The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America

[Octafish]

An excellent overview of the impact Capitalism's Invisible Army makes on the "free press" and its import for democracy...



The covert “selling” of anticommunism

The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America

By Nancy Hanover
World Socialist Web Site, 17 August 2015

EXCERPT...

The Mighty Wurlitzer

The detailed and engrossing 2008 book, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America, by Hugh Wilford, investigates the CIA’s ideological struggle from 1947 to 1967 to win “hearts and minds” for US capitalism and prosecute the Cold War.

SNIP...

Most important of all, the reader comes away with a sense of the immense significance attributed by the American ruling elite to the ideological struggle against socialism.

The author correctly emphasizes, “If anything, these practices have intensified in recent years, with the ‘war on terror’ recreating the conditions of total mobilization that prevailed in the first years of the Cold War.” He adds that the agency is “a growing force on campus.”[3]

The metaphor—a “Mighty Wurlitzer”—was coined by Frank Wisner, the head of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), a paramilitary and psychological operations group created in 1948, which was folded into the CIA in 1951. He prided himself on directing the network of organizations to play any propaganda tune on demand, likening it to the world-famous theater organ.

The agency sought out those who might be predisposed in a socialistic direction, targeting constituencies that had grievances with the status quo. It selected representatives from ethnic groups, women, African-Americans, labor, intellectuals and academics, students, Catholics, and artists and organized them into various front groups to promote anticommunism. These links, in turn, provided the agency with the cover it needed to influence strategically important sectors of foreign populations.

Ironically, as the federal government was conducting its House Un-American Activities witch-hunts and assembling the attorney general’s List of Subversive Organizations, supposedly to ferret out Communist Party “front groups,” the CIA was busy doing precisely that—creating front groups of thousands of unwitting Americans for covert political operations.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/08/17/wur1-a17.html

The fact you can read this is why DU matters. Those tired of the rich getting richer and the middle class disappearing into indentured servitude while wars without end for profits without cease rage unabated aren't hearing a thing about "Why" from Corporate McPravda.

[villager]

1. Perhaps that article also points to why some so strongly de-emphasize the "U" in "DU" as well....

There always seems to be some flight back to the status quo in America's political "opposition.."

[Octafish]

4. Christopher Pyle sheds light on the rationale...

The Company took a big interest in the US citizens opposing war on Vietnam. Today the secret government agencies monitor those opposing war on Iraq and the journalists with whom they talk. What's more, the Tip Secret Bigwigs get to make a lot of money in the process.

70% of the $80+ billion intel budget goes 2 private contractors not bound by constitutional amendmts

EXCERPT...

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, what we’ve seen in the ensuing years has been a vast explosion in intelligence-gathering capabilities. But the most significant part of that is the fact that civilian corporations are now doing the government’s work. Seventy percent of the intelligence budget of the United States today goes to private contractors like Booz Allen, which employed Edward Snowden. This is a major change in the power of surveillance. It now goes not only to the government, but to private corporations.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, you seem—in a recent article, you seem to raise what you think are the real issues in these Snowden leaks. You mention, one, the inability of Congress to actually do legitimate oversight over intelligence. You say that the secrecy system is out of control. And you also say that the system is also profoundly corrupt because of all this use of private contractors who make huge amounts of money that no one can actually hold them accountable for. Could you talk about those issues?

CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Yes. The forerunner of the PRISM system that Snowden disclosed was called Trailblazer. It wasted $1 billion on private contracts. It replaced a much less expensive system called ThinThread, which had more privacy protections and had been developed inside the government. Now, the reason that private contractors get this business is because members of Congress intercede with them with government agencies. And we now have a situation where members of the Intelligence Committee and other committees of Congress intercede with the bureaucracy to get sweetheart contracts for companies that waste taxpayers’ money and also violate the Constitution and the privacy of citizens. This is a very serious situation, because it means that it’s much more difficult to get effective oversight from Congress.

CONTINUED...

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/13/chris_pyle_whistleblower_on_cia_domestic

It is most heartening to know some can still think for themselves, villager.

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

Bookmarking for later,

Thanks!

[Octafish]

5. A History of Threat Escalation: Remembering Team B

The NAZIs the CIA brought built the case for the Soviets being on a war footing against the West. So, the CIA Wall Street types built a case for building up the arms race in response. Of course, they didn't use their inside information for personal benefit. Hah.

A History of Threat Escalation

Remembering Team B

By Tom Barry | February 12, 2004

The most notorious attempt by militarists and right-wing ideologues to challenge the CIA was the Team B affair in the mid-1970s. The 1975-76 “Team B” operation was a classic case of threat escalation by hawks determined to increase military budgets and step up the U.S. offensive in the cold war. Concocted by right-wing ideologues and militarists, Team B aimed to bury the politics of détente and the SALT arms negotiations, which were supported by the leadership of both political parties. 1

The historical record shows that the call for an independent assessment of the CIA's conclusions came from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB--pronounced piffy-ab ). But the fear-mongering and challenges to the CIA's threat assessments--known as National Intelligence Estimates--actually started with nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, who laid down the gauntlet in a 1974 Foreign Policy article entitled “Is There a Strategic Arms Race?” 2 Wohlstetter answered his rhetorical question negatively, concluding that the United States was allowing the Soviet Union to achieve military superiority by not closing the “missile gap.” Having inspired the Gaither Commission in 1957 to raise the missile gap alarm, Wohlstetter applied the same threat assessment methodology to energize hawks, cold warriors, and right-wing anticommunists in the mid-1970s to kill the politics of détente and increase budget allocations for the Pentagon. Following his Foreign Policy essay, Wohlstetter, who had left his full-time position at RAND to become a professor at the University of Chicago, organized an informal study group that included younger neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz and longtime hawks like Paul Nitze.

PFIAB, which was dominated by right-wingers and hawks, followed Wohlstetter's lead and joined the threat assessment battle by calling in 1975 for an independent committee to evaluate the CIA's intelligence estimates. Testimony by PFIAB President Leo Cherne to the House Intelligence Committee in December 1975 alerted committee members to the need for better intelligence about the Soviet Union. “Intelligence cannot help a nation find its soul,” said Cherne. “It is indispensable, however, to help preserve the nation's safety, while it continues its search,” he added. George Bush Sr., who was about to leave his ambassadorship in China to become director of intelligence at the CIA, congratulated Cherne on his testimony, indicating that he would not oppose an independent evaluation of CIA intelligence estimates.

Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush Support Team B

Joining in the chorus of praise, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Bechtel's president George Shultz also congratulated Cherne, implicitly adding their backing for an independent threat assessment committee. 3 Led by several of the board's more hawkish members--including John Foster, Edward Teller, William Casey, Seymour Weiss, W. Glenn Campbell, and Clare Booth Luce--PFIAB had earlier in 1975 called for an independent evaluation of the CIA's national intelligence estimates. Feeling that the country's nuclear weapons industry and capacity was threatened, PFIAB was aiming to derail the arms control treaties then under negotiation.

