War by Pornography - and other CIA fiascos

[ngakpa]

Greetings,


This is a thread dedicated to some of the more harebrained projects cooked up by secret intelligence agencies over the years. Actually it doesn't have to be the CIA (though they do seem to make a speciality of ridiculous intrigues) it can be MI-6, ISI, Mossad... take your pick, but let's try to keep it silly, please dears... conspiracy can get so tiresome otherwise...

I'd like if I may to kick off with a particular favourite of mine, one of the less ingenious attempts to destablise the Nazi regime during WWII:

(n.b. OSS was a forerunner to CIA)

British intelligence had opened the door to harebrained German projects in 1941 when they sent to still-neutral America a Hungarian astrologer who had once analyzed the stars for Hitler; his mission was "to shake American public confidence" in the "invincibility" of the Nazi dictator by reading signs of imminent doom into the Fuehrer's horoscope.

Not to be outdone by London, a group of OSS psychoanalysts proposed an incredible operation based on the premise that the Nazi totalitarian state would disintegrate if only its leader could be demoralized. After conducting a long-range psychological profile of Hitler's personality, this group decided the Fuehrer could be undone by exposing him to vast quantities of pornography.

The OSS men collected the finest library of German smut ever assembled in the United States. The material was to be dropped by plane in the area surrounding Hitler's headquarters on the assumption the Fuehrer would step outside, pick up some bit of it and immediately be thrown into paroxysms of madness.

But the effort was in vain. The Army Air Corps Colonel sent as liason to the pornography-collectors stormed out of his first meeting with them. He cursed Donovan's maniacs and swore he would not risk the life of a single airman for such an insane boondoggle.

from "OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency" by Richard Harris Smith (pp. 203 - 204)

more on "War by Porn"

"H.M.G.'s Secret Pornographer" by Sefton Delmer
http://www.seftondelmer.co.uk/hmg.htm
more WWII porno-propaganda antics - this time from the UK Foreign Office's PID ("Psychological Intelligence Department")

Wiki link for Sefton Delmer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefton_Delmer

more on wartime sex propaganda
Sex and Psychological Operations, by Herbert A. Friedman
http://www.psywarrior.com/sexandprop.html

 

[titoon29]

Wow that's some crazy stuff !
Thanks for sharing !

 

[ngakpa]

excerpt from "The CIA's Secret War in Tibet" by Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison

Beyond the serious language hurdle, the CIA staff on Saipan harbored a more fundamental concern about their Tibetan subjects. The Khampas were Buddhists, and nearly all of them had spent some time as monks. Their instructors wondered whether they would hesitate to kill a fellow human being. For Eli Popovich, chief of the seven paramilitary instructors, this was driven home during an incident early in training. A veteran of OSS operations in Burma and the Balkans, Popovich had been addressing his class when one of the Khampas came forward and pushed him. "I had been standing on an anthill," recalls Popovich, "and he didn't want me interfering with another living entity." [14]

It would take another incident -- also involving ants -- to put the Tibetan attitude toward life and death into better perspective. One morning, case officer Harry Mustakos heard a commotion coming from the latrine, where trainee Tashi (now called "Dick"; each Khampa had an American name on Saipan) was attending to cleaning duties. Beckoned by Norbu, Mustakos rushed in to find both Tibetans hunched over a column of ants crossing from a crack in the wall toward the urinal. "What can we do about these creatures?" Norbu pleaded.

With class set to start in minutes, Mustakos gave them a quick answer. "You can carefully sweep them up and drop them outside, " he said, "or you can continue swabbing the deck as though they weren't there."

The CIA officer left the room to let the two Tibetans discuss a solution. Dick's voice could soon be heard reciting a Buddhist mantra as he rhythmically swung the mop across the trespassing column. "Pragmatism prevailed," concluded Mustakos. [15]

Indeed, the CIA was fast coming to realize that the Khampas had few reservations about taking the life of a Chinese invader. "Their ideas on what weapons should be dropped were starting to get extravagant," remembers Mustakos. "Machine guns for each of their friends, they said, plus artillery batteries would be nice." [16]

Of the six Khampas, Wangdu -- now known as "Walt" -- led the cry for more sophisticated weaponry. Partly, this reflected Walt's hot temper. Partly, too, it was a face-saving gesture to compensate for his low scores in Morse training. "He was near the bottom of the class," said fellow trainee Athar, who now went by the name "Tom." "He began complaining that he wanted to train with bigger guns, not waste time on radios." [17]

