---

Transcript:

(0:00) Thank you, Hillsdale, for having me and the incredible work that you’re doing. (0:04) Today’s topic is the history of the intelligence state. (0:08) And what I’m going to try to describe to you is the shape of the beast that we are up against and has targeted so many people in this room.

(0:16) Hillsdale asked me to speak about this particular topic, the history of the intelligence state.(0:21) Obviously, the intelligence state is a concept that implies that intelligence has taken over the state and that it has somehow gone rogue. (0:30) Something has gone very wrong that intelligence, which is supposed to serve the state, has subsumed it.

(0:37) I will present the essential history of the intelligence state, but there is something beyond it that I think beginning with that helps elucidate, and that may be the octopus that was just referred to, but we’ll come to meet it as we progress. (0:53) So I think the best way to understand is to actually start the story in the middle, and then we will go back in time to the founding of the country. (1:01) We’ll sort of speed run the essential history, and then all the way up into the present.

(1:05) But we’re going to start in the year 1948. (1:07) This is the sort of zero AD of the founding of the intelligence capacities of the US government. (1:14) And instead of sort of doing what you’ll learn in an ordinary history book, we’re going to start with a document that I’m curious if anyone has ever seen.

(1:24) It’s called the Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare. (1:28) Anyone ever seen that document in this room? (1:31) How many people in this room know the name George Kennan?

(1:36) Okay, 75% of the hands went up. (1:38) Did you know that George Kennan in 1948 wrote this memo called the Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare, in which he’s famous, for folks who are not familiar, George Kennan is sort of known as a sort of godfather figure of American diplomacy and the Central Intelligence Agency. (1:55) He was famous for this long telegram, the chief strategist of the containment strategy of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

(2:04) But before all that, when all of this was getting started, he penned this top secret memo, which was not declassified for 60 years, it was declassified in 2005, that I think helps elucidate the story as we’re going to proceed here. (2:21) We’re going to go through this memo, but I want to give some context first. (2:28) The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare was written just 12 days after the Central Intelligence Agency did its first government overthrow operation, its first election rigging event.

(2:42) That was on April 18th, 1948, and this was written just 12 days after that. (2:49) And the particular focus was what had just happened in Italy. (2:51) Italy was having its first democratic election after World War II, and it posited a U.S.-backed candidate on the one hand and a Russia-backed candidate on the other. (3:02) And when the rules-based international order was being established in 1948, and we had these coordinating bodies through the National Security Council, the very first memo I have just on screen here emphasizes how important it is for the U.S. to control the political affairs of Italy. (3:20) You’ll see National Security Council Memo 1-1. (3:24) It’s titled, The Positioning of the United States With Respect to Italy.

(3:27) Kennan wrote, Italy is obviously the key point. (3:30) If the communists win there, our whole position would probably be undermined. (3:37) Now, what happened in this case was in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency was established under the National Security Act, and it was originally intended to have intelligence focus on gathering and analysis.

(3:52) But because of the key importance perceived by the U.S. State Department to influence the course of the Italian election, it developed a makeshift, ad hoc, thrown-together-at-the-last-minute, $250 million operation to swing that election in favor of the candidate that the U.S. government preferred. (4:11) And I just have some statistics here and a little bit of context because we’re gonna see this as a repeating theme. (4:18) So, about $250 million were spent of U.S. taxpayer money in order to prop up our preferred candidate. (4:25) The CIA made use of off-the-book sources of funding to finance it. (4:29) We had bags of money that were delivered to selected politicians to pay for their political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets. (4:36) We threatened the Italian government that aid money from the U.S. would be withheld if the wrong person got elected. (4:43) Our newly created CIA proprietary media organizations, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, set up a vast spawn of Italian network news in order to create a surround sound inside that country to buy U.S. propaganda and messaging. (4:58) We funneled aid money through churches and charity fronts to Mafia and Union Street Muscle. (5:03) We worked with Hollywood to project Greta Garbo films and others into the country.

(5:09) And the reason I’m starting with this context (5:11) is not just because it will help explain the rationale (5:14) for the beast that was created (5:16) just six weeks after this memo was penned,(5:19) also by George Kennan, (5:21) but it’s because understand that this is (5:24) the intelligence services co-opting (5:26) all of these organizations, (5:28) which is to say that when the U.S. government (5:30) provides funding or assistance, (5:32) suddenly the churches that they were working with (5:35) are no longer simply churches.

(5:36) They are instruments of statecraft. (5:39) The nonprofit charities are no longer simply charities. (5:42) They become instruments of statecraft.

