The
National Museum of Intelligence and Special Operations
The new
national museum of Intelligence and Special Operations – a $10 million showcase
– should not just glorify such actions, but be an objective, academic
institution that will point out the mistakes, destruction and loss of life that
such covert actions have caused over the years, and put such activities in
their proper historical perspective.
The
development of intelligence as a key security responsibility was outline in
detail thousands of years ago by Sun Tzu in his classic work “The Art of War,” which has a chapter on
the use of secret agents. In it he explains how, when all five types of agents
are working at once it is known as “The Divine Skein,” skin being a thread on a
net – an intelligence network.
Such
covert actions were considered “Divine” because they appear to be acts of God
to those who don’t know how the magic trick works, but once you know, it’s not
so mysterious at all.
After
World War II President Truman disbanded America’s wartime spy agency - the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and this museum is being funded by a $10
million grant from the OSS Society.
After
the assassination of President Kennedy Truman wrote an essay in which he said
that he didn’t think such covert operations should be a part of intelligence,
which he said should focus strictly on collecting information rather than
sabotage and subterfuge. Sabotage is a terrorist act of violence while
subterfuge is the use of deceit to achieve one’s goal, neither acts of a
gentleman, but used in all covert intelligence operations.
The
history of such covert actions is fascinating however, beginning with Troy - the
first historically documented covert op.
The
Trojan Horse - After a fruitless ten year siege of Troy, the Geeks construct a
huge wooden horse, and select a few good men – including Odysseus, to hide
inside, and after the Trojans pulled the horse inside the city gates as a
symbol of their victory, the first special forces emerged in a surprise attack
that leads to victory.
The
Intrepid sinking of USS Philadelphia in Tripoli Harbor – Lt. Stephen Decatur
sails the captured pirate ship rechristened the USS Intrepid into Tripoli
harbor at night to sink the captured American frigate USS Philadelphia, without
any casualties.
The
Intrepid explosion in Tripoli Harbor – September 4, 1804. Inspired by Decatur’s
success, his friend Lt. Richard Somers sails the Intrepid back into Tripoli
harbor outfitted as a fire ship to sail it into the anchored pirate fleet, but
it explodes prematurely and kills Somers and his crew of 12 men. The three
officers and ten seamen were buried on the Shores of Tripoli, where they remain
today, despite repeated calls for their return and proper burial at home.
The Loss
of Rangers at Anzio – An elite regiment of Rangers were parachuted deep behind
enemy lines and captured a key town, but the main invasion force was bogged
down on the beach because of the hesitancy of the commanders, and the entire
Ranger regiment was killed or captured.
The
Re-capture of Mussolini – After Italian dictator Bonito Mussolini was deposed
and imprisoned in a remote mountain castle, Hilter ordered Otto Skorzeny to
free him. Skorzeny flew into the castle with a team of commandos aboard
gliders, captured the castle prison and freed Mussolini.
Operation
Anthropoid - The Assassination of Nazi administrator Reinhardt Heydrich in
Prague on May 27, 1942 in an attack on his car by two partisans trained by
British Intelligence. The Nazi retribution for the assassination led to the execution
of Bishop Gorazd after the assassins were killed in a firefight at the St.
Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. Another 13,000 civilians were arrested and an
estimated 5,000 were executed.
The
Assassination plans to kill Hitler – MI6. A British plan for a sniper dressed
in German military uniform, to kill Hitler as he walked through a garden field
to a nearby tea house as he routinely did. The plan was not carried out because
it was decided the war was going in the Allies favor because Hitler was making
bad decisions, something the allies wanted him to continue to do.
The July
20, 1944 Valkyrie Plan to kill Hitler was devised by high ranking German
military officers who didn’t want Germany totally destroyed. The plan was
carried out by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg at the Wolf’s Lair, in East
Prussia, but the bomb failed to kill Hitler. The failure of the plot led to the
executions of General Friedrich Olbricht, Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim,
Stauffenberg, the death of General Rommel and thousands of those suspected in
cooperating or assisting the plotters.
Operation
Success – The Guatemalan Coup of 1954 saved the United Fruit Company in South
America, was so successfully executed
that President Eisenhower decorated the participants – including many of those
CIA officers who went on to duplicate their success in Cuba in 1961 at the Bay
of Pigs.
