BOOK REPORT: THE DEVIL’S CHESSBOARD* by DAVID TALBOT

 

DAVID Talbot’s BIOGRAPHY of Allen Dulles, head of the CIA during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy presidencies, often reads like a thriller. He sets the tone right from the start, in his prologue, where he records a remark Dulles made one autumn afternoon in 1965 as he walked with Harper’s magazine editor Willie Morris in the Washington D.C. neighbourhood of Georgetown. The former head of the CIA, 72-year old Allen Welsh Dulles mused at one point: “That little Kennedy…he thought he was a god.” (1) No further remarks of this nature were made during the remainder of their walk and the two men continued discussing the article Dulles was writing for Morris's magazine. The article concerned the failed invasion of Cuba by CIA-sponsored paramilitaries. The battalion-sized attack force was composed mostly of  Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro’s newly installed revolutionary government and who wanted to depose the communist leader. On 17 April 1961, the group launched an amphibious assault, landing 1400 men on the island nation’s south shore at the Bahia de Cochinos (“Bay of Pigs”). As the history books tell us, the operation was an unmitigated disaster and a black eye for the Central Intelligence Agency. With the Harper’s article (in the end, he never submitted it), Dulles hoped to set the record straight, as he saw it, and repair some of the damage done to the agency’s reputation by the incident. And the one person he blamed most for the invasion’s failure was the American  President, John Kennedy, who had denied last-minute U.S. air support for the endeavor. 

 

    DAVID TALBOT

THE PROLOGUE goes on to give an overview of Dulles’ time at the CIA. He was the second director  of “The Agency” (1953-61), which had been established in 1947 under the “National Security Act” by President Truman, who'd envisioned the organization as one which "correlated all intelligence and delivered reports to the President.” But Truman soon realized that “under the Cold War structure, the agency would become more than that.” Throughout his tenure in office, and in subsequent presidencies, one essential question was asked, yet never fully answered: “What is the role of a secret intelligence agency in a transparent democracy?” (Truman)

 

    ALLEN DULLES

DAVID TALBOT goes back to Dulles’ early years as a corporate lawyer in the 1920s and 30s with offices on Wall Street and, along with his brother John Foster Dulles,⁺ had a rich clientele both in the United States and abroad. During WWII Allen was station-chief in Switzerland for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), a spy agency for the Allies and the forerunner of the CIA. Noteworthy is the role Dulles and other operatives played in creating the infamous "ratlines" for escaping Nazi scientists, military strategists, and elites. Dulles was particularly proud of his involvement in keeping Reinhard Gehlen, Hilter's intelligence chief, out of the hands of the advancing Russians (who would have shot the Nazi official) as the war raveled to its close. And during the post-war years, Dulles even had him installed as West Germany's top security chief, giving the CIA a direct channel to valuable information about the Cold War scene in Europe (not-to-mention what Gehlen could reveal about Nazi Germany's security operations).   

AFTER the war, the perceived threat of international communism brought into being the CIA, and Talbot details how the agency evolved from an intelligence gathering service to one that practiced election interference, covert operations, and "executive actions". One thing I found interesting was the level of influence both Dulles brothers had on the direction American foreign policy took vis-à-vis the USSR. During the 1950s, the brothers successfully promoted a harder line against the communist state than President Eisenhower would probably have taken. Foster, as Secretary of State, handled diplomatic initiatives against the Soviets and their allies while Allen handled the covert war against the communists.

 

TALBOT shows us how the 'sausage is made' behind the scenes in government and elite circles, and partly answers the question Truman grappled with decades earlier: Just what is the role of a secret intelligence agency in a democracy? And, save for a few years following the 1975 Church Committee hearings in Congress set up to investigate CIA abuses¹ that temporarily clipped the agency’s wings, the answer is that the CIA's role in the intelligence game is to do just about anything it wants, or felt it needed, to do. Within reason, of course.

 

TWO REVELATIONS stood out for me: One I’ve mentioned—the hard line taken against the USSR that was promoted by the Dulles brothers which increased tensions in the already strained relations between America and Soviet Russia post-WWII.

The second I’d never heard before—that in early November 1963, there was a second plot to assassinate President Kennedy as he entered the campaign season. Kennedy was due to visit Chicago in a similar fashion as he would later tour Dallas. Marksmen were to be stationed along the parade route to kill the incumbent president as his motorcade drove to O’Hare Stadium for a rally. Details of the plot are sketchy, and I feel slide into the realm of “conspiracy theory”, but I don’t dismiss entirely the possibility; there are some curious coincidences between the two assassination plots, particularly their Cuban ex-pats connection....

