The Rest Is History - 125. The CIA

Episode Date: November 25, 2021

The USA's Central Intelligence Agency is a mysterious organisation which has used covert methods to assassinate enemies, influence governments and tip whole countries into revolution - or so countless films, TV series and books would have us believe. How much of it is true? Hugh Wilford, professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, and author of four books, including 'The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America', joins Tom and Dominic to discuss. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you're looking for a ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.

If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you. I will find you. And I will kill you. Liam Neeson there. Dominic Sandberg. Who else? What accent was that?

That was like a man from Norfolk. It wasn't. No, it was an American Irish accent. That was absolutely shocking. With a deep, manly timbre. You did a fantastic New York Times. You did a twelfth Edward Heath. And then it's all gone wrong. No, it hasn't.

That was absolutely superb. And the reason that I've chosen to open an episode that is on the CIA with that. Yes. Because in that Liam Neeson is playing Brian Mills, whose daughter gets abducted. And he brings the skill set of a CIA agent. But at no point in that film does he mention that he's in the CIA because he doesn't need to. All right. He doesn't need to because it can be automatically assumed that, you know, these are the skills that he has.

And it gives him the kind of the aura of combined competence and menace that the CIA at its best wants to convey and that people associate with the hosts of this podcast absolutely yes absolutely but as someone who doesn't know a huge amount about the CIA what I'd like to know is um are they as menacing and are they as competent as Liam Neeson might imply? Well, I thought that for this podcast, we needed somebody who was competent and menacing, but also had an interestingly transatlantic accent, a bit like the accent you were just doing. So when I first met him, he was a man very much of the West Country who taught alongside me at the University of Sheffield.

But he's since moved to California, and listeners may be able to detect a little bit of kind of the Prince Harry in his voice, if not his demeanor and outlook, I hope. So this is Professor Hugh Wilford, who is one of the world's leading authorities. I would say the leading authority. The top authority. The top authority, the absolute supremer of CIA studies. So, Hugh, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Excellent. So there you've got the accent straight away. Especially after that introduction. There you've got the accent. You've got the tone of menace and the competence. I'm known for my tone of menace. Oh, yes. People are going to mark on it. Prejudice. I'm known for my tone of menace. Oh, yes.

So, Hugh, as I've said, I am incredibly ignorant about the CIA beyond, obviously, my amazing ability to do impersonations of Liam Neeson. And what I'm wondering is, the CIA, America doesn't have a kind of central intelligence agency before the war, does it? Before the Second World War. That's correct. It does not. And am I right that it's basically modeled on the British example? And the CIA agents, to begin with, all sit around smoking pipes and wearing tweed jackets and things. That's about right. Yeah, there's no sort of national intelligence service that throughout american history the the pattern has sort of been that uh intelligence services are sort of patched together uh during war and then dismantled uh rapidly afterwards because you know americans don't like secrecy they they don't

like big government uh etc um but uh the the office of strategic services is created during world war ii and and it's it is right, sort of largely based on a British model. And the British actually are sort of on the sidelines, urging the Americans to go down the intelligence route, as they have several years before. And so there is this kind of, certainly in the early days, there is this kind of very strong anglophile, almost sort of faux imperial British tone to the CIA.

So that's the pipe smoking. Because when you see, I agree with Tom, whenever you see pictures of early CIA men, they are wearing tweed jackets and sitting in kind of leather armchairs and smoking pipes and stuff, aren't they? Right. A little unexpectedly, possibly. I think you're probably thinking in particular of Alan Dulles, who was the great white case officer. As he was known, he was the sort of the first legendary director of the CIA during the 1950s and very much sort

of sets the tone. He's Tweedy. He's sort of Ivy League. He's Kipfingsque as well. All of this generation of CIA officers have read Kip read things Kim and sort of rather, I think, see themselves in the same tradition. And this ability to engage in espionage and covert action sort of allows them to go and have adventures in foreign lands and generally sort of emulate the spies of British imperial romantic spy fiction. And is that kind of closeness? Kim Philby is the famous British traitor. He's the kind of liaison officer, isn't he,

between British Secret Service and the CIA as it comes to be. And he stitches them up royally. He does indeed. That's absolutely right. He befriends a number of Americans during World War II. People like James Angleton come and join him in London

to sort of run Allied counterintelligence. And he resumes his friendships with the Americans in the late 1940s when he's sent over to Washington to act as the liaison between MI6 and the new CIA. And of course, during this, he is briefed on various CIA

covert operations, including in particular attempts to land agents behind the Iron Curtain in countries like Albania. And he obviously passes on everything he knows to his Soviet controllers. And some Americans are suspicious to give them their due, especially after Guy Burgess flees Washington. He's there as well. But the Americans stay in touch with Philby and Angleton sort of remains a friend of his through the late 1950s and almost right up, in fact in touch with Philby and Angleton sort of remains a friend of his through the late 1950s and almost right up in fact up until Philby actually defects in 1963. I was going to say to go back to the foundation so the OSS which is the ancestor of the CIA which is basically the first sort of major American intelligence organization so that was anti-Nazi

I assume primarily but then the CIA is 47 set up by Truman so is that is do they simply switch targets or do they get different people in or how do they adjust from being anti-nazi to anti-communist or was the OSS anti-communist too? Now the OSS is actually quite liberal to sort of the extent it has in any politics at all and there's a lot of this first generation of CIA officers, sort of in addition to the kind of Kipfing element, they're all quite idealistic as well. Despite their love of things British, there's quite a lot of, they're not actually sort of conscious admirers of the British Empire.

