With the recent spate of increased interest in so-called “false flags” and covert operations following the Boston bombings and the tornadoes in Oklahoma, we thought we’d give some historical background on why those “crazy conspiracists” have their reasons for distrusting the government.
There have been plenty of confirmed and documented covert operations conducted by our very own feds on the same people who elected them into office.
Here are the top five covert operations that you should know about.
1. Operation Mockingbird
Are you under the impression that all news is “fair and balanced”? That yellow jouranlism is and was no more after its heyday in the late 1890s?
Well, obviously you haven’t heard of “Operation Mockingbird.”
Operation Mockingbird was a secret Central Intelligence Agency campaign to influence media beginning in the 1950s. Organized by Cord Meyer (a CIA official) and Allen W. Dulles (Director of Central Intelligence) in the 1950s, it was later led by Frank Wisner (Directorate of Plans of the CIA) after Dulles became head of CIA. The organization recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA’s views, and funded some student and cultural organizations, and magazines as fronts. As it developed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities by other operating units of the CIA.
Known media collaborators include: William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Jerry O’Leary (Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham, Sr. (Louisville Courier-Journal), James Copley (Copley News Services) and Joseph Harrison (Christian Science Monitor).
So who’s to say that Operation Mockingbird is over just because we know about it?
2. Operation Northwoods
Operation Northwoods might make you rethink the plausibility of the Boston bombings being a truly foreign terror attack.
Operation Northwoods was a series of false flag proposals that originated within the United States government in 1962, but were rejected by the Kennedy administration. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit perceived acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro. One part of Operation Northwoods was to “develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington”.
Operation Northwoods proposals included hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government.
So now it may beg the question, what do the feds want with Chechnya?
3. Project MKUltra
Some of us millennials are already under the auspice that the government is trying to suck us vapid with reality programs and mind-numbing music.
And now we have proof that the government has tried that before.
Project MKUltra was the code name of a U.S. government covert research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans (mind control) through the CIA’s Scientific Intelligence Division. The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and officially halted in 1973. The program engaged in many illegal activities; in particular it used unwitting U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy. MKUltra involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate people’s mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture.
The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies. The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA’s involvement.
If you’re interest is piqued, check out the book Acid Dreams for an in-depth account of government mind-control experiments.
4. Operation Paperclip
Not all Nazis are created equal.
That is, only when the CIA wants them for themselves.
Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) [precursor to the CIA] program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II (1939–45). It was conducted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), and in the context of the burgeoning Soviet–American Cold War (1945–91), one purpose of Operation Paperclip was to deny German scientific knowledge and expertise to the USSR, the UK, and (divided) Germany itself.
Although the JIOA’s recruitment of German scientists began after the European Allied victory (8 May 1945), US President Harry Truman did not formally order the execution of Operation Paperclip until August 1945. Truman’s order expressly excluded anyone found “to have been a member of the Nazi Party, and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazi militarism”. However, those restrictions would have rendered ineligible most of the leading scientists the JIOA had identified for recruitment, among them rocket scientists Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus and Arthur Rudolph, and the physician Hubertus Strughold, each earlier classified as a “menace to the security of the Allied Forces”.
Many “American” advancements in aeronautics, medicine, and rocketry can be contributed to these ex-Nazis.
5. Operation Gladio
Sometimes the CIA likes to play puppet master.
With Operation Gladio, it helped stoke the Cold War a good extra decade.
Operation Gladio is the codename for a clandestine NATO “stay-behind” operation in Europe during the Cold War. Its purpose was to continue anti-communist actions in the event of a Soviet invasion and conquest. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, “Operation Gladio” is used as an informal name for all stay-behind organizations, sometimes called “Super NATO”. The name Gladio is the Italian form of gladius, a type of Roman shortsword.
The role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in sponsoring Gladio and the extent of its activities during the Cold War era, and its relationship to right-wing terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the “Years of Lead” (late 1960s to early 1980s) and other similar clandestine operations, is the subject of ongoing debate and investigation but has never been proven. Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter.
So what does this mean?
It means that the CIA has a definite history of causing tension between nations/political ideals to help the U.S. gain an upper-hand in her own interests.
As if we already didn’t assume that.