 

N. MACHIAVELLI 1469-1527

TALBOT’S BOOK details Dulles’ personal life—his marriage, his mistresses, his relationship with his children, his friendships, and so on, and the reader is left with the impression of a man who holds great secrets pridefully, and who acts with icy rationality, seeing others as mere pawns for him to use, even those closest to him. Dulles would elevate people or sacrifice them as the situation warranted, and I see him as a psychopath, enabled and intoxicated by the secret levers of power he came to control and wield. Even after his dismissal as director of the CIA by Kennedy in 1961 following his Bay of Pigs debacle, Dulles maintained ties with many of the agency's high-ranking officers and with the expanding “deep state”, acting as an éminence grise behind the scenes, influencing CIA policy until his death in 1969. Machiavelli would have been proud.

 

Talbot structures his biography of Dulles chronologically, providing the reader with details of his many doings in the cloak and dagger business.

    BAY OF PIGS 1961

 

 SOME of Dulles’ top 10 hits might ring a bell:

👉1948: Italy: In the general elections, suitcases of cash were used to defeat the leftist Popular Democratic Front party.

👉1953: Iran: Promoted a coup in Iran to defeat the incumbent socialist prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh and installed puppet ruler Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. [Blowback bigtime! c. 1979. Ed.]

👉1954: Guatemala: Successfully promoted another coup to depose the democratically elected, though left-leaning, Guatemalan President, Jacobo Árbenz. Incidentally American Sec. of State John Foster Dulles planned the coup while his brother Allen worked out the mechanics. They were quite the team!

👉1960: Democratic Republic of the Congo: Operatives handed over left-leaning Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to opposition rebels. He was later executed. (That’s one way to keep your hands clean.)

👉1961: Cuba: Bay of Pigs. Oopsie!

👉1963: Kennedy assassination?

👉1963-64: Dulles is a committee member on the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. Talbot makes it clear this was a case of the fox guarding the hen-house. The ex-CIA chief influenced which avenues of investigation the committee took and, funnily enough, they all led to the “Lone Gunman” and self-described “Patsy”, Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

    DALLAS 1963

TALBOT’S BIOGRAPHY takes us along a rather dark and unfamiliar ground of hidden priorities and secret alliances within government, between government and elites, and between national and international power centres. In a 2015 Mother Jones magazine interview, Talbot states:

  

“But what I was really trying to do was a biography on the American power elite from World War II up to the 60s. That was the key period when the national security state was constructed in this country, and where it begins to overshadow American democracy [and where] you have the dynastic struggles between these power groups within the American system for control of the country and the world.” (Mother Jones)

 

HE ADDS, “I focused on those elements that I thought were important to understanding him. I think that you can make a case, although I didn’t explicitly say this in the book, for Allen Dulles being a psychopath.” (Mother Jones) 

TALBOT goes into considerable detail around the CIA’s possible involvement in the assassination of JFK and makes it clear that Dulles' deep-seated hatred for the president after his dismissal by him in 1961 was a strong motive for the ex-CIA chief to seek revenge. JFK was loathed among the ranks of the Cuban diaspora in Miami, who never forgave him for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the contacts Dulles had in their circles after 1961 is just one of several disturbing scenarios Talbot presents that suggest Dulles and rogue CIA operatives were complicit in killing the American president.

 

"He had to be removed. [Kennedy] That’s what I think the consensus [among elites, operatives] finally was about him. And Dulles would have been the person, as the executor of this kind of security wing of the American establishment, who would have been given this job." (Mother Jones)

 

WHEN ASKED whether today's surveillance system in the United States can be seen as a legacy of the Dulles' years, Talbot concludes: 

  

“That same kind of dynamic was revived or in some ways expanded after 9/11 by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld administration. Those guys very much were in keeping with the sort of Dulles ethic, that of complete ruthlessness. It’s this feeling of unaccountability, that democratic sanctions and regulations don’t make sense in today’s ruthless world.” (Mother Jones)

 

I'LL END HERE by recommending Talbot’s compelling and disturbing biography of a modern-day monster.

 

Cheers, Jake.

_______________________________________

 

* Great title, BTW.

 

+ Foster was Secretary of State under Eisenhower from 1953-59.

 

1.  MK-ULTRA, for example.

 

 

Talbot, David. The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government. HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, N.Y., 10007. 2015. Print.

 

 

 

Movies and documentary of interest:

"Executive Action" 1973, Burt Lancaster.