(5:45) The media is no longer an independent media. (5:47) It is an instrument of statecraft. (5:48) Hollywood becomes an instrument of statecraft.

(5:51) Organized criminal mafias, (5:53) and just so you understand the context of this, (5:55) the predecessor to the CIA, the OSS, (5:57) together with our war department, (5:59) as it was called at the time, (6:00) was working with criminal groups in Italy (6:03) as well as with church organizations and others (6:06) who were being prosecuted by Mussolini, (6:08) and they served as a sort of guerrilla resistance (6:11) to assist the U.S. Army in intelligence operations, (6:15) and so we had that network established. (6:17) It was unseemly but seen as necessary in a time of war,(6:21) but it was simply maintained in times of peace (6:23) for political war, (6:26) but then suddenly organized crime (6:28) becomes not a criminal offense, (6:30) but rather a sanctioned instrument of statecraft, (6:34) and just to drive that point home, (6:36) this is Miles Copeland,(6:37) one of the founding members of the CIA, (6:38) in his own book wrote that, (6:39) had it not been for the mafia, (6:42) the communists would by now be in control of Italy. (6:46) Why was all this necessary?

(6:48) Well, this was necessary because in the eyes of the U.S. State Department, we would have lost the election if the intelligence community hadn’t rigged it. (6:56) 60% of the vote would have gone to the communists, (7:00) but for CIA intervention in their assessment, (7:04) and I’m going to just urge throughout this (7:07) that when you hear communist or fascist (7:10) in terms of the historical data points (7:12) we’re going to go over, (7:14) understand that in the post-2016 world,(7:16) all of this infrastructure has been repurposed (7:19) to take out populism, (7:21) so every time you see communism, (7:22) as much as all of us abhor that, (7:25) I think with every fiber in our souls, (7:28) the biggest threat right now to the intelligence state (7:31) and to the blob will come to meet towards the end of this (7:34) is domestic populism, (7:36) and this is actually the language that they use, (7:38) so when you see that say the communists would have won, (7:42) many of us would prefer, obviously, (7:44) that the communists does not win, (7:45) but today, they use that exact same language, (7:48) as you’ll see, to describe stopping the rise of populism (7:51) and stopping populist political candidates, (7:53) so I want to just go through this, (7:56) since I didn’t see a hand raised in this room, (8:00) this key document that was the predecessor (8:03) to the government linchpin license (8:07) that created this whole universe, (8:10) so we’re just gonna go through some of these receipts (8:12) I’ve flagged on screen here, (8:14) this is from George Kennan, April 30th, 1948, (8:17) just the week before the Central Intelligence Agency (8:21) had achieved this incredible win in Italy, (8:25) and George Kennan and the State Department (8:27) and the White House were so overwhelmed with delight (8:31) about the world of possibility (8:32) if we could simply scale the Italian operation, (8:35) but the problem was is it was very much against (8:38) everything this country had stood for (8:39) for a century and a half before that,(8:41) so I’m just gonna read some of the highlighted items here, (8:44) so you’ll see the phrase political warfare (8:46) dots this in a very deliberate way, (8:48) organized political warfare by the US government (8:51) to further our national objectives, (8:53) to further our influence and authority, (8:55) using means both overt and covert, (8:57) including black psychological warfare(8:59) and many other techniques, (9:01) George Kennan says here, (9:02) we have been handicapped, however, (9:04) by a popular attachment to the concept (9:06) of a basic difference between peace and war, (9:11) and that our public, (9:12) you’ll see he actually crossed out of the draft, (9:16) because again, this is a top secret memo (9:17) that was published in 1948 (9:18) and wasn’t declassified until 2005, (9:20) the hard record preserves his own scrawls, (9:22) you’ll see at the bottom it says (9:24) we’re hamstrung by this basic difference (9:25) between peace and war by our public’s yearnings, (9:28) and then that’s crossed out and it says (9:29) by national tendency to seek a political cure-all (9:32) and a reluctance to recognize (9:34) the realities of international relations, (9:36) basically saying listen, (9:38) we answer to the voters, the people,(9:39) and they’re not gonna like this, (9:41) they don’t understand international relations, (9:44) they think there’s a difference between peace and war, (9:47) and World War II is over, (9:48) it just ended three years ago, (9:50) but if we go into peacetime mode (9:52) and we do not continue political warfare, (9:56) then we will lose the opportunity (9:57) to dominate the 20th century,(10:00) and you’ll see here it references, (10:02) this was the Italian elections, (10:03) that we just engaged in this in the Italian elections (10:06) 12 days from then, (10:07) and that this political warfare (10:08) has to be directed and coordinated (10:10) by the Department of State, (10:11) and we’re gonna come back to that (10:12) because when you see the shape of the intelligence state,(10:15) it extends far beyond intelligence (10:17) and actually it’s really a tool of statecraft, (10:20) so here is a very interesting telling vision (10:24) into this CIA godfather, (10:26) it says we cannot afford in the future, (10:29) in perhaps more serious political crises, (10:31) to scramble into impromptu covert operations (10:34) as we did at the time of the Italian elections, (10:37) saying we did this, it