Review: Why Does the CIA Need a Podcast?

The director worries that the public doesn't trust his spy agency.

When not spying on Americans or plotting the overthrow of [REDACTED], the CIA has been branching out into online content. The Langley Files is an interview-style podcast produced in-house for the CIA's 75th anniversary. Episodes run under 30 minutes and are hosted by Dee and Walter—who, true to form, go only by possibly pseudonymous first names.

CIA Director Bill Burns, the first episode guest, hopes the show will "demystify" the famously opaque agency. He draws a contrast between Hollywood spy movies and the actual "dedication" and "teamwork" of real-world spying. Career spies laud the agency's diversity and plug its YouTube channel.

The podcast is an obvious P.R. effort. When Burns worries that "trust in institutions is in such short supply," the show avoids any role the agency played in contributing to that erosion of trust.

Dee quips that she "can confirm that yes, we did invent" the phrase neither confirm nor deny. Left unaddressed is any actual covert agency activity: Middle East and Latin American coups, bulk data collection, a post-9/11 torture program that the Senate determined was "brutal and far worse than the CIA represented." The agency even admitted to spying on Senate investigators. The hosts sign off with, "We'll be seeing you." Friendly farewell, or threat?

Comments

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[Don't look at me!]

They no longer need to keep it secret.

[Naime Bond]

Actually this is a good idea because it's not covert, out in the open pure propaganda, and will be so 'logically' stupid and infantile, it will prove beyond all doubt that the CIA, FBI and many other alphabet groups need to be abolished or redone starting from a blank piece of paper. When the inevitable blow back comes, this will be cancelled faster than 'Lawless' (Fox action series starring former American football star Brian Bosworth as a private investigator - one show and gone).

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

How pathetic and embarrassing is it that most of the fools at Reason completely fell for "Operation Crossfire Hurricane" (the Russian collusion hoax) hook, line, and sinker? Especially when anyone with even half a brain was able to figure out that the whole thing was suspect as hell within a matter of months at most?

We even had far left mentally unhinged lunatic Elizabeth Nolan Brown writing stuff about some nonsensical "investigation" she was pursuing into some obscure young woman in a Russian prison that she convinced herself was the big missing link who would prove all the manufactured bullcrap in the "Steele Dossier" was actually true.

That's how crazy and fully brainwashed some of these Reason fugazis are. In fact, I bet some of probably still believe the shit even now.

[sarcasmic]

How pathetic and embarrassing is it that most of the fools in the Reason comments completely fell for Trump's claims of fraud and still believe Twitter cost him the election?

[JesseAz]

So sticking with ignorance in regards to the released information on Twitter. You've had the number of Biden voters claiming they would not have voted for him what, a dozen times? But you persist in the defense. Emails from multiple IC agencies to social media? Coordinating a hack story they knew to be false, pushing claims to social media? Not an issue for sarc. His team won. Good for him.

[ThanksForTheFish]

"You’ve had the number of Biden voters claiming they would not have voted for him "

But they did. Buyers remorse only works in the return window,

[ThanksForTheFish]

They're likely the same fools that are screaming about Kari Lake and how the election was stolen from her.

MAGA's pretending to be libertarians be crazy,

[sarcasmic]

Hi Tulpa.

[CE]

You mean, why does the CIA need a podcast, when the major TV networks and most of the newspapers and the major social networks already do its bidding?

[ThanksForTheFish]

I'd trust the CIA any day over the FBI.

[TangoDelta]

I trust all government agencies and politicians in the same way I trust a carpet viper or black mamba.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The hosts sign off with, "We'll be seeing you." Friendly farewell, or threat?

And no reference to The Prisoner and its famous goodbye quote?

(I loved it as a kid, although baffled by the final episode. I watched the entire series again a few years ago, and could barely pay attention. It sort of reminds me Sergeant Pepper is being very much appropriate for its time, but not aging well. Although Sergeant Pepper is still fine music-wise.)

[Unicorn Abattoir]

I can't wait for this podcast to tell us who was really behind the JFK assassination.

[Utkonos]

I’m too spooked to listen to this. I’m still not recovered from that one about the early years of the FBI—man was that a drag!

[Panhandle]

"The director worries that the public doesn't trust his spy agency."
He needn't worry. We don't.

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