By Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners
In democracy, you would want to think that your president, elected by the people, who is the commander in chief, is in charge. One of the great revelations for me has been how every president, one way or another, has been played by or manipulated by or fooled by their national security officials. And that goes back to Eisenhower… that was the beginning of what many scholars now call the deep state. [The deep state] is essentially an alternative network of power that runs the country no matter who is in the White House.
—David Talbot, author, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government
You have to hand it to Charles de Gaulle. He knew how to rally the troops. In April 1961 – fully 16 years after the last gun of World War II had blasted its last shell, and he had hung his gold braid and epaulets in the closet – he put on his old uniform and went on national television.
He told the people of France that their beloved Republic was in grave danger. A coup d’état was under way. He called on them to help him stop it.
“Help me,” he said. And they did. The coup was stopped. The leaders were arrested. The country went on with its business.
A friend of mine was involved personally in that coup attempt:
“I really didn’t know what I was doing. I just got caught up in right-wing politics. I thought de Gaulle was ruining the country.
“My job was to take control of the airport. I drove out in the night, with a small group. It was a small airport. We expected to take out our guns, wave them around, and announce that the airport was now under the control of the new government, which would be formed in the next few days, after de Gaulle resigned.
“I wasn’t even 20 years old. It was all very exciting. De Gaulle had agreed to give independence to Algeria. But Algeria was a part of France. We were just protecting the nation.
“And I was very lucky. The leaders were arrested and given prison sentences. I was never identified. We just sat in the car listening to the radio, waiting for the signal to take action. When we heard that [army units that were supposed to be on the side of the putschists] had surrendered, we just quietly drove home.”
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If you feel like it used to be better, easier, and more lucrative to be an American – you’re right. In the 1950s, an important event took place that affects our economy today. And it might be getting a LOT worse.
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De Gaulle was no stranger to insurrection, insubordination, and treason. He had rebelled against the lawful government of France in June 1940. He fled to England, deserting his post. Had he been caught and tried, he would have gotten the firing squad. Two months later he was condemned to death by a court martial.
Now, the shoe was on the other foot… and the old general knew what to do with it: kick.
His television address included the most remarkable announcement… one that concerned not only the French… but Americans, too.
He said that the CIA was behind the coup attempt… and that the notorious intelligence agency was not under then President John F. Kennedy’s control. In effect, the CIA had gone rogue… and was targeting the elected government of France.
Was that true?
I don’t know. But later, Charles de Gaulle said something even more remarkable. He attended JFK’s funeral and came back and told aides that he believed the CIA had gunned down Kennedy. This comment was not reported in the U.S. press.
Was that true?
I have no way of knowing. A book by David Talbot – The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government – suggests that it is.
Eisenhower warned the nation that the “military industrial complex” was getting too big for its britches. According to Talbot, JFK was trying to bring it under control.
Most people will say that this is a “conspiracy” theory… as if conspiracies never occurred in fact. Raise the possibility of “coup” against JFK at a cocktail party, and people begin edging away from you. The Warren Commission said it wasn’t so. But the Warren Commission was dominated by John Foster Dulles who, says Talbot, was the very person who wanted JFK out of the way.
Making Sense of What Doesn’t Make Sense
I am not taking up conspiracy tales in this essay. Not that I don’t believe conspiracies happen. People conspire all the time. I am sure there are plenty of conspiracies involving political leaders, assassinations, corruption, and treachery. But we can rarely know what actually happens and what motives lay behind the story.
Besides, it is hard enough to pull off a complex and controversial operation with the full knowledge and straightforward cooperation of all the participants. Imagine what happens when most people don’t know what is going on and of those who do, you’re not sure which are really with you and which are not. Conspiracies are difficult and often take unexpected (nonconspiratorial) directions.
And why bother with conspiracy anyway? Why bother with assassination? Killing people seems like an unnecessary provocation. The Deep State doesn’t need to kill anyone. And it doesn’t need to conspire, at least not in the usual way.
When people think of the Deep State, they are generally referring to the permanent government run as a collusion between the elite of corporate America and the national security industry. They think of the “military industrial complex” that General Eisenhower said we “must guard against,” in his farewell address of 1961.
Today, Eisenhower seems like an antique, a character from a much earlier, much more innocent age. But he was alive in our era. And he was not warning about things from ancient history. He was sounding the alarm on things he saw happening with his own eyes and things he heard with his own ears, right here, in the United States of America.
Eisenhower knew how the modern army and the modern state functioned. Over time, the real front-line soldiers and citizen politicians were replaced by backroom operators, bureaucrats, and opportunists.
Cincinnatus, the Roman-era farmer who took up arms to defend his country and then returned to the plow when the conflict was over, gave way to men who made their careers in “public service.” Chiselers, anglers, and cronies accompany every army and infest every government; sometimes they take command of it.
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If you were born before 1969, and have any money in a 401(k), IRA, or a brokerage account, you need to see this now. Silicon Valley insiders are piling millions into this... Early investors may make a fortune.
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As our dependence on information networks increases, it will take a team to eliminate vulnerabilities and counter the ever-growing threats to the network. We can succeed in securing it by building strong partnerships between and within the private and public sectors, encouraging information sharing and collaboration, and creating and leveraging the technology that affords us the opportunity to secure cyberspace…
And what hath been wrought? The NSA’s budget is classified. But according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the agency spends $10.5 billion a year. Head count is also classified, but reports estimate it employs 40,000 intelligent men and women. And yet… there is no record of any useful “intelligence” coming out of the NSA. For all the money and all the invasions of privacy, the nation doesn’t seem to have been made any safer.
But the Deep State doesn’t care about the nation’s safety. It cares only about its own safety. That is why it is so important for us to understand how it works. In the popular myth, we have a government that responds, clumsily but eventually, to the will of the people.
It is supposed to be “by, for, and of” the people. So, we are tempted to believe that what it does, ultimately, is for our own good. We can trust it, in other words, to look out for us. We do not have to fear it. After all, as Hillary Clinton said, “The government is all of us.”
But the Deep State is not all of us. It is only some of us. And some who are not us at all. It is a curious group; some of its main components are not even American citizens. A foreign government, Israel, occupies a dominant position in the Deep State.
Through its billionaire political donors – Haim Saban, Paul Singer, and Sheldon Adelson – and its lobbyists at AIPAC and other well-funded organizations, it exerts more influence on U.S. foreign policy than 200 million voters.
Many international corporations, global organizations, and supra-government agencies are also part of the Deep State. And overseas banks, with foreign owners, are major beneficiaries.
Together, they – along with domestic favored industries, the bureaucracy itself, special interests, and cronies of various stripes and persuasions – run the U.S. government and control the police, the armed forces, the financial industry, the medical industry, the education industry, and other major parts of the economy.
You may object that the government today is not really any larger or different from what it was when Eisenhower gave his farewell address. On paper, federal spending was 17% of GDP in 1960. On paper, it is 20% today.
But if everything in real life were like it is supposed to be “on paper,” we would be living in a much different world.
Regards,
Bill
Editor’s Note: As Bill mentioned above, highly decorated General Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned the American public about the Deep State. He did it during the farewell address for his second term as President in January of 1961.
Ike’s farewell address also served as a warning to JFK, who would succeed him as President. And JFK tried to take the Deep State head on…
A short while later, JFK was assassinated. We don’t know exactly who did it or why, but we do know that he was the last President to challenge the Deep State directly.
Recently, Bill issued an alarming video on this topic, including some footage from Eisenhower’s farewell address. You can watch this new video right here. | 
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