December 9, 1998 Listers: Last week a few messages appeared questioning my references regarding a few statements about the protocols required of FBI agents. The quotes here are from the excellently done (and rare) Mark Riebling book entitled WEDGE, The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA, 1994, NY: Knopf, pp. 8-9: "Even if analysis were to become FBI policy, moreover, Fleming [Commander Ian Flemming, British SS] believed that the Bureau's criminal investigators should be flanked wiht teams of experts from different backgrounds. FBI agents were good sniffer-dogs, but they were not especially promising material for a brain-trust. Most struck Fleming as Irish-Catholic Texans from second-rate law schools, which only invited British snobbery, but make it difficult to find plausible covers in places like Peru, where some SIS agents went around pronouncing gracias as "grassy-ass."(...) Finally, intelligence work required a system of discipline less strict than Hoover's, one that did not crush creativity or imagination. Realizing that "impressions made by Special Agents on the public have a great deal to do with developing cooperation on the part of the public," the FBI had imposed strict administrative code that extended even to a man's appearance and personal life. Agents had to wear dark suits, white shirts, and snap-brim hats; cut their hair two inches above the collar in back, and comb it just so on top so that there would be "no pointy heads"; they must keep a handkerchief in the right front pocket so no heroically firm handshake would be marred by "wet palms." Coffee was not allowed at desks, unmarried agents were not allowed to spend the night at girlfriend's apartments, and no FBI man must ever be drunk. The resulting white-knight mystique did ensure public cooperation, to the point where the flashing of an agent's gold badge was often enough to make an arrest, and a gun was almost superfluous. Most agents therefore tolerated such petty tyrannies, just as similar rules were endured by college football players or Marines, which many FBI men had once been, or by Catholics, which most FBI men still were. There was some logic to Hoover's tyranny; adherence to a common code solitified the FBI "team spirit," the sense of membership in a "family." Fear of The Boss did not sap this spirit, but rather made it possible. There was no "democracy" or "individuality" under Hoover, any more than there was under a football coach like Knute Rockne, or a general like Pershing, or the Pope; if you were going to go up against Notre Dame, or the Nazis, or the Devil, without discipline enforced by fear of your coach, or your commanding officer, or the wrath of God, you weren't going to win. Still, strict enforcement of such regulations did create a certain climate of fear, and some of the brighter agents had quit because, as one put it, "I always had the feeling that someoen was looking over my shoulder, checking up on what I was doing and how I was doing it. In fact, some of the FBI discipline verged on thought control." END>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ************************************************************** MINDCONTROL-L Mind Control and Psyops Mailing List To unsubscribe or subscribe: send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text: "unsubscribe MINDCONTROL-L" or "subscribe MINDCONTROL-L". Post to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wes Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, list moderator
