly)-CIA Director Schlesinger's name.

It takes a considerable effort to comprehend in full just how much happened during this incredibly compressed time frame of only about a week in early-to-mid-May 1973. No sooner had Schlesinger issued the Colby-written memo than Schlesinger was shuffled over to the Department of Defense on 9 May 1973, and Colby was named as the new DCI—although he wouldn't officially take the reins until 4 September 1973. This is so typical of the kind of CIA shell game demonstrated over and over and over that I find it somewhat amazing how little this super-concentration of very questionable CIA-related events has been remarked.

In addition to all this sudden flurry of motion and swirling memos and personnel in these few days in May, the one thing that has gone completely unremarked is that at almost exactly the same time—while exposure of the actual CIA involvement in the Ellsberg affair and Watergate were at risk—William Colby ordered CIA Project Officer Ken Kress on or about 10 May 1973 to put on hold plans to increase the scope of the CIA's biggest secret: the Remote Viewing program at SRI being conducted at that very moment for CIA by NSA's Hal Puthoff, Ingo Swann, and Pat Price—all three of them having entered Scientology and reached its highest levels before having been granted the secret CIA contract.

In fact, the creation of the CIA's super-secret program had exactly paralleled the events of "Watergate" in downright surreal ways, as I've at least somewhat covered on the second page of the R. Spencer Oliver thread in the Watergate forum. Naturally, as CIA Director for Covert Operations, Colby had been in on the ground floor of that entire operation.

So it is out of this maelstrom that the infamous "Family Jewels" of the CIA ultimately came into being: supposedly 693 pages turned in to Acting DCI Colby of reported CIA "abuses" and "excesses." (These are euphemisms they "felt comfortable with" for, e.g., premeditated murder.) There was one "abuse" for each page, plus a twenty-six page summarizing report.

But guess what was missing entirely. Guess what never came to light, ever, anywhere, at all, through all of the ensuing exaltation and ecstasy of purported unbosoming by the CIA that followed. I'll give you a hint: the initials are "RV."

A book could be written about what actually was behind this sudden rush to supposed "confessions" by CIA—under Colby's careful direction: this spontaneous, endogenous spasm of "ethics" in a secretive beast of bureaucracy that never once before or since has exhibited any such innate character or conscience.

And a companion volume could be written not only about what became of this eruption of self-incrimination (does this have a familiar ring?), but about the enormous congressional and media deception and fraud perpetrated around it with a dog-and-pony show of Barnum & Bailey proportions. And who was ringmaster? William Colby.

Without writing that companion volume, suffice it to say here in brief that the legendary "Family Jewels" at all relevant times were in the complete possession and control of three people: William Colby, Henry Kissinger, and Gerald Ford. And when Ford finally sprung the trap to have the machinery of an "investigation" supposedly rigged up, who else would get the nod but his and Colby's and Kissinger's own boss: Rockefeller.

Of course the Rockefeller camp is where our own beloved Douglas Caddy had craw— No; I mean had apprenticed.

Operation Mockingbird of course was used to the hilt by Colby throughout the operation, his primary source of "Ooooooooo! Disclosures!" being first Seymour Hersch of the New York Times (who else—same scum who had cooperated in the CIA's Pentagon Papers op, same M.O.).

So with lights and cameras and gasps and "startling revelations," the CIA laughed up their sleeves at the marks gawking at the Congressional circus clowns in the Greatest Limited Hangout on Earth, while the dirtiest, filthiest secrets remained safely buried behind the tent—just as Colby, Ford, and Kissinger had arranged.

They even had the sniggering joy of having Gottlieb telling the "investigators" straight to their corn-fed hayseed faces that the records had been destroyed, so they would never, ever get to the truth. In your face, congressboy.

And the whole time it was going on, only a stone's throw across the river, CIA went right on running the biggest secret operation they'd ever run.

It's little wonder that when approached outside the Senate hearing room and asked about William Colby likely being replaced by George Bush, Senator Church's voice was shaking with anger when he said, "There is no question in my mind but that concealment is the new order of the day. Hiding evil is the trademark of a totalitarian government."