Shortly after President Gerald Ford appointed Bush to be the new director of intelligence, replacing the beleaguered William Colby, Bush authorized PFIAB's plan for an alternative review. The review consisted of three panels: one to assess the threat posed by Soviet missile accuracy; another to determine the effect of Soviet air defenses on U.S. strategic bombers; and a third--the Strategic Objectives Panel--to determine the Soviet Union's intentions. The work of this last panel, which became known as the Team B Report, was the most controversial. As Paul Warnke, an official at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency at the time of the Team B exercise, wrote: “Whatever might be said for evaluation of strategic capabilities by a group of outside experts, the impracticality of achieving useful results by ‘independent' analysis of strategic objectives should have been self-evident. Moreover, the futility of the Team B enterprise was assured by the selection of the panel's members. Rather than including a diversity of views ... the Strategic Objectives Panel was composed entirely of individuals who made careers of viewing the Soviet menace with alarm.” 4

CONTINUED...

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0402teamb...

Thank you for grokking, 2naSalit!

[2naSalit]

12. No Problem...

This is stuff we all need to know so keep bringin' it!!

And Thank YOU!

[LongTomH]

13. The backstory to Team B and the pro-space movement

General Daniel O. Graham of Team B was part of the movement to introduce the concept of Strategic Missile Defense (Star Wars) during the Reagan administration. Danny Graham attempted to co-opt the pro-space movement built around the space settlement ideas of Princeton physicist Gerard K. O'Neill. Graham even titled his book: High Frontier, shamelessly stealing the title of Gerry O'Neill's book: The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space.




I was a member of the L-5 Society, dedicated to promoting Gerry O'Neill's concepts; I even organized a chapter in Tulsa. Starting around 1980, Dr. Jerry Pournelle, a follower and friend of Danny Graham became a powerful voice in the leadership of the L-5 Society. In 1981, Pournelle, along with aerospace executives, writers and others, including members of the L-5 Society leadership formed The Citizens Advisory Council on Space Policy which prepared a report to be submitted to the Reagan administration.

There were aspects to the Citizens Advisory Council report that I would consider positive: advocacy for solar system exploration and development, including the solar power satellite concepts that L-5 and Gerry O'Neill's Space Studies Institute championed. Another was advocacy of a space station, which the Reagan administration championed as "Space Station Freedom," which became the International Space Station under the Clinton Administration.

But, the report did have a strongly militaristic bent. Pournelle and others wanted the L-5 Society to become a vehicle for promoting SDI more than promoting space settlements. Actually, the L-5 Society ended up not taking any position on space weaponry. That alienated both the strategic defense advocates and those opposed, splitting the society. In 1987, the remains of the L-5 Society were merged with Wernher von Braun's National Space Institute to form the National Space Society, which still exists.

Actually, L-5 was never a large organization; but, it was vocal and I believe it was an effective voice for O'Neill's space development and settlement concepts. The National Space Society gives lip service to Dr. O'Neill's concepts; but, I see it as more a public relations arm for the Aerospace industries Association and other industry groups.

Gerry O'Neill's vision is still being kept alive by The Space Studies Institute, which he founded.

[bbgrunt]

3. k and r

[Octafish]

6. Journalism and the CIA: The Mighty Wurlitzer

By Daniel Brandt
From NameBase NewsLine, No. 17, April-June 1997

Alongside those Greek morality plays and Biblical injunctions, we are also reminded by history itself that the use of unethical means to achieve a worthy end can be self-destructive. Power, by definition, is isolated from the correcting signals of external criticism. Or perhaps the feeling of fighting evil fits so comfortably, that it's difficult to shed even after objective circumstances change.

The history of U.S. intelligence since World War II follows both patterns. The Office of Strategic Services, the CIA's predecessor, had jurisdiction over wartime covert operations and propaganda in the fight against fascism. OSS chief William Donovan recruited heavily among social and academic elites. When the CIA was launched in 1947 at the beginning of the Cold War, these pioneers felt that they had both the right and the duty to secretly manipulate the masses for the greater good.

OSS veteran Frank Wisner ran most of the early peacetime covert operations as head of the Office of Policy Coordination. Although funded by the CIA, OPC wasn't integrated into the CIA's Directorate of Plans until 1952, under OSS veteran Allen Dulles. Both Wisner and Dulles were enthusiastic about covert operations. By mid-1953 the department was operating with 7,200 personnel and 74 percent of the CIA's total budget.

Wisner created the first "information superhighway." But this was the age of vacuum tubes, not computers, so he called it his "Mighty Wurlitzer." The CIA's global network funded the Italian elections in 1948, sent paramilitary teams into Albania, trained Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan, and pumped money into the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the National Student Association, and the Center for International Studies at MIT. Key leaders and labor unions in western Europe received subsidies, and Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were launched. The Wurlitzer, an organ designed for film productions, could imitate sounds such as rain, thunder, or an auto horn. Wisner and Dulles were at the keyboard, directing history.

The ethos of the fight against fascism carried over into the fight against godless communism; for these warriors, the Cold War was still a war. OSS highbrows had already embraced psychological warfare as a new social science: propaganda, for example, was divided into "black" propaganda (stories that are unattributed, or attributed to nonexistent sources, or false stories attributed to a real source), "gray" propaganda (stories from the government where the source is attributed to others), and "white" propaganda (stories from the government where the source is acknowledged as such).[1]

After World War II, these psywar techniques continued. C.D. Jackson, a major figure in U.S. psywar efforts before and after the war, was simultaneously a top executive at Time-Life. Psywar was also used with success during the 1950s by Edward Lansdale, first in the Philippines and then in South Vietnam. In Guatemala, the Dulles brothers worked with their friends at United Fruit, in particular the "father of public relations," Edward Bernays, who for years had been lobbying the press on behalf of United. When CIA puppets finally took over in 1954, only applause was heard from the media, commencing forty years of CIA-approved horrors in that unlucky country.[2] Bernays' achievement apparently impressed Allen Dulles, who immediately began using U.S. public relations experts and front groups to promote the image of Ngo Dinh Diem as South Vietnam's savior.[3]

The combined forces of unaccountable covert operations and corporate public relations, each able to tap massive resources, are sufficient to make the concept of "democracy" obsolete. Fortunately for the rest of us, unchallenged power can lose perspective. With research and analysis -- the capacity to see and understand the world around them -- entrenched power must constantly anticipate and contain potential threats. But even as power seems more secure, this capacity can be blinded by hubris and isolation.

