Cold War

Following their on-screen debut in the James Bond movies, and their quiet support for Thunderball, the CIA under Richards Helms adopted a more pro-active approach to Hollywood. They began spying on movie scripts depicting the CIA and considering requests from film-makers for official support. One project that they rejected was the 1969 Hitchcock thriller Topaz, based on the novel by Leon Uris and CIA officer Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli.

A new examination of previously unreleased government documents, obtained by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, has revealed that the U.S. government – in secret — sprayed, injected and fed radiation and other toxic material to “vulnerable” U.S. citizens, including pregnant women, during the Cold War. The tests are detailed in a recently released book by Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor, a sociologist based in St.

In April 1983 MGM sent a priority cable to CIA headquarters, inviting director Bill Casey to a special screening of their new feature War Games, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. The private screening was hosted by the MPAA building in Washington D.C., and even more surprising than the invitation is that the notoriously secretive Casey said yes. (Read more...)

Aaron and Uncle invited both Pearse and myself onto Uncle the Podcast for this one-of-a-kind review of Top Gun, possibly the best piece of military propaganda ever made.

Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb, OBE, was a Royal Navy frogman and MI6 diver who disappeared while on an underwater spying mission in April 1956. For three quarters of a century the story around Crabb has remained a mystery – was he killed by the Soviets, whose ship he was spying on? Did he defect and assume a new identity? Did he die in an absurd, politically-charged accident?

Buster Crabb was a WW2 British Navy Frogman who in 1956 was recruited by MI6 to spy on Soviet ships docking in Portsmouth harbour during a goodwill visit. These files - some available here for the first time - detail the British government's interference in the inquest into Crabb's presumed death, their internal inquiry into what happened and their attempts to prevent the BBC making a documentary about the story.

Despite all the talk of Russia in 2016, and all the arguments and allegations around it, US policy toward the largest country on earth in terms of geography remains unchanged. This is due to the fact that policy is driven by Wall Street’s drive for profits, not the good or bad wishes of individual politicians.

Jay Dyer
21st Century Wire
In the famous treatise by Miles Copeland, Game of Nations, the devious middle eastern CIA operative spills the beans in this infamous 1969 work on covert operations and regime changes. Not only does Copeland detail the various US puppets and stooges, but also how game theory played into the predictive computer models available even in the late 60s.  

Chris Cook invited me back on Gorilla Radio to continue our conversation on all things spy-related. We talked about some of the differences between the British and American intelligence agencies, the role John Le Carré plays in the British spy fiction landscape, the new film American Made and how to spot which films are sponsored by government agencies. (Read more...)

Missile command, martial law and future dead cops + this day in history w/Jimmy Carter's UFO report and our song of the day by Rostam on your Morning Monarchy for September 18, 2017.