Recommendations from our site
“This book reads like the Keystone Kops. It’s amazing how often the CIA just blundered, going from one screw-up to the next, despite having some very intelligent people. But I once listened to Tim Weiner giving an interview and he said something very profound. He said every president since it was created under Truman has abused the CIA. Too often it’s used to prove a presumed fact, a fact that has been created for domestic political purposes, and completely queers the pitch from the outset. If you’re not encouraging conclusions that may differ from your own presumptions then you’re fated to commit the mistakes of so many American presidents and heads of state everywhere. Also, while the CIA got it wrong on the Bay of Pigs, they also got it right sometimes. A perfect example of that is the US plot under Eisenhower to overthrow Mohammad Mosaddegh, the Iranian prime minister. We’re still living with the legacy of that plot today. There was a station chief in Tehran who disputed John Foster Dulles’s notion that Mosaddegh was a Soviet stooge. He was not. He was neutral. There’s an example of the CIA calling it like it was. Ditto, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s war on Chilean president Allende. The CIA was saying, ‘No, this man is not a proxy of the Soviets. He’s popular, he’s legitimate, and we should not be seen as trying to undermine him.'” Read more...
The best books on US Militarism
Stephen Glain, Foreign Correspondent