For the CIA, this posed a dilemma. Walt's demands for heavier firepower conflicted with its need for skilled agents who would observe and report -- not rush to the offensive. Gingerly, the agency trainers attempted to downplay Tibetan expectations. Said Tom, "They explained that it would be too hard to let us carry artillery pieces into Tibet." [18]

The Khampas were not the only ones who required massaging. The two interpreters -- Norbu and Jentzen -- offered their own set of challenges. Like many Asian societies, Tibet was composed of clearly defined strata, with the religious elite and aristocracy at the top and the warrior and merchant classes well below. On Saipan, this translated into one set of quarters for the interpreters (and, later, Geshe Wangyal) and a different barracks for the students. For the proud Khampas, this arrangement was palatable in the case of Norbu, whose religious standing and family ties demanded reverence. Jentzen, by contrast, was viewed merely as Norbu's servant, who was elite only by association. "His English was not too good," sniffed Tom. [19]

For his part, Norbu did not much care for the cloistered life on Saipan. Limited to a single classroom building and pair of sleeping quarters, the Tibetans were rarely allowed to leave their isolated corner of the training base. Moreover, cooks and cleaning crews were forbidden in the name of operational secrecy. As a result, all present -- trainees as well as interpreters -- were required to rotate chores and eat the same meals. As an incarnation and brother of the Dalai Lama, Norbu found this too much to take and at one point refused the food. The CIA cadre was not amused. "If you don't eat it," said Mustakos sternly, "the students won't eat it." Norbu eventually backed down and consumed his proletarian meal.

The Khampas, by contrast, offered no complaints about the Spartan conditions. With rare exceptions, their health rarely faltered. One scare occurred when trainee Tsawang Dorje -- now going by the name "Sam" -- suffered a ruptured appendix. A few weeks later, the same hapless agent accidentally shot himself in the foot with a pistol. Both incidents required emergency trips to Okinawa, and both resulted in fast recoveries.

On another occasion, Lhotse- -- his name now Americanized to "Lou" -- caught a bad case of dysentery. By chance, CIA Director Allen Dulles was passing through Saipan during a Far East tour and had along his personal physician. From the latter, the local doctor was able to obtain a new drug and get Lou started on a course of treatment. Concerned, the CIA instructors checked with Lou daily to determine if his bowel purges continued.

"Shit today?" they asked. To this, the afflicted agent repeated the words in the affirmative. Convinced that the medication was not taking effect, the CIA instructors sent Lou and an interpreter to the hospital for closer observation. There they learned that Lou had already returned to normal and had merely been reciting the phrase to showcase his newfound command of select English words. [20]

Such medical emergencies aside, the Khampas were shaping up to be model students. "They were new to us," said Mustakos. "Culturally and psychologically, we were learning from them as much as they were learning from us." Sometimes this led to conclusions that bordered on the comical. The Tibetans, for example, saw American omnipotence in seemingly unrelated events. Each night at sundown, the CIA advisers sprayed the compound with an insecticide-dispensing unit mounted on a jeep. This awed the Tibetans, who viewed the routine as proof that the United States was a powerful country. Said case officer Mustakos, "They noted that we had devised ways of killing big things -- like people -- by using the weapons with which we were training, and even killing little things -- like mosquitoes -- with the DDT fogger." [21]

Such innocent observations only served to endear the Tibetans to their CIA instructors. One of the most impressed was Roger McCarthy. Thirty years old, the gregarious McCarthy had joined the CIA in 1952 as a communications specialist for Western Enterprises. Promoted to case officer, he arrived in Saipan in 1956 and had just completed a paramilitary training cycle for six members of the Lao intelligence service prior to the arrival of the Tibetans. "The Lao would get frightened during nighttime operations," he recalls, "and hold each other's hands." The Tibetans, by contrast, were of entirely different mettle. "They were brave and honest and strong," said McCarthy. "Basically, everything we respect in a man." [22]

Training officer Mustakos shared similar sentiments about the rugged Khampas. This was underscored during close-quarter combat instruction when he tossed a traditional short Tibetan sword to Lou and told him to attack. "I learned from that," said Mustakos, "to find out if knife fighting was native lore before trying it again."

After a month-long extension to allow Geshe Wangyal to complete his language instruction, training for the Khampas was all but finished by mid-September. To properly outfit them for their return, an urgent request had been flashed back to India for six sets of used Tibetan peasant garb, knives, and coins. Once Gyalo gathered the items, he rushed down to Calcutta and notified his case officer, John Hoskins. Smuggled into the consulate, the unwashed, reeking load was divided into half a dozen diplomatic pouches and posted to Saipan. [23]

Other preparations were well under way for insertion of the agents back into Tibet. To save time -- and avoid the diplomatic and physical hazards of walking back through Indian territory -- the CIA intended to drop them inside their homeland by parachute. As CIA headquarters had given the cryptonym ST CIRCUS to the emerging Tibet Task Force, this aerial portion of the project retained the same theme and was code-named ST BARNUM. [24] [a]
http://www.american-buddha.com/cia.secret.war.saipan.htm

 

[Pops]

I have heard that the CIA obtained cannabis seeds from all over the world in an attempt to use cannabis as "Truth serum" or for brainwashing. I would appreciate it if anyone has info on that.

