Literature: An Instrument of the CIA

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/241928/literature-an-instrument-of-the-cia/

Literature: An Instrument of the CIA
El Universal, Mexico
By Eduardo Mora Tavares
Translated By Patricia O'Connor
5 July 2014
Edited by Bora Mici

CIA actions to subvert governments or assassinate leaders who oppose U.S. interests are well-documented. The latest edition of "Foreign Affairs" magazine (July-August 2014) documented the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953, the downfall and murder of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961, and the downfall of Chile’s Socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973.

According to former intelligence agents and government employees, the role of the CIA has been exaggerated, with much of the responsibility for these cases falling on the victims themselves — that is, on the mistakes made by Mosaddeq, Lumumba and Allende. Apparently the idea is to demystify the omnipotent power of the agency to do harm. In this vein, the CIA has not been so bad. However, the agency prefers notoriety to fame: It is preferable to be seen as a relentless and effective agency in the fight against the enemies of American national security than as the “sisters of charity.”

It is clear that the CIA, founded by Harry Truman at the end of World War II, represents a history of failure that has left an undetermined number of agents and collaborators dead. In his book, "Legacy of Failure," Tim Weiner fairly assesses the negative record of the 60-year-old agency as a legacy of ashes. Its failures go from the Korean War (1950-1953) through the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (2003).

But the agency is not a hot topic only because of its disastrous role in using a heavy hand — weapons and economics — under the presidencies of Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, James Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The New York Times Review of Books (July 10, 2014) reviews two new books about the agency’s activity which, according to foreign affairs expert Joseph S. Nye, demonstrate its use of a soft touch — culture and ideology. The books are "The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book" by Peter Finn and Petra Couvée, and "Inside the Zhivago Storm: The Editorial Adventures of Pasternak’s Masterpiece" by Paolo Mancosu.