Latest / UK Column Radio / John Stockwell Was an Important CIA Whistleblower | Jerm Warfare

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John Stockwell Was an Important CIA Whistleblower | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

0:30
Speaker 1: My name is Jim. This is Jim Wilfare the Battle
0:33
Speaker 1: of Ideas, Jeremy Kuzumarov, thank you for joining me in
0:36
Speaker 1: the trenches. For those who don't know, you're both a
0:41
Speaker 1: professor and editor of a COVID action magazine.
0:47
Speaker 2: That's correct. Yes, I have academic training and I did
0:50
Speaker 2: a lot of research on US foreign policy and kind
0:53
Speaker 2: of covert realms, and I do teach part time, and
0:57
Speaker 2: then I work as an editor of COVID Action Magazin,
1:00
Speaker 2: which was founded by CIA whistleblower Philip ag And yeah,
1:05
Speaker 2: we published a lot of articles on both historical articles
1:08
Speaker 2: and try and track what's going on today, although that's
1:12
Speaker 2: a bit harder because it's a secret agency that doesn't
1:16
Speaker 2: want to reveal what it's up to.
1:19
Speaker 1: You're never a former CIA agent, Do you agree with that?
1:24
Speaker 2: I would agree with that. Yeah. You have to be
1:26
Speaker 2: suspicious of anybody who is in the CIA at any time,
1:31
Speaker 2: and you find a lot of XCI. Well, I actually
1:34
Speaker 2: I have an article and you may want to do
1:36
Speaker 2: another show. I think we did a show once. A
1:39
Speaker 2: related topic of this article that will be coming out
1:43
Speaker 2: as part of a back to school special is on
1:46
Speaker 2: CIA agents. You know teaching, how they basically infiltrated American
1:50
Speaker 2: universities and if you go on the faculty pages you
1:53
Speaker 2: find well a lot of they're in. Then d any
1:56
Speaker 2: D is like an offshoot of the CIA that promotes
2:00
Speaker 2: propaganda because a lot of people don't know they think
2:02
Speaker 2: of CIA, they think of like James Bond and you know,
2:05
Speaker 2: these paramilitary operations and the Iran and Guatemalaku, which was
2:10
Speaker 2: certainly one aspect of the CIA, but another aspect with
2:14
Speaker 2: the propaganda arm and how they publish books or you know,
2:20
Speaker 2: subsidized books and subsidized academics and academic journals. The Cold
2:26
Speaker 2: War and the the Congress of Cultural Freedom, and yeah,
2:33
Speaker 2: a lot of the professors in major universities had affiliation
2:37
Speaker 2: with the CIA journals and they promoted, you know, the
2:40
Speaker 2: Cold War narrative that the US government and CIA wanted
2:44
Speaker 2: to advance. So it's a major propaganda arm. And actually
2:50
Speaker 2: Cordmeyer Bragg that he said, we created all the radical
2:56
Speaker 2: journals and all the radical campus groups were created by
2:59
Speaker 2: the CIA, and he was the head of the Operation Mockingbird,
3:03
Speaker 2: which was another facet of the cultivation of media assets.
3:06
Speaker 2: So yeah, the CIA is very very heavily involved in propaganda,
3:11
Speaker 2: and this continues this day, and you find like some
3:15
Speaker 2: professors will put on there, you find it on their
3:17
Speaker 2: web page. And the president of the university where I
3:20
Speaker 2: used to teach has listed on his website that he
3:24
Speaker 2: was a CIA consultant. And actually I know that he's
3:29
Speaker 2: I did an article about him, exposing him because he
3:32
Speaker 2: runs a foreign relations group in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I live,
3:37
Speaker 2: and he invited me to join, and I went to
3:40
Speaker 2: some events and I was trying to get him to
3:42
Speaker 2: invite me to give a talk because I'd published when
3:46
Speaker 2: my Clinton book came out, but of course he refused
3:49
Speaker 2: to invite me. And then I was proposing some speakers
3:52
Speaker 2: and he dismissed them. These are national security whistleblower like
3:56
Speaker 2: Scott River, and he refused to invite them. And actually
4:00
Speaker 2: he came out in the open because he brought in
4:02
Speaker 2: some CIA speaker. He brought in the woman who was
4:05
Speaker 2: in the CIA UH and then he brought when the
4:08
Speaker 2: Trump administration cut the budget of the NED, I was
4:13
Speaker 2: threatening to close the organization, he brought to any d
4:16
Speaker 2: people to defend the NED. So he basically came out
4:20
Speaker 2: openly supporting the CIA and bringing in CIA and ney
4:25
Speaker 2: D speakers while he was censoring myself and other speakers.
4:30
Speaker 2: At that point, I wrote an expose of him, but
4:33
Speaker 2: he was the head of the political science and then
4:36
Speaker 2: I never got another invitation from him to join his
4:39
Speaker 2: group after I wrote that. But he was the chair
4:43
Speaker 2: of the political science department and president of the University
4:47
Speaker 2: of Tulsa, and he's listed to the former CIA consultant,
4:51
Speaker 2: but I'm sure he still works for the CIA. And
4:54
Speaker 2: his deputy threatened me some years ago when I gave
4:58
Speaker 2: an interview with the local newspaper about the Kennedy assassination
5:02
Speaker 2: on one of the anniversaries and was discussing that, you know,
5:06
Speaker 2: deep political milieu in the Texas Oil Barron and the
5:09
Speaker 2: CIA operative that appeared to have been involved, and I
5:14
Speaker 2: got a threatening phone call from his deputy, who also
5:17
Speaker 2: taught me political science department. So that's this example of
5:25
Speaker 2: how the CIA infiltrated higher education. And these are supposedly
5:30
Speaker 2: former CIA, that's what they're putting on their CV, but
5:34
Speaker 2: we know they're still CIA, are still doing the work
5:38
Speaker 2: of the CIA. So I wouldn't trust anybody if they've
5:41
Speaker 2: served in the agency like I had. An article on
5:44
Speaker 2: the governor of Virginia served in the CIA, and I
5:48
Speaker 2: argue that this is reflects a very dangerous infiltration of
5:52
Speaker 2: the CIA of different branches of the US government and
5:56
Speaker 2: violation of the US Constitution, which advocates separation of powers.
6:02
Speaker 2: And you know, she claims she's representing the CIA and
6:06
Speaker 2: had no support for them, but you know, and then
6:09
Speaker 2: you know turns she's doing. She's enacting the kind of
6:11
Speaker 2: policies that the CIA is long enacted, Like she screwed
6:15
Speaker 2: over the labor union, the Firefighters and Teachers Union in Virginia,
6:19
Speaker 2: And I wrote an article and that's no surprise because
6:22
Speaker 2: the CIA is always screwing over union and working people
6:26
Speaker 2: and supporting the wealthy classes. And yeah, it showed that.
6:32
Speaker 2: I mean, she's very likely still with the CIA in
6:35
Speaker 2: some capacity, even though she says only she worked for
6:39
Speaker 2: them ten years ago.
6:42
Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned Mockingbird earlier. That's the media. I mean,
6:45
Speaker 1: CIA have got their fingers in Hollywood too. I pulled
6:48
Speaker 1: up a list earlier of actors who have been in
6:52
Speaker 1: one way or the other influenced by the CIA, and
6:55
Speaker 1: that's Ben Affleck, Clay Danes, Jennifer Garner, Matt Damon, Robert
6:59
Speaker 1: de Niro.
7:00
Speaker 2: Absolutely, because they're very good, and that's what I was saying.
