“Here’s the link to that story. Should be fascinating, tracing origins of this spying and surveillance which now threatens to overwhelm us all.”

Fatster, thanks for linking the article — yea, I found it fascinating. The estate (Longlea) where the files were found is not described in the article, but OH WHAT THE STONE AND BRICK WALLS COULD TELL!!!

During WWII, it was owned by a Texas newsman/Washington Operator named Charles Marsh. Marsh had a long time relationship with the top British Spy, William Stephenson, (The Man Called Intripid) — and probably more or less worked for him during the war, spying on Henry Wallace and Lyndon Johnson. Johnson used the estate for his long term relationship with Alice Glass, but it was also where Clara Booth Luce hung out and Fu**ed everyone with a male orientation. (See “The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the Wartime Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, by Jennet Conant for all the romantic details.) Eventually it went to Paul Mellon, and I would imagine the clean-out came when he died a few years back. In fact Mellon served in some sort of hush hush super secret outfit during WWII, so the files were probably intrusted to him given his possible connection to something like “The Pond”.

I suspect there is an interesting tie-in between the decision to close it down given the connections with Tail-Gunner Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover who was always trying to poach on CIA’s turf, and the politics of the early Eisenhower Administration. Ike was determined to take down McCarthy in the 53-54 period, but he wanted it done without leaving any fingerprints. It all has to do with Ike’s essential deep loyalty to George Marshall, (whom McCarthy had called a Commie because of the loss of Red China and Yalta). The Army-McCarthy Hearings provided the venue for the take down, but in addition, he had to close down things like “The Pond” which had supported McCarthy and his minions. What I find interesting is that this is the period when Allan Dulles built the Congress of Cultural Freedom — which very much involved getting the left-liberal arts, music and writers class in Europe on board the CIA Gravy Train of funded exhibits, concerts, literary magazines, and all the rest as a sort of Socialist alternative to Soviet efforts to flirt with the Western Arts and Literary World. Whole thing came crashing down in 1966 when Ramparts broke the story — but it almost didn’t get off the ground because some of Joe McCarthy’s boys wanted to attack CIA’s and Dulles’s connections with the European Left Lit Set. (Full Story, see Frances Stonor Saunders book, “The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters.”)

It is rather ironic, you know, that eventually the Nixon Administration sold Richard Mellon Scaife the remains of the CIA Lit operation (they had ownership of magazines, monthly literary papers and two conference centers) just before he resigned the Presidency for a cool million. Richard Mellon Scaife and Paul Mellon were cousins, but they hated each other, and never spoke except at an occassional funeral. Scaife built up the operation again, and used it during the Reagan Administration to campaign against South African ANC folk, and for the support of Apartheid. (has to do with Gulf Oil, and fear of Independent Blacks getting control of resources of interest to Mellon-Scaife’s African resource investments.)

anyhow most of this is just my chatter about some of the fun but absurd stories and connections one finds when exploring the Spy Game.