milt bearden

The CIA and Hollywood episode 6 Charlie Wilson’s War

Sibel Edmonds is our final guest as we dissect this shambolic re-telling of the Soviet-Afghan War.  Much of this conversation is devoted to what the film leaves out, such as Charlie Wilson being a CIA asset, the origins of Operation Cyclone being older and much more important than one drunk congressman and his ultra-right wing Christian friend and of course the likes of Jalaluddin Haqqani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Osama Bin Laden who are completely absent from the movie.  This was a no-holds-barred critique of this quite shameful piece of CIA pr

The CIA and Hollywood episode 2 Robert DeNiro

Guillermo Jimenez joins us for this episode to talk about Robert De Niro – a man whose relationship with the CIA spans two decades.  We look at four films – Wag the Dog, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers and The Good Shepherd, the latter three of which have documented CIA assistance in their production.  We discuss Robert De Niro’s transformation from a serious dramatic actor into a kooky comedy figure, and the CIA’s apparent involvement in that.  This led to us asking whether the three comedy films are trojan ho