Reddit reviews The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

Truman created the CIA in 1947 by signing the National Security Act into law.

The Act was created in the aftermath of World War II and in anticipation of the emerging Cold War. It consolidated the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment. It also created the Department of the Air Force from the division that was formerly a part of the U.S. Army. The National Military Establishment, later renamed the “Department of Defense” in 1949, was headed by the Secretary of Defense. The National Military Establishment began operations on September 18, 1947 – the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. The Act also created the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council, both of which are a central part of national security operations today.

Finally the Act created the CIA. The same provision of the Act that created the CIA also specifically stated that the Agency would have “no police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers or internal security functions.”

Ambassador David KE Bruce warned Truman that creation of CIA would be an American gestapo. Truman did not heed the warning. It was, and is, in fact an American gestapo.

On November 22 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in a coup led by the CIA.

On December 22, 1963, exactly one month after the CIA led the coup that murdered JFK, President Truman published an open letter in the Washington Post, entitled "Limit CIA Role To Intelligence, stating:

"I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
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For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas. I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.
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But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere. We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.”

Former CIA director Allen Dulles responded to Truman’s open letter by visiting Truman to pressure him to retract it. When Truman refused Dulles lied and spread the word that Truman had disowned the letter. Then Dulles had the letter pulled from later editions of the Post.

On January 17, 1961, three days before JFK's inauguration, President Eisenhower went on TV to warn the public and the incoming president:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

However, Eisenhower spent 8 years enabling the MIC that he warned against, really more of an admission than a warning. He essentially built a hand grenade, pulled the pin, tossed it at JFK, and muttered "look out."

His CIA chief was Allen Dulles, an absolute monster. (Highly recommended book about him: https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174).
His Secretary of State was John Foster Dulles, a fascist capitalist cut out of the same cloth as his brother Allen. His Vice President was Nixon, who was a creature built by the Dulles Brothers and Prescott Bush (father of George HW Bush).

Eisenhower and Truman were hideous corrupt presidents. Watch Oliver Stone's "Untold History of the United States" for more on how badly they damaged the world. Their actions doomed JFK, the last real president of the 99%.

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174

https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1439193886/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Family-Secrets-Americas-Invisible-Government/dp/1608190064

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

https://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446


Those are the books that you should read.

Here are also some good resources:

Paul Craig Roberts worked in the Reagan administration: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

This is a good multi-part article excerpted from one of the books above: http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/09/16/part-1-mr-george-bush-of-the-central-intelligence-agency/

Michael Glennon’s abstract about his book: http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Final.pdf

A PDF of the “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” book if you don’t want to buy it: http://resistir.info/livros/john_perkins_confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man.pdf

This is when the reporter asked Bill Clinton about Mena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDMktUYvC7k

Article on the coup attempt in France: http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/10/20/jfk-assassination-plot-mirrored-in-1961-france-part-1/

All of whowhatwhy.org is very good. There is probably a lot of good information there most haven’t heard of. The main guy, Russ Baker, is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist.

Bet you didn’t know that Bob Woodward was a state intelligence asset/disinformationist? https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/710466456941686784

All part of the record…. Enjoy.

Thanks for posting. VERY interesting read. I'm not the most versed on the details of either shooting and I'm also a bit weak on my CIA history. I found these two texts in the comments. Has anyone read them?

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174

https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1439193886

Dis Book Right Ya

Ver (and others) have unstated motives. Many complex games being played out here. Although no way to prove it now, imho history will show that state actors were involved in manipulating cryptocurrency from its inception. Read https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062276174/ "The Devil's Chessboard" by Talbott to understand how these entities operate. They are not gonna leave something as disruptive as Bitcoin to chance.

do you know what sub you are in? If there was proof it wouldn't still be going on now would it?

That said, it has been long speculated and debated that the CIA used mind controlled agents like Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray to assasinate JFK, RFK, and MLK. look it up.


the CIA had mastered MKUltra, Artichoke, and Monarch programming by the 60s and were known to have been using it in several ways to control individuals, including sex slaves. They may have used Marilyn to smear JFK

maybe you should research this stuff youself - it is widely known

"The Devils Chessboard" is a good start.

By Way of Deception, The Big White Lie, Reluctant Spy, and The Devil's Chessboard are a few that come to mind immediately.

Here are three. Knock yourself out!

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174

https://www.amazon.com/How-America-Lost-Its-Secrets/dp/0451494563

https://www.amazon.com/Marys-Mosaic-Conspiracy-Kennedy-Pinchot/dp/1510708928

Either of these are great :)

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-World-History-Intelligence/dp/0300238444

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2COOWAA65R5ES&keywords=devils+chessboard&qid=1556071179&s=gateway&sprefix=devils+chess&sr=8-1

I mean the founder of Salon, David Talbot wrote a book on this stuff. They are hardly a right wing outlet.
https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174


FFS, Bill Moyers hosts an indepth article on the deep state on his personal site and he is as far left as you can go and be on tv.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

JFK didn't trust the CIA. The Deep State as a label might be too cloke and dagger. The left tends to react based on emotion first....Maybe reference it as the Unelected Career Intelligence Agents or the Fourth Arm of Government.

I’ve just started reading The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot. Kennedy really wasn't super Cold-War-ey and didn't play ball at all with Dulles and the CIA. That group of nut jobs wanted to defeat the USSR at all costs, and believed the US would be the victors in a nuclear war. JFK most assuredly did not, and was seeking to create a thaw in the Cold War.

I've scanned through parts of the book that I haven't actually read yet, as one does. And Talbot is so completely matter of fact about the CIA and Dulles being involved in the Kennedy assassination, and how JFK was believed to be a problem that had to be dealt with, that it was shocking to me.

I recommend this book and also One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Princeton historian Kevin Kruse. I think read together they present a very cogent depiction of a hunk of history which has today become a sort of unquestioned consensual reality, but which was actually consciously constructed by special interests. Another good book which details JFKs turn from cold war thinking is JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass

I was referring mostly to one particular character in the film who represented the voice of those who felt the Nazis had the right idea, not the film as a whole. But that opinion went right up to the top, even if it wasn't always out in the open.

Check out this excellent book about the people who basically set up what is still with us in a far more powerful form.

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174

I grew up in occupied Germany and my dad worked with many relatively high ranking Nazis who escaped punishment as the amnesties expanded multiple times and they moved right back into positions of power in the postwar state. And all that Gladio shit, especially in Italy, that was the Europe I grew up in.

Whatever good vs evil narrative being manufactured for the masses back home, the US state was always far more comfortable with the Nazis than the remnants of any of the socialist parties that opposed them before the war.