Troublesome notes were heard from the Wurlitzer in the 1960s -- but not from American journalism, which had already sold its soul to the empire. Instead, the announcement that the emperor had no clothes was made by a new generation. Much that was dear to this counterculture was stylistic and superficial, and there were many within this culture itself, and certainly within the straight media, who mistook this excess baggage for its essence. Nevertheless, the youth culture's rumpled opposition was sufficient to slow down the machine and let in some light.

CONTINUED...

http://www.namebase.org/news17.html

I wonder what the writer would say about the current day?

[Octafish]

7. Secret Government ''Managing'' the News is NOT Ancient History.

Didn't see this get much press:

Correspondence and collusion between the New York Times and the CIA

Mark Mazzetti's emails with the CIA expose the degradation of journalism that has lost the imperative to be a check to power

Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 August 2012 14.58 EDT

EXCERPT...

But what is news in this disclosure are the newly released emails between Mark Mazzetti, the New York Times's national security and intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf. The CIA had evidently heard that Maureen Dowd was planning to write a column on the CIA's role in pumping the film-makers with information about the Bin Laden raid in order to boost Obama's re-election chances, and was apparently worried about how Dowd's column would reflect on them. On 5 August 2011 (a Friday night), Harf wrote an email to Mazzetti with the subject line: "Any word??", suggesting, obviously, that she and Mazzetti had already discussed Dowd's impending column and she was expecting an update from the NYT reporter.

SNIP...

Even more amazing is the reaction of the newspaper's managing editor, Dean Baquet, to these revelations, as reported by Politico's Dylan Byers:

"New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet called POLITICO to explain the situation, but provided little clarity, saying he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter.

CONTINUED with LINKS...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/correspondence-collusion-new-york-times-cia

These really are cursed interesting times for democracy.

[Octafish]

8. News from the intersection of secret spying powers and privatized profits...

...is missing from Corporate Owned News coverage. Details of just one of those important articles for democracy:

Stratfor: executive boasted of 'trusted former CIA cronies'

By Alex Spillius, Diplomatic Correspondent
9:08PM GMT 28 Feb 2012
The Telegraph

A senior executive with the private intelligence firm Stratfor boasted to colleagues about his "trusted former CIA cronies" and promised to "see what I can uncover" about a classified FBI investigation, according to emails released by the WikiLeaks.

Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence at the Texas firm, also informed members of staff that he had a copy of the confidential indictment on Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

The second batch of five million internal Stratfor emails obtained by the Anonymous computer hacking group revealed that the company has high level sources within the United States and other governments, runs a network of paid informants that includes embassy staff and journalists and planned a hedge fund, Stratcap, based on its secret intelligence.

SNIP...

Mr Assange labelled the company as a "private intelligence Enron", in reference to the energy giant that collapsed after a false accounting scandal.

CONTINUED...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9111784/Stratfor-executive-boasted-of-trusted-former-CIA-cronies.html

Gee. Don't see that in the newspaper or on the tee vee or come out of a radio. Something else that's important for those wondering about secret agencies controlling the "free press": or exposing those using government powers for privatized gain, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks became enemies of the state.

[haikugal]

31. With much agreement right here on DU....amazing!

Great thread, much needed with thanks...K&R!

[bobthedrummer]

9. It's beyond a Wurlitzer-it's a heavenly choir thanks to NASA (Dulles's PAPERCLIP pals) et.al. K&R

Psychological Operations/PSYOPS became "Information Operations" in 2003. That's the MSM imo.

The Office of Strategic Influence never really closed-it expanded under Douglas Feith and Donald Henry Rumsfeld...

Office of Strategic Influence/OSI (The Center for Media and Democracy/Source Watch)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Office_of_Strategic_Influence

Former USAF General Simon Peter Worden headed OSI but you won't find anything about that without an effort no, he's "retired" now.

Pete Worden Leaving NASA To Pursue Private Sector Dreams (Brian Berger&Dan Leone 2-26-15 Space News)
http://spacenews.com/pete-worden-leaving-nasa-to-pursue-private-sector-dreams

One more little link for those that realize we are well beyond that Dulles fascist designed Wurlitzer today

Domestic Propaganda and the News Media (History Commons)
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=military_analysts_tmln&military_analysts

It's almost time for today's information operation, I mean entertainment news isn't it Sir?
Entertainment Tonight!
http://etonline.com

[Octafish]

15. ''Target Audience''

Who remembers the Army sent "Interns" to CNN and NPR without, uh, telling anybody who was sponsoring their visits? Before 9-11.

NPR news chiefs deny they knew of Army interns

Originally published in Current, April 17, 2000

By Mike Janssen

Sergeants from a specialized propaganda unit of the U.S. Army interned on NPR news shows over a nine-month period, according to a statement by network President Kevin Klose released last week. The April 10 announcement coincided with the publication of an article in TV Guide that revealed the surprising news.

Similar reports about officers from the 4th Psychological Operations Group (PSYOP) interning at CNN surfaced weeks before the TV Guide article, first in a Dutch newspaper and later in stateside media. Media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn suggested that the military was spying on CNN and highlighted the rich potential for conflicts of interest. However, CNN and NPR officials agree with a PSYOP spokesman: the interns did not influence the networks' journalism.

"No journalism was committed" by the interns, says NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, who was v.p. of news when the interns were employed. Dvorkin says the interns answered phones, filed away scripts, and prepared program lists and schedules. Maj. Jonathan Withington, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Special Operations Command which includes PSYOP, adds that the interns carried equipment and did "background research," and stresses that they did not influence reporting. Regardless, Dvorkin calls the internships "a real goof."

The first intern at NPR rotated among newsmagazines from September to November 1998. The other two worked for Talk of the Nation, one from January to February 1999, the other from March to May 1999. NPR and Withington would not identify the interns or allow them to be interviewed for this article.

CONTINUED...

http://www.current.org/rad/rad007psyop.html

Later...

Target Audience

Fort Bragg's propaganda troops at work on the home front

By Jon Elliston
Indy Week (Raleigh NC), July 5, 2000

"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill," the oft-quoted military strategist Sun Tzu wrote more than 2,000 years ago. Today's top propaganda troops, the U.S. Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, still repeat that dictum as they take their trade into the information age.

They may also have taken military persuasion skills into American newsrooms, according to a recent series of reports that began in the European press and sparked a media mini-scandal here in the United States.

The latest uproar over military news management is not about journalists' access to some faraway combat zone, but rather concerns government-media collaboration on the home front. Fort Bragg's Army Special Operations Command, home to the nation's preeminent and only active-duty tactical propaganda unit, is under scrutiny for dispatching soldiers from the 4th Group to work as news interns at Cable News Network (CNN) in Atlanta and National Public Radio (NPR) in Washington, D.C.

Media analysts who have expressed alarm about the case say that while any official armed-forces presence in the news-production process is cause for concern, the psychological operations (PSYOP) personnel pose a particular threat, given the job they do. Soldiers from the 4th Group accompany U.S. troops in every major military deployment, amplifying the force of arms by barraging "target audiences" with information, persuasive appeals and intimidating threats.

