Before become a focal point of American right-wing
conspiracy theories about imaged plots to make the United States a communist state,
the Soros Foundation was praised and thanked for its role in bringing
democracy- specifically promoting freedom of the press- in the crumbling Warsaw
Pact- by Bush family consigliere James Baker.
I guess Soros fought Communism before supporting it.
An undated CIA report "Dissent and Religion in the USSR" reveals that the Soviet regime used Billy Graham and other high-profile evangelists to further government goals. According to the CIA study, visits by Graham and others served Soviet propaganda goals and weakened religious organizations hostile to the government. When Graham and others preached in the USSR, the Soviets were empowered to claim that free of religion was present in the USSR. Graham and others were allowed to “registered church” congregations which the CIA noted denied legitimacy to unofficial or illegal religious groupings which as documented by the CIA engaged in widespread, near- continual resistance to the regime. In contrast, clergy from registered churches were used by the Soviets for their own purposes. Some clerics served as "propagandists for regime policy," while the Russian Orthodox Church received additional support in the hopes it would poach adherents away from religions likely to pose a challenge to continue government domination.
CREST or the the CIA Records Search Tool is a system used by the CIA to make available declassified records since 2000. It is located at NARA II in College Park, Maryland. For years, this system and the records contained with were available on just four computers housed on the second 3rd floor of the NARA II building. The reasons this limited access were, according to Mother Jones's reporting: fear of hackers altering the information, an implict desire to keep foreign intelligence from accessing those files, and a general wish to prevent mischief.
This inclusion of "metadata" makes for interesting reading. Recently, I discovered that metadata can compromise information the CIA wants withheld on national security or privacy grounds. Here is a safe example of such. Enter the name "Ann Caracristi" (she was the first female deputy director of the NSA) into the CREST search engine. You get back one document.
Now, request that document from the CIA. Here's what you get. Notice how Ms. Caracristi's name is withheld. Oops. Caracristi Turner Letter
Half-Baked Declassification
Another problem with CREST is that it's subjected to the same half-baked CIA declassification standards as any FOIA, MDR, or statutory-required release. Here are two versions of a 3/14/1984 memorandum from Herbert E. Meyer to the Director of Central Intelligence,the deputy Director of Central Intelligence, and the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council titled: “Abortions in the Soviet Bloc: What They Mean.” The first version was released in August 2008. The second version was released in December 2008.
The August 2008 version has the following redactions:
A name or names on the first page is redacted while on the second page, Herbert E. Meyer's signature and another name are withehld. The third page is withheld in its entirety.
The December 2008 version it features fewer redactions. As you can see, the name withheld in the August 2008 edition is revealed. Meyer's signature is revealed though the name is still redacted. Only two names are redacted on the third page.
None of the Really Good Stuff is There
CREST and "Best of CREST" has a lot of interesting and worthwhile stuff. However, the truly fascinating materials are not hosted on the CIA's website. You have to FOIA them and then wait and possibly pay fees. This serves to limit access to these files by erecting utterly unnecessary barriers between the documents and the public. If the CIA has the staff and equipment to scan worthless thank you letters, than they have the staff to include copies of cool documents like the records on Stargate, Ramparts Magazine, and Grillflame, where most, if not all the responsive records have to be ordered up via FOIA.
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