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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsReagan Was An FBI Informer (reporting other actors whom he suspected of subversive activities)
Rosenfeld's book, Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals and Reagan's Rise to Power, is now out in paperback. It details how the FBI employed fake reporters to plant ideas and shape public opinion about the student movement; how they planted stories with real reporters; and how they even managed with the help of then-Gov. Ronald Reagan to get the UC Berkeley's President Clark Kerr fired.
To research the book, Rosenfeld pored over 300,000 pages of records obtained over 30 years from five lengthy Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the FBI.
The records "show that during the Cold War, the FBI sought to change the course of history by secretly interceding in events, by manipulating public opinion and taking sides in partisan politics," Rosenfeld says.
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/16/212381996/student-subversives-and-the-fbis-dirty-tricks
For me, one of the gems of that report was learning that Reagan was an FBI informer:
http://m.npr.org/news/Arts+%26+Life/159373688
zbdent
(35,392 posts)he's the ultimate patriot.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)The United States went through a period when your political affiliation could get you the death penalty. That should give some perspective on the extremity of the right and people like Ronald Reagan. They are political criminals in their own right due to the degree of intolerance they own and foster. Human beings have a right to their own political preference.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)This is why those folks who make attack posts about liberal actors are so deeply offensive to anyone with knowledge of the history of that industry who is a liberal of any sort.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)"The Democratic Party left me". Well apparently he left them for a more conservative paranoid stance. He also claimed that Medicare would be the death of America.
Cronus Protagonist
(15,574 posts)It seems to fit the current administration.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)in his fellow actors, who in many cases were far more successful than he. The lowest species of worm.
I remember reading a comment from his first wife, who was asked what she thought of her ex becoming POTUS. She said something like 'he was the most boring man to be around. Whenever we had company, he would play his old movies over and over, boring everyone in the room.'
Reagan was the beginning the beginning of the downfall of Democracy or even a semblance of it, in the US. He was used to start the infamous Drug War which began the destruction of Civil Rights and it has gone downhill ever since.
eShirl
(18,490 posts)tomp
(9,512 posts)sorry, but america's downhill slide goes back way before reagan, either in the 50's or the 80's. Although in both era's he was right there with the worst of the worst.
chimpymustgo
(12,774 posts)zbdent
(35,392 posts)yep, yet another case of something not ever being his or her won fault.
Kinda like evolution leaving behind a bunch of conservatives ...
Conservative to blacks - "You'll never see a black president".
Conservative to NASA - "You'll never get a man on the moon."
Conservative to the Wright brothers - "You'll never get it off the ground."
Conservative to Henry Ford - "Get a horse."
Conservatives to teachers - "Nobody can educate a negro."
Conservative to Lincoln - "You'll never get people to agree to end slavery."
Conservative to the Founding Fathers - "I'll laugh as you kick your feet in the air from the end of a rope!"
Conservatives to Columbus - "Have fun falling off the edge of the Earth."
Conservative to "Man" - "What are you doing out of the tree?"
Conservative to monkey - "What are you doing in that tree?"
Conservative to land animal - "What are you doing out of the ocean?"
Conservative to multicelled organism - "One's fine to me."
Conservative to God - "TURN OFF THAT DAMN LIGHT!"
asjr
(10,479 posts)the Joe McCarthy hearings when he outed a number of actors and writers who presumably belonged to the communist party.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)I don't recall Raygun testifying in the Army McCarthy hearings at all. I just remember he testified in the HUAC hearings.
asjr
(10,479 posts)guess I linked the two. My memory stuttered!
no_hypocrisy
(46,067 posts)broke the back of his marriage to Jane Wyman.
hlthe2b
(102,200 posts)As far as I know, she never lost her own liberal roots.
I always heard he did everything for Nancy but those dates just don't add up, do they?
What a POS.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)And in the case of St. Ronnie it's feet covered in shit.
Itchinjim
(3,085 posts)The rat bastard was a snitch too. Go figure.