7:04
Speaker 2: They have this whole propaganda branch. Uh. And they also,
7:09
Speaker 2: you know, they were involved in writing a lot of
7:11
Speaker 2: novels like E. Howard Hunt was a very prominent CIA agent,
7:16
Speaker 2: and he was also a novelist who wrote these Spye
7:19
Speaker 2: novel and he was very talented novelists, but he wrote
7:23
Speaker 2: these Spye novels, you know, to glorify the CIA and
7:27
Speaker 2: uh spread you know, misinformation about the KGB uh. So
7:32
Speaker 2: that's just one example. And yeah and Hollywood. Yeah, and
7:35
Speaker 2: they're very effect It's effective propaganda because people don't realize
7:38
Speaker 2: they're being propaganda. That's the most effective propaganda. Like in
7:42
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, you know, the public knew they were
7:45
Speaker 2: being propaganda and they just mocked it. But in the
7:48
Speaker 2: American case, uh well those more and more are starting
7:51
Speaker 2: to wake up. But for a year they got away
7:55
Speaker 2: with it because people didn't realize. Yeah, like in reading
7:58
Speaker 2: their morning newspaper it was CIA propaganda. Were going to
8:01
Speaker 2: the movie, they thought they're being entertained. But they're the
8:04
Speaker 2: subtle messaging mixed in the film, and you have the
8:08
Speaker 2: CIA consultant behind the scene, because yeah, I did an
8:11
Speaker 2: article about this, and there's a good website by a
8:15
Speaker 2: British guy named Tom Secker who forget the exact title
8:19
Speaker 2: of his website, but he's got a lot of good
8:22
Speaker 2: information about this. And yeah, there are a couple of
8:25
Speaker 2: critical films in the seventies about the CIA, because when
8:29
Speaker 2: the CIA was found in the forties, when they're founded,
8:32
Speaker 2: while Bill Donovan actually understood the importance of Hollywood and
8:37
Speaker 2: shaping public opinions, so he set up a liaison and
8:41
Speaker 2: helped influence various Hollywood films like in the fifties that
8:44
Speaker 2: glorified the CIA. But then you had like the Vietnam
8:48
Speaker 2: War and the Church Committee hearings, and a lot of
8:50
Speaker 2: the public started to look critically at the CIA. And
8:53
Speaker 2: there are a couple of Hollywood movies that were critical
8:56
Speaker 2: of the CIA by Costas gavrus So. The CIA then
9:00
Speaker 2: sprang into into action and they they hired a guy
9:05
Speaker 2: named Chase Brandon to be their Hollywood liaison, and he
9:09
Speaker 2: basically cultivated ties with leading movie directors and became, i
9:13
Speaker 2: guess a kind of a very powerful figure in Hollywood
9:17
Speaker 2: who was able to vet most of the scripts that
9:21
Speaker 2: dealt with you know, military intervention issues or the CIA,
9:25
Speaker 2: And you had all these films that came out in
9:29
Speaker 2: the eighties ninety two thousand that glorified the CIA or
9:33
Speaker 2: TV shows like that Alias with Jennifer Garner, and then
9:37
Speaker 2: there was The Good Shepherd. Good Shepherd was.
9:41
Speaker 1: What's the other one with with with Beneffleck Is.
9:43
Speaker 2: It All Go Ago? Yeah? That was about the Iranian
9:47
Speaker 2: hostage crisis, who kind of glorified the CIA and and
9:52
Speaker 2: his zero. Yeah. Some of the films justified torture on
10:00
Speaker 2: the CIA's interrogation methods. And then there was a film,
10:03
Speaker 2: The Good Shepherd that did have it kind of and
10:07
Speaker 2: the CIA very clever of these like limited hangouts where
10:11
Speaker 2: they kind of the film has the appearance of being
10:14
Speaker 2: somewhat critical of the CIA, but really it's criticizing like
10:18
Speaker 2: a very minute aspect, and it's bearing the really dirty
10:22
Speaker 2: stuff that they're doing. And it focused more in the
10:24
Speaker 2: lives of that film Good Shepherd, like how it affected
10:28
Speaker 2: some of the personal lives of the CIA agents, but
10:31
Speaker 2: it didn't really go into the really dirty stuff they're
10:35
Speaker 2: doing in guatemal and how it affected the local population.
10:38
Speaker 2: Empowered these fascistic type leaders and undermine more progressive ones
10:43
Speaker 2: that were helping to improve the working conditions and that
10:48
Speaker 2: was serving the corporate interest. So even the film that
10:52
Speaker 2: seemed to be a little more critical are often very
10:55
Speaker 2: narrow in their criticism as far as a limited hangout.
11:00
Speaker 2: And then you have a lot of film that would
11:01
Speaker 2: just glorify the CIA, like The RGO and Ben Affleck,
11:05
Speaker 2: I think it was you may have admitted like they
11:08
Speaker 2: gave him a tour of the CIA, and I think
11:10
Speaker 2: it came out that he was directly linked with the CIA,
11:14
Speaker 2: and he was in some of these very pro CIA movies.
11:19
Speaker 1: Any movie that's got the FBI or the CIA in
11:22
Speaker 1: it is almost always positive towards those two agencies.
11:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Hoover in his day, JEdgar Hoover was very
11:32
Speaker 2: good at public relations and hiring people in the media
11:37
Speaker 2: and cultivating connection with Hollywood to glorify the FBI agents.
11:43
Speaker 2: And it tends to be true of law enforcement in general.
11:46
Speaker 2: They're often presented with the good guys olo. There may
11:49
Speaker 2: be a small number of movies that will portray corruption
11:52
Speaker 2: and police forces, but usually they're like the bad apples,
11:55
Speaker 2: you know, and the good guy will root out the
11:57
Speaker 2: corruption and good prevails.
11:59
Speaker 1: In the end, you know, when of you see swat,
12:01
Speaker 1: that's the good guys.
12:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, but yeah, they've been very good at managing
12:07
Speaker 2: public opinion and it's been effective. I actually did an
12:11
Speaker 2: article and I was looking recently on this, you know,
12:15
Speaker 2: that was addressing like public opinion. And while most of
12:19
Speaker 2: the public has grown quite cynical about government in general,
12:23
Speaker 2: the data I was looking at showed that the average American,
12:28
Speaker 2: for instance, had a positive view of the CIA and
12:31
Speaker 2: US intelligence agencies, even amidst the Russia Gate and all
12:35
Speaker 2: kinds of crazy stuff we've lived through, Like sixty to
12:39
Speaker 2: seventy percent of Americans said they had a favorable view
12:43
Speaker 2: about the CIA. And I think it's connecting part to
12:46
Speaker 2: these TV portrayals and movie portrayals, and the CIA has
12:50
Speaker 2: worked hard behind the scenes to cultivate that glorified image.
12:56
Speaker 1: Who was John Stockwell.
13:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, now's a good time to look back at some
13:03
Speaker 2: of the CIA to puncture that narrative that they want
13:07
Speaker 2: people to embrace. Look at the dissidents that came out
13:11
Speaker 2: of the nineteen seventies, and the two major ones were
13:14
Speaker 2: Philip ag who founded the COVID Action Information Bolton which
13:19
Speaker 2: is now COVID Action Magazine. He had worked in South
13:22
Speaker 2: America and wrote a tell all book Inside the Company,
13:26
Speaker 2: exposing corrupt and criminal activity in Latin American countries where
13:30
Speaker 2: he had worked. And then John Stockwell AG's book Inside
13:34
Speaker 2: the Company came out in nineteen seventy five, and then
13:37
Speaker 2: Stockwell he wrote a book called In Search of Enemies
13:42
Speaker 2: that was published in nineteen seventy eight. And he had
13:45
Speaker 2: worked with the CIA in Africa in the sixties and seventies.
13:50
Speaker 2: He was born in Texas and grew up in Texas,
13:54
Speaker 2: but then his dad, I think was in the Presbyterian
13:57
Speaker 2: Church and was also an engineer, got a job in
14:01
Speaker 2: the Congo with some engineering projects. So as a youth
14:06
Speaker 2: he spent some years in high school I think in Congo.
14:10
Speaker 2: And then he graduated from the University of Texas and
14:14
Speaker 2: joined the Marine Corps and was recruited into the CIA,
14:17
Speaker 2: and because he had lived in Africa, they sent him
14:20
Speaker 2: to various African stations in Ghana and I believe Ivory
14:27
Speaker 2: Coast and Congo, and he was involved in some and
14:32
Speaker 2: then he went to Angola. But then he and he
14:35
Speaker 2: also spent a time in Vietnam and he witnessed some
14:39
Speaker 2: terrible things in Vietnam, like with the Phoenix program where
14:43
Speaker 2: they were torturing people, and there was this I think
14:46
Speaker 2: he reported there was a sadistic Vietnamese army officer who
14:51
Speaker 2: was working with the CIA and their Phoenix who were
14:54
Speaker 2: torturing people at night. He said that he would get
14:57
Speaker 2: drunk and then torture people to death and like hack
15:01
Speaker 2: off their limbs. He was like a psychopath who dismember
15:05
Speaker 2: body parts and dump it in the river. And he
15:08
Speaker 2: tried to report this to his superior to get it
15:10
Speaker 2: to stop, and they didn't care or something, and so
15:14
Speaker 2: he was really sickened by what he saw in Vietnam.
15:17
Speaker 2: And then he went to Angola. He was in I
15:19
Speaker 2: think he was head of the Angola Desk and the
15:23
Speaker 2: CI was running this major covert operation after Angola got
15:27
Speaker 2: its independence from the Portuguese in nineteen seventy five. And
15:31
Speaker 2: there are various liberation movements, but the dominant one was
15:36
Speaker 2: the MPLA was more left wing and was led by
15:40
Speaker 2: Augustino Nieto, who was a poet and had written poetry
15:44
Speaker 2: like critical of Western civilization and European and imperialism, and
15:50
Speaker 2: the CIA Stockwell said in his memoir that the CIA
15:55
Speaker 2: actually came a lot of the CIA analysts he worked
15:57
Speaker 2: with came to the conclusion that MPL was the best
16:00
Speaker 2: equipped to lead Angla after and their leaders after independence,
16:05
Speaker 2: that they were the best educated because Nio I think
16:07
Speaker 2: was a medical doctor and he had been educated in Europe,
16:11
Speaker 2: and a lot of their leaders had advanced degrees from Europe.
