Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Posted on 05/01/2015 4:32:19 PM PDT by NYer
.- Espionage deep in the heart of Europe. Secrets in the KGB. Defection from a communist nation. Ion Mihai Pacepa has seen his share of excitement, serving as general for Communist Romania’s secret police before defecting to the United States in the late 1970s.
The highest-ranking defector from communism in the ‘70s, he spoke to CNA recently about the connection between the Soviet Union and Liberation Theology in Latin America. Below are excerpts of the interview. All footnotes were provided by Pacepa.
In general, could you say that the spreading of Liberation Theology had any kind of Soviet connection?
Yes. I learned the fine points of the KGB involvement with Liberation Theology from Soviet General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, communist Romania's chief razvedka (foreign intelligence) adviser – and my de facto boss, until 1956, when he became head of the Soviet espionage service, the PGU1, a position he held for an unprecedented record of 15 years.
On October 26, 1959, Sakharovsky and his new boss, Nikita Khrushchev, came to Romania for what would become known as “Khrushchev's six-day vacation.” He had never taken such a long vacation abroad, nor was his stay in Romania really a vacation. Khrushchev wanted to go down in history as the Soviet leader who had exported communism to Central and South America. Romania was the only Latin country in the Soviet bloc, and Khrushchev wanted to enroll her “Latin leaders” in his new “liberation” war.
I learned about Sakharovsky from your writings, but I could not find any other relevant information about him. Why?
Sakharovsky was a Soviet reflection of the Cold War's hot years, when not even all the members of the Israeli and British governments knew the identity of the heads of Mossad and MI-6. But Sakharovsky played an extremely important role in shaping Cold War history. He authored the export of communism to Cuba (1958-1961); his nefarious handling of the Berlin crisis (1958-1961) generated the Berlin Wall; his Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Was the Theology of Liberation a movement somehow "created" by Sakharovsky's part of the KGB, or it was an existing movement that was exacerbated by the USSR?
The movement was born in the KGB, and it had a KGB-invented name: Liberation Theology. During those years, the KGB had a penchant for “liberation” movements. The National Liberation Army of Columbia (FARC), created by the KGB with help from Fidel Castro; the “National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created by the KGB with help from “Che” Guevara; and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), created by the KGB with help from Yasser Arafat are just a few additional “liberation” movements born at the Lubyanka -- the headquarters of the KGB.
The birth of Liberation Theology was the intent of a 1960 super-secret “Party-State Dezinformatsiya Program” approved by Aleksandr Shelepin, the chairman of the KGB, and by Politburo member Aleksey Kirichenko, who coordinated the Communist Party's international policies. This program demanded that the KGB take secret control of the World Council of Churches (WCC), based in Geneva, Switzerland, and use it as cover for converting Liberation Theology into a South American revolutionary tool. The WCC was the largest international ecumenical organization after the Vatican, representing some 550 million Christians of various denominations throughout 120 countries.
The birth of a new religious movement is a historic event. How was this new religious movement launched?
The KGB began by building an intermediate international religious organization called the Christian Peace Conference (CPC), which was headquartered in Prague. Its main task was to bring the KGB-created Liberation Theology into the real world.
The new Christian Peace Conference was managed by the KGB and was subordinated to the venerable World Peace Council, another KGB creation, founded in 1949 and by then also headquartered in Prague.
During my years at the top of the Soviet bloc intelligence community I managed the Romanian operations of the World Peace Council (WPC). It was as purely KGB as it gets. Most of the WPC’s employees were undercover Soviet bloc intelligence officers. The WPC’s two publications in French, Nouvelles perspectives and Courier de la Paix, were also managed by undercover KGB – and Romanian DIE2 - intelligence officers. Even the money for the WPC budget came from Moscow, delivered by the KGB in the form of laundered cash dollars to hide their Soviet origin. In 1989, when the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, the WPC publicly admitted that 90% of its money came from the KGB3.
How did the Theology of Liberation start?
I was not involved in the creation of Liberation Theology per se. From Sakharovsky I learned, however, that in 1968 the KGB-created Christian Peace Conference, supported by the world-wide World Peace Council, was able to maneuver a group of leftist South American bishops into holding a Conference of Latin American Bishops at Medellin, Colombia. The Conference’s official task was to ameliorate poverty. Its undeclared goal was to recognize a new religious movement encouraging the poor to rebel against the “institutionalized violence of poverty,” and to recommend the new movement to the World Council of Churches for official approval.
The Medellin Conference achieved both goals. It also bought the KGB-born name “Liberation Theology.”