If anything, they're sort of anti-colonial. And there is this almost this, actually this leftist tinge to the OSS and their attempts to sort of join up with resistance movements to the extent that some people outside the OSS, sort of conservative congressmen and what have you, really dislike this organization and see it as a sort of nest of pinkos and possible communists. And this actually sort of haunts the early CIA as well. But in answer to your question, it is much the same personnel basically go to the CIA when it's created in 1947, a number of them. Truman doesn't like espionage, doesn't like covert operations, and he's quite eager to disband the OSS.

Is that because he sees them as un-American? Exactly. Yes. Yeah. And there's this sort of talk of the dangers of creating an American Gestapo around in 1947 when the CIA was created. And Truman obviously has sort of personal misgivings. He there's this point he participates in this kind of mock knighting ceremony of his first the first director of central intelligence in 47 in the Oval Office. He gives it to a personal friend, sort of an old Missouri acquaintance of his, and he declares him the director of centralized snooping. So there's a lot of talk like this around at the time. And Truman actually kind of acts as a sort of a brake on the expansion of the CIA. It's not really until Eisenhower

comes along in 1953 that the White House really lets it loose. So there's an obvious question, which Mark Kirk Alviz, who I have to say sounds like a CIA operative himself. And he asked, Mark asks, was the CIA necessary at its inception? So ultimately, America is the superpower victor in the Second World War, facing potentially the Soviet Union. Is there no choice but to set up a spy agency? I think it's bound to happen. The last great power standing really isn't at the end of World War II and lacks really any sort of intelligence capabilities after the OSS is disbanded. So I think it's inevitable this is going to be created.

And initially, it's very much seen just as an intelligence outfit, an organization that's going to gather intelligence, not necessarily engage in covert action. That's the sort of, there's a kind of second phase to its creation. Really, ironically, George Kennan, who's perhaps best remembered as the architect of containment in this rather subtle intellectual

creating Cold War foreign policy in the US, but he's actually behind the scenes. He's also a big advocate of political warfare and psychological warfare and really going after the Soviets and taking the fight to them. And he pushes for, it's not necessarily the CIA at this point, nonetheless, theviets and sort of taking the fight to them and he pushes for it's not necessarily the cia at this point nonetheless that government having it having

a sort of a covert action capability so capable you know dropping uh agents into albania and then eventually come the 1950s you know this starts to go into areas of of the um the decolonizing world as as well the global south but one of your um i mean you said that they that first they're they're suspicious of covert action but don't they don't they influence the italian election straight away i mean they've only been going for a year uh so they're founded in 1947 the italian election is 48 and they give tons of money to the christian democrats wow i remembered yes they do that's true but it kind of partly, it's a very sort of patched together effort.

There are sort of private citizens involved. Initially, these sorts of operations are given to this, not actually the CIA itself, they're given to this separate unit called the Office of Policy Coordination. It's housed by the CIA,

but it's actually run by the State Department and the Defense Department. And it's not until, I think it's housed by the CIA but it's actually run by the State Department and the Defense Department and it's not until I think it's 52 or 53 that it's absorbed by the CIA so there's this kind of resistance to the idea of sort of the US doing dirty tricks you know like the old imperial powers that it's very much there and it means that not even the CIA itself actually necessarily wants these things that the second DCI before the Director of Central Intelligence, before Alan Dulles, Roscoe Hillenkotter, splendid the American name.

What was he called? Roscoe Hillenkotter. Yes, he's like a military man and very upright. And he actually resists the CIA sort of adopting the powers. But Dominic, yes, you're right. There are operations going on, first of all, in Europe in this attempt to sort of stabilize it and prevent a possible communist takeover. It was the Office of Policy Coordination, was it?

That's right, yeah. So this is a euphemism for kind of toppling foreign government, basically. Like universal exports, is James Bond's cover, isn't it? Yeah, it is clearly a deliberately sort of bland name to divert attention away. But it kind of reflects an American idealism, the notion that America shouldn't be in this dirty business, and yet its existence essentially reflects the fact that America feels that it has to be. That's just right. Yeah, there are these people like there's sort of people like Kennan saying, you know, we need to sort of wise up to our responsibilities and the sort of the dangers of the modern world. And he actually, I think, consciously thinks in terms of being so innocent, we need to sort of emulate the old European powers. And then there are sort of people like Alan Dulles, who I think just they love kind of spy games.

