Cold War

The CIA Spying On Spy Fiction – Scorpio - Spy Culture

While the CIA have been assisting films such as Scorpio for decades they maintain very few records of their involvement in these productions, making it difficult to know how influential the Agency is in this arena. A different but somewhat fruitful angle of inquiry is in the CIA's records of the media discussion of spy books and films in the form of reports, reviews, ratings and discussions.

The CIA and Hollywood 09 – Good Night, and Good Luck - Spy Culture

We welcome Ed Opperman to the series and discuss the 2005 docudrama Good Night, and Good Luck which retells the story of the 1954 confrontation between senator Joe McCarthy and television journalist Ed Murrow of CBS. In this episode we take a sideways look at the historical events and ask why Clooney and Heslov chose to lionise not just Murrow but the whole See it Now/CBS crew.

OJ Shot JFK! The JFK King-Kill 33 Psy Op

Testing out some new video software on my iPhone, we shot a rough video at the Grassy Knoll. As Chris and John at Hoaxbusters propose – what if the JFK fiasco is itself a large-scale theatrical PsyOp? Do we *really* know what went down that day? What about Michael Hoffman’s thesis of a king-kill ritual and dramaturgy? Was he a created martyr for the Cold War and so-called “democracy”? Bearded, hot and haggard, I discuss this.

The CIA and Hollywood 08 – The Quiet American - Spy Culture

In this first episode of the new season Pearse and I discuss the 1958 spy drama The Quiet American, adapted from the novel by Graham Greene. We focus in on the role of Air Force and CIA officer Ed Lansdale's relationship with the film-maker Joseph Mankiewicz, and how the CIA were involved in assisting Mankiewicz the first major American movie to be filmed in Vietnam.

Graham Greene’s FBI File - Spy Culture

Graham Greene was one of the most important novelists of the 20th century, and one of the greatest spy novelists of all time. He also holds the dubious honour of having worked for MI6 during WW2 but being spied on by the FBI as a suspected Communist. Few spies have FBI files, so Greene is in a very small and distinct club. The FBI records cover over a decade during the early Cold War, and Greene himself wrote a response to them. (Read more...)