General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I just learned where the CIA got the term "enhanced interrogation." [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)we patterned some of our intelligence structure on German NAZI structures. We hired NAZI spies to help us spy. We built on some of the NAZI experimentation in this regard.
This video on Frank Olson refers to the relationship we had with one of the NAZI doctors who experimented with various chemicals and things, one of the ways that our intelligence and scientific communities used NAZI research and technology.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017234947
Another good books on this is Ike's Spies. There are a number of good resources. One is a book on Gehlen, the NAZI spy who had a network of spies in Eastern Europe and Russia. We used his network as I understand it.
There is an undeniable link between the NAZI spying network and the organization of our own intelligence capacity. It was not an altogether negative thing. We do need to know what is going on in the world. The problem with spying is that it is secret and therefore can easily destroy the freedom of the very people whose government is supposedly doing the spying on their behalf. It is extremely dangerous. But it has existed for a long, long, long, long time. It is part of human nature to want to know about the dangers that others and that nature pose to us.