Cynthia McKinney Goes to Iran and Libya... To Bash America

In an interview with Iranian Television, former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney claims that the American authorities killed JFK, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. She is a classic example of a useful idiot who continues to witting or unwittingly push Cold War era covert influence themes:

Cynthia McKinney: So what I would say since the United States is, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, is the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet and sadly suffers with guided missiles and misguided men. I would say that those who have worked very hard for peace, there was a time when we almost won. We almost won in the 1960’s but unfortunately because we were so close to winning the authorities fought back. We were so close to winning, and then they killed John Kennedy our president, they killed Malcolm X, they killed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Iranian Host: They were killed by the authorities? 

Cynthia McKinney: Yes 

Iranian Host: Ok 

Cynthia McKinney: Yes, um... this is all documented. Um... The CoIntelPro Papers, the Counterintelligence Program Papers document the history of US Government, uh how can I say, efforts to quash dissent and in the founding document which was written April 4 1967,  the US Government said they wanted to misdirect or otherwise neutralize certain leaders in the Black Community, the Latino Community, the Mexican-American Community the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, the American Indian Movement, all these various organizations, you could say they were liberation organizations, they all came together in the 1960s and 70’s... the people who want to deny human rights, human dignity, the warmongers; their revolution is always financed. So, if we could organize in such a way so that we could bring back the spirit of resistance inside the United States that we once had; organize it, finance it mobilize it, I think we’d go a long way to having peace. 

Iranian Host: Definitely

First of all, the assertion by Ms. McKinney that U.S. Authorities “killed” any of these men is simply ridiculous. Worse yet is that she was spewing this garbage in Iran of all places.  So what exactly are the CoIntelPro Papers? A simple Google search will yield plenty of results. One of which is a book written by none other than Ward Churchill called The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States. For those of you who don’t remember, Ward Churchill is the angry, fake Native American who wrote about America’s “chickens coming home to roost” shortly after the tragic events of 9/11. Oh yes almost forgot, Ward was found guilty of plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification in various written works concerning Native American history. Documented indeed.

Active Measure: Herbert Hoover A Homosexual?

Along with the CIA, the FBI was a target of Service A's active measures. Most of the propaganda was aimed at the Bureau's leader J. Edgar Hoover, who passed away in 1972.

The KGB's propagandists delivered their literary mud in three phases:

1. Service A portrayed Hoover as an extreme, ultra right-winger in cahoots with the very right-wing John Birch Society. The Service ended up obtaining some of their stationary; the full extent of how they used the stationary is unclear. They did however later forge a letter in November 1965, making it appear that Hoover was sending the society his warm regards, and that with FBI money the John Birch Society could open up more branches.

2. Operation SPIRIT: This operation's aim was to depict abuses of civil rights on behalf of the FBI. Service A forged yet another letter to make it appear that Frances Knight, head of the Passport Office in the State Department was really an FBI agent. The forged letter from Ms. Knight to Hoover asked for FBI assistance in digging up information on a Harvard Vietnam War critic Professor H. Stuart Hughes. The letter was sent to columnist Drew Pearson and published August 4th 1967. Both Knight and Hoover dismissed the letter as a forgery, but damage had already been done as the FBI did not readily deny contacts with the Passport Office. Lesson: always forcefully deny what are lies and follow it up again and again. Luckily, the damage wasn't too severe.

3. And finally, Hoover was a red dress and boa wearing homosexual. There is of course no proof for this. The KGB had taken testimony from a known perjurer, Susan Rosenstiel, and ran with it. Not helping the matter Hoover did, however, share a home with his deputy Clyde Tolson. Despite this there is no credible evidence that any unusual relationship was occurring. To the dismay of Hoover's number three Deke DeLoach, he was shocked how readily the smear was accepted as an "undeniable truth". This is similar to a "repeat it often enough and people will believe it" matter as is with a more modern urban legend involving Richard Gere and a Gerbal. The lesson is, the next time you hear: "But, I mean everybody knows it's a fact that...", take it with a big grain of salt.

Active Measure: JFK Assassination Conspiracy

This has long been a favorite among conspiracy theorists. I relied heavily on Mitrokhin's book (see previous post) to sum up the basics.
JFK's assassin, as we are well aware, was Lee Harvey Oswald. What many people do not know or have forgotten was that Oswald defected to the USSR in 1959 over "disgust" with the American system and admiration for the Soviet system. After subsequently annoying the Russians, he returned to Texas in 1962 with a Russian wife in tow. Various accounts claim that Oswald was unstable and a nuisance. But the fact that he had indeed previously defected proved to be an embarrassment to the Soviets; an embarrassment that they wanted to go away.
After the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had indeed acted alone and was not part of some Soviet conspiracy per se, the KGB sponsored the services of Carl Aldo Marzani, an American citizen, yet Italian born Communist codenamed NORD through his book publishing company Liberty Book Club (affiliated with book selling network Prometheus Book Club), codenamed SEVER, with a $15,000 grant to publish pro Soviet materials.
Upon this, Joachim Jösten (Joesten), a German author, later published a book called Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy? Joesten supported Moscow's assertion that the blame be place upon a group of racist right-wingers, most notable among them was "oil magnate" H.L. Hunt. Joesten's quotation inducing story basically asserted that the "right-wingers" were wary of Kennedy's wish to squelch the "military-industrial complex", thus starting the basis for a theme that would reoccur for the next 30 years: Oswald had ties to the FBI and CIA and was killed by the US Government to prevent him from talking.
Around this time, the Warren Commission's findings were drowning out Joesten's assertions. In rebuttal,  the KGB identified and financially supported New York lawyer Mark Lane as the most able conspiracy theorist to propagate said theme.

Mark Lane is well known as a person with close ties to Democratic Party
circles in the US. He hold liberal views on a number of current American
political problems and has undertaken to conduct his own private
investigation of the circumstances surrounding the murder of J.F. Kennedy.
(Mitrokhin Archive vol. 6 ch. 14, part 3.)

After the Watergate scandal, a new life was given to the CIA involved conspiracy theory where Service A was responsible for an active measure against E. Howard Hunt (not to be confused with H.L. Hunt, despite the fact the press did just that) a former CIA officer involved with the Watergate scandal. Thus, a letter, codenamed ARLINGTON, was forged to a Mr. Hunt "signed" by Oswald. This was actually fabricated by the Soviets based on phrases and expressions Oswald had used in the USSR. The forged letter is as follows:

Dear Mr. Hunt,
I would like information concerning my
position. I am only
asking for information. I am suggesting that we discuss
the matter fully before
any steps are taken by me or anybody else.
Thank-you
Lee Harvey Oswald
(Ibid).

There was much confusion and speculation as to who Mr. Hunt was. The KGB wanted to spin the story into a yarn of CIA involvement, hence focusing on E. Howard Hunt vice H.L. Hunt, the Texas oil man. It is unclear whether the KGB itself had confused the two names, but one thing is clear: the USSR's conspiracy theory, made possible through KGB active measures and the US government's own inadvertent confusion, could rightfully claim that even in the late 1970s more Americans believed the KGB orchestrated conspiracy theory than did believe the official findings of the Warren Commission. Now if somebody could just tell that to Oliver Stone.