16:14
Speaker 2: They're well educated, and they're generally, you know, principal people.
16:18
Speaker 2: Uh And they had a lot of support within Angola,
16:22
Speaker 2: and they had been involved, they were associated with a
16:25
Speaker 2: lot of the ethnic groups that had led the fight
16:29
Speaker 2: against Portuguese colonialism. Uh So they had a lot of
16:32
Speaker 2: popular support. So that was actually the assessment of a
16:36
Speaker 2: lot of the CIA analysts. And often you do find
16:39
Speaker 2: there are good analysts who work for the CIA. And
16:43
Speaker 2: then you know, because the CIA, again has different branches,
16:45
Speaker 2: and there's one branch is simply devoted to filing reports
16:48
Speaker 2: of political analysis.
16:50
Speaker 1: Assess that's m for example.
16:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, Ray McGovern is a good guy and he
16:56
Speaker 2: often taught. If you talk to him, he'll tell you
16:58
Speaker 2: about how they that branch became often politicized that you know,
17:03
Speaker 2: like analysts like himself and others who were earnest and
17:07
Speaker 2: good researchers, and in some way they're like academic they're
17:11
Speaker 2: filing like kind of academic papers assessing in countries politics,
17:17
Speaker 2: but the good one. They often discarded their reports if
17:20
Speaker 2: it doesn't suit the political agenda in Washington, or they
17:23
Speaker 2: just get put on a back desk. They never get promoted,
17:26
Speaker 2: and they're kind of ignored where the people who file
17:30
Speaker 2: phony report that you know, so the phony reports would
17:34
Speaker 2: play up like in a case of Angola, and Stockwell
17:38
Speaker 2: discusses this how the CIA and that's all this propaganda
17:41
Speaker 2: to make like the n p l A was a
17:43
Speaker 2: proxy of the Soviet Union and Cuba, so false intelligence
17:50
Speaker 2: was was disseminated uh making that connection or claiming that
17:55
Speaker 2: m PLA with a Cuban proxy when actually the good
17:58
Speaker 2: analysts said that wasn't the case. And Stockwell points out
18:03
Speaker 2: that the Soviet Union only came in after the US
18:06
Speaker 2: had heavily intervened in Angola, because the CIA ended up
18:11
Speaker 2: supporting through Mbutu. Because Stockwell had worked in the Congo
18:16
Speaker 2: when you know, and actually he says that in the
18:19
Speaker 2: Congo after they gained their independence from Belgium, Their first
18:23
Speaker 2: leader was Patrice Lumumba, who was left leaning and wanted
18:28
Speaker 2: to nationalize a certain Congolese control over their rich natural
18:33
Speaker 2: resources and minerals and diamond wealth. And obviously the Foreign
18:38
Speaker 2: Corporation covered that, and the United States wanted to take
18:41
Speaker 2: over from the Belgian. You know, a lot of the
18:43
Speaker 2: mining was controlled by the Belgians, but they lost control
18:47
Speaker 2: of their colony and the American saw an opportunity to
18:50
Speaker 2: swoop in and gain control of that wealth. And there
18:53
Speaker 2: was an American financier named Maurice Templesman who was very influential,
18:59
Speaker 2: uh who funded the Democratic Party for years. He actually
19:03
Speaker 2: just died this year, and he was on the board
19:06
Speaker 2: of the National Endowment for Democracy and he owned all
19:09
Speaker 2: these mines in the Congo and he was close with
19:14
Speaker 2: Joseph Mobutu, who the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Well, Lumamba
19:20
Speaker 2: was assassinated and then they coordinated the repression of rebellion.
19:25
Speaker 2: Some of Lumamba's followers tried to regain power and they
19:29
Speaker 2: were suppressed. And that's what Stockwell discusses that when he
19:33
Speaker 2: was there, he was involved in the suppression of this
19:37
Speaker 2: Lumamba's revolt called the Simba rebellion and the CIA, and
19:42
Speaker 2: actually at one point Shaykavara went to Congo to try
19:45
Speaker 2: and support the Simba rebellion, and the CIA brought in
19:50
Speaker 2: these right wing Cubans who had been involved in the
19:52
Speaker 2: anti castre operations and worked with Joseph Mobutu because Mambutu
19:58
Speaker 2: consolidated his control off through Lamba's death with US and
20:03
Speaker 2: CIA support, and Stockwell said, actually, when he was like
20:07
Speaker 2: in training to go there, a guy gave a lecture
20:12
Speaker 2: and bragged about driving in a car with Umamba's body
20:15
Speaker 2: parts in the trunk, and he was like bragging about this,
20:18
Speaker 2: So it wasn't really a secret that the CIA had
20:21
Speaker 2: been involved in the assassination of Lumamba. And then with
20:25
Speaker 2: Angola went to Mabudu consolidated control. Mabudu wanted to take
20:29
Speaker 2: control over some oil rich areas in Angola, so he
20:34
Speaker 2: and he was funding these right wing rebel groups to
20:38
Speaker 2: oppode the mp LA, and that's who the US and
20:42
Speaker 2: CIA started supporting. They were funneling arms through Congo to
20:47
Speaker 2: FNLA led by Holden Roberto and then Unita led by
20:53
Speaker 2: this warlord named Jonas Savimbi, and they proved to be
20:57
Speaker 2: very brutal groups. Uh. And it was admitted that they
21:02
Speaker 2: didn't have much popular support within that goal, except with
21:07
Speaker 2: a particular tribal group may have supported them because and
21:10
Speaker 2: that's you know, foreign powers have often worked, you know,
21:15
Speaker 2: European that's kind of the trick of empires that they
21:18
Speaker 2: go into, you know, developing countries and trying and exploit
21:22
Speaker 2: local division, ethnic or tribal divisions. So the CIA was
21:26
Speaker 2: kind of playing that game, supporting you know, particular tribal
21:31
Speaker 2: group that was allied with f n LA and UNITA
21:36
Speaker 2: as a strategy divide and conquer. But they created an ugly,
21:40
Speaker 2: dirty war, uh, you know, a terrible human cost for
21:44
Speaker 2: the anal And people. And Stockwell emphasized that the US
21:49
Speaker 2: and CIA were supporting these very unsavory groups who committed
21:54
Speaker 2: a lot of atrocities, and then they tried to coordinate
21:57
Speaker 2: these mercenaries uh sce like it was right after Vietnam,
22:02
Speaker 2: So the US wasn't going to send troops directly to
22:05
Speaker 2: another you know, third world country far away that Americans
22:09
Speaker 2: you know, wouldn't really have the stomach for fighting another
22:13
Speaker 2: conflict after Vietnam in the far away place. Behalf of
22:18
Speaker 2: some dubious allies. So they set up this mercenary operation
22:23
Speaker 2: and they in Congo too. He describes how they brought
22:26
Speaker 2: in and some were South Africans who were mercenaries with
22:32
Speaker 2: kind of an unsavory reputation. They were brought this guy,
22:36
Speaker 2: Bob Denard, and the other guy forget his name, but
22:39
Speaker 2: he was quite famous. He died a few years ago.
22:42
Speaker 2: I remember reading his obituary. The name will come to me.
22:47
Speaker 2: But anyway, they used some of these same guys and
22:51
Speaker 2: like they didn't and then a lot of the mercenaries
22:55
Speaker 2: went to fight against m p l A. But it
22:57
Speaker 2: wasn't known. It was Stockwell exposed that the CIA coordinated this,
23:02
Speaker 2: because I think it was known that there was some
23:06
Speaker 2: mercenary there, but until he published that, it was not
23:10
Speaker 2: known that the CIA coordinated that as part of their
23:13
Speaker 2: strategy for trying to defeat the MPLA.
23:17
Speaker 1: So, just as a bit of a segue, I don't
23:20
Speaker 1: know if you know this, the CIA was bankrolling the
23:24
Speaker 1: apartheid government. I don't know if you're aware of the
23:27
Speaker 1: Heldeberg air disaster that happened in the eighties, which was
23:31
Speaker 1: connected to that angole in operation. Because South Africa was
23:35
Speaker 1: being sanctioned by most of the world. They're getting weapons
23:40
Speaker 1: and military stuff into the country. Was very tricky, and
23:44
Speaker 1: South Africa had a good relationship with Taiwan, and so
23:48
Speaker 1: what happened in nineteen eighty seven was well, it happened
23:51
Speaker 1: a few times, but this particular time was a disaster.