Theology of Liberation had key leaders, some of them famous “pastoral” figures, some others intellectuals. Do you know if there was any involvement of the Soviet bloc in promoting either the personal image or the writings of such personalities? Any specific connection with Bishops Sergio Mendes Arceo from Mexico or Helder Camara from Brazil? Any possible direct connection with liberation theologians such as Leonardo Boff, Frei Betto, Henry Camacho or Gustavo Gutierrez?
I have good reason to suspect that there was an organic connection between the KGB and some of those leading promoters of Liberation Theology, but I have no evidence to prove it. For the last 15 years of my life in Romania (1963 - 1978), I managed that country's scientific and technological espionage, as well as the disinformation operations aimed at improving Ceausescu's stature in the West.
I recently glanced through Gutierrez's book A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation (1971), and I had the feeling that it was written at the Lubyanka. No wonder he is now credited with being the founder of Liberation Theology. From feelings to facts, however, is a long way.
Yep.
Has Obama picked up the red message phone yet?
"In 1951, [Reverend Jim] Jones (Jonestown) began attending communist meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.[4] Jones became flustered at harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,[4] particularly, regarding meetings between Jones and his mother with Paul Robeson.[5] This, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones where he asked himself "how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."[5][4]"
"In the summer of 1977, Jones and most of the 900 members of the People's Temple moved to Guyana from San Francisco after media pressure built.[25] Jones left the same night that an editor at New West magazine read Jones an article by Marshall Kilduff to be published detailing allegations by former Temple members.[25][16] Jones named the settlement Jonestown after himself.
Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, 'I believe we’re the purest communists there are.' [26] Jones' wife, Marceline, described Jonestown as "dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally."[26] Jones wanted to construct a model community to show others and stated that Prime Minister of Guyana Forbes Burnham 'couldn’t rave enough about us, uh, the wonderful things we do, the project, the model of socialism.'[27] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the then Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist republics, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.[28]
Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid (often misidentified as Kool-Aid) along with a sedative.[39]
One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the beginning of the tape.[39] When members apparently cried, Jones counseled "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity."[39] Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die" and, regarding death as "just stepping over into another plane" and that "[death is] a friend."[39] At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."[39] Children were given the drink first and families were told to lie down together. The mass suicide had been discussed in simulated events called "White Nights" on a regular basis, while members drank liquid Jones first told them was poison during at least one of those White Nights.
Oops.
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
______________________________________
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals [1963]:
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
J Edgar Hoover was right all along....
new to commenting here- but have seen many good articles here before..as far as no evidence - there is evidence of collusion between KGB and “liberation”
so I was looking to document by providing a link and whaddayaknow it’s already on Free R.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2259903/posts
photos of Arafat (whose connections to Soviets are well known and documented) colluding with LA RAZA-
and a photo that shows them together http://www.mayorno.com/files/arafat.jpg
I don’t believe in coincidences
and I want to know why Fakestinians are agitating in the “hoods” (and prisons)
Now we are all ISRAEL- with our very own hostiles within, educated in grievance, funded by Soros & LEFT, full of hate and coached to do violence
In particular recordings they admit to being socialist/communists. Lots of swearing, too.
IPS’s [Institute For Policy Studies] Washington, DC headquarters quickly became a resource center for national reporters and a place for KGB agents from the nearby Soviet embassy to convene and strategize. Cora Weiss headed one of the IPS's most successful forays -- into Riverside Church in Manhattan. She was invited there in 1978 by the Reverend William Sloane Coffin to run the church's Disarmament Program, which sought to consolidate Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe -- in the name of "peace." In 1982 Weiss helped organize the largest pro-disarmament demonstration ever held. Staged in New York City, the rally was attended by a coalition of communist organizations. During her decade-long tenure at Riverside, which became home to the National Council of Churches, Weiss regularly received Russian KGB agents, Sandinista friends, and Cuban intelligence agents. Weiss became infamous for her role in the psychological warfare conducted against U.S. prisoners of war held in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War.
The Liberation News Service, which is a news source for hundreds of "alternative" publications nationwide (with antiwar, Marxist-oriented perspectives), was founded in 1967 with IPS assistance."
[lots more at link...]
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6991
The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
[located just across the street from both Columbia University and Riverside Church. It is actually sandwiched between the two]
He [James Cone] is currently the Charles Augustus Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.[2]...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hal_Cone
_____________________________________________________
Quote from James Cone:
"Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal".
African American Religious Thought: An Anthology (Paperback)
by Cornel West (Editor), Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Editor)
_____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
RE: Riverside Church, Communist Party USA, May 1, 2010!
Communist Led “Peace Movement” to Target US Military Budget
Guided by the Communist Party USA, the U.S. “peace movement” is entering a new phase.