was great, it was amazing, (10:39) but we need this capacity everywhere, (10:43) we need it on every country on earth (10:45) where there might be a political crisis, (10:47) every country on earth where there might be (10:49) a need for us to protect US national interests,(10:52) or trade interests, or financial interests, (10:55) or security interests, (10:57) we need the same network we had in Italy, (11:00) working with everyone from the cultural influencers, (11:03) to the media, to the churches, to the charities, (11:06) to the organized crime networks, (11:09) even if we don’t use it, just in case we need it, (11:12) so we don’t need to scramble (11:14) if an opposition politician decides to go sideways (11:17) against a US national interest agenda, (11:21) so I’m setting the stage with that (11:23) before we go back in time (11:24) and then sort of go through the whole history of this, (11:27) because just less than two months after George Kennan (11:30) wrote that inauguration of organized political warfare, (11:34) saying since 1789, we have never done this sort of thing (11:38) in any organized fashion, (11:39) the American people aren’t going to like it, (11:41) but we have to do it, (11:42) just less than two months after that, (11:44) George Kennan then sponsored the very act (11:46) which would permanently change (11:49) the structure of the American government, (11:51) and the way our country works, (11:55) and this was the National Security Council Memo 10-2, (11:58) now for folks who are not familiar, (12:00) the National Security Council is called the interagency, (12:02) it coordinates with the State Department, (12:05) the Defense Department, the CIA, (12:07) what everyone is doing, (12:08) so that they are all working in a complimentary fashion, (12:11) it’s in the White House, (12:13) and it’s sort of the executive oversight of everything, (12:16) so you’ll see this memo here, (12:19) and NSE 10-2, and just so that you see it, (12:23) it’s right here on the State Department website (12:25) under state.gov, what I’m about to read here, (12:28) it sanctioned US intelligence (12:29) to carry out a broad range of covert operations, (12:32) including propaganda, economic warfare, (12:35) demolition, subversion, sabotage, (12:38) it was sponsored by George Kennan, (12:41) he was the one who pushed for this (12:42) right after he wrote the inauguration (12:43) of organized political warfare, (12:45) but he would later say it was the greatest mistake (12:47) he ever made, because of the monster it created, (12:51) because what NSE 10-2 did was, (12:55) it gave the intelligence community (12:59) this burgeoning newly created CIA, (13:02) and we now have 17 intelligence agencies, (13:05) plus the ODNI, (13:08) they transformed not just from spy organizations, (13:12) but to lie organizations, (13:13) and what I mean by that is because of this phrase (13:16) that is used in NSE 10-2, I’m gonna read it, (13:20) all of these activities which are normally illegal (13:23) can be carried out, (13:25) so long as they are planned and executed, (13:27) so that any US government responsibility for them (13:30) is not evident to unauthorized persons, (13:33) and that if uncovered, (13:35) the US government can plausibly deny (13:37) any responsibility for them.(13:40) I’m gonna actually just show you the exact language here, (13:44) this is again 1948, (13:46) all covert operations, (13:48) all of these, sabotage, demolition, controlling the media, (13:53) they are now legal as long as you, (13:57) as they are planned and executed, (13:59) so that any US government responsibility (14:01) is not evident to unauthorized persons, (14:04) so you are cast out of Eden, effectively, (14:06) if you eat the apple of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, (14:12) you are not allowed to know, (14:14) and they are not allowed to tell you (14:15) their job is to lie to you,(14:18) and that if they do get caught, (14:21) the US government can then lie above the agency level, (14:26) above the CIA, (14:27) the State Department gets to lie to the world, (14:30) because the CIA had these covert links, (14:34) and they can say it was not an official, (14:36) sanctioned US government operation, (14:38) something went rogue, (14:40) someone wasn’t authorized,(14:41) someone took it into their own hands, (14:43) and I’m just gonna read this analysis (14:44) that I think is a useful summary, (14:47) that plausible deniability encouraged the autonomy (14:49) of this newly created CIA, (14:51) which is created a year earlier, (14:54) and other covert action agencies, (14:56) in order to protect the visible authorities (14:58) of the government, (15:00) and we’re gonna come back to that (15:02) as we discuss the power structure (15:04) of all these different organizations, (15:07) but I wanna drive this point home immediately, (15:09) which is that this was seen (15:12) as a major growth opportunity, (15:14) because of how effective it was (15:16) in the 1940s and the 1950s, (15:18) to be able to take over the world (15:20) through diplomacy, through duplicity, (15:24) but the problem with diplomacy through duplicity, (15:27) plausible deniability is the core doctrine (15:30) that governs the interagency, (15:31) which controls all of our major US government operations (15:36) on national security, foreign policy, (15:37) and international interests, (15:40) because you lie to the outside world, (15:43) you need to also lie to your own citizens, (15:47) to keep the outside from finding out, (15:50) so while the lies may help you (15:51) successfully acquire an empire, (15:54) you now have to permanently maintain (15:56) an empire of lies, (15:58) not just abroad, but at home.