23:54
Speaker 1: They loaded a Boeing seven four seven and by the way,
23:58
Speaker 1: Boeing was also investing in the Golden War, and they
24:03
Speaker 1: were using a what's called a Kombe seven four seven kombi,
24:07
Speaker 1: so they had the passengers in the front of the
24:10
Speaker 1: plane and the cargo at the back of the plane.
24:12
Speaker 1: Now they no longer do that. And that plane flew
24:15
Speaker 1: from Taiwan to South Africa, but some of the rocket
24:18
Speaker 1: field ignited and the plane went down into the ocean
24:21
Speaker 1: just off Mauritius, and everybody died on board, and the
24:24
Speaker 1: whole thing was a cover up, and to this day
24:26
Speaker 1: it's still a cover up.
24:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds well, it's like kind of the Iran contra.
24:30
Speaker 2: They were using third party, you know, because it was
24:33
Speaker 2: a dirty business and it's not something the public would
24:37
Speaker 2: be too keen on supporting. So they're trying to keep secrets,
24:40
Speaker 2: so they used proxy like and I think the US
24:44
Speaker 2: government became very skilled of doing this, especially after Vietnam
24:49
Speaker 2: there was less public appetite for military interventions, so they
24:54
Speaker 2: used like the Taiwanee, the Israelis as proxies or Saudi
24:59
Speaker 2: Rabe uh sometimes so that Yeah, that makes a lot
25:04
Speaker 2: of sense what you're saying. And yeah, there was a
25:07
Speaker 2: good book I read. I'm going to look into that
25:09
Speaker 2: more that that flight. What was the name of the flight,
25:13
Speaker 2: the Helderberg.
25:15
Speaker 1: It's widely it's widely considered one of the most covered
25:17
Speaker 1: up a disasters in aviation history.
25:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll think a good article for COVID.
25:23
Speaker 1: Action, So I'll send information later. Not okay, Yes, what's interesting.
25:28
Speaker 1: So you were mentioning his book what is it called?
25:30
Speaker 1: In Search of Enemies? And when he started speaking about
25:36
Speaker 1: what was going on within the CIA, the Court administration
25:41
Speaker 1: sued him.
25:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, he was actually testifying before Congress. There were
25:49
Speaker 2: some people in Congress were sympathetic because you had the
25:54
Speaker 2: Church Committee hearing, uh. And you had some members of
25:58
Speaker 2: Congress like a Dick Clark was one from Iowa, and
26:03
Speaker 2: Leo Ryan from California who actually got murdered and I
26:07
Speaker 2: think there is evident that the CIO murdered him. But
26:11
Speaker 2: he sponsored the Ryan Hughes Amendment, which was the most
26:15
Speaker 2: far reaching legislation ever to kind of reign in the
26:18
Speaker 2: CIA and establish Congressional control over it. So I think
26:24
Speaker 2: Stockwell wrote his book at a time when there was
26:27
Speaker 2: a lot of skepticism and desire, including the members of Congress,
26:32
Speaker 2: to reign in the CIA, and so he was brought
26:35
Speaker 2: in testified before various congressional hearings. Clark did push through
26:41
Speaker 2: an amendment to bar aid to these rebel forces in Angola.
26:48
Speaker 2: Now that was repealed in the eighties and the Reagan
26:51
Speaker 2: administration became legal again. But yeah, I think that's when
26:56
Speaker 2: they had to rely more and more on third countries
27:00
Speaker 2: and relied more on the South Africans to do more
27:03
Speaker 2: of the heavy leg work in South Africa. I think
27:06
Speaker 2: became more and more involved in the late seventies early eighties.
27:11
Speaker 2: And yeah, I read a book by William Minter, which
27:13
Speaker 2: is a good book on this topic called apartheids contras
27:17
Speaker 2: about the war and goal and referred to Unida and
27:21
Speaker 2: Savimbi's forces specifically as apartheis contras. So but then Stockwell
27:30
Speaker 2: was very active. He gave a lot of speeches on
27:34
Speaker 2: college campuses in the eighties. He was part of the
27:38
Speaker 2: off There was a whole movement to get the CIA
27:41
Speaker 2: off campus, like what I was saying, because they have
27:44
Speaker 2: all these professors and recruiters. There were a lot of
27:47
Speaker 2: student activism against the CIA. And actually, I'll have an
27:50
Speaker 2: article soon for this new school year saying we need
27:54
Speaker 2: to revive the off campus CIA movement because the CIA
27:58
Speaker 2: is more powerful infiltrated campuses more than ever. But yeah,
28:03
Speaker 2: Stockwell was a big figure in that movement. And then
28:06
Speaker 2: he wrote a book in nineteen ninety two called The
28:08
Speaker 2: Pretorian Guard, which was a critique of US foreign policy,
28:13
Speaker 2: and he critiqued George He knew George HW. Bush pretty
28:17
Speaker 2: well because he was the CIA director when he was
28:20
Speaker 2: working on this. It was called Operation Ia Feature that
28:26
Speaker 2: was the COVID operation in Gola. Stockwell was on the
28:30
Speaker 2: head of the ACIA and Gola desk and George H. W.
28:33
Speaker 2: Bush was the CIA director at that time. And then
28:36
Speaker 2: when he wrote his book Pertoring Guard, Bush was the president.
28:41
Speaker 2: And he was very critical of Bush because Bush tried
28:45
Speaker 2: to when you had the church hearing and the Clark
28:48
Speaker 2: Amendment barring aid to the country and barring the CIA
28:51
Speaker 2: role in Angola. Bush kind of pushed back, tried to
28:55
Speaker 2: re establish the power of the CIA and the executive
28:59
Speaker 2: brand and curtail the ability of Congress to regulate CIA
29:05
Speaker 2: activity in any way.
29:07
Speaker 1: Wasn't the CIA awarded something absurd like sixty five cents
29:11
Speaker 1: in damages?
29:13
Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that case. I didn't discuss that
29:17
Speaker 2: in my article that much. What exactly happened.
29:21
Speaker 1: Well, didn't he reach an out of court settlement or
29:25
Speaker 1: some sort of settlement, some sort of agreement and he
29:28
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to say anything further?
29:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems right. Yeah, I didn't research that that
29:34
Speaker 2: much for the article. I mainly just read his two
29:37
Speaker 2: books a few other things written about him, and I
29:40
Speaker 2: was familiar with his role in the CIA off campus movement,
29:44
Speaker 2: but I wasn't as aware of the legal case.
29:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now he died just what two months ago? He
29:54
Speaker 1: was what almost ninety years old?
29:59
Speaker 2: Yes, he not much is known because he wrote the
30:01
Speaker 2: book to Praetorian Guard in nineteen ninety two, and then
30:05
Speaker 2: it's not known. After that. He didn't publish any more books.
30:10
Speaker 2: The CIF campus movement died down, so I guess his
30:13
Speaker 2: speaking engagements seemed to have died down. If you go
30:18
Speaker 2: on the internet, you can find some YouTube clips of
30:20
Speaker 2: him in the eighties giving lectures like he was often
30:24
Speaker 2: invited to give lectures, and he traveled to countries like
30:28
Speaker 2: he traveled in Grenada and Jamaica, country that the CIA
30:32
Speaker 2: had been involved in trying to undermine socialists or left
30:35
Speaker 2: wing governments. But then after nineteen he published his last book.
30:41
Speaker 2: Not much as known about what happened to him. Lou
30:44
Speaker 2: Wolfe was the founder of COVID Action Information Bolton and
30:49
Speaker 2: is still alive. He's eighty six and he works with
30:52
Speaker 2: us still. He knew stockwell and was in periodic touch
30:57
Speaker 2: with them, but then he lost connection with him over
31:00
Speaker 2: the last ten to fifteen years. So I don't know
31:04
Speaker 2: what he had been up to in the last two
31:07
Speaker 2: three decades.
31:08
Speaker 1: I think I read that he was found dead in
31:10
Speaker 1: the forest or something.
31:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, his health may have declined in the last five years,
31:16
Speaker 2: but he still would have been healthy up to about
31:19
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. But there's no record, no published writings since
31:25
Speaker 2: since the mid nineties.
31:28
Speaker 1: So what do you think happened? Do you think that
31:30
Speaker 1: he just lost the desire or he was being watched
31:36
Speaker 1: or what it could be.
31:38
Speaker 2: Ralph McGahee was also a CIA operative who came out
31:43
Speaker 2: with a scathing memoir, Deadly Deceits, which is worth reading.
