LGM Film Club, Part 54: CIA on the Soviets

In the 1980s, the CIA realized that the only way to get Reagan to pay attention to what they were saying was to make movies for him. So they did. This is a film, I think from 1984 or 1985, that is an analysis of the Soviet Union at that time. There’s not really that much that is particularly objectionable in it that I can see. I guess I found that fairly surprising, but it’s not as if the Soviet Union in the mid 80s was a real great thing. The economy is crumbling and leadership is ramping up the propaganda efforts to hold on to what they have. What I did find funny though was how much of this also described the U.S. We place our children through just as much capitalist propaganda as the Soviets ever did communist propaganda. They have their heroes and we have ours. They have their suspicions of foreigners and to say the least so do we. They have their propaganda news networks and so do we. That the U.S. is beginning to look more like the late era Soviets in recent decades is….not great. I also found the outrage of the Soviet charges that the U.S. supports South African apartheid and engages in hegemonic power in Latin America pretty funny. You don’t say! Anyway, an interesting document.