Of course the crowning glory of Propaganda, Disinformation and Corruption (stay tuned) came only after Colby had thrown himself on the sword (sound familiar?) and passed the baton to a really, really honest and fine statesman—this time, doncha' know—to carry on with the now squeaky-clean, sparkling new CIA: George Herbert Walker Bush. (He continued to hide the supersecret Remote Viewing program in the basement, too. And he especially continued to hide how CIA had come by it, and his role in just that.)

And the crowning glory of Propaganda, Disinformation and Corruption about the foregoing is, of course, practically a bible of so-called researchers: "The Department of Dirty Tricks," by Thomas Powers, published August 1979 in yet another Mockingbird mouthpiece, Atlantic Monthly.

Powers told it just the way the CIA and cronies wanted it told, with all the right touches to paint a sappy melodrama of bad things happening to good people. <SPIT!> Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: some of you reading this probably have that article under your pillow, and I'm the big, bad Ashton boogey man, the Resident Heretic, telling you things you don't want to hear about heroes.

Well, if you do count yourself "in that number," I advise you to suck it up and walk it off. Because if you think all this is ugly, you ain't seen ugly yet.

But I believe we're all going to before it's over.

Ashton Gray

Edited by Ashton Gray
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I already have a page on Colby.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SScolby.htm

However, I would like to add the quote to it. Do you know when and where he said it?

...I'll see if I can find a bonafide source for that dubious quote I posted.

(If I can't then maybe you can just post it and claim that "truthiness" is on your side. :lol:

You know, from the gut.)

This page lists the source as Colby being quoted by Dave McGowan in Derailing Democracy:

http://mtracy9.tripod.com/cia_media.htm

Ashton

Woo hoo! Procrastination paid. Someone else went and did the work.

Thanks Ashton.

Another good quote there:

""You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month."

--CIA operative, discussing the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. Katherine the Great, by Deborah Davis"

Ain't that the truth. Wonder whatever happened to the Media Whores Online website. It was a good one.

Wow now I really want to find that entire article: "The CIA & The Media" from Rolling Stone, 10/20/77.

I like this one:

“The business of a journalist now is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, fall at the feet of Mammon and sell himself for his daily bread. We are tools, vessels of rich men behind the scenes, we are jumping jacks. They pull the strings; we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the properties of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

Attributed to John Swainton, Chief of Staff of the New York Times.

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq32.html#_ednref1

Oh yeah, very good. And the NY Times...well they really walk that walk; don't just talk the talk.

Sleazeballs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow now I really want to find that entire article: "The CIA & The Media" from Rolling Stone, 10/20/77.

Carl Bernstein, CIA and the Media, Rolling Stone Magazine (20th October, 1977)

In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of America’s leading syndicated columnists, went to the Philippines to cover an election. He did not go because he was asked to do so by his syndicate. He did not go because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his column. He went at the request of the CIA.

Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty-five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters.

Some of these journalists’ relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services -- from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go-betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors-without-portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested it the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles, and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements America’s leading news organizations.

The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception...

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier-Journal and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, The Miami Herald, and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald-Tribune. By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with The New York Times, CBS, and Time Inc.

From the Agency’s perspective, there is nothing untoward in such relationships, and any ethical questions are a matter for the journalistic profession to resolve, not the intelligence community...

Many journalists were used by the CIA to assist in this process and they had the reputation of being among the best in the business. The peculiar nature of the job of the foreign correspondent is ideal for such work; he is accorded unusual access, by his host country, permitted to travel in areas often off-limits to other Americans, spends much of his time cultivating sources in governments, academic institutions, the military establishment and the scientific communities. He has the opportunity to form long-term personal relationships with sources and -- perhaps more than any other category of American operative - is in a position to make correct judgments about the susceptibility and availability of foreign nationals for recruitment as spies.

