flâneur

People, ideas, machines VIII: CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton, 'a wilderness of mirrors', covert operations, assassinations, moles & double agents, disinformation

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[T]he myriad of stratagems, deceptions, artifices and all the other devices of disinformation which the Soviet Bloc and its co-ordinated intelligence services use to confuse and split the West have confronted our policy makers with an ever-fluid landscape where fact and illusion merge – a kind of wilderness of mirrors, where honest statesmen are finding it increasingly difficult to separate the facts of Soviet actions from the illusion of Soviet rhetoric. Angleton Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will… If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of control. Bobby Kennedy to Ambassador Dobrynin, October 1962 Kennedy was trying to get to Castro, but Castro got to him first. LBJ to Howard Smith of ABC, 1968 It is inconceivable that a secret intelligence arm of the government h

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, Guides us by vanities. Think now She gives when our attention is distracted And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions That the giving famishes the craving… These with a thousand small deliberations Protract the profit of their chilled delirium, Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled, With pungent sauces, multiply variety In a wilderness of mirrors… Gerontion, TS Eliot [T]he myriad of stratagems, deceptions,…

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