THE DEVIL’S CHESSBOARD: ALLEN DULLES, THE C.I.A., AND THE RISE OF AMERICA’S SECRET GOVERNMENT - DAVID TALBOLT

This was quite a week to finish this book. For posterity, I’m writing this a few days after what I’m hoping will be remembered as Fash Wednesday where the Trump/Q folks stormed the capitol. To quote Death is Just Around the Corner, “CIA-backed nazis?! In MY rotunda?!” This book makes a good companion with the KGB book I finished a month or so ago, especially since both authors are slanted pretty heavily against their subjects. Which is good. I would not like to read a CIA or KGB book written from the point of view that these are honorable institutions that have done good things. That being said, I found many parts of this book disappointing. I think this is largely because I’m more interested in the CIA as a whole rather than just Dulles and his tenure. Obviously, Dulles is pretty much the major force behind the CIA taking on a charter to conduct secret wars around the world from the time of their creation out of the OSS in ‘47 until right this moment. Actually, before ‘47 truthfully, since one of the books most interesting aspects has to do with the war years and Dulles efforts to first negotiate a conditional surrender with various Nazis he was personally fond of and then his efforts to install these same Nazis into positions of authority in post war Germany (we get lots of very interesting Gehlen stuff) or to help move them to more agreeable locals in South America. Additionally, I learned both Dulles’ wife and mistress (who went on vacations together and were friends) were patients of Carl Jung in Switzerland. Small world. We then get a tour of the early CIA “greatest hits” including the Guatemalan coup, the Iranian Coup and their role in killing Lumumba. All important stuff but things I’m pretty familiar with and none of these chapters offered a ton of new information but would be good for a CIA novice. The last third or so of the book is Kennedy assassination stuff, which wasn’t what I bargained for. As a non-boomer I’m not terribly interested in the Kennedy assassination, though, because this obsession typically overlaps with obsessions of mine, I’ve read a fair amount about it at this point (same with Manson stuff) and while this recounting is interesting and through, I still think the aforementioned Death Is Just Around The Corner podcast has the best deep-dive if you really want to go down the CIA/JFK rabbit hole. Either way, it is hard to watch the Zapruder film now and now see a front shot. Who knows? Surprisingly, there was some MKULTRA info I was unaware of (since it wasn’t Sidney Gottlieb), specifically the idea of “psychic driving” and subproject 68. I wish this book had focused more on the CIA generally and less about Dulles. It stops before the Chilean coup, to give an example of something I’d like to know more about. Either way, it’s good interesting stuff. If you’re surprised about a group of Right-Wing goons, duped by stupid propaganda yet still dangerous, storming a capital to violently protest a democratic election they disagree with the outcome of, perhaps you should look into this and consider that perhaps this is the a instance of chickens coming home to roost that would surprise even Malcom X in it’s on-the-nose-ness. ‘47 literal Nazis paid with American tax money.