'Does the CIA Still Do That?'

By Thomas Neuburger

“Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the state.” —James Angleton, CIA counterintelligence chief, 1954-1975

As I mentioned here, I want to start looking at the CIA and its role in American life and politics — both; its role in our lives and its role in our politics. Through this series I’ll be drawing from many sources, familiar and unfamiliar, some respected by most, and some hated by partisan voices.

In all cases, I’ll focus on just two things: what’s known, and what seems likely based on what’s known.

Whistleblower Frank Snepp on CIA Propaganda

Let’s start here with a taste. Edward Snowden is familiar to many and respected by most of those. (His forced residence in Russia gives pause to some.)

The admission in this 1983 video is striking:

The speaker is Frank Snepp, a former CIA employee during the Vietnam War era. The full video is here:

About Frank Snepp, the YouTube poster (Witness to War) wrote this:

“Frank Snepp arrived in Vietnam in 1969 and stayed on until he was evacuated as Saigon fell in 1975. He spent a good deal of time working with the press while there and developed the ability to plant stories in major media outlets like the New York Times, the New Yorker, the LA Times, Chicago Daily News and others that supported the Agency's goals. … After he left the CIA he wrote a book, Decent Interval, that talked about his time in Vietnam. The CIA made his life hell and took a case all the way to the Supreme Court where they won a verdict that required Snepp to turn over all the money the book had made. That was $300,000.”

And Wikipedia offers this:

“Frank Warren Snepp, III (born May 3, 1943) is a journalist and former chief analyst of North Vietnamese strategy for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Saigon during the Vietnam War. For five out of his eight years as a CIA officer, he worked as interrogator, agent debriefer, and chief strategy analyst in the United States Embassy, Saigon; he was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit for his work. Snepp is a former producer for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, California. He was one of the first whistle blowers who revealed the inner workings, secrets and failures of the national security services in the 1970s. As a result of a loss in a 1980 court case brought by the CIA, all of Snepp's publications require prior approval by the CIA.”

So, not a nobody.

Snowden's Question

Now consider Snowden’s question: Do you think the CIA still does this?

I would answer:

• Is it certain? Not from this evidence, though stay tuned for more.

• Is it likely? Of course it is. Why would they stop?

CIA Assassination Manual, Contra Edition

The CIA has authored a number of counter-insurgency and assassination manuals. One was leaked during the 1984 presidential campaign. An editorial by the Washington Post characterizes the manual as “advising Nicaraguan guerrillas how to kidnap, assassinate, blackmail and dupe civilians [which] is an appalling production”. It dismisses the document as a “lame-brained idea launched on the political side of the government” and hopes that Reagan will investigate quickly.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo answers questions at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in 2017. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Here’s that “lame-brained idea,” the manual itself, titled Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare. From the section “Armed Propaganda”:

5. Selective Use of Violence for Propagandistic Effects

It is possible to neutralize carefully selected and planned targets, such as court judges, mesta judges, police and State Security officials, CDS chiefs, etc. […]

The target or person should be chosen on the basis of:

• The spontaneous hostility that the majority of the population feels toward the target. • Use rejection or potential hatred by the majority of the population affected toward the target, stirring up the population and making them see all the negative and hostile actions of the individual against the people. • If the majority of the people give their support or backing to the target or subject, do not try to change these sentiments through provocation. • Relative difficulty of controlling the person who will replace the target.

The person who will replace the target should be chosen carefully, based on:

• Degree of violence necessary to carry out the change. • Degree of violence acceptable to the population affected. • Degree of predictable reprisal by the enemy on the population affected or other individuals in the area of the target.

Elsewhere it recommends:

“Specific tasks will be assigned to others, in order to create a "martyr" for the cause, taking the demonstrators to a confrontation with the authorities, in order to bring about uprisings or shootings, which will cause the death of one or more persons, who would become the martyrs, a situation that should be made use of immediately against the regime, in order to create greater conflicts.”

Note that this doesn’t have to be done from the insurgents’ standpoint. It can be done by that state against insurgents, or mere demonstrators. The “removed target” could be a deeply unpopular politician, for example. The “martyr” could be a policeman. These techniques would work well from either side of a CIA-involved conflict.

Snowden’s Question

Again we ask Snowden’s question: Do you think the CIA still does this?

I would answer:

• Is it certain? Yes. I think evidence is ample that the CIA still murders abroad, still thinks murder is one of its options.

• Is it likely? Most definitely, if one looks overseas.

Today’s CIA

Set assassination aside for the moment. Does the CIA work to influence domestic media, as it did during the Vietnam era? If so, what are its goals? Does it run other domestic operations?

Most people think the CIA doesn’t operate here, given what they think is its charter. And yet it does. To what extent is the CIA engaged inside U.S. borders? Future parts in this series will look at that.

Bottom line: To describe is not to condemn. Many people are glad our security state is as “robust” as it is, given what people think are our various threats.

But even they, I would think, would want to understand the kind of state we have built.