The Agency’s dealings with the press began during the earliest stages of the Cold War. Allen Dulles, who became director of the CIA in 1953, sought to establish a recruiting-and-cover capability within America’s most prestigious journalistic institutions. By operating under the guise of accredited news correspondents, Dulles believed, CIA operatives abroad would be accorded a degree of access and freedom of movement unobtainable under almost any other type of cover.

American publishers, like so many other corporate and institutional leaders at the time, were willing us commit the resources of their companies to the struggle against “global Communism.” Accordingly, the traditional line separating the American press corps and government was often indistinguishable: rarely was a news agency used to provide cover for CIA operatives abroad without the knowledge and consent of either its principal owner; publisher or senior editor. Thus, contrary to the notion that the CIA era and news executives allowed themselves and their organizations to become handmaidens to the intelligence services. “Let’s not pick on some poor reporters, for God’s sake,” William Colby exclaimed at one point to the Church committee’s investigators. “Let’s go to the managements. They were witting” In all, about twenty-five news organizations (including those listed at the beginning of this article) provided cover for the Agency...

Many journalists who covered World War II were close to people in the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime predecessor of the CIA; more important, they were all on the same side. When the war ended and many OSS officials went into the CIA, it was only natural that these relationships would continue.

Meanwhile, the first postwar generation of journalists entered the profession; they shared the same political and professional values as their mentors. “You had a gang of people who worked together during World War II and never got over it,” said one Agency official. “They were genuinely motivated and highly susceptible to intrigue and being on the inside. Then in the Fifties and Sixties there was a national consensus about a national threat. The Vietnam War tore everything to pieces - shredded the consensus and threw it in the air.” Another Agency official observed: “Many journalists didn’t give a second thought to associating with the Agency. But there was a point when the ethical issues which most people had submerged finally surfaced. Today, a lot of these guys vehemently deny that they had any relationship with the Agency.”

The CIA even ran a formal training program in the 1950s to teach its agents to be journalists. Intelligence officers were “taught to make noises like reporters,” explained a high CIA official, and were then placed in major news organizations with help from management. “These were the guys who went through the ranks and were told, “You’re going to be a journalist,” the CIA official said. Relatively few of the 400-some relationships described in Agency files followed that pattern, however; most involved persons who were already bona fide journalists when they began undertaking tasks for the Agency. The Agency’s relationships with journalists, as described in CIA files, include the following general categories:

* Legitimate, accredited staff members of news organizations - usually reporters. Some were paid; some worked for the Agency on a purely voluntary basis.

* Stringers and freelancers. Most were payrolled by the Agency under standard contractual terms.

* Employees of so-called CIA “proprietaries.” During the past twenty-five years, the Agency has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers -- both English and foreign language -- which provided excellent cover for CIA operatives.

* Columnists and commentators. There are perhaps a dozen well-known columnists and broadcast commentators whose relationships with the CIA go far beyond those normally maintained between reporters and their sources. They are referred to at the Agency as “known assets” and can be counted on to perform a variety of undercover tasks; they are considered receptive to the Agency’s point of view on various subjects.

Murky details of CIA relationships with individuals and news organizations began trickling out in 1973 when it was first disclosed that the CIA had, on occasion, employed journalists. Those reports, combined with new information, serve as casebook studies of the Agency’s use of journalists for intelligence purposes.

The New York Times - The Agency’s relationship with the Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. [it was] general Times policy to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible...

CIA officials cite two reasons why the Agency’s working relationship with the Times was closer and more extensive than with any other paper: the fact that the Times maintained the largest foreign news operation in American daily journalism; and the close personal ties between the men who ran both institutions...

The Columbia Broadcasting System -- CBS was unquestionably the CIA’s most valuable broadcasting asset. CBS president William Paley and Allen Dulles enjoyed an easy working and social relationship. Over the years, the network provided cover for CIA employees, including at least one well-known foreign correspondent and several stringers; it supplied outtakes of newsfilm to the CIA; established a formal channel of communication between the Washington bureau chief and the Agency; gave the Agency access to the CBS newsfilm library; and allowed reports by CBS correspondents to the Washington and New York newsrooms to be routinely monitored by the CIA. Once a year during the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for private dinners and briefings...