"JFK", 1991, Kevin Costner. (written and directed by Oliver Stone)

"JFK Revisited: 2021, Through the Looking Glass" documentary. (written by Oliver Stone)

 

 

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RANT: CLIMATE CHANGE: "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" YES. SOMEDAY.

 

CLIMATE CHANGE is a big topic for an average schmo like me to take on. I usually don’t know where to start. Do I begin with history: who, what, where, when, and so on? Do I crack-on about what our collective future may look like and how we’ll cope (or not) with the effects global warming will have on our weather, and on our lands and waters, and on ourselves? Musing thusly for any length of time makes me want to stick my head in front of a passing train. That said, here are a few points to consider:

SINCE the first Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, there have been global efforts, endless meetings,* studies, and countless resources thrown at the environmental project, all of which have failed to slow the release of CO₂ into the atmosphere one iota.  Since the late 1950s, when measurements of GHGs (Green House Gases) first began, carbon dioxide has gone from about 280 ppm (parts per million) in the atmosphere to 420 ppm, blowing well past the 350-ppm limit thought to keep average global temperature rise stable at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and no higher. (The more CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, the warmer global temperatures get due to the “Greenhouse Effect”.) Point being is that decades later, all that effort and money put towards solving the climate “crisis” has come to naught. Something needs to change.

 

IN THE FUTURE, we can anticipate more same-such solutions that produced indifferent outcomes at best, some better than others—solutions such as build-outs for solar and wind power, electric vehicle (EV) production, improvements in battery technology, fusion reactors, land banks, agricultural reforms, diet, mass transit initiatives, new models for urban living and housing construction, etc. Some of these ideas strike me as reasonable things to explore to gauge their impact on GHG emissions, and whether they can scale-up in any meaningful fashion. But proposals such as “sun blocking” technology and other climate mitigation regimes—carbon capture and storage (CCS) comes to mind—seem like closing the barn door after the horses have gone. And sun blocking (also known as “solar radiation modification”) seems particularly problematic. Essentially, this technology would attempt to replicate the effects of a volcano when it ejects particulate matter high into the atmosphere after an eruption. The material is light enough to remain for some time in the stratosphere where it acts as a “shield” repelling the sun’s rays and lowering temperatures. The “Year Without a Summer” in 1816 is thought to have been caused by a massive eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies (today’s Indonesia) the previous year. 

 

THE TECHNOLOGY is yet to be tested, but I question whether it could be done at scale to make a difference. In addition, what side effects would occur? Would a dimming of sunlight not affect agriculture in a major way, for example? Or weather patterns? And, what happens if you stop spraying the upper atmosphere? Won’t the sun come back with a vengeance unless you’ve dealt with rising CO₂ emissions in the meanwhile? Questions, questions….

 

ELECTRIC VEHICLES (EV) are another problematic response to climate change. If EVs take to the roads in significant numbers, such a mode of transportation that does not emit carbon dioxide gas seems like a positive outcome. However, there is the issue of the type of electricity generation used to power all those shiny-new green machines. If it’s from coal, oil, or natural gas, then those carbon emissions must be added to the equation, in addition to the rest of society’s electrical needs. So, there’s that.

 

And my thoughts on hydrogen fuel-cell technology replacing internal combustion engines for cars and trucks. One word: "Bang!"

 

PROPOSALS to sequester carbon from the air by hoovering it through millions of filtration machines or by ‘scrubbing’ coal-fired emissions and depositing them underground in geologically 'stable' rock layers (CSS), or else by chemically treating the captured carbon and turning it into a cement which could then be used as building material, again begs the question—can enough CO₂ be sequestered to make a difference? And how much CO₂ goes into building and maintaining green schemes like these? ANOTHER touted ‘green’ technology—NUCLEAR POWER—is seeing something of a resurgence after years of debate following the Fukushima disaster of 2011. China has plans to build a staggering 150 domestic-use reactors in the next fifteen years, according to Bloomberg. In 2023 there were 436 reactors in operation globally, with fifty-seven under construction (twenty-one in China with the remaining new-builds shared among a dozen other countries). Different configurations of nuclear power plants using "fast-breeder” technology, thorium fuel, “fourth-generation” designs, “modular” systems, and the holy grail, “fusion-power,"⁺ are variations on a theme that I suggest will prove neither green nor sustainable, nor attainable as far as grid-scale fusion power is concerned. Huge amounts of CO₂ are emitted in the construction and maintenance of these budget-busting multi-billion-dollar nuclear facilities, each of which takes 5-7 years to build on average and come with the additional problem of nuclear waste disposal, not-to-mention the complex and expensive de-commissioning process that must be followed as the plants age out. 

