40th Anniversary of the Church Committee

Let everyone take a moment’s respite from the Trump/McCain imbroglio and recall that this is the 40th anniversary year of the Church Committee’s pioneering investigation of the abuses and illegalities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Founded in 1947, the CIA has been a key covert element of the Deep State. The Committee’s investigation opened up a flood gate of subsequent works on the CIA and the National Security State. Here is just a sample: Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade; Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA; Richard Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency; Patrick K. O’ Donnell, Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of WWII’s OSS; Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA; Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA; Joseph J. Trento, The Secret History of the CIA; Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence; David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government; Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America; L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the World; Victor Marchetti and John Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence; John Marks, The Search For The Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences; W. H. Bowart, Operation Mind Control: Our Secret Government’s War Against Its Own People; Ernest Volkman and Blaine Baggett, Secret Intelligence: The Inside Story of America’s Espionage Empire; Bill Moyers, The Secret Government: The Constitution In Crisis; Penny Lernoux, In Banks We Trust: Bankers and Their Close Associates: The CIA, the Mafia, Drug Traders, Dictators, Politicians, and the Vatican; Pete Brewton, The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush; and Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs And The Press.

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1:48 pm on July 20, 2015