Yves right here. Given how aggressively the CIA went after former officer Frank Snepp for telling tales out of faculty, one wonders why former CIA analysts Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson are capable of be fairly open concerning the lower than savory issues they noticed again of their days. Johnson specifically has repeatedly described how the CIA engages in psy-ops through planting press tales. Is it that they’ve by no means introduced sufficient specifics to quantity to sufficient of an assault floor?
Regardless, Tom Neuburger is staring a protracted, historically-rooted take a look at what the Company has been discovered to be as much as.
By Thomas Neuburger. Initially revealed at God’s Spies
“Deception is a mind-set and the thoughts of the state.”
—James Angleton, CIA counterintelligence chief, 1954-1975
As I discussed right here, I need to begin trying on the CIA and its position each in American life and American politics. Via this collection I’ll be drawing from many sources, acquainted and unfamiliar, some revered by most, and a few hated by partisan voices.
In all instances, I’ll deal with simply two issues: what’s identified, and what appears doubtless primarily based on what’s identified.
Whistleblower Frank Snepp on CIA Propaganda
Let’s begin right here with a style. Edward Snowden is acquainted to many and revered by most of these. (His compelled residence in Russia makes some individuals pause.)
The admission on this 1983 video is hanging:
Do you assume the CIA nonetheless does this? https://t.co/ZBydxoWs2h
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 7, 2024
The person being interviewed is Frank Snepp, a former CIA worker in the course of the Vietnam Battle period. The complete video is right here:
About Frank Snepp, the YouTube poster (Witness to Battle) wrote this:
“Frank Snepp arrived in Vietnam in 1969 and stayed on till he was evacuated as Saigon fell in 1975. He spent a great deal of time working with the press whereas there and developed the power to plant tales in main media shops just like the New York Instances, the New Yorker, the LA Instances, Chicago Each day Information and others that supported the Company’s targets. … After he left the CIA he wrote a e-book, First rate Interval, that talked about his time in Vietnam. The CIA made his life hell and took a case all the way in which to the Supreme Court docket the place they received a verdict that required Snepp to show over all the cash the e-book had made. That was $300,000.”
And Wikipedia affords this:
“Frank Warren Snepp, III (born Might 3, 1943) is a journalist and former chief analyst of North Vietnamese technique for the Central Intelligence Company (CIA) in Saigon in the course of the Vietnam Battle. For 5 out of his eight years as a CIA officer, he labored as interrogator, agent debriefer, and chief technique analyst in america Embassy, Saigon; he was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Benefit for his work. Snepp is a former producer for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, California. He was one of many first whistle blowers who revealed the inside workings, secrets and techniques and failures of the nationwide safety providers within the Nineteen Seventies. Because of a loss in a 1980 court docket case introduced by the CIA, all of Snepp’s publications require prior approval by the CIA.”
So, not a no person.
Snowden’s Query
Now think about Snowden’s query: Do you assume the CIA nonetheless does this?
I might reply:
- Is it sure? Not from this proof, although keep tuned for extra.
- Is it doubtless? In fact it’s. Why would they cease?
CIA Assassination Handbook, Contra Version
The CIA has authored a variety of counter-insurgency and assassination manuals. One was leaked in the course of the 1984 presidential marketing campaign. An editorial by the Washington Put up characterizes the handbook as “advising Nicaraguan guerrillas how you can kidnap, assassinate, blackmail and dupe civilians [which] is an appalling manufacturing”. It dismisses the doc as a “lame-brained concept launched on the political facet of the federal government” and hopes that Reagan will examine shortly.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo solutions questions on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Washington in 2017. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Right here’s that “lame-brained concept,” the handbook itself, titled Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare. From the part “Armed Propaganda”:
5. Selective Use of Violence for Propagandistic Results
It’s attainable to neutralize rigorously chosen and deliberate targets, corresponding to court docket judges, mesta judges, police and State Safety officers, CDS chiefs, and many others. […]
The goal or particular person ought to be chosen on the premise of:
- The spontaneous hostility that almost all of the inhabitants feels towards the goal.
- Use rejection or potential hatred by the vast majority of the inhabitants affected towards the goal, stirring up the inhabitants and making them see all of the destructive and hostile actions of the person towards the individuals.
- If the vast majority of the individuals give their assist or backing to the goal or topic, don’t attempt to change these sentiments by means of provocation.
- Relative problem of controlling the one who will exchange the goal.
The one that will exchange the goal ought to be chosen rigorously, primarily based on:
- Diploma of violence mandatory to hold out the change.
- Diploma of violence acceptable to the inhabitants affected.
- Diploma of predictable reprisal by the enemy on the inhabitants affected or different people within the space of the goal.
Elsewhere it recommends:
“Particular duties will likely be assigned to others, to be able to create a “martyr” for the trigger, taking the demonstrators to a confrontation with the authorities, to be able to result in uprisings or shootings, which can trigger the dying of a number of individuals, who would develop into the martyrs, a scenario that ought to be made use of instantly towards the regime, to be able to create higher conflicts.”
Be aware that this doesn’t should be achieved from the insurgents’ standpoint. It may be achieved by that state towards insurgents, or mere demonstrators. The “eliminated goal” may very well be a deeply unpopular politician, for instance. The “martyr” may very well be a policeman or another official. These methods would work effectively from both facet of a CIA-involved battle.
Snowden’s Query
Once more we ask Snowden’s query: Do you assume the CIA nonetheless does this?
I might reply:
As we speak’s CIA
Set assassination apart for the second. Does the CIA work to affect home media, because it did in the course of the Vietnam period? In that case, what are its targets? Does it run different home operations?
Most individuals assume the CIA doesn’t function right here, given what they assume is its constitution. And but it does. To what extent is the CIA engaged inside U.S. borders? Future components on this collection will take a look at that.
Backside line: To explain is to not condemn. Many individuals are glad our safety state is as “sturdy” as it’s, given what individuals assume are our varied threats.
However even they, I might assume, would need to perceive the form of state now we have constructed.