In the wake of public disclosures about the unusual internships, both networks have banned the propaganda specialists from any future training programs, though the networks say the soldier interns had no influence on the content of news reports.

Echoing the media outlets that first welcomed and then abruptly decommissioned the PSYOP interns, Army spokesmen insist that the fuss is much ado about nothing. The 4th Group personnel signed up with the mainstream media to soak up skills, they say, not to spin the news about military matters.

Observers of this unprecedented episode are still sorting out the implications. A series of fragmentary press reports beginning in February 2000 revealed the basic facts about the internships, but the complete story has remained elusive.

Army documents and interviews with soldiers at Fort Bragg indicate that this was not the first time PSYOP troops were deployed domestically and suggest that, given the growing importance of persuasion operations in military planning and the increasingly advanced capabilities of units like the 4th Group, the U.S. media--as well as any citizen seeking the facts on foreign policy--should be on guard for additional military forays into the fourth estate.

Perception management

Cease Resistance: It's Good for You! is the title of the definitive history of combat psychological operations, written by an in-house historian at the Army Special Operations Command.

CONTINUED...

http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/target-audience/Content?oid=1181681

Gee. That's strange. The year 2000 is before September 11, 2001 when everything was supposed to change. Glad democracy means the same to you, Sir, as it does to me.

Thank you, bobthedrummer! Outstanding links and information!

[nashville_brook]

10. k and r

[Octafish]

17. J Edgar Hoover with Supercomputers

George Orwell put his ideas down on paper in 1984, Animal Farm and other written works. While he didn't foretell the arrival of computing and its implications for mass surveillance, Terry Gilliam did. In the Python's outstanding 1985 film, "Brazil," the Memory Hole was partly electronic, but still required a lot of paperwork and tubes to get the job done of keeping history straight and the tabs on everyone. Today, things are even worse.

Ray McGovern called the situation: "J Edgar Hoover on Supercomputers." I think it may be even worse. The guys who got rid of Nixon -- and Frank Church -- have the latest gear.

J. Edgar Hoover With Supercomputers

by Ray McGovern
AntiWar.com, January 6, 2006

On Dec. 19, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Gen. Mike Hayden held a press conference in which they once again misled the American people.

Gonzales and Hayden answered questions about reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), which Hayden directed from 1999 to 2005, was eavesdropping on Americans via a special program in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The implications for privacy – and our system of checks and balances – are immense.

As long as he read from his prepared statement, Attorney General Gonzales did just fine with the press. He conceded that FISA requires a court order to authorize the surveillance the president ordered the NSA to undertake, and then hammered home the administration's "legal analysis:" the twin arguments that Congress' post-9/11 authorization of force and the president's power as commander in chief trump the legal constraints of FISA.

When the reporters' questions began, though, Gonzales faltered and twice spilled the beans. Asked why the administration decided to flout rather than amend FISA, choosing instead a "backdoor approach," Gonzales said:

"We have had discussions with Congress … as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible."

So they went ahead and did it anyway.

SNIP...

[font color="green"]Another concern is that, among the groups of American citizens most likely to be sucked up by the NSA's vacuum cleaner – because of the nature of their work and their international calls/contacts – are members of Congress and journalists. A key question that raises its ugly head is this: If hundreds of calls and e-mails involving Americans are being intercepted each and every day, and juicy tidbits are learned about, say, prominent officials or other persons, there will be an almost irresistible temptation to make use of this information. Former FBI special agent Coleen Rowley, who for many years monitored court-authorized electronic surveillances and wiretaps relating to organized criminal and drug conspiracy groups, recently underscored how much one can learn about someone by listening in on his/her private communications. She reminds us that the blackmail potential is clear.[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=8349

Hannah Arendt warned us where all this is going:



The goal of wholesale surveillance, [font color="green"]as (Hannah) Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.” [/font color]And because Americans’ emails, phone conversations, Web searches and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough “evidence” to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a deadly virus inside government vaults to be turned against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant.

Chris Hedges, The Last Gasp of American Democracy

[hifiguy]

11. Kickety rec.

Thanks for posting this so soon after my now-lengthy thread.

This is basically the confirmation I was thinking of. Exhibits A through infinity.

You do good, sir, so much good!

[Electric Monk]

14. I'm pretty sure you mean this thread, for those who may have somehow missed it

(I like links)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7073993

[haikugal]

33. Thanks!

[H2O Man]

16. Recommended.

Once again, you provide the DU community with an example of the type of information that we should be focusing on, if we are intent upon restoring our constitutional democracy. Yet, more people will focus their attention upon the glittery utter nonsense of the Ashley Madison "controversy." And not be aware that such glitter is entirely a distraction.

Rubin used to say that the institution's management found it far easier to deal with a large band of merry fools, than a solitary unhappy wise man.

[Octafish]

21. Best way to predict the future is to make it happen.

In addition to sharing ideas, discussion serves to develop new ideas. Imagination and inspiration come from sharing information. Hence tons of propaganda and disinformation from the six companies that constitute the national news media that serve the War Party. They spare no expense to halt the spread of what they most fear, the Truth.

Thank you for sharing from your remarkable storehouse, H2O Man. Seeing how the only thing I can imagine lower than the Congressional approval number is respect for Corporate McPravda, the Internet may be working to confirm what our eyes and ears have been telling us. Thus the import of your honest and caring heart.

[MinM]

18. Lisa Pease: OPC “became the fastest-growing unit within the nascent CIA,”

@MortNef: OPC “became the fastest-growing unit within the nascent CIA,” @lisapease observes .. http://shar.es/1vticf

Global Research @CRG_CRM
The CIA and the Media: 50 Facts the World Needs to Know: Since the end of World War Two the Central Intelligen... http://bit.ly/1Kf3WH6

[Octafish]

22. I have the honor of meeting Lisa Pease.

Ms. Pease spoke about "Soft Power" at the Duquesne JFK conference. She reported CIA has an official office in Hollywood. She is a sage.

JFK Conference: Lisa Pease Discussed the Real Harm of Corrupt Soft Power

As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" at Duquesne University.

One of the important speakers there I was privileged to meet and hear is Lisa Pease, who discussed "The Covert Corruption of Culture: How Our Reaction to JFK's Assassination and Cover-Up Determines Our Future." A researcher, writer and editor, her presentation examined our information environment and what it means for our selves, our nation, and our planet.



Lisa Pease defined culture as what we experience on a shared basis. She described a talk with a colleague from China who told her about "Hard Power" and "Soft Power." A nation's military and police forces are examples of Hard Power. Soft Power is wielded through the mass media, entertainment industries, and the arts. The latter create culture. And culture shapes belief.