(16:04) Now, in 1948, when the founding fathers (16:08) of the intelligence state were setting this all up, (16:11) they were intensely aware of the monster they were making, (16:14) and in 1948, Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Act, (16:20) because again, in 1948 is when all this (16:22) was getting established, the CIA was brand new, (16:24) NSC 10-2 had just come out, (16:26) and Congress said, okay, okay, listen, (16:27) you guys are creating a monster here, (16:30) we wanna make sure that we don’t build (16:32) this empire of lies, (16:33) and that Americans are not being inundated (16:36) with this sprawl of information control (16:40) that you are conducting around the world (16:41) in order to conduct organized political warfare (16:45) on all countries on planet Earth, (16:49) and I think many folks in this room (16:51) are probably familiar with what happened(16:54) during the Obama administration, (16:55) which was this essential safeguard, (16:58) which had been with us since the moment (17:01) this all was created in 1948, (17:04) was repealed with quite little fanfare, (17:08) it was tucked into an NDAA, (17:09) it was really, I think, only discovered by the public (17:12) after the damage had been done, (17:14) that the Smith-Mundt was modernized (17:17) to get rid of that restriction, (17:19) it was effectively amended, (17:21) and so the headline here is, (17:23) U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, (17:25) Spreads Government-Made News to Americans, (17:27) For Decades This Anti-Propaganda Law (17:30) Prevented the U.S. Government’s Mammoth Broadcasting Arm, (17:33) I should say arms, (17:34) From Delivering Programming to American Audiences.

(17:37) And mammoth is not a big enough word. (17:42) After World War II, the world, (17:45) actually at this exact time in 1948, (17:47) the UN Declaration for Human Rights came out (17:49) and forbade the territorial acquisition (17:52) of other countries by military force, (17:54) it became against these new international norms (17:57) and standards, international law, (17:59) you could not simply have a military occupation (18:02) of the Philippines like the United States had (18:04) in the early 1900s, (18:05) and so with hard power ruled out (18:08) as the dominant means to have an empire, (18:11) the U.S. transitioned to a soft power empire, (18:14) which would be dominated by agencies (18:18) like the Central Intelligence Agency, (18:19) democracy promotion programs at the State Department, (18:22) later USAID, and the whole swarm army we’re about to meet, (18:26) but even right out the gate, (18:28) the Central Intelligence Agency (18:29) immediately moved into the media space (18:31) to control the messaging (18:32) that people around the world experienced, (18:34) and so I have on screen Voice of America, (18:36) Radio for Europe, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, (18:39) dozens of others, they were CIA proprietary media. (18:42) This is Frank Wisner, (18:44) Frank Wisner was the spearhead (18:46) of this early CIA media control apparatus, (18:49) the name comes from the Wurlitzer, (18:51) sort of piano-like organ, (18:53) because Wisner would brag (18:54) that he could play the international news (18:58) as if it was a Wurlitzer, (19:00) he could have any narrative carried in any country on Earth (19:02) because of the vast sprawl of media control (19:05) that this newly formed intelligence agency, (19:09) which was leveraging essentially (19:11) the Office of War Information’s Pentagon media network (19:14) created during World War II, (19:16) to thousands of partnered media outlets (19:19) on all six populated continents.