 

[AlaskaGrows]

Greetings,


This is a thread dedicated to some of the more harebrained projects cooked up by secret intelligence agencies over the years. Actually it doesn't have to be the CIA (though they do seem to make a speciality of ridiculous intrigues) it can be MI-6, ISI, Mossad... take your pick, but let's try to keep it silly, please dears... conspiracy can get so tiresome otherwise...

I'd like if I may to kick off with a particular favourite of mine, one of the less ingenious attempts to destablise the Nazi regime during WWII:

(n.b. OSS was a forerunner to CIA)

British intelligence had opened the door to harebrained German projects in 1941 when they sent to still-neutral America a Hungarian astrologer who had once analyzed the stars for Hitler; his mission was "to shake American public confidence" in the "invincibility" of the Nazi dictator by reading signs of imminent doom into the Fuehrer's horoscope.

Not to be outdone by London, a group of OSS psychoanalysts proposed an incredible operation based on the premise that the Nazi totalitarian state would disintegrate if only its leader could be demoralized. After conducting a long-range psychological profile of Hitler's personality, this group decided the Fuehrer could be undone by exposing him to vast quantities of pornography.

The OSS men collected the finest librabry of German smut ever assembled in the United States. The material was to be dropped by plane in the area surrounding Hitler's headquarters on the assumption the Fuehrer would step outside, pick up some bit of it and immediately be thrown into paroxysms of madness.

But the effort was in vain. The Army Air Corps Colonel sent as liason to the pornography-collectors stormed out of his first meeting with them. He cursed Donovan's maniacs and swore he would not risk the life of a single airman for such an insane boondoggle.

from "OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency" by Richard Harris Smith (pp. 203 - 204)

more on "War by Porn"

"H.M.G.'s Secret Pornographer" by Sefton Delmer
http://www.seftondelmer.co.uk/hmg.htm
more WWII porno-propaganda antics - this time from the UK Foreign Office's PID ("Psychological Intelligence Department")

Wiki link for Sefton Delmer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefton_Delmer

more on wartime sex propaganda
Sex and Psychological Operations, by Herbert A. Friedman
http://www.psywarrior.com/sexandprop.html

would be curious to know what hitler would have done

 

[ngakpa]

Pops, could you be thinking of MK Ultra?

more on that later...



yeh, Hitler's sexual proclivities... let's not even go there... lol

 

[Pops]

ngakpa, my memory is as short as my pecker. I just remember reading something about the CIA, cannabis and brainwashing. If they tried to use it to get confessions out of terrorists or spies, they probably found that their subjects just got the munchies and ate the pencil and paper they were supposed to write the confessions on.

 

[D0nC0smic]

my personal favorite was the idea of a "gay bomb" that the pentagon seriously considered developing for several years

 

[Jack D Ripper]

Operation Acoustic Kitty

Operation Acoustic Kitty

Acoustic Kitty

Acoustic Kitty was a CIA project launched in the 1960s attempting to use cats in spy missions. A battery and a microphone were implanted into a cat and an antenna into its tail. Due to problems with distraction, the cat's sense of hunger had to be removed in another operation. Surgical and training expenses are thought to have amounted to over $20 million.

The first cat mission was eavesdropping on two men in a park outside the Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C.. The cat was released nearby, but was hit and killed by a taxi almost immediately. Shortly thereafter the project was considered a failure and declared to be a total loss.

$20+ million of our taxes hard at work

 

[Pops]

The O.S.S. considered using cannabis clear back in 1943 and the CIA has conducted over 400 experiments using 37 different mind-altering agents during Project Bluebird and project Artichoke. I believe MK-Ultra came toward the end of project Artichoke. The CIA was using LSD-25 that they got from a Swiss firm, but backed off, I believe, when one of their researchers committed suicide after taking the stuff. Some of this stuff was going on in the 60's when I was in military intelligence, but was heavily classified.

 

[ngakpa]

General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.

General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?

General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.

General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.

General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.

General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.

 

[Pops]

Great movie!

 

[Verite]

If you want the latest/current waste of money dig up how much theyve wasted [ and still do ] on isomer weapons and halfnium explosives.