And they really, you know, Dulles clearly had just loved World War II and helping run the OSS. He wasn't under Bill Donovan, William Wild Bill Donovan, who is the other sort of founding father of US covert operations. And he, I think, just wants more of that. So he's pushing for it as well. I think the sort of picture is of these various kind of intellectuals and former covert operatives sort of almost kind of pushing Washington and people like Truman almost unwillingly towards this. And the people who are involved in the CIA, just a quick, so,

I mean, you mentioned Ivy League earlier. so the sort of stereotype floating around my mind is it's partly that sort of tweedy pipe smoking so they're all ivy league you know unlike tom holland they would wear the right shoes on a yacht are they i always wear the right shoes on a yacht that's why i keep bringing it up you don't you were shamed at cows weren't you like the no i was yes um yeah uh so so hugh they are they are very much kind of the blue bloods are they of kind of east coast american society or is it more complicated than that this founding generation are you absolutely right is is is very patrician it's very ivy league an extraordinary number if you look at the a number just went to this one prep school groton

in in in in the sort of the new like side. Like FDR, FDR's old school. So that's absolutely right. Yeah, the Roosevelt's are everywhere in Groton. The Oyster Bay sort of line of the Roosevelt's as well. Teddy and his sons and grandsons all went there as well. Not Teddy himself, but later generations of that branch of the Roosevelt family. And I was looking at a yearbook from Groton in the 1930s. And it's almost like, oh, yeah, I know that name. I know that name, because so many of them end up in the CIA. It's very much, it's a kind of almost like a faux British public school. And it very much

sort of inculcates, you know, classic sort of British virtues of patriotism and service and duty. And also these guys are all reading Kipthing and Amirah of T.E. Lawrence. It's that sort of combination of adventurism and a sort of sense of duty. And also aristocratic kind of like, you know, we know best. And we have the right to get up to these sorts of activities, even if some people object. So I think they will feed into the CIA. So you mentioned Theodore Roosevelt. And it's his grandson, isn't it?

Kermit, the brilliantly named Kermit Roosevelt, which all fans of the Muffet show always gives a kind of thrill. A little thrill. He's a kind of key figure in the Middle East. Is that right? And specifically in Iran, which in the early 1950s, Iran becomes the kind of the showcase for the CIA's involvement in the kind of dirty tricks that British intelligence had played. And indeed, the CIA kind of enters, joins up with British intelligence, basically to foist a coup in Iran that still influences how Iran sees America to this day. So can you just tell us a bit about that?

Yeah, the background is this sort of veteran Iranian nationalist, Mohammad Mosaddegh, becomes prime minister and nationalizes the Iranian oil industry, which is basically controlled by the british so that they're they're not at all happy uh the anglo-iranian oil company i think is is the big you know the oil business of the day it's bp yes it's because of the bp exactly yeah uh and so it's it's the british who want rid of him initially and but they sort of realize, partly because a number of them are chased out of Mosaddegh's Iran, they need to involve the Americans in order to actually make a coup stick. And at this point, they reach out to Kermit Roosevelt,

who actually, he has, you know, being a sort of an American aristocrat, there are sort of dynastic ties between him and various British aristocratic families as well. I forget the, I mean, he actually, a family friend is the then British Foreign Secretary, I think. Anyway, so it's all sort of, you know, this is being sort of hatched in in in clubs in as as roosevelt passes through and yes it eventually leads to um this this cooperation in august 1953 when um roosevelt uh organizes a lot of sort of former british agents and the iranian army and and some um muslim clerics are involved as well and and anyway they they sort of rally behind the shah and uh sort of force this kind of constitutional crisis in which people are forced to choose between the shah and and most today and uh it actually kind of falls apart

at one point this coup plot uh roosevelt is actually sort of ordered to evacuate Tehran, but he, in sort of the adventurous style of the early CIA, says, no, we can still do this, and pays various street mob, a crowd takes over the streets of Tehran on August the 19th, and Mossadegh is basically chased out. And the Iran who's fled, excuse me, the Shah, who has fled Tehran at this point, comes back and it's the sort of beginning of his sort of repressive rule, which, as you say, resistance to it builds. And so this is sort of part of the back story. I mean, there are controversies about exactly how much of the origins of the 1979 Iranian revolution can be traced directly back to 1953. But clearly it is a big factor. And so does this give the CIA – so this is the first sort of great CIA-backed coup, isn't it?