(19:22) At that time, one third of CIA’s budget went just to funding media organizations, and today that number is paralleled by the web of CIA cutouts that we’ll meet when we get to 1983 and beyond, and how this initial structure changed after the scandals of the 1970s. (19:40) This was popularly called the Department of Dirty Tricks, this NSC 10-2 plausible deniability power to essentially play God around the world. (19:50) This was their term, Department of Dirty Tricks,(19:54) and just because it’s somewhat funny, (19:56) you’ll see this is Max Boot just a few years ago (19:59) calling for us to make (20:01) a more robust Department of Dirty Tricks, (20:03) why the United States needs to sabotage, (20:06) undermine, expose its enemies, (20:08) and you’ll see that this is a CIA story, (20:12) CIA is underlined there on the second one, (20:13) but notice that it goes way beyond that, the Dirty Tricks.

(20:18) It’s the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency Director, and the Administrator of the USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, to create political warfare career tracks and attract people who find political warfare rewarding and attractive. (20:36) So one essential way to cut through how this is structured is to understand that there’s a key distinction between the American homeland and the American empire. (20:46) We live in the American homeland, but the American empire is everywhere else, and today, even all the major U.S. national, U.S. domiciled corporations get the lion’s share of their markets, their revenues, their supply chain resources from everywhere else on Earth. (21:11) We are actually, even though we are a big country, (21:14) we pale in comparison to the globe, (21:16) and the issue is when people on the homeland (21:20) want to put their own interests first, (21:22) they run up against the empire managers, (21:26) and therefore against the blob apparatus we’re going to see,(21:31) therefore against the intelligence state, (21:34) and what I have here is in this inauguration(21:37) of organized political warfare, (21:38) you see that even though the emphasis (21:40) is on giving the CIA this capacity, (21:42) the entire thing is coordinated by the U.S. State Department,(21:45) which does not have a plausible deniability license. (21:49) It’s supposed to be our official U.S. government policy, but secretly, the CIA answers to the State Department in all things, and we’re gonna dive into the structure on that. (22:01) You’ll see there at the bottom, this whole operation has to be answerable to the Secretary of State who directs the whole in coordination.

(22:07) While covert political warfare must be controlled by the State Department, the direction should not physically be in the State Department. (22:13) This is more true when it’s realized(22:15) that the considerable funds necessary for such an operation (22:17) could not be concealed in the department’s budget, (22:20) so they have to hide what they’re doing (22:23) from the American people and from foreign countries (22:25) who, if there was transparency (22:28) about how our own taxpayer dollars were being spent, (22:31) they would know their countries (22:32) are being targeted for overthrow, (22:33) so the State Department can’t conceal it, (22:35) so we need this web of other government agencies, (22:38) including the intelligence services, (22:40) to park the money there, (22:42) so again, the coordination of covert operations (22:45) with overt conduct should be accomplished (22:47) through the office of the Secretary of State (22:49) and Undersecretary, (22:50) and our proposal is that this tradition be revised (22:54) to further American national interests, (22:56) so that is the linchpin of this, (22:58) which is this concept of US national interests, (23:02) so now let’s go back in time (23:03) to look at the origin of this,(23:05) so this is the first meeting of Congress in 1789. (23:08) When the first meeting of Congress happened, we established only three government agencies. (23:14) Imagine a world without HUD, imagine a world without the Department of Education or Labor.

(23:18) At the founding moment of our first meeting of Congress, (23:21) we established only three government agencies, (23:25) the Department of State to manage the affairs of state, (23:29) to manage our relations in the international community, (23:33) the Department of Defense, (23:34) and I’m going to asterisk that for a second, (23:37) and the Department of Treasury, (23:39) so basically money, war, and everything else (23:43) that involves America’s posture to the wider world.

(23:48) Now, I put an asterisk next to the Department of Defense (23:50) because it was not actually called (23:53) the Department of Defense at the time, (23:54) it was called the Department of War, (23:55) and it kept that name for 150 years until 1948, (24:00) exactly when the CIA was created, (24:03) exactly when the Smith-Munn Act came out, (24:05) exactly when the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights (24:09) forbade the military from taking over the world, (24:12) and so we simply did something cute, (24:15) and we said, okay, we are no longer the War Department,(24:18) we are forward-defending ourselves, (24:20) we are, we’re about defense, actually, (24:22) but we’re just going to do the same things (24:24) we were doing before, (24:25) but we’re not allowed to say war anymore (24:26) because that’s outlawed. (24:29) I’m just, if you wanna see receipts on that.

