An Honest Man

I’ve known Ray McGovern since we were both about 7 years old. He was a straight shooter then, and he is one still.

He was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990 beginning under President John F. Kennedy and lasting until the Presidency of George H. W. Bush. From 1981 to 1985 he prepared and presented the President’s Daily Brief one-on-one to President Ronald Reagan’s most senior national security advisers including then Vice President George H. W. Bush.

In 2003 Ray came out of retirement and founded the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) which analyses and criticizes the use of intelligence. He famously confronted Donald Rumsfeld publicly about lying about
W.M.D. and nearly got him to recant his statements. Ray also protested a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by turning his back only to be physically removed, double handcuffed and seriously battered and bruised. He did this at the spry age of 71.

This is a long interview, but well worth making the time for. It’s history as related by an insider, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to events in the Ukraine today.  And it’s often at variance with what the “mainstream” is reporting (what he would call the ‘Fawning Corporate Media’).

Here’s a quotation: “The Fourth Estate in this country has been captured by government and corporations, the military-industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus. Captive! So, there is no Fourth Estate.  Luckily, there is a Fifth Estate. The Fifth Estate exists in the ether. It’s not susceptible to government, corporations, advertisers or military control. It’s free. That is very dangerous to people who like to make secrets and to make secret operational things. It’s a huge threat. And the Empire – the Goliath here – is being threatened by a slingshot in the form of a computer and a stone through these emissions thrown into the ether to our own computers.”

This interview is a great example of the Fifth Estate.

You can see it here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39685.htm
  

Alternate url:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C17ordxRq-g#t=9618

His
website is: http://www.raymcgovern.com