Because they have one in Guatemala the following year. And then sort of anyone who studies the history of the Cold War in the 60s and 70s, I mean, basically there's a coup every year that people say, oh, that's the CIA who did it, or the CIA's sort of hands are dirty. Do you think that the success of the operation in Iran gave the CIA a taste for meddling, as it were, for toppling governments and stuff? Or was that being overstated a bit? No, I think that's absolutely right. And it persuades Dwight, the new president, Dwight Eisenhower, that COVID action is this sort of magic bullet in the Cold War, you know, you can resort to the CIA, and it's cheaper, and it's less noisy. Because you don't, you don't want to

get into an overt fight with the Soviets for obvious reasons. You know, it could lead to nuclear war. And also, I mean, I think a big part of this as well is that so many of these interventions are covert because with an earlier generation that they might have been over. But, you know, this is this is the sort of the era of decolonization. UN Charter exists now, you know, overt interventionism is sort of no longer allowed in the eyes of the sort of international community. So this is kind of why Washington is often reaches for this weapon in the Cold War. And these are the successes in Iran, 1953, and Guatemala, 1954.

They just kind of fuel this growing myth of the ability of the CIA to basically do whatever, you know, overthrow some regimes and support others secretly. So at the same time, this is going on in Vietnam, that the CIA is trying to sort of build up, I know you talked about the origins of the Vietnam War in an earlier earlier podcast with andrew preston you know early on the sort of the ci attempt to cement zm into place is very much a ci operation as well i mean it is the you know it is kind of america's army in the cold war at this point really so yeah so we've got a question from culture carrot um how many foreign leaders did the cia conspire to bring down and which is the most egregious example of misuse of power and why so that's that's kind of backing up what you're saying

that the cia did bring down foreign governments so so well essentially yes but but that's just i mean that question is in association with another question which is does the cia enjoy a notoriety beyond its station in other words does its reputation for bringing down governments mean that it gets, it's been blamed for coups and for kind of civil unrest and collapse in foreign countries where it hasn't actually played a role? And what's the balance there, do you think? Sure. Wow. There is an element to that. I mean, there are some people who actually think that even its role in the 1953 Iran coup has been overstated. And actually, you know, there was the local Iranian actors who read it, you know, they did the decisive things, which is kind of, I think the CIA itself is sort of caught between this desire to sort of boast of such successes. And then when it turns out in

the long term, perhaps this wasn't such a great idea after all, to sort of, you know, distance itself. So that's that tension you see sort of replicated in the writing about Iran. But I guess that, I mean, Iran is a conspicuous example of regime change by the CIA, Guatemala. A lot of these attempts, in fact, the majority of them, I think, at least in the late 50s and early 60s, are then unsuccessful. Eisenhower keeps reaching for this weapon, and it keeps not working. There are failures in Syria and Indonesia. And then, of course, most of all in Cuba. That's probably the most egregious CIA effort to overthrow a foreign regime is this constant effort to do away with Fidel Castro. So all the comedy, you know, the things about

them trying to get his beard to fall out and what is it, kind of exploding seashells on the... They went to his favourite diving beach and tried to put explosives in a shell that he might reach for and yeah yeah it's all it's all true it's all true yeah yeah yeah this all came out in uh in the mid 70s during congressional investigations of of the cia and uh this is all it's all documented they called it operation mongoose didn't they that's right yeah exploding cigar exploding cigar was part of it i think well there was this attempt right to put stuff on his shoes that would cause his his beard That's right. Yeah. Exploding cigar. Exploding cigar was part of it, I think. Well, there is this attempt, right, to put stuff on his shoes that would cause his beard to fall out. And then I but I think it was neurotoxins that that's right. It was some of it's comical. Some of it's, you know, is actually more sinister.

I think it was poisons were going in his cigars. So and then there's an attempt that there's an attempt to involve the mafia. You know, the CIA, you to involve the mafia you know the the cia you know thinks you know who actually really knows to take out people yes we'll and the fbi puts the cia in touch with uh um friend of an associate of sam ginkanas who then who then tries to get the the havana mob to go after castro so i mean it's i mean it's it's crazy it's crazy stuff for sure but it's it's a weird a kind of weird tension between the reputation the cia said in the 60s has as this sinister kind of specter type organization that can pull a string and topple a foreign

government and at the same time these kind of clownish attempts to you know with exploding cigars and things uh which do you think did the cia more damage time, these kind of clownish attempts to, you know, with exploding cigars and things. Which do you think did the CIA more damage? A reputation for kind of omniscient, sinister potency or incompetence? I guess incompetence, really. Yeah, I think probably initially it's the incompetence that starts to sour people on it in the United States. You know, when it's really Cuba and first of all, the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and then the details which emerge of subsequent attempts via Operation Mongoose to assassinate Castro. I think that's when the American public sort of starts to and some of this starts to come out into the media and Americans start to sort of turn against it. But I mean, there is always this, you know, fear of an American Gestapo and the possibility to this kind of longer tradition of American anti-imperialism, you know, sort of going back centuries, really, and the thought that, you know, overseas adventures and strengthening federal government in order to carry these out might ultimately sort of boomerang against Americans.