31:47
Speaker 2: Along with Stockwell and mcgahey wrote about all the lies
31:51
Speaker 2: and deception in Vietnam and Thailand, where he shared in laws,
31:56
Speaker 2: and mcgaye I think had been a professional football player
32:00
Speaker 2: at one point, but yeah, he too that his memoir
32:05
Speaker 2: was written in the nineteen eighties, and then you didn't
32:10
Speaker 2: hear much from him after that. Like Stockwell and some
32:14
Speaker 2: people I've talked to have suggested that he may have
32:18
Speaker 2: been threatened in some way and told not to speak
32:23
Speaker 2: out anymore, and that members of his family could be
32:26
Speaker 2: harmed or something. I don't know for sure. That's kind
32:29
Speaker 2: of a rumor. It wouldn't surprise me if that is
32:33
Speaker 2: what happened, because these people had a big following since
32:37
Speaker 2: they were insiders. I mean, like Stockwell was very intelligent.
32:42
Speaker 2: If you read his book, you know it's very well informed.
32:45
Speaker 2: He's very well informed about US foreign policy. He's a
32:49
Speaker 2: very intelligent man. He's giving very good detail, intimate details,
32:54
Speaker 2: and he's really an all American type it's hard to
32:56
Speaker 2: criticize him. And here's a guy who you know, he
33:00
Speaker 2: was in Vietnam. I mean, he's also a very charismatic speaker,
33:04
Speaker 2: good looking, like all American type guy. So it's and
33:10
Speaker 2: McGahee had been a professional football player, so it's hard
33:13
Speaker 2: to you know, denounce these guys. You know, they have
33:16
Speaker 2: an easy time. If it's like an academic, they just say, oh,
33:20
Speaker 2: he's this lefty academic, or he's you know, it's kind
33:24
Speaker 2: of easy to dismiss him, or you know, Middle America
33:28
Speaker 2: is not necessarily going to follow him, so they don't
33:31
Speaker 2: worry about him too much. But when you have an
33:32
Speaker 2: all American guy who's very you can't question his patriotism.
33:37
Speaker 2: I mean, he served in Vietnam, you know, and on
33:41
Speaker 2: the front line of the Cold War, and he comes
33:43
Speaker 2: across very articulately and intelligently, and he's got this sound
33:48
Speaker 2: critique with good, irrefutable evidence and information. He becomes a
33:54
Speaker 2: real threat that there's going to be a big movement
33:57
Speaker 2: and big push to advance the chain because I think
34:00
Speaker 2: in the seventies they were you know, Congress, they were
34:04
Speaker 2: members of Congress again who were trying to rein in
34:07
Speaker 2: the CIA, and we're passing legislation like the Ryan's Hughes Amendment,
34:11
Speaker 2: the Clark Amendment. This was really putting a damper on
34:15
Speaker 2: CIA operations. So they had to fight back against that
34:19
Speaker 2: movement in Hollywood. The Hollywood program, I think was very
34:24
Speaker 2: important of hiring this Hollywood liaison, Chase Brandon and pushing
34:29
Speaker 2: all these pro CIA films to shift public opinion. And
34:33
Speaker 2: then so getting rid of Stockwell is a major thorn
34:37
Speaker 2: in their side, and on Ag they hunted Ag. Ag
34:41
Speaker 2: did publish a memoir besides inside the company, he published
34:45
Speaker 2: a book in the eighties called On the Run. And
34:48
Speaker 2: I know, now there's a film producer who maybe trying
34:52
Speaker 2: to make a movie that's sympathetic to AG. But the
34:56
Speaker 2: memoir shows how he was hounded by the CIA. You know,
35:00
Speaker 2: he was deprived of his passport, he had to live
35:02
Speaker 2: in Europe, and then he was expelled in numbers of
35:05
Speaker 2: European countries and he was harassed and it was very
35:09
Speaker 2: and the CIA even had a plan to murder him
35:12
Speaker 2: that they didn't carry out, but they were threatening him
35:15
Speaker 2: and it was hard on his family. He had two kids.
35:19
Speaker 2: It was very difficult upbringing for them with a father
35:22
Speaker 2: being hunted by the CIA and they couldn't always have
35:25
Speaker 2: a stable life because he'd be in one country and
35:27
Speaker 2: then the authority would take his passport and basically deport
35:30
Speaker 2: them from that country. So he moved to another European country.
35:34
Speaker 2: He moved from Britain to Germany, eventually came back, I think,
35:39
Speaker 2: to the United States. But so yeah, I think you
35:44
Speaker 2: have to if you look at the big picture, I
35:47
Speaker 2: believe there was a effort to, you know, undermine these guys.
35:54
Speaker 2: And so I don't know exactly what happened with Stockwell
35:57
Speaker 2: and mcgayheet. It could be they just had to go
36:00
Speaker 2: on with their lives and try and make a living
36:02
Speaker 2: and these speeches. You know, the money was drying up
36:05
Speaker 2: because the CIAF campus movement ended and they couldn't make
36:08
Speaker 2: any money through lectures or books, and so they focused
36:12
Speaker 2: on family life and maybe you know, getting a job
36:15
Speaker 2: in another area and just didn't know, maybe relate to
36:18
Speaker 2: their job. They didn't want to be speaking out anymore.
36:21
Speaker 2: So that that is certainly a possibility. The other possibility
36:25
Speaker 2: is that some threat was conveyed to them.
36:29
Speaker 1: You mentioned the NED a few times earlier. Did you
36:32
Speaker 1: know that China officially kicked out the NED in twenty nineteen,
36:38
Speaker 1: calling it the Second CIA.
36:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was familiar with that. I believe Russia kicked
36:45
Speaker 2: them out as well. And yeah, they work in foreign
36:49
Speaker 2: countries like Russia and China. That is often the big
36:52
Speaker 2: focus to support dissidents in those countries and like to
36:56
Speaker 2: play out you know, like they work with the now
36:59
Speaker 2: I know any D because I studied them. They work
37:03
Speaker 2: with the Weiger World Congress.
37:06
Speaker 1: Yes, and and also uh a fellon Gong mm.
37:12
Speaker 2: Hmm, fellon Gong and the Tibetans. They work with the Tibetans. Uh.
37:16
Speaker 2: And they present a very one side of view. You know,
37:20
Speaker 2: that's a very complex conflict. Uh. But they present this
37:24
Speaker 2: narrative that just you know, presents China at the genocide,
37:28
Speaker 2: committing genocide. And yeah, I.
37:33
Speaker 1: Was Jeremy, I was, I was. I was there. I
37:37
Speaker 1: was in cash Gore.
37:39
Speaker 2: What I mean you see there?
37:41
Speaker 1: Uh, we went to a wiga winding. They were you know,
37:44
Speaker 1: in that province. They are Wega cops.
37:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. And from what I've I mean, I I'm not
37:50
Speaker 2: an expert on this topic, but I did a bit
37:53
Speaker 2: of just doing a bit of research, and you know,
37:55
Speaker 2: having read some books, people who went there like a
37:58
Speaker 2: b Abrams, you know, said similar things to what you said.
38:02
Speaker 2: And then I read there was this like tribunal they
38:05
Speaker 2: held that I think it was linked with the intelligence
38:09
Speaker 2: agencies and they were accusing China genocide. But actually the
38:13
Speaker 2: first speaker said that this was not a genocide that
38:16
Speaker 2: you know, there was an attempt at cultural like they
38:19
Speaker 2: did refer to as kind of maybe cultural genocide, but
38:22
Speaker 2: that's not the same thing firstly as a genocide. And
38:26
Speaker 2: then the term genocide then becomes very kind of dubious
38:30
Speaker 2: if they're they're trying to and they're making a point.
38:33
Speaker 2: Maybe it's true that they're trying to kind of push
38:35
Speaker 2: the Chinese culture on them, but that's not the same
38:39
Speaker 2: as as a genocide you know, gone on in Gaza.
38:43
Speaker 2: And then like they were talking about these camp you
38:46
Speaker 2: know that they're like arrested some people, but a they
38:50
Speaker 2: were like some of them have been involved in outright
38:52
Speaker 2: terrorist activity with the East Tremenistan, you know, you know
38:56
Speaker 2: about that, you know, it was a separatist movement there.
39:00
Speaker 2: You know, had been a lot of weager fighters had
39:03
Speaker 2: been in Afghanistan and allied with al Qaeda and an
39:06
Speaker 2: extremist faction and they carried out terrorist attacks on hand Chinese,
39:11
Speaker 2: so obviously law enforcements going to crack down on them.
39:13
Speaker 2: That that's not a genocide. I mean, maybe there were
39:16
Speaker 2: some excesses. And then like the prison they were sent
39:20
Speaker 2: to not really a prison. They were given courses to
39:23
Speaker 2: integrate them into Chinese life, So I mean some may
39:27
Speaker 2: have not, like you know, they were not there on
39:30
Speaker 2: their own will.
