#148 The Ghosts Of Langley, John Prados

The Not Old - Better Show

Paul Vogelzang

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5 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2018

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Ghosts Of Langley, John Prados

Smithsonian Associates, Interview Series

By its very nature, the Central Intelligence Agency is an organization whose operations and history are necessarily cloaked in secrecy. What can outsiders really expect to learn about how the agency operates? John Prados, a senior fellow of the National Security Archive based at George Washington University, offers a clue: Organizations reflect the characters and personalities of their founders and giants in the field-for better or worse.

Through a critical examination of CIA leaders past and present, Prados offers a window into the often-unknowable workings of the world of Langley. He looks at a series of CIA leaders, including George Tenet, Richard Helms, and Frank Wisner, analyzing their influences on the spirit and direction of the agency both during and after their tenures. In the process, he surveys key operations in modern CIA history-both successful and controversial-and offers insights into the agency's potential evolution.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Not Old Better Show. I'm your host, Paul Vogel-Zang.
0:10.0	As part of our Smithsonian Associates Art of Living series, our guest today on the Not Old Better show is John Prattos.
0:17.0	John Prattos will be at the Ripley Center in Washington, D.C. January 18, 2018 to discuss his new book about the CIA titled The Ghosts of Langley.
0:27.4	By its very nature, the Central Intelligence Agency is an organization whose operations in history are necessarily cloaked in secrecy.
0:36.4	What can outsiders really expect to learn about how the agency operates?
0:42.0	The book really is the essential thing in the ghost of Langley.
0:45.6	It tells the story of how key figures in CIA history really have helped the agency to decouple itself from government
0:54.8	accountability. That was our guest today, John Prattos. Through a critical
1:00.2	examination of CIA leaders past in present, Prados offers a window into the
1:06.4	often unknowable workings of the world of Langley.
1:11.2	Join me in welcoming to the not-old better show Smithsonian Associate Series via Skype, John Prados.
1:18.0	Well, Mr. John Prados, welcome to the show.
1:21.0	Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, of course, your new book, The Ghosts of Langley, has ghosts in the title. Who or what are the CIA ghosts?
1:32.0	The CIA ghosts are those people that really sort of set the tone and set the pace for the agency as it moved through its 70 years of history and they
1:46.7	range from top people like Alan Dulles one of the first directors and how he sort of built a house for the agency to
1:58.0	rank and file people like the fellow who went ashore with the first wave at the Bay of pigs who
2:07.0	ends up stepping on the shores of Cuba where all the top CIA officials had assured the president
2:16.8	and his White House officials that no Americans would be involved in any way.
2:23.4	I have heard you speak previously, and you mentioned the Bay of pigs.
2:29.4	I've heard you describe John Kennedy, President John Kennedy,
2:32.3	as one of the ghosts and is that because of the Bay of pigs or is that because of the assassination what relationship does John Kennedy have into some of the ghosts?
2:42.3	John Kennedy angle is a fascinating one,
	...

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