 

SINCE 1987, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain has been the proposed site for the disposal and storage of nuclear waste from the 93 nuclear reactors operating in 54 nuclear power plants in the United States.  Recent attempts to develop the desert facility have failed due to push-back from the Nevada state government and environmentalists. Canada has 22 reactors sited in 5 NP plants. Currently, there are two proposed storage sites for our country’s nuclear wastes. One, in Bruce Township, Ontario, is thirty miles from the shores of Lake Huron. Interestingly, its most vociferous opponents are Americans who share the Great Lakes watershed and fear contamination of their drinking water from such a nearby facility. There are currently 150,000 metric tonnes of radioactive waste in North America. Worldwide, that figure is estimated to be 370,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste. Ed.

AND recycling nuclear waste to use as fuel for standard and fast-breeder reactors is an imperfect solution, not only cost-wise, but also because the process creates a greater volume of lower-level radioactive waste that also requires safe storage facilities. Regardless of the drawbacks, nuke power is getting a lot of look-see from governments around the world these days for a variety of reasons….

  

I COULD go on and on discussing the pros and cons of the latest “green new deal” coming down the pike, and no doubt there will be many ideas and proposals coming out of Dubai’s COP28 climate summit, some good and worthy of consideration. But most of the proposals, and the new or old ones we’ll see down the road, are premised on business as usual. By this I mean that attendees overall assume that a North American lifestyle for everyone on the planet is the way to go. And it’s hard to argue that developing countries, striving to lift their populations out of poverty, like China has, shouldn’t use Western models of economic growth, even though their growing carbon footprints would raise global CO₂ levels significantly. Trying to stop developing countries from using fossil fuels to jump start their economies will be met with stiff resistance. Who are we to tell them no?  

ADDITIONALLY, no matter how many renewable energy sources you employ—wind and solar basically—their output just doesn’t scale. Such diffuse sources of energy simply can’t compete with the dense, embodied energy available from fossil fuels. Not even close. And 'green' nuclear power comes with a heavy cost, both environmentally, with uranium mining and nuclear waste disposal, as well as construction and maintenance costs needing to be heavily subsidized by increasingly scarce federal dollars. Thus, depending on renewables to power our electric grids and fuel hundreds of millions of EVs on our roads is doomed to fail.  And mitigation schemes such as CCS, solar shields and DAC (Direct Air Capture) are still on the drawing board. Carbon levels in the atmosphere will continue to grow for decades, affecting our climate, our waters, and lands in ways we’ve yet to fully comprehend. Renewables won’t save our fossil-fuel dependent civilization, as it is currently configured, no matter how many windmills and solar panels we may build.

WE can no longer have our cake and eat it too.

 

BUT don’t put your head in an oven (especially if it’s electric) just yet. While there will be hardships aplenty in the coming decades and centuries, there will also be opportunities for those willing to change and adapt. I’ll mention some in a later post. For now, this one has been glum to write and, I’m sure, equally glum to read. ‘Nuff said.¹

 

Cheers, Jake.

______________________________________

 

* Currently COP28 is being held in Dubai, capital city of the oil-drenched kingdom of the United Arab Emirates. Among the many factoids that will no doubt emerge over the two-week gathering in the Gulf oiligarchy country is the fact that there are currently 97,000 politicians, diplomats, journalists, and campaigners registered. There are also 2,456 lobbyists for the oil, gas, coal, and related industries attending—four times the number found at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. That’s progress for ya!

 

+ China is building a “fission-fusion” reactor demonstration plant. They are not alone. Several governments have their own experimental reactors. Fusion is the process of compressing together two atoms (unlike nuclear fission which breaks atoms apart) until they release vast amounts of energy. It is something that occurs naturally in the sun because of star's immense gravitational pull. Fusion reactors here on earth attempt to duplicate the pressure and temperature of the sun to get a similar result. So far, more energy goes into creating the fusion reaction than is emitted, so I'm not holding my breath for such schemes being viable beyond the demonstration stage any time soon. If ever. Fuggedaboutit.....

[CCS, DAC technologies, geological repositories for radioactive waste? It's almost like humans need to return to Mam Gaia's body things they probably shouldn't have dug up in the first place or used so profligately. It's like they're offering Her a kind of atonement or apology.  Two words: monkey trap. Just sayin' Ed.]  

 

1. SAVE some time and read John Michael Greer’s recent blog post, as I will be plagiarizing borrowing his ideas extensively. 

 

👉FOR an interesting article about the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site, and assorted problems therein, click the following link: 

https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/welcome-to-yucca-mountain

 

 

 

 

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