I was recently on The Afternoon Commute with Chris Kendall and John Adams to discuss my new show, The CIA and Hollywood. We discuss the first season of the show and what to expect for upcoming seasons. We focus on the culture creation aspect of the CIA, and how they are influencing not only societal norms, but influencing our opinions on events and people. Later we move onto a wide variety of topics including: Chase Brandon,George Orwell, 1984, Animal Farm,The Congress for Cultural Freedom, Peter Wright, Spy Catcher, Ben Afleck, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie The Quiet American, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Chuck Barris, Operation Mockingbird, CBS, The Social Network, Hill and Knowlton, Wag the Dog, Weaponized Culture,Judd Apatow, Modern Art, Presidential Elections, Shepard Fairey, Paul Begala, K Street, Pro Wrestling, The Clintons, Boston Bombing, Sandy Hook, Reality Television, The OJ Simpson Trial,Duck Dynasty,Libertarianism, Anarchism, The Gold Standard, Ron Paul, the Constitution, John Bush,September 11.
This is a wide ranging and long podcast (nearly three hours) We don’t agree on everything, but it is well worth a listen.
Pearse and Tom round off season 1 looking at the 2012 Oscar winning historical drama Argo, which is based on a real life exfiltration operation during the Iranian revolution. We discuss the CIA’s almost too-obvious involvement in the film, the background of how the story was declassified and turned into a movie including the shadowy figures of producer David Klawans and writer Chris Terrio. We stick the boot into Ben Affleck and his film, not just for its ‘Reel Bad Arabs’ racism but also its outrageous and possibly intentional historical inaccuracy. We analyse the weirdest Oscars ceremony ever, where Argo producers Affleck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov won the Best Picture award, before wrapping up by reflecting back on season 1 of this series and briefly looking forward to season 2.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am no longer associated with Sibel Edmond, or BoilingFrogs/Newsbud. I think she is a con-artist and a petty and vindictive individual. If you want to know more about why I broke off all ties with Sibel you can find out more here:
Sibel Edmonds is our final guest as we dissect this shambolic re-telling of the Soviet-Afghan War. Much of this conversation is devoted to what the film leaves out, such as Charlie Wilson being a CIA asset, the origins of Operation Cyclone being older and much more important than one drunk congressman and his ultra-right wing Christian friend and of course the likes of Jalaluddin Haqqani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Osama Bin Laden who are completely absent from the movie. This was a no-holds-barred critique of this quite shameful piece of CIA propaganda, and all the more fun because of that.
Thomas Sheridan joins us to talk about the 2010 film The Social Network, which tells the story of the origins of facebook. We discuss the class struggle portrayed in the story, the mechanism by which the film could have been influenced by the CIA, the archetypes in the finely-produced melodrama that plays out, the CIA’s silicon valley network which is conspicuous by its absence from the narrative, and the meaning of the movie’s dark and brooding tone. We also get into some unusual areas, including the mystery of the sub sandwich.
Tom Secker and I joined Kira Young once again to discuss our new podcast series The CIA and Hollywood. We discussed our reasons for creating the show as well as where we will be taking it in second season. Later we get into some of the cultural memes that the CIA is currently introducing into popular culture, with a particular emphasis on female characters in TV.
Good friend Adam joins us to discuss the 1998 action thriller Enemy of the State, and its unprecedented ‘revelation’ of surveillance technology. We talk about how the film has a rogue’s gallery of technical advisers – including Chase Brandon and Marty Keiser – and how this led to one of the most spectacular depictions of the NSA and the spy state in general. Following from this we analysed the likely purpose in the CIA masking themselves as the NSA in the film, and how this has scuppered the progress of any serious dialogue about mass surveillance.
Aaron Franz joined in the conversation as we looked at the film The Recruit, which more than any other film we’re covering in this season was moulded by CIA entertainment liaison Chase Brandon. Like so many films, it tells the story of a young person inducted into a secret world with secret rules and codes of thinking and behaviour, and in doing so inducts the audience into that same world. We discussed this dynamic from various angles – black operations, secret societies, occult or mystery school philosophies – before studying Brandon’s appearance in the most fascinating ‘making of’ documentary ever made.