The
Lionel Crabb Incident – UK – When the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze delivered
Nikita Khrushchev to London, Crabb dived into Portsmouth Harbor on orders of
his MI6 controller to inspect the cruiser’s underside, and disappeared on April
19, 1956.
Bay of
Pigs – The CIA backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs by over a thousand
anti-Castro Cubans, who were trained in Guatemala, resulted in the fiasco that
killed many and imprisoned most of the invaders. The botched plan was
ostensibly a covert operation, but even the invasion date was well known to
many, including John Martino in a Cuban prison. While President Kennedy took
responsibility for the failure, and was blamed for not supplying necessary air
support, he no longer trusted the CIA,
Operation
Mongoose – The post-Bay of Pigs, anti-Castro Cuban covert operations by the
CIA, which included further development of plans to kill Fidel Castro.
Northwoods
– the US military – Joint Chiefs of Staff – plan to fake a Cuban terrorist
attack on Guantanamo in order to
instigate a reason for a full scale US military invasion of Cuba.
Cuban
Missile Crisis – When the CIA’s National Photo Interpretation Center positively
identified Soviet long range nuclear missiles in Cuba in October 1962, the
Cuban Missile Crisis took the world to the brink of nuclear war over 13 days.
Ignoring the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended a military attack on
Cuba to take out the missiles; President Kennedy instead initiated a secret
backchannel communications with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev that resulted
in the removal of the missiles with the loss of only one life – that of an
American U2 pilot shot down over Cuba.
The
Houma Bunker Raid – A not very covert removal of arms, ammunition and demolition dynamite
from the Schlumberger company bunker at Houma, Louisiana in 1961 by David
Ferrie, Gordon Novel, Andrew Blackmon and others. The cache was to be given to
the French OAS anti-DeGaul military men fighting to keep Algeria a French
colony, or anti-Castro Cubans. Most of those involved in this raid, including
Jean DeMenil, the head of the Schlumberger company in Texas, would know Lee
Harvey Oswald and become entwined in the assassination of President Kennedy.
The
1962 attempt to kill deGaul by OAS military officers, failed to kill deGaul in
an attack on his motorcade, but the French car’s French Michelin tires did not stop
to car when they were shot out, and deGaul got away.
The
covert coup in Vietnam on November 1, 1963 that led to the deaths of the Diems.
The
Assassination of President Kennedy – November 22, 1963. In order to keep JFK
from renewing diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro and joining the USSR in a
joint effort to put a man on the moon, the US military and intelligence
officers redirected one of the plans they had devised to kill Castro and instead
killed JFK at Dealey Plaza.
Iran
Contra – Many of those involved in the Dealey Plaza Operation went on to
Nicaragua where they supported the Contras in their fight against the leftist Sandinistas
who had taken over Nicaragua. In exchange for American missiles, Iran agreed to
free captured American hostages and provide money to the American operatives
and fund independent covert ops that didn’t need the approval of Congress.
Chile
1973 – the assassination of democratically elected president Salvador Allende
in a CIA engineered coup d’etat that led to the deaths of many thousands of
people and the establishment of a military dictatorship that lasted until 1989.
And
unfortunately, there are dozens and dozens of other examples of key covert intelligence
operations gone awry – which means deviating from the appropriate, planned or
expected course of action.
I
like the idea of a national center for the study of intelligence, security,
covert operations, political assassinations and other such deep political
events, but they can’t be glossed over like the Spy Museum, but instead need to
be thoroughly and critically analyzed so we can be the informed citizens who
control the government, rather than the government controlling us.
Now what we need is for some rich person with a conscience or a society or foundation like the OSS Society or Catherwood Fund to dedicated ten million dollars for a real Center for the Study of Political Assassinations and Covert Operations, based in Washington D.C., where all of the accumulated assassination records can be stored, scanned and put on line, and researches and writers in residence can work.
Now what we need is for some rich person with a conscience or a society or foundation like the OSS Society or Catherwood Fund to dedicated ten million dollars for a real Center for the Study of Political Assassinations and Covert Operations, based in Washington D.C., where all of the accumulated assassination records can be stored, scanned and put on line, and researches and writers in residence can work.
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