Scheduling Note and Changes

News of enhancements to God's Spies

Dulles continued to operate as if he were still America’s intelligence chief, targeting the president who had ended his illustrious career.
—David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard

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A few housekeeping notes for readers of God’s Spies. For news on ways to earn paid subscriber status, see below.

Brief Vacation

This will be a quiet week for the site. I’m sorry about the delay in new material, but breaks are sometimes unavoidable. Posting resumes next week.

Book Reading Series

We’re going to implement a couple of changes here, all to increase material you will receive. While I’ve delayed the “Dawn of Everything” reading project (because I’ve delayed reading it), I’ve been drawn into other material.

Looking at Allen Dulles and the CIA

For example, I’m now partway through David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard, a comprehensive look at the career of Allen Dulles, once a high-level OSS operative stationed in Bern during World War II and later the first head of the CIA. He is, in fact, the person most responsible for the Bay of Pigs operation, which brought him down. Kennedy fired Dulles in the fall of 1961 after the Bay of Pigs disaster in the spring.

From the book’s opening pages (emphasis mine):

“Dulles would serve John F. Kennedy for less than a year, but their briefly entwined stories would have monumental consequences. Clearly outmatched in the beginning by the savvy spymaster, who beguiled Kennedy into the Bay of Pigs disaster, JFK proved a quick learner in the Washington power games. He became the first and only president who dared to strip Dulles of his formidable authority. But Dulles’s forced retirement did not last long after Kennedy jettisoned him from the CIA in November 1961. Instead of easing into his twilight years, Dulles continued to operate as if he were still America’s intelligence chief, targeting the president who had ended his illustrious career. The underground struggle between these two icons of power is nothing less than the story of the battle for American democracy.”

President Lyndon Johnson — inexplicably and inappropriately — appointed Dulles to the Warren Commission:

“After Kennedy’s assassination, Dulles would again push himself into the Washington spotlight, lobbying President Lyndon Johnson to appoint him to the Warren Commission. Dulles was so actively involved in the official investigation of Kennedy’s murder that one observer remarked it should have been called the Dulles Commission. He worked carefully behind the scenes with his former CIA colleagues to steer the inquiry away from the agency itself and toward ‘lone gunman’ Lee Harvey Oswald.”

Dulles, during his war years with the OSS in Switzerland, knowingly and explicitly worked against the policies of his president, Franklin Roosevelt. Dulles’ secret (from Roosevelt) Operation Sunrise saved Dulles’ Nazi Wall Street friends against FDR’s direct orders. And Dulles got away with it, thanks to Roosevelt’s death and the inexperience of the incoming president, Harry Truman.

This set the stage for the Dulles’ next big job as the first and longest-serving head of the CIA.

The Other Coup

See where this is going? It coincides with some current work I’m doing, looking into the modern CIA:

And check out the video in this recent tweet from Edward Snowden:

Snowden asks, “Does the CIA still do this?”

As a result, I’m going to broaden the “Dawn of Everything” series into a reading series, with commentary on books I think are of interest to the readers here. As originally planned, some pieces will be free and others for paid subscribers.

‘Links for Friday’ Posts

Some of the older “Links for Friday” posts, a series designed as a gift for paying members, will be unlocked for everyone. There are too many fun links in the series not to be shared more widely. Stay tuned for those.

Expanding Our Base

Last year and this have been very good for subscriber growth, but I’d like to see that increased, primarily because I think the subjects we’re covering here — climate, rule by the rich, the other coup and our own Praetorian Guard — are too important not to be more widely discussed.

So if you don’t mind:

1. Please do share our links as widely as you can.

2. Note that there’s a reward for subscriber referrals. See the Leaderboard link for more.

3. I’m more than happy to comp a year’s paid subscription to anyone who produces a recommendation from another Substack site. This includes the Substack site owner in addition to the person who prompted the recommendation.

Free vs. Paid

Finally, paid subscriptions are nice, and I really value those who’ve supported this work in this way. Note that I haven’t pushed hard for them though, good as they are, because I also value broad readership.

But paid readers matter to Substack, and Substack, I think, promotes sites with more paid readers with more effort than it promotes sites with high numbers of readers, but with fewer of them paid.

So I ask, if you can afford to move to paid — and only then — please consider adding God’s Spies to the sites you support in that way.

As always, free readers will always get our main weekly post, barring the occasional time off, plus a few extras. But I’m going to do more to enhance the “paid experience,” as our duplicitous marketing mavens like to say.

Speaking of “marketing mavens,” are you familiar with this guy, Edward Bernays? He’s the father of modern PR, aka propaganda, an industry that’s responsible for most of our modern ills. He’ll make an appearance in our Book Reading series.

Thanks!

Thanks to all of you, it’s been a very good year for us at God’s Spies. Believe me, I appreciate every one of you, new member or old. See you after a brief break.