At the headquarters of CBS News in New York, Paley’s cooperation with the CIA is taken for granted by many news executives and reporters, despite the denials. Paley, 76, was not interviewed by Salant’s investigators. “It wouldn’t do any good,” said one CBS executive. “It is the single subject about which his memory has failed.”

Time and Newsweek magazines - According to CIA and Senate sources, Agency files contain written agreements with former foreign correspondents and stringers for both the weekly news magazines. The same sources refused to say whether the CIA has ended all its associations with individuals who work for the two publications. Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience...

At Newsweek, Agency sources reported, the CIA engaged the services of several foreign correspondents and stringers under arrangements approved by senior editors at the magazine...

“To the best of my knowledge:’ said [Harry] Kern, [Newsweek’s foreign editor from 1945 to 1956] “nobody at Newsweek worked for the CIA.... The informal relationship was there. Why have anybody sign anything? What we knew we told them [the CIA] and the State Department.... When I went to Washington, I would talk to Foster or Allen Dulles about what was going on .... We thought it was admirable at the time. We were all on the same side.” CIA officials say that Kern's dealings with the Agency were extensive...

When Newsweek was purchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to CIA sources. “It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from,” said a former deputy director of the Agency... But Graham, who committed suicide in 1963, apparently knew little of the specifics of any cover arrangements with Newsweek, CIA sources said...

Information about Agency dealings with the Washington Post newspaper is extremely sketchy. According to CIA officials, some Post stringers have been CIA employees, but these officials say they do not know if anyone in the Post management was aware of the arrangements...

Other major news organizations - According to Agency officials, CIA files document additional cover arrangements with the following news gathering organizations, among others: the New York Herald Tribune, Saturday Evening Post, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers, Associated Press, United Press International, the Mutual Broadcasting System, Reuters and The Miami Herald...

“And that's just a small part of the list,” in the words of one official who served in the CIA hierarchy. Like many sources, this official said that the only way to end the uncertainties about aid furnished the Agency by journalists is to disclose the contents of the CIA files - a course opposed by almost all of the thirty-five present and former CIA officials interviewed over the course of a year.

The CIA’s use of journalists continued virtually unabated until 1973 when, in response to public disclosure that the Agency had secretly employed American reporters, William Colby began scaling down the program. In his public statements, Colby conveyed the impression that the use of journalists had been minimal and of limited importance to the Agency.

He then initiated a series of moves intended to convince the press, Congress and the public that the CIA had gotten out of the news business. But according to Agency officials, Colby had in fact thrown a protective net around his most valuable intelligence assets in the journalistic community...

At the headquarters of CBS News in New York, Paley’s cooperation with the CIA is taken for granted by many news executives and reporters, despite the denials. Paley, 76, was not interviewed by Salant’s investigators. “It wouldn’t do any good,” said one CBS executive. “It is the single subject about which his memory has failed.”

After Colby left the Agency on January 28th, 1976, and was succeeded by George Bush, the CIA announced a new policy: “Effective immediately, the CIA will not enter into any paid or contract relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any US news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station.” ... The text of the announcement noted that the CIA would continue to “welcome” the voluntary, unpaid cooperation of journalists. Thus, many relationships were permitted to remain intact.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Information about Agency dealings with the Washington Post newspaper is extremely sketchy."

--Carl Bernstein

:D:lol:;):blink::D

Ashton

P.S. Forgive the smiley abuse. I cannot convey how long and loudly I laughed, but I think I scared the neighbor's cat.

Edited by Ashton Gray
Link to comment
Share on other sites

.

Reagan appointed Casey as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this position he was able to arrange the delivery of arms to Iran. These were delivered via Israel. By the end of 1982 all Reagan’s promises to Iran had been made. With the deal completed, Iran was free to resort to acts of terrorism against the United States. In 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists blew up 241 marines in the CIA Middle-East headquarters.