The struggles against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be de-emphasized, while focus will shift to a broad based campaign to cut U.S. military spending.
The Communists plan to exploit public concern over economic problems, to pressure the Obama administration to hugely cut back on defense spending, weapons systems and overseas commitments.
"[Communist Party USA vice chair, Judith] LeBlanc signals that the “peace movement’s” new direction will begin with a major campaign. Significantly May 1 [2010!], will be the kickoff date and New York’s far left Riverside Church will be the founding venue."
"There will be people from every continent here to participate in the non-governmental organization gatherings that will be going on, with an international conference happening at Riverside Church from April 30 to May 1 [communist "May Day"], and then marching on May 2."
--Judith LeBlanc, vice-chair Communist Party USA, 'national field organizer for Peace Action, the country’s largest grassroots peace organization with 100,000 members across the country', also co-founder of "United for Peace and Justice"
Barack Obama '83 Becomes First College Alumnus To Win Presidency
Barack Obama '83 became the first College alumnus to be elected President of the United States. On November 4, Obama defeated his Republican challenger, Sen. John McCain P'07, ending a marathon campaign that saw Obama rise from a first-term senator to the nation's first African-American president.
Obama, who was profiled in Columbia College Today in January 2005 when he burst upon the national political scene, transferred to Columbia from Occidental prior to his junior year.
In one of their few joint appearances, the candidates were interviewed in Roone Arledge Auditorium on September 11 at the Service Nation Presidential Candidates Forum.
This year's Presidential election had four candidates with strong College ties on the ballot. In addition to Obama being an alumnus, McCain's daughter, Meghan, is a 2007 College alumna; Wayne Allyn Root '83 was the Libertarian Party Vice-Presidential nominee running with Bob Barr; and Matt Gonzalez '87 ran as an independent candidate on the same ticketas Ralph Nader.
http://www.college.columbia.edu/news/barack-obama-83-becomes-first-college-alumnus-to-win-presidency
___________________________________________________________________
"Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus of Morningside Heights in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_College,_Columbia_University
______________________________________
About the College: Columbia College
http://www.college.columbia.edu/about
____________________________________________________________________
From the Columbia University website...
"Obama attended Columbia College from 1981 to 1983"
Source:
http://news.columbia.edu/home/1260
_________________________________________________
Bill Ayers' education:
1987 - Ed.D, Columbia University, Curriculum & Instruction
1987 - M.Ed, Teachers College, Columbia University, Early Childhood Education
1984 [he completed degree in '84] - M.Ed, Bank Street College, Early Childhood Education
1968 - B.A., University of Michigan, American Studies
https://web.archive.org/web/20100624090737/http://education.uic.edu/directory/faculty_info.cfm?netid=bayers
_________________________________________________
Bank Street College
Where We Are and How to Get Here:
Bank Street College is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at 610 West 112th Street, between Broadway and Riverside Drive.
Bank Street College is located in a bustling family and university neighborhood four blocks from Columbia University
https://web.archive.org/web/20060406125932/http://www.bankstreet.edu/aboutbsc/visiting.html
_________________________________________________
Why Won’t Obama Talk About Columbia?
The years he won’t discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090307053155/http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjY4YzdhMDBkZGQ3ZmU2MTUzYjdkMzc5ZjUzYmViZWM=
bfl
I remember reading the Soviet Union wasn’t a govt as we would understand it but an organized crime syndicate.
Just my opinion but I think the Soviet Union was basically a Satanic Government.
They said like an organized crime syndicate everything, any kind of wealth, was designed to flow to the top.
Of course just by coincidence I’m sure, the dems call their economic policies Trickle Up Economics and we have seen the wealth flowing to the top.
There was a period of relative openness in the 90's. Now it is long since over. There was no fall, really, just a tactical maneuver.
Thank you for posting this interview with Pacepa.
After reading this article, I recommend that you read Pacepa’s article on Liberation Theology in National Review on line.
Link in this discussion thread about it a couple of weeks ago.
I remember hearing about the rise of this in the late 1960s when I was an undergraduate at St. Joseph’s College of Indiana. The priests there said it was communist inspired and would not let the Maryknoll priests on campus because they were its major spreaders in Central and South America.
Also, it was being preached by some priests in El Salvador during that country’s civil war in the 1980s. That is one reason the rightist Catholic anti-communists under Duarte were against many of the priests and I think was a reason for the Bishop’s assassination. A few years ago I saw a play about that assassination and in it, I saw the theme of the Liberation Theology and thought - “Good propaganda.”
here is the link I forgot to put into my post # 37
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3282491/posts
Thanks for the ping, your comments, and the link.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.