39:31
Speaker 1: But but there is also a context there. I mean,
39:34
Speaker 1: if you look into that region historically we're going go
39:38
Speaker 1: from the Tangent yet, but if you look into the
39:40
Speaker 1: history of that region, you'll see that there was m
39:42
Speaker 1: I six and other intelligence operations involved in trying to
39:46
Speaker 1: destabilize the region, and the Chinese government was not going
39:49
Speaker 1: to have any of that exactly.
39:52
Speaker 2: And it's the same with Tibet. You know, the CIA
39:54
Speaker 2: has a long pattern of supporting a Tibetan Dalai Lama
39:58
Speaker 2: uprising in Tibet. They even brought them to Colorado to
40:02
Speaker 2: train them in grilla warfare to destabilize China. So any country,
40:06
Speaker 2: and these are vital region as far as economy and
40:10
Speaker 2: natural resources for China, so they're not going to allow that.
40:14
Speaker 2: And then you know, there's evident that China has done
40:17
Speaker 2: a lot of constructive programs to improve the economy in
40:21
Speaker 2: these regions. And the Tibetan case, from my understanding, the
40:25
Speaker 2: Dalai Lama, it was kind of more feudal structure, and
40:30
Speaker 2: they're the very impressive aspect of the Dalai Lama. So
40:35
Speaker 2: you don't hear that side of the Free Tibet movement,
40:38
Speaker 2: which is probably any d you know, CI front type operation.
40:42
Speaker 2: That's the kind of thing they do to co op
40:44
Speaker 2: left wing movements and support these dissonance.
40:48
Speaker 1: Didn't Reagan effectively say that the NED was a variation
40:53
Speaker 1: of the CIA after the whole Church Committee thing.
40:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if it wasn't Reagan, but James Einstein,
41:01
Speaker 2: who was one of the creators of the ND said that, Yeah,
41:04
Speaker 2: he openly said that. He said, NED is doing now
41:07
Speaker 2: what the CIA used to do. Because what happened that
41:10
Speaker 2: the CIA was supporting all these journals and similar to
41:16
Speaker 2: what we're describing, they would support dissidents or like exile
41:21
Speaker 2: like Russian exile intellectuals, and helped finance a journal that
41:26
Speaker 2: promoted this very anti Soviet and negative view of the
41:30
Speaker 2: Soviet government. But then a lot of that got exposed
41:37
Speaker 2: because like and they were funding the Asia Foundation, which
41:40
Speaker 2: funded educational programs and books and journals like in Asia
41:46
Speaker 2: to promote the American foreign policy agenda. And it was
41:51
Speaker 2: uncovered that the CIA was because like, these foundations didn't
41:56
Speaker 2: advertise that they were funded by the CIA. They wanted
41:59
Speaker 2: to present themselves, you know, independent do good or humanitarian
42:02
Speaker 2: organizations that were sponsoring education and cultural exchanges and things
42:08
Speaker 2: like that. But when it got came to light that
42:11
Speaker 2: they were funded by the CIA, even people who worked
42:14
Speaker 2: there didn't want to work there anymore because they didn't
42:17
Speaker 2: want to be associating a lot of their employees didn't
42:19
Speaker 2: want to be associated with the CIA, you know, they
42:22
Speaker 2: wanted to work for an NGO and do some good work.
42:26
Speaker 2: But when it was uncovered that it was CIA funding,
42:29
Speaker 2: a lot of their employees quit. It brought them bad
42:32
Speaker 2: you know, press people didn't want to associate them. They
42:35
Speaker 2: saw it as part of nefarious underlying agenda. So that's
42:39
Speaker 2: when they shifted. It was all that negative publicity. The
42:43
Speaker 2: CIA had to cut back on its funding for like
42:45
Speaker 2: Asia Foundation. So another part, like Congress of Cultural Freedom,
42:51
Speaker 2: was a big program with sponsoring academic and intellectual journals
42:55
Speaker 2: in Europe to promote anti communism and funding all these
42:58
Speaker 2: professors who were US campuses. So that's when they shifted
43:03
Speaker 2: to creating the NED to basically pick up what the
43:06
Speaker 2: CIA had been doing in the Cold War. And they
43:10
Speaker 2: do the same thing. Yet they fund dissident groups in
43:14
Speaker 2: China and Russia. They have a journal and a lot
43:18
Speaker 2: of the professors, you know, they get top jobs in
43:21
Speaker 2: US universities where editors or contribute to that journal.
43:26
Speaker 1: Did you know that in twenty twenty five, Trump froze
43:31
Speaker 1: funding to the NED.
43:34
Speaker 2: Yes, I know about that. Yeah, because as I was
43:36
Speaker 2: saying this, NED CIA professor then hosted a forum and
43:43
Speaker 2: brought all these ANYD people to try and justify the
43:46
Speaker 2: NED and get the public to push back against what
43:49
Speaker 2: Trump was doing and Trump, you know, I think there
43:54
Speaker 2: was a lawsuit and then Trump backtracked pretty quickly. So
43:58
Speaker 2: I don't know how serious he was about actually cutting it,
44:01
Speaker 2: and maybe he didn't realize what it was and how
44:04
Speaker 2: instrumental it was to various foreign policies, including Iran. I
44:07
Speaker 2: mean Trump, the NED played a key role in the
44:11
Speaker 2: Iranian uprising because they were supporting distant groups in Iran
44:15
Speaker 2: and promoting demonization of the Iranian government, and they were
44:20
Speaker 2: supporting intellectuals who denounced the Iranian government, and was designed
44:24
Speaker 2: to condition the public to support amped up US involvement
44:29
Speaker 2: in Iran for regime change. So maybe somebody spoke to
44:33
Speaker 2: Trump and said, hey, we need this for the regime
44:36
Speaker 2: change in Iran and other foreign policies. So don't you know,
44:40
Speaker 2: So he backtracked pretty quickly. But yeah, he did have
44:43
Speaker 2: some right wing figure I remember at that time because
44:45
Speaker 2: I did one article where people like Elon Musk and
44:49
Speaker 2: some figures in the Trump administration were denouncing the D
44:53
Speaker 2: in terms that in the past there had been more
44:56
Speaker 2: people on the left, like who were critical of the CIA,
44:59
Speaker 2: had criticized then D from its inception, like Philip ag
45:03
Speaker 2: when he learned about the NED, made some statements criticizing
45:08
Speaker 2: the n e D, and some more left wing authors
45:10
Speaker 2: who are critical of US foreign policy, like William Bloom
45:13
Speaker 2: wrote about and how it was really a force for
45:16
Speaker 2: propaganda and destroying democracy, claim to support democracy, but often
45:21
Speaker 2: fueled these uprisings and violent regime change operations, or at
45:28
Speaker 2: least if it was supporting democracy, it was kind of
45:31
Speaker 2: a particular kind of democracy. That was I guess very
45:35
Speaker 2: bourgeois democracy would never support more left wing group that
45:39
Speaker 2: wanted to empower working class people or promote wealthy distribution
45:44
Speaker 2: or national industry would never support those kind of groups.
45:49
Speaker 1: So Stockwell basically described the NED as the CIA with
45:54
Speaker 1: a clean shirt.
45:57
Speaker 2: Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, see here he knew
46:00
Speaker 2: about it. Uh. And the time he was writing The
46:03
Speaker 2: Praetorian Guard. Yeah, he wrote, and he wrote a lot
46:06
Speaker 2: about propaganda and in search of enemies he discussed how
46:11
Speaker 2: they tried to spread stories like that the Cubans were
46:15
Speaker 2: committing atrocities once once Cuba got involved because Castro sent
46:20
Speaker 2: some of his soldiers to back the m p l A.
46:23
Speaker 2: And then Stockwell said that they promoted this propaganda that
46:26
Speaker 2: Cuban that committed atrocities. But then he said this. Washington
46:30
Speaker 2: Post reporter later on the Pulitzer Prize found that was
46:34
Speaker 2: not the case. That the Cubans had been well behaved,
46:37
Speaker 2: that they loved Angola, and that most of the atrocities
46:41
Speaker 2: were committed by these mercenaries we committed and and a
46:45
Speaker 2: lot of them were real racists, like they were openly racists.
46:50
Speaker 2: Some were Vietnam veterans who had been hardened by their
46:53
Speaker 2: time in Vietnam, and they're just like you know, there
46:57
Speaker 2: are there is an element of humanity unfortunately that enjoys
47:01
Speaker 2: killing and looks for war or racists. But actually Stockwell
47:07
Speaker 2: found a lot of the CIA people identify they had
47:10
Speaker 2: respect for apartheid South Africa, because the CIA had a
47:13
Speaker 2: long history of working with the South African intelligence services,
47:18
Speaker 2: because South Africa is such an important country strategically, and
47:21
Speaker 2: they culturally identify with the white South Africans. I guess
47:25
Speaker 2: in a way that some CIA identify with Israelis because
47:28
Speaker 2: they're white in the Middle East and more like Americans
47:32
Speaker 2: so or Western oriented. So there's that too.
