"‘America’s Great Game’ by Hugh Wilford" by David M. Shribman | Globe Correspondent, December 14, 2013
They were romantics and spies. They opposed Communism and supported Arab interests. They were susceptible to the American missionary impulse in foreign policy and the dreamy British view of the Middle East as a staging ground for heroics and adventure. They were the Arabists of America’s clandestine services and for decades their story has been shrouded in mystery — and misunderstanding.
Now comes Hugh Wilford, a specialist in US spy operations, armed with the notion that a clique of American intelligence operatives in the 1940s and ’50s believed that they “could control the fate of nations,’’ and his chronicle of their adventures and, more often, their misadventures, makes for compelling, illuminating reading.
One of the principal figures in this volume, Kermit Roosevelt Jr. — grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, chief of CIA covert operations in the Middle East and top operative in the successful 1953 effort to overthrow Mohammed Mosaddeq in Iran — was so enamored of Rudyard Kipling that he was known by the nickname “Kim.’’
Which was the reason we now have a problem with Iran.
UPDATE:
"In part a reflection of a thaw between Washington and Tehran, the moves occurred on the 33d anniversary of the end of the Iran hostage crisis. The holding of 52 Americans for 444 days by radical Iranian students that ended Jan. 20, 1981, was followed by decades of US-Iranian enmity that only began to ease last year."
The midpoint between where we where and are now. Who made who, huh?
In his mind, and those of his cousin, Archie, and their compatriot, Miles A. Copeland Jr., the Middle East had endless appeal as “a place of ancient greatness and present-day decadence,’’ the strains of “Scheherazade’’ and the echoes of “Arabian Nights’’ creating an irresistible allure.
Need we add that T.E. Lawrence gallops through these pages — and their reveries? Or that the battles of the Middle East (and the creation of the modern CIA) had their roots on the playing fields of Groton, where Endicott Peabody presided over a Victorian preserve of privilege, of religion and rectitude, of austerity and virility?
Partial to the sentimental and the sensual, seduced by romantic imagery and exotic scenery, these men possessed an important insight, that, as Archie Roosevelt put it, Islam would be “a factor of increasing importance’’ in the region and that the United States had a rare opening to establish itself “as the great unselfish friend of the Moslems.’’
We really f***ed up there, huh?
The result of all this was, unambiguously and unapologetically, an orientalist viewpoint that dominated the CIA through much of the century. “[A]s an aspiring orientalist,’’ Archie Roosevelt said, “I naturally have some sympathy with the Arabs.’’
This was a time, however, when the axis of dispute was as much about the Arab struggle against colonial powers and against Communism as against the Zionist movement. Later, of course, the principal Arab preoccupation would be the struggle against Israel as Jewish settlements, interests, and influence presented ever greater threats to the Arabs.
The CIA orientalists were shaped by traditional British outlooks and interests even as they tried to forge a new Middle East and create a rebellion against Soviet influence. This view was best expressed by the State Department’s Loy Henderson: “The Soviet Union seems to be determined to break down the structure which Great Britain has maintained so that Russian power and influence can sweep . . . across Iran and through the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean.’’
The U.S. stepped right into those British shoes, huh?
Domestic political factors contributed to Harry Truman’s recognition of Israel, a major defeat for the CIA Arabists who, Wilford shrewdly points out, watched the very word that described them be transformed into a pejorative, tinged with anti-Semitism, rather than remain a label for a diplomat or specialist with expertise in the region. “It did not matter,’’ he writes, “that they were from Ivy League backgrounds, that they knew their field better than anyone else, or even that they held senior government posts.’’
They opposed the aims of Israel, and therefore must be subverted.
As the Arabists established themselves in espionage, a vital transformation occurred in the outlook of the very Arabs they sought to assist and guide — or, more precisely, to manipulate. “Previously, Americans had been known in the Levant as missionaries, doctors, and professors,’’ Wilford wrote. “Now they were starting to be seen as spies.’’
Which is exactly what they were/are.
Related: US Military Saving Endangered Species
Oh, did I mention the State Department has been taken over by CIA?
That was critical to their eventual if not inevitable downfall. By supporting military rule and employing covert operations these Arabists undermined their own moral authority even as they justified coup conspiracies in Syria, Egypt, and Iran on moral grounds.
Certainly makes one take a long look at any coups occurring today.
Wilford’s research will leave many readers astonished if not horrified at what was done in their names by men with phony identities stoking rivalries and revolts at great risks and great costs.
I'm horrified by what is being done and has been done in my name, and have condemned it and apologized to the world for it.
Moreover, it will leave readers bewildered by some of the stupid things (like planting astrologists and witch doctors in the inner circles of Third World leaders, or employing hypnotism as part of their political activities) they considered but didn’t do.
What about MK-ULTRA and the LSD experiments aimed at programmed assassins?
Even so, Wilford credits these men for anticipating some of the basic elements of later peace initiatives.
Yeah, f***ing with people his good for peace after all the bloodshed and someone made a buck.
But he argues that “the failures and unintended consequences of CIA Arabism seem more significant” — specifically, fueling a tendency toward repressive regimes.
Was that an "unintended" consequence?