Guillermo Jimenez joins us for this episode to talk about Robert De Niro – a man whose relationship with the CIA spans two decades. We look at four films – Wag the Dog, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers and The Good Shepherd, the latter three of which have documented CIA assistance in their production. We discuss Robert De Niro’s transformation from a serious dramatic actor into a kooky comedy figure, and the CIA’s apparent involvement in that. This led to us asking whether the three comedy films are trojan horses for a sneaky CIA agenda, and talking about how The Good Shepherd has many flaws but this did not stop the CIA themselves from praising it as ‘probably as good as any film on the Agency’.
In this opening episode of the new series Pearse and Tom look into the CIA’s adaptations of George Orwell’s two most famous novels – Animal Farm and 1984. We focus primarily on Animal Farm, a revolutionary animated film in several senses of the word, produced by Louis De Rochemont – a man who had worked with several other government agencies prior to making Animal Farm with the CIA. The animation was does by British firm Halas and Bachelor, and we also discuss their background. This episode also examines the paper trail, looking in Orwell’s FBI file and the MI5 records on actor Michael Redgrave, who starred in 1984 despite being a suspected Communist. We conclude that the CIA had something of an obsession with Orwell at this time, and were subverting his works quite radically in these films.
Launching in April of this year The CIA and Hollywood is a new series by Pearse Redmond and Tom Secker. The first season will have seven episodes where we will mostly focus on modern films, with guest appearances on five of the shows.
The full list:
Episode 1: The CIA and George Orwell
Pearse and I introduce the series and look at how George Orwell’s two major works – 1984 and Animal Farm – were both adapted into 1950s films by the CIA for propaganda purposes. Using files from MI5, the CIA and the FBI we outline in detail the people involved in the productions and how they fit into a wider picture of what was going on in Hollywood at the time.
In the first guest episode we welcome Guillermo to talk about Robert De Niro’s lengthy connections to the CIA. From Wag the Dog, where he plays a character based on CIA Entertainment Liaison Chase Brandon to the Meet the Parents film franchise which was assisted by Brandon, to his epic rewriting of CIA history in The Good Shepherd, De Niro has for nearly 20 years had some kind of relationship with the Agency.
Episode 3: The CIA and The Recruit – Guest: Aaron Franz
From one screen legend to another, Aaron joins us to discuss The Recruit starring Al Pacino. This film was co-written by Chase Brandon and the character Pacino plays is clearly based on Chase Brandon. This tale of a young man inducted into the secret world of the CIA is a perfect set up for inducting the audience into that same world, though what we find there is simply more layers of manipulation and doublethink.
The film that predicted the entire Edward Snowden story is next on the list, when Adam joins in the discussion. The Gene Hackman character, based on a role he played in the 1970s thriller The Conversation, foreshadows everything about Snowden, including his name and where he grew up, and the film’s depiction of mass surveillance has much the same effect on audiences as Snowden’s ‘revelations’ some 15 years later.
Episode 5: The CIA and The Social Network – Guest: Thomas Sheridan
The only film featured in this series that was not explicitly sponsored by the CIA, but which bears all the hallmarks of CIA involvement. Thomas Sheridan joins us to examine this fictionalised account of the founding of facebook, possibly the world’s greatest ever surveillance tool. We examine Aaron Sorkin’s career and the key information he left out of his screenplay about the early investors in facebook.
Episode 6: The CIA and Charlie Wilson’s War– Guest: Sibel Edmonds
One of Chase Brandon’s final films mythologised one of the most important events in understanding modern history – the Soviet-Afghan War and the CIA’s support of the Mujahideen. Sibel lends us her expert knowledge as we dismantle this piece of CIA unhistory – which is also scripted by Sorkin – and construct a true version in its place.
Episode 7: The CIA and Argo
To round of this season Pearse and I take a look at the Oscar-winning Argo, produced by the unholy trio of Clooney, Heslov and Affleck, all of whom have long-standing ties to the CIA. We examine the film not only as a deliberate mis-telling of real historical events but also as a celebration of the CIA’s very useful relationship with the Hollywood dream factory. We reflect back on what we have learned through doing this first season, and briefly explain what to expect from season two.
Porkins Policy Review 