Issues included were:
-The creation of the CIA and the role of Pearl Harbor.
-Vietnam: the Communist “domino effect” scare; LBJ lying politics, spinelessness of his courtiers; Tonkin Gulf; unacknowledged rift between Russians and Chinese.
-The misconceived conception of the CIA – the notion that covert action over-throwers of governments should be thrown in with the tell-it-like-it-is analysis group that Truman envisaged for the CIA; a structural fault from the outset (witness Nicaragua, Chile, for example).
-CIA Director William Colby fired for disobeying Kissinger’s orders to lie to Congress about earlier CIA abuses.
-How CIA analysts, with the help of innovative technical collection systems, were able to assure Nixon, Reagan, et al. that they could verify agreements on strategic arms limitations and reductions (“trust but verify”).
-Two Bushes – two attitudes toward “the crazies.”
-How and why the “mainstream” media, owned and operated by the “blood-drenched arms traders,” beat the drum (almost always successfully) for war; the powerful incentives for endless war; drone strikes = a good way to do that.
-How more sober forces overcame both media and neocons, in thwarting an overt attack on Syria in late summer 2013; how President Vladimir Putin then pulled Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire – another reason the media/neocons hate Putin.
-Ukraine – one “regime change” too many; Feb. 22, 2014 Putsch in Kiev was advertised in advance on YouTube; was later called “the most blatant coup in history” (George Friedman of STRATFOR).
-Surveillance and blackmail opportunities; is Obama afraid?
-Assassination of John Kennedy; James Douglass book: “JFK and the Unspeakable.”
-Drones: All those killed are assumed to be terrorists, unless they can later prove they were not terrorists and not dead (like Lazarus).
-Israel: The elephant in the room.
-Irish grandparents on the “Upper Crust,” and why the sun never sets on the British Empire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDQjK2nH7bE&feature=youtu.be&list=PLbUpWQNJM0jJeU6zrlvi4v9GcIfhZ6BJq
(Intro can be skipped by starting at minute 11:00; interview was on Jan. 21, 2016; posted Feb. 5.)