Documents

In June 2016 the Pentagon repealed a ban on openly transgender people serving in the US military. A year later and Tzar Trump I has reinstated the ban, causing a panic among the liberal Left for whom the right of transgender people to kill innocent civilians in foreign countries is more important than the right of those people to not be killed. From my perspective, less people in the military is a good thing, regardless of whether they consider themselves male, female or anything else.

The latest reports from the US Army's entertainment liaison office brings us almost up to date on their activities, which includes support to everything from the film Jackie to History Channel documentaries and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. One continued theme is the military support not just for cookery programmes but also for their corollary - competitive weight loss reality TV game shows.(Read more...)

Newly-released reports from the US Army's entertainment liaison office show that they maintain a close and friendly relationship with Warner Bros., enabling them to get involved at early stages of major films and wield considerable influence over their content. While Warner have a reputation for making some of the darker, more subversive movies in Hollywood their relationship with the Pentagon remains secure.

National Security Cinema is a new book that uses over 4,000 pages of documents to reveal government censorship and propaganda in Hollywood. From the Pentagon's rewriting of James Bond to the CIA's manipulation of Meet the Parents this is the biggest and best book ever written about military-intelligence propaganda in the entertainment industry. And I'm not just saying that because I co-wrote it.

In 1988 CIA director William Webster attended the Bohemian Grove, where he gave a lakeside talk about intelligence matters. His speech, now available to the public for the first time, is both amusing and at times shocking. From Tom Clancy to a voyeuristic child who wanted to join the Agency, Webster covered a variety of subjects including the relative merits and demerits of spy satellites vs fake moustaches.

In 1985 the CIA produced an analysis of the French arm of the New Left - the early post-Marxist intellectual movement. Somewhat bizarrely the Agency were broadly in favour of this new movement because it provided less resistance to US goals both in France specifically, and in the world more generally. As time has shown, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing because without an in-depth understanding, all predictions are just guesswork.

Newly released reports from the US Air Force Entertainment Liaison Office confirm their continuing influence over the political content of the productions they support and refer to a mysterious event called the 'Alaska CLT'. The role of the Science and Entertainment Exchange - technically a non-governmental body - was to assist with bringing entertainment industry bigwigs to this event on behalf of the Pentagon.

Winston the police horse was named after Winston Churchill, having joined the Met in the 1940s. He featured in numerous royal events, ridden by both King George and princess and then Queen Elizabeth during the Trooping the Colour ceremonies in the 40s and early 50s. Winston was also the subject of a BBC teleview, which involved getting the Met Police to review and make changes to the script.(Read more...)

The James Bond films, like the books on which they are based, have always pushed the boundaries of acceptable portraits of sex and violence. Documents from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) show how for Thunderball they reviewed the script, recommending many changes if the film was to achieve the 'A' certificate that the producers wanted.

In post-war Britain the Metropolitan Police were concerned about how they were being portrayed in films so they instituted a policy of vetting film scripts. However, they were concerned that by seeking a more public profile and engaging with the film industry that they would lose the 'aura of secrecy and glamour' that had served them so well. (Read more...)