A Historical and Hypocritical Curiosity

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/06/far-right-politics-hitler-d-day

The son of former CIA director Richard Helms is alarmed at the present political climate in the United States and as a result has pulled out a historical curiosity to make his point. He is in possession of a letter written by his father in 1945. The future CIA director was part of the OSS and wrote his infant son a letter on the recently defeated Hitler's stationary warning him about the evils in the world and his witnessing of them.

While we certainly join with Helms in condemning fascism and in particular the Hitlerian variety of it, the son of the famed CIA operative has no standing as his father's name is also associated with a great many evils. Yes, the evils perpetrated by the CIA cannot compare with those of Hitler but that doesn't lessen them nor their horrors.

And to be frank a more honest and penetrating assessment of CIA activities during the Cold War reveal a real holocaust – an endless stream of not just assassinations but governments manipulated and overthrown, wars and rebellions and other violence connected with its activities (such as the Drug Trade) that have resulted in millions of deaths. The violence of the CIA is not so direct in terms of the grand scale (though it certainly employed its proxy death squads and brutal dictators that did engage in mass slaughter) but it is no less guilty or evil.

When one considers CIA projects in the realm of medicine and mind control the analogies with Nazi doctors immediately come to mind and are appropriate. Most of the American public has no concept of just what its government has done in other parts of the world – in many cases outsourcing but managing some of its darkest and most nefarious deeds. MK Ultra which Helms helped to cover-up, is only the tip of the iceberg and despite official narratives the true nature and scope of its evil remains unknown. And certainly Helms and the organisation that he gave his life to had no problem working with ex-Nazis and was eager to recruit them for everything from science to political projects, to intelligence.

Indeed while I would not compare Helms to Hitler – such a comparison cannot be made, nevertheless his own words condemn him as they apply to him – a thirst for power, a low opinion of man, and a fear of intellectual honesty. His record of lying and deceit testifies to this as he spent a great deal of time covering up CIA atrocities and in not a few cases perpetrating them.

The article then turns to Donald Trump and his bolstering of White Supremacy in the United States and the violence it is generating. Trump stands condemned as evil as well as those who support him. We can agree. And yet Dennis Helms' statements comparing  and contrasting Trump's values with those of his father Richard Helms are absurd and offensive.

The article revealed an interesting historical curiosity and nothing more. In truth given the subsequent career of Richard Helms its rather absurd and testified to the kind of self-deception and delusion that often is at work among political leaders – totally blind and unable to grasp what it is they do and have done.

And yet, this sort of thing resonates with the public and in some ways it's appropriate that it appears in a pseudo-Left publication such as The Guardian which plays a specific if deceitful role in advancing the interests and narratives of Western power centres.