Books That Shape Us

I want to alert younger readers at LRC to two important books that had a seminal influence upon me in my college years as a budding libertarian. This was decades before the term “deep state” came into parlance but what they were describing was exactly the structural outline of that conceptual reality.

The first is The End of the Draft, by Karl Hess and Thomas Reeves.

At the time of its appearance on 1970 bookstore shelves, Hess was Washington Editor of The Libertarian Forum, working closely with Murray Rothbard in shaping the emergence of the modern Libertarian movement. Hess came from deep within the Pentagon/Beltway political culture.  He had long been a close aide to uber-hawk Senator Barry Goldwater (one of the principal institutional power brokers of the military-industrial complex) and a key presence in DC think-tanks and policy circles. But by 1970 he had decisively rejected his previous Cold War militarized mind-set.   Hess, in no place more clearly than in this powerful book, cogently states the reasons why the extra-constitutional National Security State had usurped the American republic, and how “conscription” was at its insidious core.  But this is not only a book on the Draft; it is an unrelenting expose’ of the very illegitimacy of the nation-state, and consequently completely changed how I viewed government.

The other book is L. Fletcher Prouty’s The Secret Team:  The CIA  and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (.pdf).

The late Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty served as chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff where he was in charge of the global system designed to provide military support for covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In Oliver Stone’s highly acclaimed film on the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, JFK, the mysterious character “X” portrayed by Donald Sutherland was in fact Colonel Prouty, who assisted director Stone in the production and scripting of this historical epic.  Prouty had relayed the shocking information detailed in the movie to the actual New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Cosner, in a series of communiques.

Prouty later authored JFK:  The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy. It is an excellent companion volume to James W. Douglass’ indispensable JFK and the Unspeakable:  Why He Died and Why It Matters, in explaining how the November 22, 1963 coup d’etat in Dallas changed America forever.

The Secret Team was first published in 1973 during the Watergate scandal, when many Americans were first learning about the dark side of covert government, an outlaw executive branch headed by a renegade chief of state. Richard Nixon would not be the last of this foul breed.

Copies quickly and mysteriously began disappearing off bookstore shelves. Someone did not want the American public exposed to the controversial contents revealed in this volume. Consequently the book became rare and expensive.

This was years before Frank Church’s Senate Committee’s damning revelations of CIA misdeeds and assassination plots against foreign leaders rocked the nation.

In each chapter in his book, Prouty speaks frankly with an insider’s knowledge of what he describes as the inner workings of “the Secret Team.”

This prudential judgment and keen assessment of the National Security Establishment was gained from years as a behind-the-scenes seasoned professional in military intelligence working intimately with those of the highest rank in policy making and implementation.

The important story Prouty boldly tells should be read by every reflective American who wants their republic back and an end to the empire.

Prouty spent 9 of his 23 year military career in the Pentagon (1955-1964): 2 years with the Secretary of Defense, 2 years with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and 5 years with Headquarters, U.S. Air Force. In 1955 he was appointed the first “Focal Point” officer between the CIA and the Air Force for Clandestine Operations per National Security Council Directive 5412. He was Briefing Officer for the Secretary of Defense (1960-1961), and for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At times he would be called to meet with CIA director Allen Dulles and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles at their homes on highly classified business. He was assigned to attend MK-ULTRA meetings.

In this capacity Colonel Prouty would be at the nerve center of the military-industrial complex at a time unequaled in American History. He has written on these subjects, about the JFK assassination, the Cold War period, and Vietnamese warfare, and the existence of a “Secret Team”. He backs up his work with seldom seen or mentioned official documents – some never before released.

• Col. L Fletcher Prouty: Secret Team – The Formation & Purpose of The NSC – PT 1 of 4
• Col. L Fletcher Prouty: Secret Team – The CIA’s Origins Of Covert Operations – PT 2 of 4
• Col. L Fletcher Prouty: Secret Team – Covert Operations & Their Consequences – PT 3 of 4
• Col. L Fletcher Prouty: Secret Team – Conclusion – PT 4 of 4
• RELEASE OF THE DULLES-JACKSON-CORREA REPORT
• The Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report — Wikipedia entry

The Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report (also known as Intelligence Survey Group (ISG) and the Dulles Report) was one of the most influential evaluations of the functioning of the United States Intelligence Community, and in particular, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The report focused primarily on the coordination and organization of the CIA and offered suggestions that refined the US intelligence effort in the early stages of the Cold War.

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