Review: The Witch of Lime Street by David Jaher

 

For millennia, religion, spiritualists, and ghost hunters have maintained that contact with the dead was possible. Lots of money was easily made by all of these groups by fleecing people into believing there might be something beyond the grave (religious groups are still raking it in.) Magicians, knowing how easy it is to fool people, have none of it. This book details the interaction between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a believer, Houdini, definitely not, and Margery Crandon, a very clever purported spiritualist.

 

The early 20th century was beset with occult fever. Possibly related to the huge number of dead from the "War to End All Wars," numerous psychics and mediums (mediae?) popped up playing on the need of comfort for the bereaved, some "gauzy borderland" where the dead and living might mingle.  In an effort to bring some science to the craze, the Scientific American offered a prize of $2500 (the equivalent of about $37,000 today) to anyone able to show and prove physical manifestations emanating from the dead.

 

Crandon looked to be the easy winner of the prize until Houdini entered the fray and insisted all her conjuring, voices, and sounds were fake. The group fo scientists the magazine had assembled to test her claims had been bamboozled, some by her (she had a sexual presence that was powerful), others by their failure to understand how they were being manipulated.  When she began producing "ectoplasm" from, her "nether" regions, I have to say, it got really goofy.

 

I listened to this book as an audiobook.  It's well-read and quite fascinating as a mirror on the 20's, 30's, with a peak into the lives of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini. Some of the minute detail of the seances got a bit mind-blowing but not so much that I wouldn't recommend the book.

Review: Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins by Annie Jacobsen

This provocative book could have been entitled "Hubris, or, How Government Does Things Forbidden to Everyone Else."  I've been reading a lot of books lately about cyber security and warfare as well as a couple related to diplomacy and the discussions that go on behind the scenes in making difficult decisions. Jacobsen adds another thought-provoking element to the discussion. Just what should be the role of secrecy and unaccountability in actions taken by government in a democracy where citizens are expected to play a role in decisions of consequence. Do a few people have the right to make decisions of extraordinary consequence that involve killing without better oversight. All of our previous presidents have had to make decisions that could result in the death(s) of people whose innocence or guilt is determined by just a few others.

    In the fifties and early sixties, the United States had an inadvertent shadow government consisting of the Dulles Brothers, Allen and John Foster, Director of the CIA and Secretary of State respectively. (See The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer for more detail.) Couple their antagonism and paranoia of perceived Soviet aggression, particularly in Central America with power, and you have a recipe for covert U.S. intervention to prevent the rise of nationalist states or any hint of revolutionary behavior that might disrupt the status quo, i.e.  dictatorial governments favorable to U.S. interests. Democratically elected governments were anathema given their messy nature and tendency to support their electors rather than the U.S.

In one of her presentations on YouTube, Jacobsen tells the story of a visit she received from one of her sources who had been in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  He showed her sons (with her permission) his scoped rifle which, when they looked through it, revealed the veins on leaves across the valley.  In another case, that he did not open for her boys, he showed her the contents: a very large knife with a serrated edge, the purpose, he explained, was for when quiet was required. Her reverence was palpable. 

    One of the covert operatives she reports on was Larry Thorne, recipient of the Finnish equivalent to the U.S. Medal of Honor, but also the only member of the Waffen SS to serve in the U.S. military.  By all accounts he was an extraordinary individual who, I would guess, would have languished had he lived to see retirement (he was killed in a copter crash in Vietnam.) Thorne took a covert team into Iran to recover material from a U.S. plane that had crashed in Iranian mountains.  They were never detected. 

The CIA operated as a virtual shadow government with little, if any, oversight, often with future unintended consequences. The failure of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, was not just because the U.S. failed to come to the aid of the French, but also thanks to the superior guerrilla tactics of Ho Chi Minh and General Giap who had been taught the techniques by the OSS, precursor to the CIA, to use against the Japanese. 

 

The title comes from the motto of the OSS, the covert operations group during WW II.  It was "Surprise, Kill, Vanish."  In a world filled with euphemisms (Reagan's name for the "kill list committee" (those targeted for assassination) was "preemptive neutralization" , Eisenhower's was  "the Health Alteration Committee."  The committee's role was to provide authorization for the assassinations.)  The euphemisms were to hide the information.  Jacobsen maintains in a democracy information must not be buried. The rules of engagement differ from the military to the CIA.  The Seals who killed Bin Laden were enrolled for the day(s) in the CIA because the CIA can operate in a country with whom we are not at war.  We have teams in 134 countries performing covert actions.  Completely at the sole direction of the President.   

 

The Bay of Pigs calamity was to have long-term implications for the CIA.  Kennedy was so upset with their failure that he reorganized it and placed it in the military structure.  This meant that the military would now be in charge of para-military operations.  The man he placed in charge of the covert operations was Victor Krulak*, leader of the Marines he had rescued during WW II. (Jacobsen makes the mistake here of assigning the rank of Lt. Colonel to Kennedy when he was in reality a Navy Lieutenant (equal to the Marine rank of Captain).  at the time. It was Krulak who was the Lt. Colonel. This change meant that during Vietnam, covert operatives had access to unlimited supplies of materiel that could be dropped to them using the endless resources of the military. 

 

As the author gets closer to the present, the descriptions and details get longer, not a bad thing and certainly fascinating, but the book loses sight of the forest for the trees.  The recounting of the debacle at Oscar 8, for example. The CIA had developed intelligence that General Giap would be at a certain location at a certain time on the Ho Che Ming Trail. A plan was created to kill or capture him, which, if successful, was certain to shorten the war.  SOG (Special Operations Group forces) men would be inserted following carpet bombing of the area by B-52s. Description of the scene was provided by the observer watching from above in a Cessna who desperately tried to warn off the approaching troop helicopters after they realized the bombing hadn't diminished NVA anti-aircraft at all. Unable to warn them off, the observer and his pilot, watched as each chopper was shot down as were 100% of the support aircraft.  Only about 25 survived in a huge bomb crater, so it was now a rescue operation. 

 

I'm not smart or well-read enough to know the veracity of many of the stories Jacobsen recounts. Kai Bird, an author, for whom I have great respect, and who wrote about the CIA, doesn't think much of her book, complaining she relies to much on Billy Waugh's account of things and that her focus is often conspiratorial and silly witness her book on Area 15 and the one on paranormal phenomena.  (https://tinyurl.com/2kdau6ec) I have read enough to know that many of the CIA's activities were rogue operations and of questionable long-term value with innumerable unintended consequences, often getting their presidents in trouble.

 

     The question I think Jacobsen should have asked is whether this kind of activity is better than war. Good question.

 

    *Krulak was an interesting character. It was he who, after seeing the unique designs of Japanese landing craft, that had a ramp in front which could be lowered, as a Lt. had proposed something similar to the Navy brass. His proposal was shelved and marked as the ravings of some lunatic. Unwilling to give up on the idea, he worked with boat designer Higgins to create the iconic landing craft used throughout the war, and without which, most beach landings could not have been accomplished. See Robert Coram's biography of Krulak. [https://tinyurl.com/y2h8zr8e]