Stew: Of course it started with the Intervention, and the Mitrovich book points
out that the same policy existed in the 1930s. However, the CIA, established in
1947, is the first organization in human history set up for the purpose of
overthrowing foreign governments [as distinct from a one-shot plot against some
single enemy government, which is an old story.]. The Rostow-Kennan crew were the
first team ever put together by a government to develop, and to carry out, a
long-term strategy to change the social systems of other countries. One of the
interesting things in the book is the degree of coordination among the State
Department, CIA, and the military, in peacetime, with this long-term strategy.
Bill Mandel
StewA@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 1/6/1 1:39:55 AM, wmmmandel@earthlink.net writes:
>
> << Walt Rostow gets a number of pages in Gregory Mitrovich' UNDERMINING THE
> KREMLIN:
> America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, Cornell University Press, 2000,
> accurately described in the cover blurb thus: "containment was only the first
> step
> in a clandestine campaign to destroy Soviet power. Drawing on recently
> declassified
> U.S. documents, Mitrovich reveals a range of previously unknown covert actions
> launched during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Through the
> aggressive
> use of psychological warfare, officials sought to provoke political crisis
> among key
> Soviet leaders, to incite nationalist tensions within the USSR, and to foment
> unrest
> across Eastern Europe, Mitrovich demosntrates that inspiration for these
> efforts did
> not originate within the intelligence community, but with individuals at the
> highest
> levels of policymaking in the U.S. government."
> Rostow was at the heart of all this.
> Mitrovich is all the more convincing to non-Lefts because he employs Cold
> War
> language throughout: "the Soviet threat," etc.
> William
> Mandel >>
>
> Bill don't you think this started with the western intervention in Russian
> Civil War. Financing, supply and arming the Whites against the Reds. Also
> early stuff with Churchill and Brit Intelligence networks in Russia?--Stew
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