Wag the Dog

Speaking of war...

I'm reading this book about the National Security Agency. It can be boring sometimes, but really interesting at others, in a nerdy sort of way. I was reading about the era of McCarthyism (sp?) when our country was so wrapped up in hating communism and anyone that professed to believe in it that people were blacklisted left and right as being communist sympathizers. In the heat of this (late '50s, early '60s), Castro was King Pin in Cuba. And America hated him. The author, after seeing recently declassified military documents, explains how the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time (the biggest of the big wigs in the armed forces) had concocted numerous game plans for creating a war with Cuba, just so US Forces could invade and overthrow his government. One of the suggestions was to shoot down an American commercial airliner over Cuban airspace and blame it on Cuba. Scary what can possibly happen when people with righteous indignation put their heads together. Thank God in this instance that they didn't get their way.

I wonder how our future will see our day and some of the controversial decisions made by our government. Only time will tell.

If you're interested: Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency by James Bamford; published by Doubleday.