[super supreme] screw worm, semtex and the sandanista

Thanks to The Selvedge Yard for the pic

There are book reviews and then there are book reviews.

This is the latter, to paraphrase a line from Vesper Lynd. As one is wont to do with no time to browse around, I was browsing around offline and found a few reviews of Three Days of the Condor.

One which amused was by Loveprong.Inc and the warning signs were already there in the name. Here’s the bulk of it:

"That's the last time I nip out for Super Supreme." Basically, Redford pops out for a pizza for the [fellow CIA] office workers, comes back and finds everyone has had their brains blown out. Understandably a bit shocked, he does a runner … Officially, the Love Prong Inc. conspiracy arm has never been convinced about the CIA. It all seems too easy to blame them for everything that goes on.

After all, especially as the CIA themselves revealed lots of stuff during the 1974 Church Hearings - it was obvious that the CIA had nothing to hide. They revealed extensive information about specialist lightweight killing weapons (strangely like the one used to kill Robert Kennedy from the rear in the Ambassador Hotel in 1968), advanced psychological torture techniques, usage of LSD and mind-altering substances, mind-programming experiments and methods for manipulating large groups of people.

Although, it was just theory, of course.

Love Prong would like to officially state that WE DO NOT BELIEVE THERE IS ANY EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT ANY CIA COMPLICITY in, let's say...

CIA DCI (Director Of Central Intelligence) Richard Helms and CIA involvement in the "Bay Of Pigs" incident in Dallas 1963. The killing of Lee H. Oswald by Jack Ruby. E. Howard Hunt (former CIA station chief Mexico) being one of the hobos on the Grassy Knoll on November 22nd 1963 and later (oddly) being caught in the Watergate building with our old friend CIA "G-Man" G. Gordon Liddy.

The "mysterious" death of CIA DCI William Colby, the work of Admiral John Poindexter and General Richard V. Secord with arms-dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, CIA DDCI Robert Gates and his "breakdown", Ollie North's handy ability to take the Fifth Amendment in the spotlight, George H.W. Bush (DCI 1974) facilitating drug deals, John Hull's plane procurement skills, Ronald Wilson Reagan's convenient memory lapses and the old bastard Knight Of Malta DCI Bill Casey promoting the selling of snorting gear in the 1980's, Casey giving $3m to the Saudi Arabians in return for punting drugs money to buy arms for the Nicaraguan Contras (Adolfo Calero being a very charming man apparently;-) and information regarding kidnapped (and subsequently murdered) CIA station chief William Buckley, Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, the secret army training in Aden, Dhofar, war and bombing of Laos, Cambodia.

The restoration of the Greek monarch in 1946, installing (and killing) Vietnamese Diem, overthrowing the democratically elected Mossadegh in Iran and installing the Shah 1953, supporting Gehlen's Nazis in 1946, running the Burmese Nationalist incursions into China for about 12 years, overthrow of Albania's Enver Hoxha in 1950, attempted killing of Huk in the Phillipines 1953, kidnap of Otto John in West Germany, installation of Armas in Guatemala (1954) strangely after they'd nationalised the land of US companies (no connection honest), attempts to overthrow Nasser, assassinate Chou En-Lai 1955, overthrowing Prince Sihanouk and the CIA-sponsored coup of March 18 1970 via Lon Nol Chief of the CIA-backed Cambodian army, Fidel Castro (fucking hundreds of times-they still didn't manage to kill him or poison his cigars).

Overthrowing the Portugese government of 1975, destabilizing Angola by killing 300,000 in the backing UNITA's Jonas Savimbi until 1984, the death of Werner Lamberz and Paul Markowski, discrediting of Harold Wilson, evicting Gough Whitlam in Australia by blackmailing Governor-General John Kerr to dissolve the left-wing elected government, the diabolic murders in Haiti by "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the support for CIA torturer Dan Mitrione in Uruguay in 1969, the coup in Granada 1980 to remove Maurice Bishop.

The 1981 Seychelles military coup, bribery in Mauritius 1982, successful coup in Guatemala 1982, at least 3 attempts to overthrow Bouterse's Surinamese government, bribery of candidates in the 1984 El Salvador election, Casey buying anti-Communist votes in trying to rig the 1987 Italian election, dopey "Bud" McFarlane, support for Juan Peron's old mate Michele Sindona supplying French Exocet missiles to Argentina during the Falklands War 1982...

The deaths of freelance journalists Danny Casolaro and Jonathan Moyle (hanged in a Chilean hotel wardrobe, following a lethal injection in the heel-Hotel Carrera room 406 to be precise) while investigating British and American dealings with Dr. Carlos Cardoen and Augusto Pinochet in punting coke (and the Helios Weapons Guidance System and Stonefish mine system from our old friends at Marconi Underwater Systems) to Iran and Iraq with the full knowledge of CIA and MI6 (31 March 1990).

