Saturday, April 7, 2012

Secrets of success.


 Ironically, the nation's first chief spook, Allen Dulles (left), and the nation's first gossip monger, Walter Winchell, were both born on this day (Dulles in 1893 and Winchell in 1897).  Winchell rose first, becoming America's first syndicated gossip columnist, for the New York Mirror, in 1929, later expanding to radio.  He hoovered, and later Hoovered, his information indiscriminately, from entertainment, business and government, and used and abused his dirt just as indiscriminately. 

Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis
in The Sweet Smell of Success.
Winchell was a vocal supporter of Joseph McCarthy, who in 1953 launched the attack on the Army that would ultimately end "McCarthyism"; that same year Allen Dulles became the first civilian director of the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency.  By the time Dulles retired in 1961, Winchell was also fading from the scene, his less than savory persona having been immortalized in the play and movie The Sweet Smell of Success. 

Today, gossip is democratized and in a TMI-confessional world it's passed by the subjects themselves more often than not.  Which isn't to say there aren't secrets.  In fact, the United States government is bloated with secrets.  In an excellent January post on the New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal noted that "in 2010 alone, officials classified nearly 77 million documents, a one-year jump of 40 percent."

The Obama administration has
prosecuted more whistleblowers
than ALL PREVIOUS presidents
combined.  So much for transparency.
And woe be to those who spill government secrets.  Rosenthal's post, entitled "Get the Whistleblowers," concerned the prosecution of the CIA agent who disclosed the torture of 9/11 suspects and now faces up to 30 years in prison, while the torturers and the people who destroyed the evidence of torture will go free, along with the legal minds behind extraordinary rendition and the telephone companies who participated in illegal wiretapping, even as the Obama administration pursues and prosecutes other whistleblowers with a ruthless zeal unequaled in presidential history.

Here's the link:
http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/get-the-whistleblowers/

No comments:

Post a Comment