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There are two general critical approaches to a spook agency (thank you Elizabeth I): One is that they are fundamentally evil prone, by very nature of the task.

There are two general critical approaches to a spook agency (thank you Elizabeth I): One is that they are fundamentally evil prone, by very nature of the task. This is your take. It's a plebe take. (I'm a plebe so no offense intended! /g) The other is that the power elite in a society typically reach an understanding on how things are done. And CIA basically is breaking that understanding, via undisclosed 'scope creep' lol. That is Truman's criticism. He wants the deadly tools of state under strict control of constitutional regime, not some Yale schoolboy network of ancient families.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I don't think that's my take. I'm genuinely interested in what Truman's take was, because this is a public letter by an ex-president. He clearly thinks something is going down. I just don't know if he's worried about something even worse than what we know from the history books. Given the timing you could easily read this as a public announcement that he wouldn't be going along with a CIA coup in the US. You could also just read it ass covering or internal political scheming. I don't think it makes any sense to read it as Truman suddenly discovering that the CIA was off the leash.
- eternalban 4y ago
  > I don't think that's my take. Sorry, my bad. I'm honestly not sure to what extent Truman was his own man, politically speaking. He was the "senator from Pendagrast" and then some bigwigs in Dem party who hated the idea of Wallace as President pushed him for VP in 1944. So when he writes "when I conceived of CIA" I'm not picturing Harry Truman deep in thought, rather sitting on his designated chair and being schooled by someone from Yale or thereabouts. He's the lesser Wilson, as a type, in my book. There is no question that power elites in this country clashed after WWII regarding how to operate. But I simply can't see Harry S. Truman in that company. So another possibility is he was being naive even when he wrote that?
fit2rule 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I don't think that's my take. I'm genuinely interested in what Truman's take was, because this is a public letter by an ex-president. He clearly thinks something is going down. I just don't know if he's worried about something even worse than what we know from the history books. Given the timing you could easily read this as a public announcement that he wouldn't be going along with a CIA coup in the US. You could also just read it ass covering or internal political scheming. I don't think it makes any sense to read it as Truman suddenly discovering that the CIA was off the leash.

eternalban 4y ago
> I don't think that's my take. Sorry, my bad. I'm honestly not sure to what extent Truman was his own man, politically speaking. He was the "senator from Pendagrast" and then some bigwigs in Dem party who hated the idea of Wallace as President pushed him for VP in 1944. So when he writes "when I conceived of CIA" I'm not picturing Harry Truman deep in thought, rather sitting on his designated chair and being schooled by someone from Yale or thereabouts. He's the lesser Wilson, as a type, in my book. There is no question that power elites in this country clashed after WWII regarding how to operate. But I simply can't see Harry S. Truman in that company. So another possibility is he was being naive even when he wrote that?

fit2rule 4y ago