The "blind" which is Area 51, the long-history of the CIA's coke dealing with Panama's Manuel Noriega ("Just Fly Low" - the US spent 900 trillion dollars on a ultra-high-tech stealth plane that couldn't be detected by radar and they could have just borrowed Manuel Noriega's tiny low-tech Cessna which managed to fly huge quantities of drugs into the US for years without anyone noticing...), the corruption of BCCI, global money-laundering, Banco Ambrosiano, the death of Pope John Paul I, Roberto Calvi found in "Hanged Man" tarot card mode under Blackfriars Bridge, the drug and arms dealings of the Shah Of Iran, the Chilean coup ousting democratically elected Marxist Salvador Allende ("make the economy scream" said Kissinger to CIA DCI Richard Helms at the time).

UK/US counter-insurgence and spying on huge populations under the auspices of Echelon, the stitch-up of Richard Nixon in Watergate, the Clintons and Whitewater, CIA ambassador mad bitch April Glaspie giving Saddam Hussein the official green light to invade Kuwait in 1990, Fawn Hall's monster crack-cocaine addiction (how ironic), Operation Screw Worm - the plan by CIA and Oliver North to flood the US with an extra 50000 kilos a month of uncut cocaine to depress the price of street coke in May 1986 (nice folks huh?), the helping of the FBI to harass songwriter Phil Ochs.

The CIA's backing of SAVAK, the Iranian Shah's secret police (which caused the taking of 52 American hostages in the US embassy Teheran), the aid to right-wing Roberto D'Aubuisson in shooting Oscar Romero Archbishop of San Salvador through the heart after his pleading to Jimmy Carter to stop the CIA aiding the military government slaughtering the people, secret agent Mindfuck with the IRA, ETA, Red Brigade, Bader Meinhof, Semtex smuggling, infiltration of Panavia, the CIA "men of influence" at the heart of governments in Sweden, Holland, UK and Italy, EC/CIA drug running via safe houses in London, Brussels and Strasbourg.

Moles at London Circus, the leaking of commercial British Aerospace faxes from Airbus to Boeing intercepted on British territory via Menwith Hill Yorkshire at the expense of UK taxpayers money in 1991, more racketeering front-companies than I can remember, interference and messing in almost every country in the world, the blowback of CIA/UK support for the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan with US-supplied Stinger missiles being used by terrorists, the usage of CIA assets Jean-Michel Francois and Venezuelan General Davila in the importation to the US of 20 and 33 tonnes of cocaine respectively in 1996 (both convicted).

The traditional rigmarole of getting the US government to blame their political enemies for the flooding of drugs onto the streets of the US (i.e. CIA getting Harry Anslinger in the 50's to blame the social ills of America on the flood of Red Communist Chinese heroin coming into the country - later turning out to be an unfounded lie), former CIA director Bush getting Reagan to denounce Red Sandanista cocaine as the reason for their moral crusade in Nicaragua (strangely, also later turning out to be an unfounded lie, when the press more closely quizzed the DEA), little Georgie warning about Taliban heroin (no doubt, this too will turn about to be CIA intelligence propaganda to support the war effort after the fact), the Votescam fixing of every US election since 1970, helping install the puppet Grenada government, CIA directing Iranian marine invasion in the Omani civil war 1970. CIA support of US marines landing during the election campaign of the Dominican Republic 1965-66, the covert intervention with Green Berets against rebels in Guatemala 1966-67, CIA-assisted raids on Bolivian cocaine dealers in 1987 against the wishes of the government, murder of almost everyone in Dealey Plaza 22/11/63, French aerospace kickbacks via European defence ministers, shipping of Tow missiles via Wafic Said, skimming of drugs money post Al-Yamamah and the Ј10 million kickback to Mark Thatcher, payments via Saudia Arabia in oil/gold to Messrs. Smith/Weston/Evans. Attempts to shutdown Dr. Chris Cowley's revelations about the CIA and the 1989 Arms Fair in Baghdad (and some wonder why American foreign policy is unpopular!), Vince Foster's odd death, 22 tonnes of coke being imported using US taxpayers money in 1991.

McVeigh's conviction for Oklahoma, the development of AIDS in a military lab in 1969, monkeys being trained for assassination work, political murders on behalf of the Vatican, training of Chilean death-squads, protection of war-time Nazis, funding US mob extortion and trafficking rackets, illegal phone-tapping of journalists, black-bag jobbing, lousy security on remote islands. Internet surveillance, illegal IRS harassment, complicity with alien implant projects, the killing of Pablo Escobar, the work of Ari Ben-Menashe ensuring American hostages remained locked up until Reagan and Bush had been elected (organized by Bush in Paris), trying to use Zbigniew Bryzynski in a game of scrabble, the murder of Georgi Markov with a poisoned umbrella, rocket-designer Gerald V. Bull rubbed out in Brussels with the help of the Mossad, running missions with Abu Nidal.

The high-tech security leaks over intercepted Moslem extremist e-mail when they were using AOL to coordinate terror attacks and oh, I'm bored now, fucking everything dodgy, immoral and illegal that's ever happened since 1945.

In fact, Love Prong Inc. agrees with the classic line from Robert Redford's character about the CIA: "You know, you guys are amazing. You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth."

Three Days of the Condor - a poor and totally unrealistic film about the CIA. I don't recall them mentioning the cocaine and heroin smuggling once.

Aside from the leftist slant in his selection of horrors to mention – the notion of a ‘democratically’ elected Marxist government of coercion is a particularly funny one – it’s a nice piece of writing.