Chalmers Johnson is a foreign policy analyst who used to sound like a disciple of Walt Rostow, (i.e.: a very Cold Warrior), and he has, over the past eight years, begun to sound increasingly like a disciple of Noam Chomsky. That is to say, he has managed to metamorphosize into an eloquent and determined critic of 21st Century American Imperialism and his Blowback trilogy of books represent modern-day classics in terms of their critiques of US military and economic hegemony and the resulting US Global Empire. His direct involvement with the American Empire Project, along with both Tom Engelhardt and Chomsky along with several other prominent writers and activists serves to further burnish his progressive foreign policy credentials.
Posted over at Engelhardt’s website TomDispatch this week is an informative and highly engaging review of Tim Weiner’s recently published book on the history of the CIA, entitled “Legacy of Ashes.” Chalmers’ review definitely falls under the must-read category.
My view of the CIA’s history is that its best analysts, those who knew what they were talking about and had a good track record in providing information and analysis, were mostly ignored for short-term politically crass reasons that were counterproductive to our commonweal. See, for instance, this November 2003 book review by left-wing academic Gabriel Kolko; he looks at five books, all of which concern the efforts of CIA analysts skeptical of plans to escalate the Vietnam War, and relates how these skeptics’ well-grounded analyses and accurate predictions were systematically ignored by the president and their advisors.
The CIA’s clandestine operations, on the other hand, were favorites of nearly every president in the last fifty years of the 20th Century (particularly Ike, JFK, Johnson and Nixon). The clandestine operators were, not surprisingly, horrible, inhumane, counterproductive and they often acted unconstitutionally in the sense that their actions were mostly undertaken without legislative consent or knowledge – and with little in the way of written authorizations in order to give the president plausible deniability of the truth that he in fact had authorized the actions.
Toward the end of his life, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), who was actually a Cold Warrior of odious pedigree throughout most of his public career, was very public about wanting to eliminate the CIA because most secrets our leaders hide are merely information already known by our enemies – and again, our best analysts can find things out without skullduggery anyway. I am very sympathetic to the idea that secrecy is overrated, but admit I’ve been more concerned in recent years about protecting the institution of the CIA because of the manner in which the Cheney-Rove (Bush) administration has been crassly undermining the work of CIA analysts. The outing of Valerie Plame is only the best-known example of the high-handed manner in which the Executive Branch undermines analysts at the CIA who are doing honest analysis and sorting of information on issues of what they like to refer to as “national security”.
What the Busheviks have done to CIA analysts is far more extensive, according to noted historian of the CIA Thomas Powers in his 2003 interview with Salon, than the bureaucratic stifling of CIA analyst Sam Adams — who ran afoul of the Pentagon and the aforementioned Walt Rostow among others — by seeking to publicize the actual number of Vietcong militiamen facing US troops (which was being deliberately obfuscated by the Pentagon, and even higher up to Rostrow’s office) as part of a coordinated propaganda campaign aimed at misleading Congress and manipulating US public opinion) as well as predicting the 1968 Tet Offensive.
* This post was written by attorney, novelist and blogger Mitchell Freedman — with additional research and copy-editing contributed by Steven Josselson.
Mitchell,
I’m a bit confused over the distinction between “analyst” and “clandestine,” and your condemnation of the latter. I found Robert Baer’s memoirs utterly convincing, namely that clandestine paying of informers is infinitely more valuable, especially in the Arab world, than analysts looking at published reports and satellite surveillance. Are you speaking only of the Vietnam Era?
Nadav,
Thank you for the question.
When I make that sweeping generalization, I am speaking of most of the history of clandestine operations of the CIA, from its meddling with Greek militarists in the late 1940s, in Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, the Belgian Congo, Cuba, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Iraq (yes, the CIA backed Saddam in the beginning in the late 1960s) to name a few.
I honestly don’t know enough about Baer’s book, but I do know enough about the Colbys and Helms, and their cohorts who hate democratic values–and who refused to note any the difference between malleable reformers and Communists, and in fact preferred dictators as long as they did corporate bidding and American imperial bidding. Such CIA clandestine folks would probably pass lie detector tests about their motives, but their actions, memoranda and memoirs tell truths they refused to accept.
I will also say that it appears the CIA did somewhat improve (perhaps including its clandestine offices), starting in the post-Cold War world under the Clinton administration. This appears to be what drives the Cheney-Rummy crowd so crazy.
I should also add an additional caveat about the CIA clandestine sub-department post-Cold War:
Its actions in Venezuela have been counterproductive and disruptive, as is documented elsewhere, and its actions in Indonesia in the late 1990s were still favorable to traditional repressive elements than either the East Timoran resistance or those openly seeking transparency and openess in government.