Ms. Pease said she likes to correct inaccuracies in the press and encourages us to do likewise. One egregious example is the treatment afforded the assassination of President Kennedy. Not only have the basic facts and questions around Dallas been misrepresented, information that indicates a conspiracy behind the assassination have been suppressed by the nation's news media. Despite the biased coverage and propaganda, a majority of Americans do not believe the Warren Commission case against Lee Harvey Oswald.

Professional propagandists shape the national information environment. To help We the People preserve democracy, she recommends everyone read "1984" by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair).

"That is the best book you all should read, because that is our future if we don't take back what's been done to us in the last, many years. 'Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.' And I'm adding who controls culture, controls the present, because culture shapes our beliefs. Every day, every minute, everything you hear is input, and our brains are just recording it all and making assumptions, rightly or wrongly. The goal of my talk here is to help you make, maybe, better decisions about which inputs to let reach you and maybe when to recognize you are being propagandized. There is a culture war going on, specifically about this issue."

Ms. Pease has worked in the news and entertainment industry. She originally hoped that the assassination of President Kennedy was the result of a lone madman. After starting to research the assassinations of President Kennedy -- and later that of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy -- she realized that the facts indicated conspiracy and that the perpetrators had not been brought to justice. She wanted to talk about her work on the national news media, but after being invited to appear on television, she would see her segments left off of broadcasts. A booking agent explained to her the true picture: "Unless you support the Warren Commission, you will not get on television."

I can personally attest to Ms. Pease's contention regarding biased coverage. In 1993, during the 30th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, I conducted a Content Analysis of New York Times coverage of the assassination anniversary as part of a college program. Using agreement by three coders, we examined the NYT coverage and found fully three-fourths of the paper's space that was devoted to Dallas went to one book, Gerald Posner's "Case Closed" which supported the Warren Commission's findings. Even though many important works were published around that year indicating conspiracy (including "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK" by Peter Dale Scott, "Destiny Betrayed" by James DiEugenio, and "The Last Investigation" by Gaeton Fonzi), they got near-zero coverage in the Paper of Record. In the 20 years since, much new has been learned. The Times, Washington Post and the few networks that produce most of the content Americans hear as news have stuck to the WC line.

"What's at stake are lives, literally lives, are at stake," Ms. Pease said. "By not reporting the truth about the assassination of President Kennedy, the media enabled the assassinations of others. Had the public known about the CIA's roles in coups and assassinations before Kennedy was killed, maybe we would have approached the Warren Report quite a bit differently. And, of course, by not prosecuting the agency for lying to the HSCA (House Select Committee on Assassinations), regardless, regardless -- i'm going to say it a third time -- regardless of whether the CIA was involved in the assassination, by not holding the CIA accountable for lying about anything to Congress is probably the worst mistake this country could make, because we cease to be a democracy when we give up oversight. We do not elect the people in the CIA. We do elect the people in Congress. And that is our only hold on this national security state. We need to hold our elected representatives accountable when they don't hold the national security state accountable. And that goes for all this stuff that's going on today with the NSA revelations. The former NSA director provably lied to Congress, it's right there on video; many of us have actually seen it. It's really important that man be held accountable, that agency be held accountable, because he's not just lying to congress, he's lying to all of us. That's not how democracy functions. These very types of lies that go unchallenged that led us to attack,
literally millions of innocent people in Iraq...These are people who have not done us any harm. Lies are killing people."

Ms. Pease cited several examples of important information that the nation's press have ignored from Kennedy Administration that are relevant for the public to know. Official documents from the CIA itself prove conclusively that President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, were unaware of CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro -- assassination plans that began in 1960 under President Eisenhower and DCI Allen Dulles. Yet, the news media continue to repeat the canard that Kennedy ordered the plan. I'm proud to say, we on DU have discussed the Truth -- what Democracy most needs to survive.

OP: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024024545

Thank you for the heads up on the Office of Policy Coordination. The euphemisms are rich.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Pipelines_B_CS.html

[MinM]

39. Real History Blog

Although she doesn't post much there anymore her blog @ http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/ is a wealth of information.

She also did some great work at Probe Magazine prior to that.

Also follow her the old fashioned way .. on twitter .. @lisapease

Real History indeed.

[Octafish]

40. Ms. Pease wrote about CIA and Otis Pike

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027148075

[Judi Lynn]

19. Thank you for this thread. I didn't see it until a moment ago.

So MUCH important information to absorb.

You can't imagine how helpful your posts are.

Once we get it, we do pass it on, also. Doesn't end with us. We need to know these things.

[Octafish]

24. The CIA and the Media: 50 Facts the World Needs to Know

By Prof. James F. Tracy
Global Research, August 28, 2015

Since the end of World War Two the Central Intelligence Agency has been a major force in US and foreign news media, exerting considerable influence over what the public sees, hears and reads on a regular basis. CIA publicists and journalists alike will assert they have few, if any, relationships, yet the seldom acknowledged history of their intimate collaboration indicates a far different story–indeed, one that media historians are reluctant to examine.

Kennedy_CIAWhen seriously practiced, the journalistic profession involves gathering information concerning individuals, locales, events, and issues. In theory such information informs people about their world, thereby strengthening “democracy.” This is exactly the reason why news organizations and individual journalists are tapped as assets by intelligence agencies and, as the experiences of German journalist Udo Ulfkotte (entry 47 below) suggest, this practice is at least as widespread today as it was at the height of the Cold War.

Consider the coverups of election fraud in 2000 and 2004, the events of September 11, 2001, the invasions Afghanistan and Iraq, the destabilization of Syria, and the creation of “ISIS.” These are among the most significant events in recent world history, and yet they are also those much of the American public is wholly ignorant of. In an era where information and communication technologies are ubiquitous, prompting many to harbor the illusion of being well-informed, one must ask why this condition persists.

Further, why do prominent US journalists routinely fail to question other deep events that shape America’s tragic history over the past half century, such as the political assassinations of the 1960s, or the central role played by the CIA major role in international drug trafficking?

Popular and academic commentators have suggested various reasons for the almost universal failure of mainstream journalism in these areas, including newsroom sociology, advertising pressure, monopoly ownership, news organizations’ heavy reliance on “official” sources, and journalists’ simple quest for career advancement. There is also, no doubt, the influence of professional public relations maneuvers. Yet such a broad conspiracy of silence suggests another province of deception examined far too infrequently—specifically the CIA and similar intelligence agencies’ continued involvement in the news media to mold thought and opinion in ways scarcely imagined by the lay public.

The following historical and contemporary facts–by no means exhaustive–provides a glimpse of how the power such entities possess to influence if not determine popular memory and what respectable institutions deem to be the historical record.

CONTINUED...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-and-the-media-50-facts-the-world-needs-to-know/5471956

Thank you for the kind words, Judi Lynn! Your friendship means the world to me.

