It stands to reason that the masses around the world began to favor #communism after #WWII — out of gratitude to the Soviets for saving them from #fascism.
Evidently this scared the hell out of the fascists in the US government intelligence agencies. 😟
So we had a #ColdWar about it — for the next half century.
CIA be like: “we don’t care if you’re #Nazis — if you’re against #communists, we stand with you!
How much money & weapons would you like?”
In September 1946, Truman’s aide Clark Clifford prepared a memo that outlined future #ColdWar policy and the creation of what would become #NATO.
I call it the “my way or the Highway memo.” 🇺🇸
US leaders were alarmed by the rapid rise of #communism in all parts of the globe — especially in Western Europe — as it threatened their own plans for running the New World Order.
President Truman was planning to settle the issue with nuclear first strikes against the #USSR — the only thing that stopped him was he didn’t have enough bombs!
Then, in 1949, #Russia developed its own nukes; the US would no longer have a nuclear monopoly.
The solution? Covert ops…
Even though this document was declassified 26 years ago, parts of it remain redacted to this day.
Large sections are blacked out, making it difficult for historians to analyze what the hell the CIA was actually up to, even now.
One of the Agency’s favorite tools was “Radio Free Europe” — which still exists, and continues to broadcast US-sponsored propaganda and disinformation about the current #UkraineRussianWar .
Even now, much of Radio Free Europe’s activities during the Cold War remain secret 🤫.
Large blocks of the document are also still redacted on the #KoreanWar and early #NATO.
“#Korea provided a testing ground for conventional warfare w/ unconventional methods.
“The #USA had learned a great deal about unconventional offensive tactics in #WWII but the #communists learned from the Soviets a great deal about defensive tactics.”
What those tactics were, exactly, remains unknown.
The next 2 pages are completely redacted!
The OPC merged with CIA in August 1952, and thus began the militarization of the Agency’s covert ops in the war against #communists.
We were going past the propaganda stage into actual (secret) warfare.
In concluding this introduction to the history of our battle against the Soviets in the covert action field, the US government admits here that #Russia had a clear and undeniable advantage — and that we were scrambling to catch up.
If you’re curious to learn more about these secret operations (of which some details remain secret to the present day), start at page 26 of this document:
On February 22, 1972 the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked Lufthansa flight 649, demanding a $5 million ransom for the release of 192 onboard.
The skyjackers also had a celebrity hostage: 19 year-old Joseph Kennedy, son of #RFK — their human bargaining chip.
Young Kennedy had been touring India with his uncle and aunt, Senator and Mrs. Edward M. Kennedy.
The Senator's wife, Joan, had accompanied Joseph to New Delhi while her husband returned to the United States, but left India ahead of her nephew.
Joe boarded the plane alone.
The PFLP hijackers seized the plane about an hour after it took off from New Delhi, around 1 a.m.
Bombay air control authorities said they received this message from the plane: “Call us victorious Jidda. If you call us Lufthansa, we won't answer you.” ✈️
When he was arrested after the #RFK assassination, one of Sirhan’s appellate lawyers says there was a newspaper clipping in Sirhan’s pocket that discussed the incongruity of Kennedy’s advocacy for the oppressed while also supporting Israel over Palestine. bentley.umich.edu/news-events/ma…
Sirhan’s friend and appellate attorney says he cannot be certain there was not some sort of conspiracy, but has little doubt Sirhan shot Kennedy. “Sirhan never said there was somebody else,” Jabara insists.
The official motive for Sirhan’s murder of #RFK was “anti-#Zionism.”
Sirhan blamed his murderous rage on trauma he had suffered as a child in Palestine.
At age 4 he witnessed the bombing of Damascus Gate, the death of his older brother, a man disemboweled by a bomb and the family was forced to relocate after Israel was created in 1948.
Nazi Germany waged an extensive propaganda campaign to spread Nazi ideology in the Arab world.
University of Maryland Prof. Jeffrey Herf and American University Prof. Richard Breitman discuss how Nazi ideology still lingers in the 21st Century.
Prof. Breitman served as director of historical research for the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group, which helped to bring about declassification of more than eight million pages of U.S. government records under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.
If some of these talking points sound familiar today, now you know where they originated…
According to an April 25, 1966 Tom Wicker article in the New York Times (“CIA: Maker of Policy, or Tool?), President #Kennedy vowed privately to an aide after the Bay of Pigs incident in Cuba, that he would “splinter the CIA in 1000 pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
#JFK didn’t complete his mission to fully destroy the CIA (some believe the Agency got him first) — but here’s what he DID do.
In June 1961, two months after the Bay of Pigs — he issued National Security Action Memos (NSAM) 55 and 57.
NSAM 55 called for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not the CIA, to be his primary military advisors.
NSAM 57 declared “any large paramilitary operation wholly or partly covert… is properly the primary responsibility of the Department of Defense with the CIA in a supporting role.”
#RFKJr grew up in a family that strongly supported #Israel. He says he was “shocked” when his kids came home from college with views of Israel as an evil, apartheid state.
No matter what side you take, I hope you’ll listen to RFK argue his position.
It is important to understand the history of why generations of Democrats (and Republicans) have supported Israel.
It all started in 1944, when both parties adopted planks in their platforms advocating for a Jewish state in Palestine.
A fascinating story that Benjamin Netanyahu’s father played a key role in. Read this thread 🧵…