18. The CIA and the cult of intelligence (1974) Reviewed by JamesRMacLean on
2007-04-09. Incompetence leads to Monstrosity Marchetti's expose of the CIA
was published on the EVE OF THE CHURCH COMMISSION, at a moment when
domestic outrage at the culture of duplicity and domestic interference had
reached its peak. Since that time, successful public relations have greatly
enhanced the image of intelligence services. Marchetti's thesis is that, contrary
to widespread public belief, the USA was not locked in an existential struggle
with Soviet or Chinese subversion, and never really was. Soviet intelligence
utterly surpassed the CIA in effectiveness, initiative, and recruitment of allied
agents abroad. In fact, the CIA was effective only against 3rd world intelligence
organizations, and there, spectacularly so. This extreme Soviet edge in
espionage was more than offset by the superior resources of the conventional
Western militaries and the impossibility of waging a direct confrontation owing to
the nuclear stalemate. Worse, this advantage was not seriously mitigated by the
abundance of high-tech gadgets, such as satellites; such tools merely facilitated
the collection of large amounts of raw data, with virtually no practical usefulness.
Far from rendering the US intelligence community harmless, however, it made
the agency focus on a campaign against 3rd world allies, and ultimately, against
the US population. The CIA tried its hand at WAGING SECRET WARS in Latin
America, Southeast Asia, and Africa; it developed a vast group of businesses to
serve as cover for illicit shipping and arms supplies; and it became utterly
habituated to corrupting legislators in the Free World. The CIA became an eager
tool for an unaccountable executive branch, provided that the executive had a
flair for covert action; and it tended to create an echo chamber of self-deception
that threatened the entire national security establishment. At the very top of its
list of priorities was the urgent need to defend its mission publicly, and validate
its immense budget. Marchetti spends a modest amount of time discussing the
inability of the CIA to confront the Soviet KGB. When he mentions it, he avers the
KGB and its allied bureaux are indeed odious, but also defensive--by necessity.
He dwells in somewhat greater detail on the CIA's structure and specialized fields
of performance. He includes a broad-brush description of the overall US
intelligence community, before turning to an analysis of the separate divisions
and their respective behavior. This included covert operations (such as the Bay of
Pigs invasion), proprietaries (such as Interarmco and Air America), propaganda
and disinformation, and espionage/counterespionage. In all of these enterprises,
the same motivation prevails: the CIA seeks self-perpetuation and influence
WITHIN the Western world, but lacks will or ability to seriously combat the
Soviets. Towards the end, he discusses the increasing tendency of the CIA to
interfere in regular US politics, chiefly to ingratiate itself with the president.
Marchetti's criticisms of the intelligence community were surprisingly mild. I
should mention in passing that his book had about 170 or so passages deleted
by court order; the CIA had earlier demanded well in excess of 300, and the court
awarded it half of what it demanded. Some of the deletions are downright silly
(as where it refers to a base in [DELETED] granted by Haile Selassie!), and
elsewhere I was amused to observe the most numerous deletions in the part
dealing with funding appropriations. The extreme secrecy of the intelligence
community with respect to funding has greatly intensified since this book was
published, and usually the motivation is quite obviously to conceal how much
money these agencies actually waste. However, Marchetti concludes that the CIA
is essentially past reform, useless, and so incompetent at its mission as to have
become narrowly focused on extorting billions from the nation.
19. Former United States Government Physicist! 1981-Lt Col. US Army Retired,
Pentagon analyst
(McRae, Ronald, Mind Wars, St. Martin's Press, 1984, p 127, Psychic Weapons)
psychoenergetic scheme? One paper to begin with is Mind Control and EM Wave
Polarization Transductions This is such serious stuff that Bearden includes a
strong warning about misuse of this knowledge. Psychoenergetics weapons can
MENTALLY MAIM AND PHYSICALLY KILL.