47:38
Speaker 1: I'm just going back to Stockwell's death. The guy was
47:41
Speaker 1: almost ninety years old, and he was found in the woods,
47:44
Speaker 1: and I saw now the New York Times, Is it
47:48
Speaker 1: the New York Times? Yes, The New York Times ran
47:50
Speaker 1: an article saying that he was contemplating suicide. I mean,
47:55
Speaker 1: come on, do you really believe that.
47:59
Speaker 2: I don't know what happened with him. He could have
48:01
Speaker 2: been at that age suffering from senility or dementia, but
48:06
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe there is something more sinister. I
48:08
Speaker 2: don't know. It does seem unlikely. I mean, well after
48:13
Speaker 2: all those years, because the strange thing is he hadn't
48:16
Speaker 2: really been heard from the public for at least twenty
48:19
Speaker 2: five to thirty years. So I don't know why he
48:23
Speaker 2: would consider suicide Dan unless he was in very poor health.
48:29
Speaker 2: But yeah, it is kind of mysterious why he just
48:32
Speaker 2: dropped off the radar after his book Pretorian Guard and
48:37
Speaker 2: what he was doing, what kind of employment he pursued
48:40
Speaker 2: at that time. I really don't know what kind of
48:43
Speaker 2: life you led.
48:45
Speaker 1: Is there a lesson that we can learn you maybe
48:48
Speaker 1: you know, don't work for the CIA.
48:51
Speaker 2: Well, that's true. I had Colonel Ann Wright who was
48:55
Speaker 2: a friend of mine. You know, she worked in the
48:57
Speaker 2: State Department for twenty seven years, and I was teaching
49:00
Speaker 2: at the University of Tulsa and she from Arkansas was visiting.
49:04
Speaker 2: So I was in touch with her. So I said, oh,
49:06
Speaker 2: come speak to my class. So she came, and she
49:10
Speaker 2: said how many She asked the students, how many are
49:13
Speaker 2: thinking of a career with the State Department of the
49:15
Speaker 2: Foreign Service, And a couple raised their hands, and she said, well,
49:19
Speaker 2: it's a good career, but you'll sell your soul to
49:23
Speaker 2: the devil, and then she explained some of the things
49:26
Speaker 2: that she was doing. Eventually she resigned in protests to
49:31
Speaker 2: the Iraq war and now she's more of a peace activist.
49:34
Speaker 2: So yeah, unfortunately, I mean, and that's what Stockwell said,
49:38
Speaker 2: I mean, you can understand why somebody would want to
49:41
Speaker 2: join the CIA. Like he was, like, at first, it
49:43
Speaker 2: was really exciting, you know, I was kind of these
49:46
Speaker 2: adventures and you know, they live well like they're you know,
49:50
Speaker 2: they know the slow saying, live like colonials. You know,
49:53
Speaker 2: they're put up a nice home. They have these nice
49:56
Speaker 2: parties at the embassy. There's local girls, they can get
50:00
Speaker 2: pretty easily, pretty girls, and it's an exciting life. But
50:06
Speaker 2: then he said, you know, it kind of over time
50:09
Speaker 2: it wore on him because of all the ugly things
50:12
Speaker 2: he saw. It just started to wear on him over time,
50:16
Speaker 2: and when he found it. I mean, there's kind of
50:18
Speaker 2: an interesting discussion at the end as to you know,
50:21
Speaker 2: why he decided to speak out compared to a lot
50:23
Speaker 2: of his colleagues, and he felt that a lot of
50:26
Speaker 2: them just became very cynical, that they just kind of
50:32
Speaker 2: were so cynical about humanity and its prospects that they
50:36
Speaker 2: like didn't care and I guess what's the word. They
50:38
Speaker 2: just like hard and they kind of lost their humanity
50:40
Speaker 2: as time went on. They couldn't empathize because, like, the
50:43
Speaker 2: war had a terrible effect on the population of Angola.
50:47
Speaker 2: And I, you know, I experienced this in two thousand
50:50
Speaker 2: and seven. I visited Zambia and traveled around the country
50:54
Speaker 2: and including I was near the Angolan border in some
50:57
Speaker 2: towns and I met number of and goal on war
51:01
Speaker 2: veterans and some were one or two of them were
51:03
Speaker 2: disabled others and I got to talk to them and they,
51:07
Speaker 2: you know, described and they were very humble living in
51:11
Speaker 2: very humble circumstances. Very nice people, but they were describing
51:15
Speaker 2: how hard their life had been and it took them
51:17
Speaker 2: a long time just to settle in another country Zambi
51:21
Speaker 2: nb to be able to make a living. It was very,
51:25
Speaker 2: very difficult for them, and they had lost a lot
51:28
Speaker 2: of family members in the war. And there are a
51:30
Speaker 2: lot of horror stories and trauma from that kind of war.
51:36
Speaker 2: You know, stunted growth and development and you know, when
51:39
Speaker 2: the country country just off independence, they couldn't really develop
51:43
Speaker 2: their education system or you know, a lot of kids
51:46
Speaker 2: weren't able to go to school. They were crued as
51:49
Speaker 2: child's soldiers, and their their development was stunted. So it's
51:53
Speaker 2: just incalculable the human costs. And like Stockwell's kind of wondering,
51:59
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, he started to feel it, but
52:01
Speaker 2: he felt like a lot of his colleagues were just
52:04
Speaker 2: numb from that, and they kind of lost their humanity
52:09
Speaker 2: and their very career driven, which on one hand is good.
52:14
Speaker 2: I mean, it's good to be ambitious and to want
52:16
Speaker 2: to advance yourself, but at the cost of you know,
52:20
Speaker 2: just totally losing your humanity and lying all the time
52:24
Speaker 2: and supporting is very corrupt and dubious endeavor. It's not
52:30
Speaker 2: it's not good at all. But that's what he saw.
52:32
Speaker 2: They were so career driven that a lot of them
52:34
Speaker 2: who knew it was wrong, just didn't want to speak
52:37
Speaker 2: out because it was the tract in their careers. So
52:42
Speaker 2: you find a lot of that because you know, I've
52:44
Speaker 2: interacted with a lot of CIA or State Department or
52:48
Speaker 2: military people, and nowadays very few feel positive at all
52:53
Speaker 2: about stuff they're doing, but they're often reluctant to resign
52:57
Speaker 2: or speak out publicly. You know, they might private conversations
53:01
Speaker 2: say how bad things are and how unhappy or corrupt
53:04
Speaker 2: things are, but they're often reluctant to say so publicly,
53:07
Speaker 2: just because for career reasons or often unfortunately with this
53:13
Speaker 2: kind of economy, they feel that their lives will be
53:16
Speaker 2: destroyed if they have kids and stuff, they'll have no
53:19
Speaker 2: way to support their kids, so they stick it out.
53:23
Speaker 2: But they end up being kind of tortured souls because
53:25
Speaker 2: they know they've been part of something dubious and they
53:28
Speaker 2: don't feel good about it. But then there's the people
53:32
Speaker 2: at the top usually just have no conscience. That's why
53:35
Speaker 2: in photos you often see them smiling. It's all a
53:38
Speaker 2: game for them, how much money they can make and
53:40
Speaker 2: how much power they can accrue, and they have no
53:43
Speaker 2: regard for other humans. But they're like sociopathic people, and
53:48
Speaker 2: those are the ones who seem to be always in
53:50
Speaker 2: the top positions.
53:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean Hoover, wasn't he the d of the
53:54
Speaker 1: FBI for like fifty years?
53:57
Speaker 2: Yeah? And he was a true sociopath, uh that. I
54:01
Speaker 2: in my research found that he clearly coordinated the the
54:04
Speaker 2: assassination Martin Luther King Junior. And he was just a
54:09
Speaker 2: horrible human being and power power mad guy, and that's
54:14
Speaker 2: often what you find, Yeah, because who else could do
54:18
Speaker 2: those kind of things? I mean you or I, I
54:21
Speaker 2: mean we both you know, want to do well in
54:23
Speaker 2: our lives and careers, but we're not the type we're
54:26
Speaker 2: going to start planning murders. Unfortunately, you find, like you,
54:31
Speaker 2: I've done deeper search and a lot of political figure
54:35
Speaker 2: like Bill Clinton, and I found that the strong evident
54:38
Speaker 2: that he's a murderer and he was a rapist. Uh.
54:43
Speaker 2: Same with Barack Obama. He I believed this strong evidence
54:47
Speaker 2: that he murdered people to get in power. And you know,
54:51
Speaker 2: he was known as the drone killer. Uh. And it's
54:55
Speaker 2: just not something I could do. I mean, I uh,
54:59
Speaker 2: most decent people just it's not in their purview to
55:03
Speaker 2: be wanting to kill people. And why constantly, you know,
55:08
Speaker 2: I mean as kids were raised not to why they
55:12
Speaker 2: do it without any problem on a daily or hourly basis.
