Category: C.I.A.
Powers was discharged from the Air Force in 1956 with the rank of captain. He then joined the CIA’s U-2 program at the civilian grade of GS-12. U-2 pilots flew espionage missions using an aircraft that could reach altitudes above 70,000 feet (21.3 km), making it invulnerable to known Soviet anti-aircraft weapons of the time. The U-2 was equipped with a state-of-the-art camera designed to take high-resolution photos from the edge of the stratosphere over hostile countries, including the Soviet Union. U-2 missions systematically photographed military installations and other important sites.
Soviet intelligence was aware of encroaching U-2 flights since 1956 but lacked effective countermeasures until 1960. On May 1, 1960, Powers’ U-2, which departed from a military airbase in Peshawar, Pakistan with support from the US Air Station at Badaber (Peshawar Air Station), was shot down by an S-75 Dvina (SA-2 Guideline) surface-to-air missile over Sverdlovsk. Powers was unable to activate the plane’s self-destruct mechanism before he bailed out and was captured.
Powers’ U-2 plane was hit by the first missile fired. A total of eight were launched; one of them hit a MiG-19 jet fighter which was sent to intercept the U-2 but could not reach a high enough altitude. Its pilot, Sergei Safronov, ejected but died of his injuries. Another Soviet aircraft, a newly manufactured Su-9 in transit flight, also attempted to intercept Powers’ U-2. The unarmed Su-9 was directed to ram the U-2 but missed because of the large differences in speed. In The Skunk Works, Powers claimed that upon ejecting he saw the parachute of another pilot deploy behind him.
When the U.S. government learned of Powers’ disappearance over the Soviet Union, they issued a cover statement claiming a “weather plane” had strayed off course after its pilot had “difficulties with his oxygen equipment”. What CIA officials did not realize was that the plane crashed almost fully intact, and the Soviets recovered its equipment. Powers was interrogated extensively by the KGB for months before he made a confession and a public apology for his part in espionage. The incident set back talks between Khrushchev and Eisenhower. On August 17, 1960, Powers was convicted of espionage against the Soviet Union and was sentenced to a total of ten years, three years in imprisonment followed by seven years of hard labor. He was held in Vladimir Central Prison, 100 miles east of Moscow. The prison contains a small museum with an exhibit on Powers, who allegedly developed a good rapport with Russian prisoners there. Some pieces of the plane and Powers’ uniform are on display at the Monino Airbase museum near Moscow.
On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged, along with American student Frederic Pryor, in a well-publicized spy swap at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin. The exchange was for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher, known as “Rudolf Abel”, who had been caught by the FBI and tried and jailed for espionage.
In 2010, CIA documents were released indicating that American officials did not believe Powers’ account of the incident at the time, because it was contradicted by a classified National Security Agency report. However, newly released declassified CIA documents confirm the accuracy of Powers’ report. The NSA report remains classified. (Francis Gary Powers) (U-2 SPY-in-the-SKY 1)
Propaganda is a form of communication, often biased or misleading in nature, aimed towards influencing the attitude of a population toward some cause, position or political agenda.
Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (perhaps lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information presented.
Common media for transmitting propaganda messages include news reports, government reports, historical revision, junk science, books, leaflets, movies, radio, television, and posters. Less common nowadays are letter post envelopes examples of which of survive from the time of the American Civil War. In the case of radio and television, propaganda can exist on news, current-affairs or talk-show segments, as advertising or public-service announce “spots” or as long-running advertorials.
Propaganda campaigns often follow a strategic transmission pattern to indoctrinate the target group. This may begin with a simple transmission such as a leaflet dropped from a plane or an advertisement. Generally these messages will contain directions on how to obtain more information, via a web site, hot line, radio program, etc. The strategy intends to initiate the individual from information recipient to information seeker through reinforcement, and then from information seeker to opinion leader through indoctrination.
A number of techniques based in social psychological research are used to generate propaganda. Many of these same techniques can be found under logical fallacies, since propagandists use arguments that, while sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid.
Information dissemination strategies only become propaganda strategies when coupled with propagandistic messages. Identifying these messages is a necessary prerequisite to study the methods by which those messages are spread.
The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.
(Propaganda Techniques)
- Labels: big brother, C.I.A., corporations, corruption, fascism, government, media, military, propaganda, war
Operation Mockingbird was a secret campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media.
Begun in the 1950s, it was initially organized by Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles, and was later led by Frank Wisner after Dulles became the head of the CIA.
The organization recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA’s views, and funded some student and cultural organizations, and magazines as fronts.
As it developed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities by other operating units of the CIA. (read more)
- Labels: C.I.A., corporations, corruption, deception, lies, media, propaganda, television
The carnage and mayhem committed by the criminal, unelected, unaccountable, woefully incompetent and ignorant C.I.A. on the rest of the world and, indeed, upon the American homeland itself defies belief, logic or common sense.
A crime committed behind closed doors, in secret is still a crime. The rest of the world trusted, lived their lives moved forwards but the C.I.A. has lied, cheated, stolen, in the name of American citizens, who are themselves being kept ignorant of the true nature of the United States of America.
What could have been a great country is now shamed and stumbling towards the abyss, citizens fighting and trampling others for $19 off a PlayStation, ignorant, or uncaring of the millions who have suffered and are suffering in their name, for their “freedom” to shop!
Culture, learning, art, beauty, truth all lost on people who don’t want to know about the rest of the world, don’t care about the children crying, even their own, it seems, every person just a commodity to be used and abused by capitalism, a system that has failed and is responsible for the failing, polluted world we now live in.
Come on you Yanks, stand up, be counted, don’t put up with this any more, you cannot win any of the stupid, criminal wars you have started and most of you don’t even know why your young people from poor families are being sent to murder other poor people from a different country.
STOP drinking the fluoride, stop eating the nasty food, remember you are human, people, no better or worse than anybody else, you don’t have the right to kill others, tamper with other countries or believe you are the master race, face it you are a plague on the world, through the workings of your “democratic” government and everything they do is done in your name!
WAKEY WAKEY Yankie Doodle it’s time to shine, be the light, be the change, write a letter, tell your friends, walk, march, be vocal, demand answers, you are not alone, the rest of the world wants this madness to stop, wants to fly through the night not hearing the children crying in their pain and grief, and perhaps, when you face these horrors, stand up for change and stop criminals murdering countless millions for your “security” the world will be kinder and gentler with you than you ever were with it.