PS: This weekend I had occasion to meet a group of outstanding young people entering a program at a Michigan university. Looking at a world map I noted the Pacific Ocean and asked one pre-med student what he thought of the Fukushima disaster. He had never heard of it -- and this kid is one of the top high school graduates in all of Michigan. I told him how three reactors were still in meltdown, out of control and dumping radiation into the Pacific, some of which had been measured around the world. He reiterated having heard nothing about it. That also is why DU matters so damn much.

[bobthedrummer]

20. Kick and an invitation to join in on a discussion of "information operations" aka Psy-Ops for those

that love the truth.

Chapter 37 of Michael Hastings book "The Operators" introduced me to General William B. Caldwell IV
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016130893

[Octafish]

25. Michael Hastings made somebody very nervous.

It is a real crime we are unable to learn more from Mr. Hastings.

The Operators by Michael Hastings: 10 Juicy Bits

Fresh reporting and never-before-published revelations from an explosive new book by the journalist whose reporting brought down a top U.S. general.

By Rolling Stone January 5, 2012

EXCERPT...

3. McChrystal on Petraeus’ potential presidential ambitions, and the worries they caused the White House. McChrystal says he was told, “We don’t want a man on horseback.” He responded, “I don’t even have a horse.” The White House, he told Hastings in 2010, was “very worried about Petraeus. They certainly don’t have to be worried about me. But Petraeus, if he wanted to run, he’s had a lot of offers. He says he doesn’t want to, and I believe him." [p. 90]

4. McChrystal’s surprising reservations about the war in Iraq. "We co-opted the media on that one," says the general, who served as the Pentagon’s top spokesman during the 2003 invasion. "You could see it coming. There were a lot of us who didn’t think Iraq was a good idea." [p. 90]

SNIP...

6. McChrystal’s 2009 clash with Gen. Colin Powell over Afghanistan. Powell sent a critical note to McChrystal, who was thought to be pushing behind the scenes for a troop increase, in opposition to the less troop-intensive counterterrorism strategy being pushed, most prominently, by Vice President Biden. (Powell) "thought I was fighting our government, which I wasn’t," McChrystal said. [p. 170]

SNIP...

9. A thorough debunking, with new details, of the Pentagon’s whitewashing investigation into McChrystal and his staff for insubordination after the publication of Hastings’ Rolling Stone article. Pentagon officials, writes Hastings, privately told journalists that the primary intent of the investigation was to "damage" his credibility. Far from “exonerating” McChrystal, as the media widely reported, the investigation simply failed to find anyone who would admit to saying what they did. McChrystal, for example, claimed to investigators that he didn't remember hearing the "Bite me" comment, though he made the remark that prompted it and laughed out loud in Hastings' presence when he heard it. [p. 372]

CONTINUED...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-operators-by-michael-hastings-10-juicy-bits-20120105

"We co-opted the media on that one." Har har.

PS: Thank you for the heads-up, bobthedrummer. Every time I read your posts, I get smarter. Every time, Sir.

[CrawlingChaos]

23. HUGE K&R

As always Octafish, cannot thank you enough. You are the BEST of DU.

[Octafish]

26. It used to be against the law, directing propaganda against the American people.

Smith-Mundt Act. History.

U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans

BY JOHN HUDSON
Foreign Policy - The Cable, JULY 14, 2013

For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts. So what just happened?

SNIP...

A former U.S. government source with knowledge of the BBG says the organization is no Pravda, but it does advance U.S. interests in more subtle ways. In Somalia, for instance, VOA serves as counterprogramming to outlets peddling anti-American or jihadist sentiment. "Somalis have three options for news," the source said, "word of mouth, al-Shabab, or VOA Somalia."

This partially explains the push to allow BBG broadcasts on local radio stations in the United States. The agency wants to reach diaspora communities, such as St. Paul, Minnesota’s significant Somali expat community. "Those people can get al-Shabab, they can get Russia Today, but they couldn’t get access to their taxpayer-funded news sources like VOA Somalia," the source said. "It was silly."

Lynne added that the reform has a transparency benefit as well. "Now Americans will be able to know more about what they are paying for with their tax dollars — greater transparency is a win-win for all involved," she said. And so with that we have the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, and went into effect this month.

But if anyone needed a reminder of the dangers of domestic propaganda efforts, the past 12 months provided ample reasons. Last year, two USA Today journalists were ensnared in a propaganda campaign after reporting about millions of dollars in back taxes owed by the Pentagon’s top propaganda contractor in Afghanistan. Eventually, one of the co-owners of the firm confessed to creating phony websites and Twitter accounts to smear the journalists anonymously. Additionally, just this month, the Washington Post exposed a counter-propaganda program by the Pentagon that recommended posting comments on a U.S. website run by a Somali expat with readers opposing al-Shabab. "Today, the military is more focused on manipulating news and commentary on the Internet, especially social media, by posting material and images without necessarily claiming ownership," reported the Post.

But for BBG officials, the references to Pentagon propaganda efforts are nauseating, particularly because the Smith-Mundt Act never had anything to do with regulating the Pentagon, a fact that was misunderstood in media reports in the run-up to the passage of new Smith-Mundt reforms in January.

CONTINUED...

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/

PS: Thank you for the kind words, CrawlingChaos! Your Friendship means the world to me.

[reddread]

27. the crux of the biscuit

I was going to point out the past tense in the OP header surely reflected the handoff to
US Army forces who direct their attention towards domestic information resources.
and it does.
freedom is just another word, that means nothing in America.

[Octafish]

29. Freedom is for those who can afford it. Poor kids rot unknown in jail for five years and die...

...while warmongers who've killed millions for oil and banksters who've tossed millions from their homes to pocket billions walk free.

Yet, the more we lurch rightward, the more people who should be past pissed acquiesce.

I think they are putting something in the water -- meaning our minds.

The Waters of Knowledge

versus

The Waters of Uncertainty

Mass Denial in the Assassination of President Kennedy

by E. Martin Schotz

INTRODUCTION

My task this afternoon is to explore with you the reasons the American people do not know who killed President Kennedy and why. In order to do this we will have to deal with three interdependent conspiracies which developed in the course of the assassination and its aftermath. These are (1) the criminal conspiracy to murder the President by a cabal of militarists at the highest echelons of power in the United States; (2) the conspiracy which aided and abetted these murderers after the fact, by covering for the assassins, also a true criminal conspiracy involving an extremely wide circle of government officials across the entire political spectrum and at all levels of government; and (3) a conspiracy of ignorance, denial, confusion, and silence which has pervaded our entire public.

The major focus of my talk today is this third conspiracy on the part of the public, which includes our so-called "critical community". I want to show you that our failure to know is not based on any lack of data or because the data is ambiguous. It is all extremely simple and obvious. Rather we don't know because we are deeply emotionally resistant to what such knowledge tells us about ourselves and our society. Furthermore the powers-that-be do not reward people for such knowledge. Indeed if a person is willing to acknowledge the truth, is in a position to share such knowledge with the public, and wishes to do so, then the organized institutions of our society will turn sharply against such a person.