So presumably that intensifies in the 60s and into the 70s with the counterculture and the protests against the vietnam war and so on they have a thing don't they called operation chaos to in who calls who calls the cia do yeah operation chaos who came up with that name it's a great name i mean if i was going to frankly i well you were talking about having your own mob kermit roosevelt paid his own mobs i mean i'd love to have my own mob but um if i was going to run covert operations i would call them things like operation chaos but operation chaos was about infiltrating the peace movement and sort of women for peace and yes the black power movement black panthers and stuff wasn't it huge well it's a question here from dr navar what is the relationship between the cia and other federal agencies such as the FBI?

The FBI is domestic and the CIA is foreign, or am I being too reductive there? No, that's absolutely right. So why is the CIA intervening in domestic? I mean, how do they get away with that? Well, it's partly because Lyndon Johnson, Operation Chaos. And by the way, that name, it came just supposedly from a list of, you know, possible operational code names. Operation Catastrophe. Operation Disaster. Operation Screw Up.

You can't really pick it up, can you? No. It had a database of sort of details of like peace activists and what have you. And that was called Hydra. You know, can we think of any more sinister names? But, and I should also, you know, in defense, in defense, the CIA, an awful lot of this is, is, is coming from the white house. You know,

there is this tendency on the part of successive us presidents to sort of see the, the, the, the CIOs, this kind of private army, they, they can use for any purpose really that that they need and in this particular instance is that yeah that that that's very much no nicks yes nixon friend of the show yeah nixon hates the cia you know dominic i'm sure could speak to this he sees he thinks they're a bunch of sort of ivy league eggheads yeah and closet left is i think is what he thinks they do wear the right shoes to the beach so he he actually he just apparently you know presidential briefs and the ci just sort of piled up in his safe you know it was just he never bothered to read them but when he wanted

to get rid of salvador allende in chile you know he kind of he calls on them because they're useful. So Allende, that is the CIA? Yes, yeah. There are a lot of anti-Allende operations run by the CIA during the years running up to the coup of 1973, but actually amongst CIA coup operations I think most historians now tend to

see that as actually having the actual overthrow of Allende itself as actually having been less caused of the end itself as actually having been less caused by the CIA than in other cases it was I mean they didn't think um Pinochet was going to you know he was barely even on their radar apparently the CIA officers but doesn't that speak to a bigger issue Hugh which is that in a lot of you you mentioned this with 1953 in Iran, that basically we tend, particularly people, well, sort of anti-establishment people in America and basically everybody outside America, we tend to do what Thomas does. Left-wingers like you, Dominic. Exactly. Dangerous Marxists. Yeah.

Like to think of the CIA as a spectre-type organisation. You know, it's a classic conspiracy theory. So something happens in a Central American republic, and it must be the CIA's fault. And often the CIA are involved, but they're not the key actors. So they end up getting the credit or the blame. But actually, you mentioned Allende. I mean, I would say Allende would probably have fallen anyway,

whether the CIA had stayed at home playing backgammon or whether they'd actually got involved. You know, that's sort of letting his Chilean opponents off the hook in a weird way. Is that fair? There is. Yeah. And there's been some really great scholarship recently about the role of other South American dictatorships in Allende's overthrow. You know, Brazil played a uh in in this as well but then and and then as i was saying earlier that this has even gone into the iran coup and there have been these kind of retrospective attempts to almost excuse the us and the cia and actually you know but blame it all on the ayatollahs right this this is actually um so so in other words the

sort of stressing local agency and saying no this wasn this wasn't just the case of the CIA turning up with some bags of gold and then sort of turning this sort of third world backwater into – and everything happening at the – And did they carry on with exploding cigars and things? Was that the kind of cool gadgets that – Did they carry on with – Well, it's what people really want to know i think i mean do they do they have because the whole exploding cigars did they just think this is a terrible idea we're going to park it or did they did their top boffins crack how to get

exploding cigars because if they did presumably we wouldn't know would we so we'd only hear about the failures well some of this actually some of the gadgets actually and and are coming from well and again dominic will like this they're coming from bond um there's this for yeah um um fleming uh is a sort of dinner parties with with uh dulles and and and, and he is describing MI6 gadgets and then some of the things that feature in his novels. And apparently Alan Dulles runs off excitedly to see if the CIA boffins can replicate this

in their laboratories. So apparently, including Rosa Klebb's poison knife. That comes out of a shoe. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yes. Apparently, Dulles was very interested in this gadget. That's absolutely laughable. They were copying the thing.

But I should also say, the CIA is actually quite, out of the various forms of intelligence, there are these abbreviations for human intelligence and technological intelligence. The CIA is actually, I mean, overall, it's probably not terribly good at human intelligence. It's, you know, notoriously, it fails to really kind of, you know, get much good intelligence, human intelligence from the Soviet Union. And then later from that, you know, the next big enemy from Al-Qaeda and other is the missed organizations. But what it is pretty good at is things like the U2 is a CI operation.

You know, it's the CI that comes up. Because of the spy plane. This extremely effective spy plane. Not the band. Not the band. There are CIA links to the police. Of course, his dad, Miles Copeland's dad.