The ultimate Iran-y, of course, was that Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada to cover his retreat from Lebanon. I'd been skeptical that the move into Grenada was so calculated until reading Maggie Thatcher's memoirs. She claimed that Reagan invaded Grenada, a British protectorate, without even discussing it with her, and that the U.S. invasion was unnecessary.

************************************************************

"The ultimate Iran-y, of course, was that Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada to cover his retreat from Lebanon."

I was absolutely appalled when that ridiculous fiasco was going down! They carried on as if it were Pearl Harbor or something, those damned arm chair warriors! How embarrassing to have to claim to be an American after witnessing that total display of ineptitude. Grenada was about as threatening to the sovereignty of the United States as Jamaica, or Bermuda, or Nassau and the Bahamas, for chrissakes! Is that all the Reagan/Regan regime could muster up was to go and invade a resort town? Or, maybe the "Resorts International" front was somehow at risk, or in danger of losing most of its clientel from the in-coming spring-break cruise lines, what with the bad PR being aired on the newswires and all? What a bunch of worthless yahoos!

___________________________

Ha. There was a priceless New Yorker cartoon that showed an overblown General, presumably at home with spouse, in full uniform with a gazillion medals, holding a drink and posturing. His wife says to him:

"you're insufferable after a 'big win.' Anyway, I realize that a heard melody is sweeter.

But the Greneda thing was done to obfuscate matters involving the execution of some Castro associates, including someone named Maurice Bishop (no relation). Two birds, one stone; as usual.

Thank you, Michael.

I guess I really get pissed off by things that inadvertently equate me [as an American citizen] with asinine gov. strategies deployed in my name [as an American citizen], and with my tax dollars. Especially, when these strategies appear to me [as an American citizen] to be a complete exercise in banality, a comedy of errors, and a total embarrassment due to the waste of resources which could have been put to better use on projects here at home.

______________________

"Once again, Terry masters the art of understatement.

I do admire her passion in every one of her posts.

"

________________________

What the heck...I'd probably admire her passion without the posts (you can tell it's a Friday).

JG

********************************************************

"But the Greneda thing was done to obfuscate matters involving the execution of some Castro associates, including someone named Maurice Bishop (no relation). Two birds, one stone; as usual."

Yeah, there they go with those damned "cut-outs" of theirs, again. Smoke and mirrors. Now you see 'em, now you don't. Masters of deception, as well as the masters of invention of "identity theft," as the term has been coined. There always seems to be a "double" popping up somewhere for the seemingly expressed purpose of "You can't put the blame on Mame, here." We've got 2 John Hulls [F. or L., take your pick], we've got 2 Maurice Bishops [well, how convenient!], and let's see, now who else can I think of...

Just thought I throw this in for posterity. I believe the last verse is apropo:

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Lyrics by Rolling Stones

[verse]

I saw her today at a reception

A glass of wine in her hand

I knew she would meet her connection

At her feet was her footloose man

[chorus]

No, you can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

And if you try sometime you find

You get what you need

Yeah, baby

[verse]

And I went down to the demonstration

To get my fair share of abuse

Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration

If we don't we're gonna blow a 50-amp fuse"

Sing it to me now...

[chorus]

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometimes well you just might find

You get what you need

Oh baby, yeah, yeah!

[verse]

I went down to the Chelsea drugstore

To get your prescription filled

I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy

And man, did he look pretty ill

We decided that we would have a soda

My favorite flavor, cherry red

I sung my song to Mr. Jimmy

Yeah, and he said one word to me, and that was "dead"

I said to him

[chorus]

You can't always get what you want, no!

You can't always get what you want (tell ya baby)

You can't always get what you want (no)

But if you try sometimes you just might find

You get what you need

Oh yes! Truly.

You get what you need--yeah, baby!

[verse]

I saw her today at the reception

In her glass was a bleeding man

She was practiced at the art of deception

Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands

[chorus]

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometimes you just might find

You just might find

You get what you need

[repeat chorus]

Edited by Terry Mauro
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...