Now this is not a new problem in the history of society. In fact, I want to read to you a Sufi tale from the Ninth Century which can help to orient us to the problem. The tale is entitled "When the Waters Were Changed." It goes as follows:
When the Waters Were Changed

Once upon a time Khidr, the Teacher of Moses, called upon mankind with a warning. At a certain date, he said, all the water in the world which had not been specially hoarded, would disappear. It would then be renewed with dfferent water, which would drive men mad.

Only one man listened to the meaning of this advice. He collected water, went to a secure place where he stored it, and waited for the water to change its character.

On the appointed date the streams stopped running, the wells went dry, and the man who had listened, seeing this happening, went to his rdtreat and drank his preserved water.

When he saw, from his security, the waterfalls again beginning to flow, this man descended among the other sons of men. He found that they were thinking and talking in an entirely different way from before; yet they had no memory of what had happened, nor of having been warned. When he tried to talk to them, he realized that they thought that he was mad, and they showed hostility or compassion, not understanding.

At first he drank none of the new water, but went back to his concealment, to draw on his supplies, every day. Finally, however, he took the decision to drink the new water because he could not bear the loneliness of living, behaving and thinking in a different way from everyone else. He drank the new water, and became like the rest. Then he forgot all about his own store of special water, and his fellows began to look upon him as a madman who had miraculously been restored to sanity.

The struggle for truth in the assassination of President Kennedy confronts us with the problem of the "waters of knowledge" versus "the waters of uncertainty." Let me give you an example involving two important individuals who attempted to bring the truth before the American people. I am speaking of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and filmmaker Oliver Stone.

CONTINUED...

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/27th_Issue/schotz.html

"The best slave is the one who thinks he is free." -- Johann Wolfgang von Göthe

[jwirr]

28. Having lived through that propaganda age I was very

interested in seeing the real USSR the day the Wall fell.

And then I was shocked. We had been sold on the idea that the USSR was on an equal economic level with the US - a viable threat to our way of life. The other part of the propaganda was of course how very strong they were from a military standpoint.

The military issue was laid to rest when their army was beaten by Afghanistan soldiers. So they are not the real threat we were told to believe. But then shortly after this the Wall falls. They cannot even prevent their own satellite countries from breaking away. They tried but it did now work.

With the Wall down we get a good look at their economic wealth. And we see hospitals with no supplies. Stores with little food, etc. They were poor. Not just some poor people in their country but a poor country. A country that has spent most of its budget on military equipment that is not enough in the end to even win a war with their neighbors.

It did not take me long to realize that the CIA and our government had been lying to us for decades regarding the real threat to our nation. Possibly the only thing that was true was that the USSR had nukes. And in itself that is scary enough.

[Octafish]

36. Wall Street would profit immensely from the Cold War, hence ''Team B.''

Washington, Wall Street and Madison Avenue eh worked together to tell the Big Lie that you so well described, jwirr. When Jimmy Carter got the ziggy thanks to the GOP's business partner Ayatollah Khomeini and Friends, they suddenly reappeared in the Reagan Revulsion.



[font size="4"]Remembering Team B[/font size]

The most notorious attempt by militarists and right-wing ideologues to challenge the CIA was the Team B affair in the mid-1970s. The 1975-76...

Tom Barry, last updated: February 11, 2004
Institute for Policy Studies

The most notorious attempt by militarists and right-wing ideologues to challenge the CIA was the Team B affair in the mid-1970s. The 1975-76 "Team B" operation was a classic case of threat escalation by hawks determined to increase military budgets and step up the U.S. offensive in the cold war. Concocted by right-wing ideologues and militarists, Team B aimed to bury the politics of détente and the SALT arms negotiations, which were supported by the leadership of both political parties. 1

The historical record shows that the call for an independent assessment of the CIA's conclusions came from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB--pronounced piffy-ab ). But the fear-mongering and challenges to the CIA's threat assessments--known as National Intelligence Estimates--actually started with nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, who laid down the gauntlet in a 1974 Foreign Policy article entitled "Is There a Strategic Arms Race?" 2 Wohlstetter answered his rhetorical question negatively, concluding that the United States was allowing the Soviet Union to achieve military superiority by not closing the "missile gap." Having inspired the Gaither Commission in 1957 to raise the missile gap alarm, Wohlstetter applied the same threat assessment methodology to energize hawks, cold warriors, and right-wing anticommunists in the mid-1970s to kill the politics of détente and increase budget allocations for the Pentagon. Following his Foreign Policy essay, Wohlstetter, who had left his full-time position at RAND to become a professor at the University of Chicago, organized an informal study group that included younger neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz and longtime hawks like Paul Nitze.

PFIAB, which was dominated by right-wingers and hawks, followed Wohlstetter's lead and joined the threat assessment battle by calling in 1975 for an independent committee to evaluate the CIA's intelligence estimates. Testimony by PFIAB President Leo Cherne to the House Intelligence Committee in December 1975 alerted committee members to the need for better intelligence about the Soviet Union. "Intelligence cannot help a nation find its soul," said Cherne. "It is indispensable, however, to help preserve the nation's safety, while it continues its search," he added. George Bush Sr., who was about to leave his ambassadorship in China to become director of intelligence at the CIA, congratulated Cherne on his testimony, indicating that he would not oppose an independent evaluation of CIA intelligence estimates.

Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush Support Team B Joining in the chorus of praise, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Bechtel's president George Shultz also congratulated Cherne, implicitly adding their backing for an independent threat assessment committee. 3 Led by several of the board's more hawkish members--including John Foster, Edward Teller, William Casey, Seymour Weiss, W. Glenn Campbell, and Clare Booth Luce--PFIAB had earlier in 1975 called for an independent evaluation of the CIA's national intelligence estimates. Feeling that the country's nuclear weapons industry and capacity was threatened, PFIAB was aiming to derail the arms control treaties then under negotiation.