Yes, exactly. So what was Miles Copeland's dad? Was he a major figure in the CIA? Yeah, he was quite big in the Middle East. He was a Kermit Roosevelt's kind of lieutenant, as it were. He's not very heavily involved in Iran, but he's very sort of active in the Middle East. He was a Kermit Roosevelt's kind of lieutenant, as it were. He's not very

heavily involved in Iran, but he's very sort of active in the Arab countries. And he's very good at cultivating human intelligence sources. He befriends NASA, for example. That's amazing. What a link to the police. I think we should take a break at this point. We should do. And I think when we come back, we should look at those two failures that you mentioned. Because the CIA didn't really predict the fall of the Soviet Union. And it didn't really get a handle on the rise of Al-Qaeda and Islamist militism. So when we come back, we talk about that.

We will see you in a minute or two. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. in a minute or two. to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Hello, welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are talking the Central Intelligence Agency. And Hugh, I've got a question here from Alan Andrew Wild. In pursuing American interests, has the CIA ever been a source for good? And I guess you'd say that for all its fondness for coups and its exploding cigars and so on, you'd back the CIA over, say, the KGB and you'd back them over al-Qaeda. And in the 80s and the 90s, those were the two great enemies of the CIA, I guess. So how CIA, despite the sort of comical elements,

its operations are effective in the 80s, especially in defeating, helping defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. The CIA supplies the Mujahideen with weapons, the Stinger missiles they fired at the Soviet helicopters. Is Rambo in the CIA? I don't think he is, no. There's no CIA presence, I have to say, in the living daylights. So that's just Bond. There's no CIA man there.

Right. So the CIA is in other Bond, isn isn't it felix lighter he's uh yes but felix is never instrumental guys felix is only ever supplying gadgets and stuff he's a sort of sidekick isn't he yeah we're not focusing on fantasy here we're focusing on on okay so reality of the cia's engagement in these titanic global you mentioned rambo you meant there's no time i know i did i know i did but i can just throw that out because i i know that we're not going to discuss it but we get into bond it's like kind of going down into quicksand with you okay all right all right sorry let's let's not talk about fictional agents let's talk about um so say in homeland well no i mean the relationship between the cia and and culture is very interesting

you know i i think it's talking a bit earlier about kit thing and and alan dulles you know i i Well, I mean, the relationship between the CIA and culture is very interesting. You know, I think just talking a bit earlier about Kip thing and Alan Dulles, you know, I think fiction really does sort of shape the even the CIA's attitude towards a number of things. And there's this kind of there's the gadget thing, you know, coming out of Fleming. And then it's going the other way as well. You know, the CIA, it does somewhat try to shape to shape culture and then you've written a book about this you've written a whole book about this so i've been trying to turn the conversation around to his own book tom holland is a master of that so you wrote a book called the he wrote a brilliant book called the mighty which is all about the cia sponsoring what jackson pollock? Jackson Pollock? Literary magazines. Yeah, he's promoted by the CIA.

Why are they sponsoring Jackson Pollock? Hugh, you tell the story better than me. He's just kind of flicking paint, isn't he? Well, we'll see if I do. So, yeah, this is the so-called cultural Cold War. It's the idea that the US is sort of trying to fight this international image of itself as it's all Disney and Coca-Cola. So in order to sort of you know win over neutralist intellectuals in europe and then possibly a bit beyond in the third the so-called

third world you need to persuade them that actually america has has a high cultural life of its own and you know the soviets are sort of soviet propagandists are making uh hay out of this as well you know we have the bolshoi we we have Tolstoy, what do the Americans have? So the CIA secretly funds this organization called the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which sponsors tours of Europe and further afield by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for example, you know, to show what accomplished

classical musicians the US has. And traveling exhibits featuring the abstract expressionists. This is sort of in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art in New York and amongst them, Jackson Pollock. So this is really, I mean, perhaps this could be part of a response to that earlier question about the CIA really being pretty clever, right? You know, being pretty subtle.

Am I imagining that they sponsored Orwell? Have I not got that right? Well, Orwell has a relationship with a sort of equivalent secret British organization, the Information Research Department in the British Foreign Office. No, but actually there is an Orwell CIA link as well because the CIA animates Animal Farm. That's right. Yeah, I mean,

actually, you know, it's a great movie. It's sort of a landmark in the history of animation. And it's a CIA operation from beginning to end you know they think that the animal farm could be this sort of tremendous anti-communist propaganda and um they they rent this this production company based in in the uk in order to to to animate it and it's in the movie theaters it's in the uh it's shown in in classrooms for for

generations afterwards and it's And is that ongoing? So my brilliant impression of Liam Neeson in Taken, which we started this podcast with, I mean, are the CIA behind the scenes kind of encouraging the presentation of the CIA in a positive way in film and TV? And I'd say this is, what's his name? Jack, what's his name? Tom Clancy and all that kind of stuff.