Without them, an Arab Spring might not have been necessary, or might have been more successful.
Who said it wasn't successful?
Related: The Arab Spring mutated into sectarian violence and brutal repression
Cui bono?
And one thing more: The profile of the United States in the region might have been far different, and far more influential.
Too late now.
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Related: Congress to Honor CIA
"CIA heroism at a time when the American public’s image of espionage is dominated by negative revelations from Edward Snowden, this award provides a glimpse of the brave men and women who serve their country silently, without the expectation of public acknowledgement. Most of their names will never be known."
In other words, it's not a newspaper, it's a public relations outfit for the CIA!
Also related:
Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Operation Mockingbird
Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?
Seems like a pretty good reason, no? It's all $elf-$erving, agenda-pushing slop.
UPDATE:
"Otis Pike, 92; N.Y. lawmaker took on Pentagon, CIA abuses" by Matt Schudel | Washington Post, January 21, 2014
WASHINGTON — Otis G. Pike, a nine-term New York congressman who was a persistent critic of Pentagon overspending and led one of the first congressional investigations of abuses by US intelligence agencies, died Monday at a hospice in Vero Beach, Fla….
Mr. Pike had his most conspicuous moment in the public eye in 1975, after revelations of the CIA’s ‘‘family jewels’’ — suspected involvement in clandestine operations that reportedly included killings and coups overseas and spying on US citizens.
I see nothing much has changed over the last 40 years or so.
In July 1975, he became chairman of a committee that was the House counterpart of a Senate committee led by Idaho Senator Frank Church, a Democrat. Both panels reviewed activities of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, marking the first time Congress had examined secret dealings and suspected abuses by the CIA since the spy agency’s founding in 1947….
Mr. Pike was alarmed by CIA excesses, including suspected involvement in efforts to oust leaders in Chile and other countries. After Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger withheld certain documents and limited the number of State Department officials who could testify, the Pike Committee voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.
The contempt went both ways, as Kissinger charged the committee with acting ‘‘in a tendentious, misleading, and totally irresponsible fashion.’’
Among other findings, the Pike Committee called for central congressional oversight over intelligence operations, a prohibition of CIA-sponsored killings, and more transparency in the intelligence budget.
‘‘It took this investigation’’ into the CIA, Mr. Pike said in a 1976 New Republic interview, ‘‘to convince me that I had always been told lies [and] to make me realize that I was tired of being told lies.’’
That is where I am at now when it comes to my government and its mouthpiece media.
When Mr. Pike’s committee was scheduled to release its full report in January 1976, the full House of Representatives voted to keep it secret, citing national security concerns. A copy of the 338-page report was obtained by Daniel Schorr of CBS News and published by the Village Voice in New York.
In the end, because the document was never officially released, Mr. Pike’s investigation was soon overshadowed by the Senate’s Church Committee, some of whose recommendations were adopted in measures to rein in the excesses of the CIA and other intelligence agencies….
--more--"
End of the Pike for me.
UPDATE:
"Otis Pike, 92; N.Y. lawmaker took on Pentagon, CIA abuses" by Matt Schudel | Washington Post, January 21, 2014
WASHINGTON — Otis G. Pike, a nine-term New York congressman who was a persistent critic of Pentagon overspending and led one of the first congressional investigations of abuses by US intelligence agencies, died Monday at a hospice in Vero Beach, Fla….
Mr. Pike had his most conspicuous moment in the public eye in 1975, after revelations of the CIA’s ‘‘family jewels’’ — suspected involvement in clandestine operations that reportedly included killings and coups overseas and spying on US citizens.
I see nothing much has changed over the last 40 years or so.
In July 1975, he became chairman of a committee that was the House counterpart of a Senate committee led by Idaho Senator Frank Church, a Democrat. Both panels reviewed activities of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, marking the first time Congress had examined secret dealings and suspected abuses by the CIA since the spy agency’s founding in 1947….
Mr. Pike was alarmed by CIA excesses, including suspected involvement in efforts to oust leaders in Chile and other countries. After Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger withheld certain documents and limited the number of State Department officials who could testify, the Pike Committee voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.
The contempt went both ways, as Kissinger charged the committee with acting ‘‘in a tendentious, misleading, and totally irresponsible fashion.’’
Among other findings, the Pike Committee called for central congressional oversight over intelligence operations, a prohibition of CIA-sponsored killings, and more transparency in the intelligence budget.
‘‘It took this investigation’’ into the CIA, Mr. Pike said in a 1976 New Republic interview, ‘‘to convince me that I had always been told lies [and] to make me realize that I was tired of being told lies.’’
That is where I am at now when it comes to my government and its mouthpiece media.
When Mr. Pike’s committee was scheduled to release its full report in January 1976, the full House of Representatives voted to keep it secret, citing national security concerns. A copy of the 338-page report was obtained by Daniel Schorr of CBS News and published by the Village Voice in New York.
In the end, because the document was never officially released, Mr. Pike’s investigation was soon overshadowed by the Senate’s Church Committee, some of whose recommendations were adopted in measures to rein in the excesses of the CIA and other intelligence agencies….
--more--"
End of the Pike for me.
