"For George Orwell, There Was Nothing Pro-American About Animal Farm"

"'Halas and Batchelor had to compete in the world market with Disney, so a few cartoon gags were introduced into the film to lighten its heaviness, and I believe that whatever the CIA's influence might have been, the choice for an upbeat ending came out of the animator's wish to succeed with the audience. There were movies of the period like the live film, My Son John (1952), which attacked the menace of communism head-on in a contrived and obvious fashion, so I guess anything is possible. If Orwell had lived longer, I suspect he would have vetoed any effort to translate his work into such a film.'"


Karl Cohen in a 2003 Guardian article recounts the production of the 1954 animated version of Animal Farm.

"CIA Admits Role In 1985 Coup To Oust David Lee Roth"

"'Had we not moved when we did, there's no telling what kind of detrimental effect Roth would have had on the band's move into more mainstream pop territory and the state of rock music as a whole. We saw the opportunity to remove this uncontrollable megalomaniac from power while safeguarding the American people from his potent influence, and we seized it.'
"'The last thing we wanted was to have another "Panama" on our hands,' he added."


From The Onion.

Screams at the Cuban Shore

"Throughout all of this, United Fruit defined the modern multinational corporation at its most effective—and, as it turned out, its most pernicious. At home, it cultivated clubby ties with those in power and helped pioneer the modern arts of public relations and marketing. (After a midcentury makeover by the 'father of public relations,' Edward Bernays, the company started pushing a cartoon character named Señorita Chiquita Banana.) Abroad, it coddled dictators while using a mix of paternalism and violence to control its workers. 'As for repressive regimes, they were United Fruit’s best friends, with coups d’état among its specialties,' Chapman writes. 'United Fruit had possibly launched more exercises in "regime change" on the banana’s behalf than had even been carried out in the name of oil.'"

Daniel Kurtz-Phelan reviews Peter Chapman's Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World in The New York Times.

Sweet Isolation

Douglas Martin in The New York Times reports the death of William F. Buckley, Jr.

In Good Company

"His 1975 book, 'Inside the Company: CIA Diary,' infuriated American officials by identifying about 250 officers, front companies and foreign agents working for the United States. His example inspired several more books and magazines, including Covert Action Information Bulletin, written by close associates and sometimes with Mr. Agee’s help, which published the names and often the addresses of hundreds more agency officers working under cover around the world.
"The exposés of Mr. Agee and others led Congress to pass the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which made it a crime to intentionally reveal the identity of a covert intelligence officer. An investigation of the possible violation of that law in 2003 after Valerie Wilson was named as a C.I.A. officer led to the perjury conviction last year of I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff."

Scott Shane in The New York Times writes an obit for Philip Agee, C.I.A. apostate.

Company Men

Nicholas Dujmovic in Studies in Intelligence reviews Tim Weiner’s National Book Award-winning Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

Exposing the "Family Jewels"

George Washington University's National Security Archive reports the contents of the Central Intelligence Agency's latest document dump.