Oh yeah, Jack Ryan. Jack Ryan, yes, yeah. Yeah, there is. I think after we touched on this briefly earlier, all of this stuff about Castro and MH chaos, et cetera, comes out in the 70s. And then actually the CIA hasn't been terribly attentive to its own sort of public relations up until that point.

But in the late 70s and 80s, it starts to become so and eventually actually creates a unit basically for liaising with Hollywood and various other cultural entities and plays a role in in various movie productions um zero dark 30 you know the um the the the movie about the hunt for bin laden that that has um there is quite a lot of consultation between uh the director and producer and and and the cia because there was a point wasn't there when when the first revelations came out about the cia sponsoring the congress for cultural freedom and then and then the revelations about the exploding cigars and stuff. The CIA was kind of toxic in American, certainly in American kind of intellectual circles. It was seen as evil assassins and shambling clowns and stuff.

But has that reputation changed? Certainly after 9-11, are people more benignly disposed towards the CIA now? Yeah, I think it did enjoy, I mean, it kind of popularity revived somewhat during the 1980s, you know, during the Reagan era. And so that, that was a sort of a Renaissance for the CIA, but then, then there was a further one. And the first Bush had been a director of the CIA.

Yes, he had indeed. That's correct. Yeah. So, and right. And I guess it reaches a sort of nadir in the early noughties, you know, with 9-11 and the WNBT debacle and failure to catch bin laden and so on so then after bin laden is after the cia catches up with him it it sort of enjoys a revival uh then well so he in in the in the i mean kind of say over the past decade that the sense i have which i'm sure must be not entirely true because i'm only getting it from newspapers but the the action is

going on online that it's it's kind of cyber cyber terrorism cyber wars whatever and the sense that certainly russian uh intelligence is now very very focused on the cyber and to be honest the chinese i've got no idea even what the name of the chinese spy agency is and i wonder in comparison to these much much more kind of shadowy figures is the cia kind of a bit prehistoric in comparison it's an interesting notion i mean i think it is trying very much to sort of adopt to this kind of new world of cyber threats uh etc and i don't think so i mean i think it's probably still something of a leader in that sort of realm of technological intelligence, as well. I mean, some people, you know, the 2016 Russian election interference, you know, a lot of some commentators have seen that as sort of

blowback from earlier CIA operations, that the Russians were sort of imitating what the Americans would be doing to the Iranians. Oh, yes, of course, because the CIA with Mossad were kind of deprogramming Iranian nuclear actors and things, weren't they? Stuxnet, that's right. Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, the unleashing viruses on them. So basically, I mean, is what's happening at the moment, that in the background, in cyberspace,

where most of us have no idea what's going on? Yeah, okay, so we don't know. No one knows. Yeah, that's okay. So Hugh, I'll tell you one thing I'm very disappointed about. We have not mentioned, I was really hoping we'd mention, an alumnus of my old school. So I'm always...

I think I know where you're going with this proud old malvernian i'm always pleased to get my old school into podcast and i've completely failed so far in this entire series but now we can talk about a man called with a splendid name of james jesus angleton jesus thank god i thought yes so i'm desperate to get christianity so he should actually be james this is the height of pedantry, James Jesus Angleton, because his mother was Mexican. Oh, no. I've always thought of him as...

He's a very interesting soul. But you can't call yourself James Jesus. You've either got to be James Jesus or James Jesus, right? You've got to be consistent. Anyway, listen, James Jesus Angleton. Okay. He went to my old school, and he was the head of counterintelligence at the CIA, I think from 1954 to 1974.

What was he doing at your old school? Well, he was having a first-class education. What else? What do you mean? Why didn't he go to an American school? I think he popped up in Perifature or wherever. Hugh, you'll know the answer to this, do you? Yes Why didn't he go to an American school? I think he popped up in Periferture or wherever. Hugh, you'll know the answer to this, do you? Yes, I think I do.

No, his father is a sort of international businessman. International businessman. Yes, there you go. That sounds like a euphemism. No, I don't think his father is a spy. Well, I say that actually. No, actually,'t think his father is a spy. Well, I say that actually. No, actually, no, he does play a role in the OSF. His father had a mountaintop lair in Switzerland

and a submarine that could swallow ships. Cigar? Right, anyway, let's get back to him because he was a brilliant man because he was completely paranoid. And he accused he believed that um the cio was full of communists he believed that he was a paranoid right-wing zealot he believed that harold wilson was a communist he went to your school he did exactly yes exactly i know some people it was that or become a a very popular mid-market newspaper colonist. I mean, it was one or the other.