Shortly after President Gerald Ford appointed Bush to be the new director of intelligence, replacing the beleaguered William Colby, Bush authorized PFIAB's plan for an alternative review. The review consisted of three panels: one to assess the threat posed by Soviet missile accuracy; another to determine the effect of Soviet air defenses on U.S. strategic bombers; and a third--the Strategic Objectives Panel--to determine the Soviet Union's intentions. The work of this last panel, which became known as the Team B Report, was the most controversial. As Paul Warnke, an official at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency at the time of the Team B exercise, wrote: "Whatever might be said for evaluation of strategic capabilities by a group of outside experts, the impracticality of achieving useful results by 'independent' analysis of strategic objectives should have been self-evident. Moreover, the futility of the Team B enterprise was assured by the selection of the panel's members. Rather than including a diversity of views ... the Strategic Objectives Panel was composed entirely of individuals who made careers of viewing the Soviet menace with alarm." 4

Team members included Richard Pipes (father of Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum) and William Van Cleave, both of whom would become members of the second Committee on the Present Danger, as well as Gen. Daniel Graham, whose "High Frontier" missile defense proposal foreshadowed President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or "Star Wars." The team's advisory panel included Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Nitze, and Seymour Weiss--all close associates of Albert Wohlstetter. 5 Although Richard Perle played no direct role in Team B, he was instrumental in setting it up. It was Perle who had introduced Richard Pipes, a Polish immigrant who taught Czarist Russian history at Harvard, to Sen. Henry Jackson, catapulting Pipes into a clique of fanatically anti-Soviet hawks. Pipes, who served as Team B's chairman, later said he chose Wolfowitz as his principal Team B adviser "because Richard Perle recommended him so highly." 6

CONTINUED

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/Remembering_Team_B

PS: Insiders have power that outsiders lack, such as top secret information. Otherwise, what's the point of secret government? A mere scrap of information can prove itself absolutely indispensable in war and on Wall Street, among other places.

[jwirr]

38. It used to be conservatives who distrust government

because of economic reasons like welfare.

Is it any surprise after reading this OP and the following posts that now most of us distrust our own government? And now we have no media we can trust either.

Democracy? We lost that when the liars took over a long time ago - working for the profits going to the 1%.

I told my daughters this weekend that one of the reason many of us support Bernie is that we think he is the only chance we have of ever turning this around. But as I say this to you - I have that empty feeling around my heart. I am afraid only a few of us have any idea just how lost we are.

This weekend I am going to the Labor Day parade with my family. Bernie supporters are going to be passing our fliers. I'm too old to walk the route but I am going to be there to support them. I am not going to give up.

[WinkyDink]

30. Wait; is that, could that possibly be, and involving all sorts of people, a.....govt CONSPIRACY??

[Octafish]

35. Journalism and the CIA: The Mighty Wurlitzer

by Daniel Brandt
From NameBase NewsLine, No. 17, April-June 1997

EXCERPT...

OSS veteran Frank Wisner ran most of the early peacetime covert operations as head of the Office of Policy Coordination. Although funded by the CIA, OPC wasn't integrated into the CIA's Directorate of Plans until 1952, under OSS veteran Allen Dulles. Both Wisner and Dulles were enthusiastic about covert operations. By mid-1953 the department was operating with 7,200 personnel and 74 percent of the CIA's total budget.

Wisner created the first "information superhighway." But this was the age of vacuum tubes, not computers, so he called it his "Mighty Wurlitzer." The CIA's global network funded the Italian elections in 1948, sent paramilitary teams into Albania, trained Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan, and pumped money into the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the National Student Association, and the Center for International Studies at MIT. Key leaders and labor unions in western Europe received subsidies, and Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were launched. The Wurlitzer, an organ designed for film productions, could imitate sounds such as rain, thunder, or an auto horn. Wisner and Dulles were at the keyboard, directing history.

The ethos of the fight against fascism carried over into the fight against godless communism; for these warriors, the Cold War was still a war. OSS highbrows had already embraced psychological warfare as a new social science: propaganda, for example, was divided into "black" propaganda (stories that are unattributed, or attributed to nonexistent sources, or false stories attributed to a real source), "gray" propaganda (stories from the government where the source is attributed to others), and "white" propaganda (stories from the government where the source is acknowledged as such).

After World War II, these psywar techniques continued. C.D. Jackson, a major figure in U.S. psywar efforts before and after the war, was simultaneously a top executive at Time-Life. Psywar was also used with success during the 1950s by Edward Lansdale, first in the Philippines and then in South Vietnam. In Guatemala, the Dulles brothers worked with their friends at United Fruit, in particular the "father of public relations," Edward Bernays, who for years had been lobbying the press on behalf of United. When CIA puppets finally took over in 1954, only applause was heard from the media, commencing forty years of CIA-approved horrors in that unlucky country. Bernays' achievement apparently impressed Allen Dulles, who immediately began using U.S. public relations experts and front groups to promote the image of Ngo Dinh Diem as South Vietnam's savior.

The combined forces of unaccountable covert operations and corporate public relations, each able to tap massive resources, are sufficient to make the concept of "democracy" obsolete. Fortunately for the rest of us, unchallenged power can lose perspective. With research and analysis -- the capacity to see and understand the world around them -- entrenched power must constantly anticipate and contain potential threats. But even as power seems more secure, this capacity can be blinded by hubris and isolation.

CONTINUED...

http://www.namebase.org/news17.html

It really seems it's not against the law when the government breaks the law these days.

[leveymg]

32. Prof. Christopher Simpson has published the best work on the subject of CIA propaganda, IMHO.

His books are must-reads, particularly:

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Coercion-Communication-Psychological-1945-1960/dp/0195102924

Available on-line, FREE: https://books.google.com/books/about/Science_of_Coercion.html?id=-A9zzGXlJBgC&hl=en

[Mc Mike]

34. Excellent o.p. and sub-posts. Thanks, Octa. nt.

[Octafish]

41. News from the intersection of secret spying powers and privatized profits...

...is missing from Corporate Owned News coverage. Details of just one of those important articles for democracy:

Stratfor: executive boasted of 'trusted former CIA cronies'

By Alex Spillius, Diplomatic Correspondent
9:08PM GMT 28 Feb 2012
The Telegraph

A senior executive with the private intelligence firm Stratfor boasted to colleagues about his "trusted former CIA cronies" and promised to "see what I can uncover" about a classified FBI investigation, according to emails released by the WikiLeaks.

Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence at the Texas firm, also informed members of staff that he had a copy of the confidential indictment on Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.

The second batch of five million internal Stratfor emails obtained by the Anonymous computer hacking group revealed that the company has high level sources within the United States and other governments, runs a network of paid informants that includes embassy staff and journalists and planned a hedge fund, Stratcap, based on its secret intelligence.

SNIP...

Mr Assange labelled the company as a "private intelligence Enron", in reference to the energy giant that collapsed after a false accounting scandal.

CONTINUED...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9111784/Stratfor-executive-boasted-of-trusted-former-CIA-cronies.html

Thank you for grokking, McMike. For some reason, people living in a democracy do not Learn that from the newspaper or the tee vee or radio. Something else that's important for those wondering about secret agencies controlling the "free press": or exposing those using government powers for privatized gain, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks became enemies of the state.

[wildbilln864]

37. k & r & thanks! n/t

[PufPuf23]

42. There was no justification to lock the other recent Octafish CIA thread.

Sometimes the truth hurts and, if it cannot be exposed nor discussed, there is no path to a better future.