Movie Review: The Good Shepherd (2006)

The human costs of spookdom (7/10)

Candidly, I was looking for a damning expose of the most ‘successful’ secret society of the 20th century, the CIA (the Cartel’s Insulation Agency).  And we do get some of that.  Robert DeNiro, playing the General “Wild Bill” Donovan originator of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which became the CIA, says:

“I deeply worry about the agency becoming not the eyes and ears of the country but its heart and soul.”

On another note, just as the CIA controls the mainstream media, or Government(s) Propa- ganda Network (GPN)—ref. Carl Bernstein’s famous 1977 Rolling Stone article, “The CIA and the Media,”—’Intelligence’ pretty much owns Hollywood as well. [Not to say a few exceptions or embarrassments to the premier security state tool of the ruling families don’t slip thru from time to time.]

The story centers on the Matt Damon character, Edward Wilson, who becomes the prototypical CIA agent, then the leader of Agency operations.  We open with footage of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, compromised by an intelligence leak.  Wilson’s career being in jeopardy, he endeavors to find the source of the leak.

As the main story moves along in the present (the early 1960s), the movie flashes back to key points in his life.  In the early 1920s, his father (Timothy Hutton) implores the boy Edward to always tell the truth.  When Edward leaves the room, his father proceeds to shoot himself, leaving a note; Edward quickly reenters the room before the adults arrive and secrets the note away. Continue reading

Book Review: History Will Not Absolve Us (1996)

Orwellian control, public denial, and the murder of President Kennedy
by E. Martin Schotz

1996, Kurtz, Ulmer, and DeLucia , 326 pages
Review by Brian Wright

History Will Not Absolve Us“We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society.  There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.” — Harry S. Truman, from an article entitled “US should hold CIA to intelligence role,” published in the Washington Post, December 21, 1963

Former president Truman’s letter sent from his home in Independence, Missouri, just 30 days after JFK’s assassination, was a highly significant, Continue reading