He kept telling MI5 that Harold Wilson was a communist. Yes. He also told the Canadians that their Prime Minister, Lester Pearson, was a communist. He told the Australians that their Prime Minister... The Mounties as well. The man running the Mounties counterintelligence, he was too. The Mounties were run by the KGB. So he believed everybody was penetrated by the KGB,

including the most anodyne and bland people imaginable. And yet they kept him on for 20 years. He's kind of going around saying, you know, you'd say basically... I mean, he does actually, he prevents communist penetration. I mean, all this actually works, this paranoia. You know, the CIA, while he's running its counterintelligence, is not penetrated by Soviet moles, where, you know, at the same time,

I don't really need to spell it out, do I? The MI6 is thoroughly penetrated by Phil Beattal. And then after he's retired, you retired, he's kind of forced out because of this paranoid mole hunt he runs. Aldrich Ames, who's the most damaging Soviet mole in CIA history, happens along fairly soon after he leaves the picture. But yeah, no, he is undoubtedly paranoid. It's partly, I think think because when Philby defects, you know, this comes as

because he's one of Philby's biggest American buddies. They have a lot of boozy lunches together when Philby is running the Azor in Washington. So I think this comes as sort of a really big personal blow to Angleton who very much, you know, he

absorbed those gentlemanly values, you know, he absorbed those gentlemanly values, you know, patriotism, service, et cetera, while attending Melbourne College. Yeah, well, yeah, her Raffia was called Dominic. I mean, obviously, the idea that the CIA is sponsoring this podcast is a ludicrous one. Ludicrous. Ludicrous one. Unimaginable.

I think if they were going to sponsor a podcast. Oh, my cigar just exploded. You might not have picked up on it, but I'm putting a positive spin on everything they did, you see. I'm getting it in there. So, Hugh, what was the worst thing they did? I mean, can I make a suggestion, and then you can tell me why I'm wrong.

Isn't it sometimes said that Indonesia is their worst, because they encouraged the purge of communists in the mid-60s. Thousands dying. A million people, some people say. Yeah, a million.

And the CIA, I read online, I mean, admittedly it was only online, so it may be utterly untrue, that a CIA report had sort of set, its own report into it said, you know, this was as bad as Nazi mass murders or something. Let's hush it up. Hugh, is that all exaggerated or is that if there's some no no i i i i i don't think it is um amid all the laughter right it does you know a lot of these operations do you know lead to to very very bad things um iran guatemala you know the country uh after jacobo arbenz, democratically elected president, is overthrown.

And I think, you know, the finger really does point at the CIA and Washington with that one. You know, the country descends into a bloodbath. Not even the colonel who the CIA helped install this is sort of excused. He's assassinated a few years later. The operation against Patrice the Mumba, the Congolese president, that's absolutely ghastly as well. It's not actually the CIA. Because they send an executioner over, don't they?

I mean, someone who's kind of practiced in poisoning. Yes, they send some of these poisons. The doctor or something, some sinister figure from a Conrad novel. Yes, Sidney Gottlieb, this sort of slightly Doctor Strange-loving character. Something like that, yeah. Yeah, he cooks up these poisons and dispatches them to the CIA station in the Congo to get rid of the mamba. The CIA doesn't sort of get to him first. These rivals of his and Belgian mercenaries do.

But, you know, his murder is just horrible. And the CIA undoubtedly sort of contributes to this sort of atmosphere of murder and mayhem that surrounds him when he's eventually killed. Well, Hugh, I mean, obviously we're not sponsored by the CIA. mayhem that surrounds him when he's just when he's eventually uh okay well he he i i i mean obviously we're not sponsored by the cia that would be that would be an absolutely shameful allegation but i think that um before we go just one last question from danny k what was the cia's greatest achievement what was the cia's greatest achievement uh okay well i we've done the bad what's what's what's good? We've probably focused more on COVID action. It's kind of some successful operations like Iran

ultimately have bad unintended consequences. So if you sort of look at the kind of the ledger for COVID action, I don't think it's favorable to the CIA. But it's actually its intelligence record, I think, is actually kind of better than it's sometimes been given credit for. I mean, there are these there are some really egregious failures, you know, like 9-11, like the failures predicted, the collapse of the Soviet Union. I mean, big, big, big ones but the cia is very important in the yeah i mean it has some successes as well like the cuban missile crisis you know it does very well

there actually a lot of the intelligence it provides during the vietnam war is is very sensible as well it it has a takes a pretty dim view of u.s prospects in in that war from early on so i suppose also a lot of i mean like a lot of these things, actually their successes, we probably don't know about because, you know, that's the point, isn't it? Well,

you know, I, now Tom, that's actually a favorite sort of CIA publicity line. It is, it is, it is, you know,

we actually have so many successes, but we can't tell you about them. Well, there it is. I smuggled it in. I hope my controller in Langley will give me a free cigar for that. Hugh, thanks so much. It's been a brilliant whistle-stop tour through – what's the fascinating subject?

Thank you. It's a weird and wonderful subject, isn't it? Yeah, thank you, Hugh. Thank you. For those of you listening, be careful with your next cigar. Don't pick up a seashell. And if you find your beard, if you're a hipster and you find your beard mysteriously sparser tomorrow,

wait till you listen to next week's The Rest Is History and find out what happens then. Goodbye. Bye-bye.