(24:31) Okay, so let’s just speed run what happened between 1789 and 1948 to establish the American Empire. (24:39) So we started off as just this mainland, the homeland that we’re in, and today, our reach is in every country, on every continent, there is a State Department regional desk, there’s an assistant secretary whose job is to make sure the right politician wins in every single country on Earth. (25:01) So the assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasian affairs is going to have a portfolio of 15 different European countries.

(25:07) Every one of those countries has elections, every one of those elections has a State Department preference. (25:12) They will back-channel with all parties, one will be better for U.S. national interests, the other won’t, and that assistant secretary’s job is to influence the course of political events in that country to conduct organized political warfare using plausible deniability in order to achieve that outcome. (25:31) Sometimes they win, sometimes they don’t, but that is their job.

(25:34) But how do we get this empire? (25:36) So in 1823, we declared the Monroe Doctrine.(25:40) This was the, before that, the fledgling U.S. Navy was flying out to Tripoli, and there was a lot of competition with the Spanish and other colonial powers in the Western Hemisphere. (25:52) We told Europe, you stay out of the Western Hemisphere, we’ll stay out of Europe, and we began to take over the political ecosystems and the agriculture, the sugar, the natural resources of almost the entirety of Latin America and South America. (26:11) These were the famous, in the next image here, the famous Banana Wars, the Pineapple Wars, the Guava Wars. (26:17) It was a funny moment in American history in the late 1800s when we were establishing what are now known as Banana Republics.

(26:26) These were U.S. private corporations, (26:29) for-profit corporations, having financial interests (26:33) in a region outside of our country (26:36) where the U.S. War Department and State Department (26:39) would descend on the territory, (26:42) basically help overthrow that government, (26:44) provide support, and that private corporation (26:46) would essentially run the government, (26:48) and it would run in a very dysfunctional way, (26:51) but it was protected, the big business and big government (26:54) were in league with each other (26:56) in the sense that the big government had the U.S. military, (27:00) had U.S. diplomats, had U.S. power projection (27:03) into the regions, and the big corporations (27:06) would profit from being able to exploit the resources, (27:10) the labor, and that is part of the reason (27:12) that we had cheap food, (27:16) and this same relationship is in big oil.

(27:19) It’s the reason we had cheap gas. (27:20) It’s the reason, we’ll come to this, but we may need this apparatus, but the fact is is it was established very early in the American story well before, seven decades before the actual creation of the intelligence state. (27:36) The intelligence state just grafted onto that relationship between the War Department, the State Department, and private sector stakeholders, so the next image here I have is Remember the Maine.

(27:46) This was in 1898. (27:48) We became an international empire when we won the Spanish-American War, and not only took Cuba, but we took the Philippines as well, and then suddenly had to control this wide-ranging plot of geography on planet Earth. (28:06) The next image here is just the FBI.

(28:08) The FBI was created in 1908. (28:11) The Justice Department had been around for about 60 years before that, but the FBI was created in the run-up to World War I, and its first serious operation was rounding up anti-war protesters to World War I and working to undermine their ability to use the U.S. Postal Service and other means to get their messages out. (28:30) The FBI is one of our 17 intelligence agencies, so again, this preceded 1948.

(28:35) This preceded the CIA. (28:36) We have 17 intelligence agencies. (28:38) Only two of them face domestically.

(28:40) The other one besides the FBI that’s domestic is DHS, (28:43) which, of course, was after 9-11, (28:45) and then the final image here I have (28:47) of a sort of essential history in the speed run (28:51) is simply Woodrow Wilson, (28:52) because he is the sort of spiritual godfather (28:56) of the doctrine that organized political warfare (28:59) would be grafted under, (29:00) because his mission to make the world safe for democracy (29:06) allowed us to pull a very cute trick (29:08) when the world transitioned from hard power to soft power (29:10) as the primary means to run an empire, (29:12) which was that you no longer had to have (29:15) a national security threat (29:16) to use the national security state.

(29:19) You could simply promote democracy, and under the banner of promoting democracy, you could do the dirtiest of deeds. (29:27) You could do demolition, sabotage, black propaganda.(29:31) You could work with the criminal underworld, again, as I mentioned, in Italy and Iran and dozens of countries.

(29:36) You could rig elections. (29:39) You could stuff ballot boxes, but it’s all to promote democracy, even if there is no threat to the American people and even if it only benefits a small coterie of financial and corporate stakeholders working with the U.S. State Department. (29:53) So what happened after 1948?

(29:55) There’s an image here on the left, which is just a list of CIA regime.