55:17
Speaker 1: Stockwell also didn't like Lyndon B. Johnson. I mean, he
55:20
Speaker 1: criticized him openly about the Gulf of Tonkin incident which
55:24
Speaker 1: didn't happen. And I'm not sure what his views on
55:28
Speaker 1: JFK were, but I mean Johnson was involved with that.
55:32
Speaker 2: Well he said, actually it's in the memoir. It's stuck
55:36
Speaker 2: with me because I did an article on how Lindon
55:38
Speaker 2: Johnson is a serial killer. And that's what I found
55:43
Speaker 2: with a number of US presidents like Clinton, Obama, Bush,
55:47
Speaker 2: that they're stone called killers, not just in the foreign
55:51
Speaker 2: policy they orchestrate, but in their eyes to power. And
55:55
Speaker 2: the evidence with Lyndon Johnson that he ordered numbers of
55:58
Speaker 2: murders in Texas because in nineteen forty eight he was
56:02
Speaker 2: running for the US Senate and he actually lost, but
56:05
Speaker 2: he stuffed the ballot boxes in some East Texas counties
56:10
Speaker 2: and there was a sheriff who knew about this and
56:13
Speaker 2: reported to the governor, you know who was the sheriff
56:16
Speaker 2: of the town in his county, and then he turned
56:18
Speaker 2: up dead in the jail cell. And Stockwell wrote, because
56:22
Speaker 2: Stockwell said in his memoir that he was rather conservative
56:26
Speaker 2: as the youth, he supported Goldwaller. You know, sixty four
56:29
Speaker 2: election was Goldwater versus Johnson. Barry Goldwaller was a conservative
56:34
Speaker 2: Arizona senator, and he said he supported Goldwater because he
56:38
Speaker 2: was conservative at that time, but also because he and
56:41
Speaker 2: everyone in Texas knew that Johnson was corrupt and a murderer,
56:45
Speaker 2: and he wrote that in In Search of Enemies, And yeah,
56:50
Speaker 2: my research which drew on some published studies, there's very
56:56
Speaker 2: strong evidence that Johnson killed people to cover up what
57:02
Speaker 2: was going, you know, the corruption with that election and
57:04
Speaker 2: also with his UH financial bagman Billy soul Estes was
57:09
Speaker 2: involved in all these corrupt financial deals that implicated Johnson,
57:13
Speaker 2: and there are murders to cover that up. UH. And
57:16
Speaker 2: actually the governor of Texas UH in the fifties accused
57:22
Speaker 2: Johnson of being a murderer in the murder of the
57:25
Speaker 2: sheriff Sam Swift Smithwick. So, yeah, Stockwell said everybody in
57:30
Speaker 2: Texas knew, and that was known in Texas that Johnson
57:33
Speaker 2: was a bad man, corrupt Kennedy. He has a chapter
57:37
Speaker 2: on that. Yeah, you feel that in Pratorian Guard. I
57:40
Speaker 2: don't think it's in Search of Enemies. It's in his
57:43
Speaker 2: second book, which is a good book, The Pratorian Guard.
57:47
Speaker 2: He's got a chapter and he believed this, and he
57:50
Speaker 2: has goes over some of the evidence to indicate CIA
57:54
Speaker 2: involvement in the Kennedy assassination. At Yah, what's that?
58:02
Speaker 1: Ray McGovern also said that on my on my podcast
58:04
Speaker 1: that CI were Dorec involved with JFK's assassination.
58:09
Speaker 2: H Yeah, there are a lot of insiders have said that. E.
58:13
Speaker 2: Howard Hunt said that on his deathbed, and he was
58:17
Speaker 2: clearly involved. I Howard Hunt also said that Lennon Johnson
58:20
Speaker 2: was a key figure in the plot against JFK. And
58:24
Speaker 2: there's a lot of evidence of that, uh so. And
58:28
Speaker 2: then Stockwell also in Praturing, Guard had a whole chapter
58:31
Speaker 2: on the CIA and the drug trade and he had
58:34
Speaker 2: you know, insider knowledge about that, how they used the
58:37
Speaker 2: drug trade to finance some of their off the books
58:40
Speaker 2: covert operations. And yeah, in search of enemies, he discussed
58:45
Speaker 2: the forty Committee. A lot of the plans were laid
58:48
Speaker 2: out by this secret committee that was headed by Henry Kissinger.
58:53
Speaker 2: But he was disgusted. He attended a couple of meeting
58:56
Speaker 2: with Kissinger, and I think like he saw, Kissinger is
58:59
Speaker 2: so powered hungry that even the seating arrangement, Like at
59:02
Speaker 2: one meeting, Kissinger was upset at the seating arrangement. He
59:06
Speaker 2: wasn't ahead of the table, so he wouldn't he was
59:09
Speaker 2: like behaving like a baby. He wouldn't participate in the
59:12
Speaker 2: in the whole meeting because he felt slighted over the
59:17
Speaker 2: seating arrangement and he was behaving like a baby. And
59:21
Speaker 2: Stockhalls like, these are the men who are making decisions
59:24
Speaker 2: that you know, are costing people's lives. And he found
59:27
Speaker 2: like that they knew nothing about on Gola, Like they
59:29
Speaker 2: had no knowledge about the country, and they didn't care,
59:33
Speaker 2: like you know, they were the most bile people, Like
59:36
Speaker 2: they had no regard for the people of on Gola,
59:39
Speaker 2: whose fate they were inextricably shaping by funding the war there.
59:45
Speaker 2: And that's unfortunately what you find that a lot of
59:48
Speaker 2: these bureaucrats and top leaders they just have no humanity
59:52
Speaker 2: or conscious or empathy and they making such important decisions.
59:59
Speaker 1: So Stockwell's ultimate message is basically that the CIA is
1:00:04
Speaker 1: the enforcement arm of the corporate power structure and not
1:00:10
Speaker 1: the defender of freedom.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: Correct. Yes, And he goes into golf Oil and Gola Oil.
1:00:18
Speaker 2: It's a big oil country, oil producing country, and he
1:00:23
Speaker 2: discusses golf Oil and the interest they had in some
1:00:27
Speaker 2: of the oil field there and the executive of golf
1:00:31
Speaker 2: Oil at that time, with Kermit Roosevelt, who had been
1:00:34
Speaker 2: the architect of the coup in Iran in nineteen fifty three,
1:00:38
Speaker 2: and he was rewarded with an appointment. You know, the
1:00:41
Speaker 2: Shaw opened the oil fields because Moza Deva ran Mozack,
1:00:45
Speaker 2: who the CIO overthrew, had wanted to nationalize the oil
1:00:49
Speaker 2: Kermit Roosevelt helped, who was Theodore Roosevelt's grandson, helped orchestrate
1:00:54
Speaker 2: the coup. Then he was rewarded with an executive job,
1:00:57
Speaker 2: lucrative job with a golf oil company. And they were
1:01:00
Speaker 2: very active in Angola and they saw the MPLA the threat.
1:01:04
Speaker 2: Eventually the MPLA came in power, but they got co
1:01:08
Speaker 2: opted and I think the oil companies were able to
1:01:10
Speaker 2: get pretty favorable terms ultimately under the NPLA, which which
1:01:15
Speaker 2: further showed that the whole war was useless because they
1:01:18
Speaker 2: could the MPLA wasn't really that radical as far as
1:01:21
Speaker 2: pushing like for nationalization, Like they're really willing to compromise
1:01:25
Speaker 2: because they needed some foreign capital and they weren't even
1:01:29
Speaker 2: that strong to fight against the ol company, so they
1:01:32
Speaker 2: ended up giving them a lot of concessions. So like,
1:01:35
Speaker 2: what's the point of this war? In hindsight, it's just again,
1:01:40
Speaker 2: many lives were ruined for a war that was totally.
1:01:44
Speaker 1: Avoidable Okay, Jeremy, how can I follow your work?
1:01:54
Speaker 2: You can go on my website Jeremy Kuzumarov dot com
1:01:57
Speaker 2: and that has my books and I have a new
1:01:59
Speaker 2: book book. I have eight books now one a new
1:02:02
Speaker 2: one coming out on political assassinations and maybe we can
1:02:05
Speaker 2: do another show on that. Yeah. So Jeremy Kuzmarov dot
1:02:10
Speaker 2: com and my substacks too hot for the mainstream and
1:02:14
Speaker 2: covered Action magazine. You can find me there. I usually
1:02:17
Speaker 2: write one article or two per week.
1:02:22
Speaker 1: As always, Jeremy Kuzmarov, thank you for joining me in
1:02:24
Speaker 1: the trenches.
1:02:26
Speaker 2: Thank you always a pleasure.