“By using composite or archetypal characters modeled on real CIA officers, by placing them in scenarios based on actual historical events, and by careful attention to sets, costumes, and other details, The Good Shepherd has a degree of authenticity, a documentary feel, reminiscent of Oliver Stone’s JFK. Intelligence officers should know about the many liberties the film takes with history, but those new to the profession or hoping to learn something about its history may not readily recognize the distortions.”

(The Good Shepherd — Central Intelligence Agency)

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Trust me to find the Jewish Israeli Zionist Mossad angle!

 “Under the heading of foreign intelligence, there was the Israeli desk, the Lovestone Empire, and a variety of smaller operations. The Israeli connection was of interest to Angleton for the information that could be obtained about the Soviet Union and aligned countries from émigrés to Israel from those countries and for the utility of the Israeli foreign intelligence units for operations in third countries. Angleton’s connections with the Israeli secret intelligence services were useful in obtaining from the Israeli Shin Bet a transcript of Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 speech to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Congress denouncing Joseph Stalin.” 

(James Jesus Angleton – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

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One could not ask for more openness from an “open society”.

Our commanders show their faces.

Our secret agencies turn up their histories — and if I (or anyone else) want to travel down to M Street, Foggy Bottom, Georgetown, all of that, whether for romance or inspiration, insight or, it’s always possible, the “skinny”, one may do as much.

From the cookie jar to the nuclear arsenal, people lie only . . . to hide something or to get something.

It’s not a good thing even if in a good cause or a snooty one, perhaps.

It gets messy.

The film takes the viewer through the messiness, the spider’s web, the snake pit, the scorpion’s den.  In that, it may be much, much less about history and much, much more about diplomacy.

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▶ Skull And Bone: We Have the United States of America (Good Shepherd) – YouTube

Ouch!

In today’s America, personnel in government, every corner of it, in general — the exceptions will wind up in court, I’m certain — is the world’s “rainbow coalition”.

* * *

I’ve a new page started on “Associated Articles of Governance – United States of America“.  The centuries-young mission has changed the character of the realpolitik, and for all the grousing and polarization, God knows it’s a great place for the portion of humanity inhabiting it and, despite the criticism and the bloody messaging, still a beacon to those suffering in the shadows of political tyranny.

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