HardTimes99
(2,049 posts)GreatCaesarsGhost
(8,584 posts)Well worth listening to it at the link.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)deurbano
(2,894 posts)I imagine those that tried to expose the operation (at the time) were dismissed as "conspiracy nuts"... and as "paranoid."
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)will always be the enemy in the ideology of the true conservatives. Walt Disney was also working with the FBI as well.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Which makes him an extraordinary asshole.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)Grand High Poopba of shit heels.
eppur_se_muova
(36,257 posts)As a producer, Reagan sided with the producers/directors/networks against the actors when negotiating the royalties arrangements to air movies filmed in the days before TV. He gave the networks -- who paid his big salary -- a very sweet deal, which royally screwed over the actors in old films, like the Marx Brothers and Bob Hope (Hope was wealthy because he bought California real estate back when it was cheap, not because of movie royalties).
tofuandbeer
(1,314 posts)secondvariety
(1,245 posts)worst President in my lifetime and a fucking rat. Reagan hit the trifecta.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Dan Moldea tells the story: "Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA and the Mob."
eppur_se_muova
(36,257 posts)LuckyLib
(6,819 posts)Son Michael, who was running with some punk teen sons of the Jersey mafia. H told Ronnie to tell him to find some new friends.
Response to kpete (Original post)
LuckyLib This message was self-deleted by its author.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)TBF
(32,041 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)In politics he was known as the great communicator.
But when it came to matters of the heart Ronald Reagan was a rude, insensitive show-off, one of his former lovers has claimed.
The actress Piper Laurie said that when she slept with the former U.S. President he bragged to her afterwards about his staying power.
Yet when she complained she was unsatisfied he replied she should see a doctor - because he definitely knew how to make a woman happy.
--more--
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2061105/Piper-Laurie-claims-Ronald-Reagan-bed.html
Another Hollywood legend shattered!
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)...He left and they became happy
eShirl
(18,490 posts)and apparently better actors than you ever were
not that it was a high bar to achieve
NealK
(1,862 posts)PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Reagan and Meese were much bigger pricks than we ever gave them credit for.
His SAG members were begging him for assistance in keeping them from appearing before the HUAC and McCarthy hearings, without knowing that he had already turned them in.
J. Edgar Hoover illegally assisted his election as California's Governor.
He was a member of the John Birch Society.
On and on. A great read.
http://www.amazon.com/Subversives-Student-Radicals-Reagans-Power/dp/1250033381/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376757797&sr=1-1&keywords=subversives+the+fbi%27s+war+on+student+radicals
progressoid
(49,968 posts)But I will have to go back on my blood pressure pills if I do read it.
LuvNewcastle
(16,843 posts)which of course guaranteed him a position in the GOP. It's a wonder that anyone in Hollywood even spoke to the motherfucker.
eppur_se_muova
(36,257 posts)I thought I had forgotten how bad he was. Turns out there was worse stuff I didn't know about.
Cha
(297,105 posts)think of him in Hollywood these days.
Not counting jon voight, stephen baldwin, john ratzenburger, gary sinese, clint eastwood, etc etc etc.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)DallasNE
(7,402 posts)So the story here is only about the degree of involvement Reagan had with this.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)But the digger you deep into the crypt of St. Ronnie, the more rotten the corpse. He was a real piece of work.
Some might find this piece interesting:
We Must Keep the Labor Unions Clean: Friendly HUAC Witnesses Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney Blame Hollywood Labor Conflicts on Communist Infiltration"
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6458
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)But boy did his inherent, cowardly vileness get a whitewashing, both then and still today.
PCIntern
(25,518 posts)in the 80's. It was a very big deal.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Presidents in all U.S. history lists of both Obama and Hillary.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)An American Nazi in plain sight.
Zorra
(27,670 posts):
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)most craven of opportunists, with saleable scruples and amoral ambition.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Argh!!!!
greiner3
(5,214 posts)Was an FBI informer, he was a 'flaming liberal' himself.
He 'switched sides' after his divorce and subsequent marriage to the 'Dragon Lady' Nancy.
alfredo
(60,071 posts)to narrow the field of his competitors by ratting them out. He was also able to punish political opponents in SAG.