AMERICAN CAPITALISM BEGAN TO FAIL IN ABOUT 1973----Episode 7

   AS A RESULT OF THE WATERGATE AFFAIR, 
  CONGRESS CONDUCTED A FLIMSY 
  INVESTIGATION INTO THE OPERATIONS OF
  THE CIA 

   The Church Committee did uncover CIA operations to secretly influence the minds of Americans :

     The CIA is now using several hundred American academics { administrators, faculty members, graduate students, engaged in teaching} who, in addition to providing leads, and, on occasion, making introductions for intelligence purposes, write books and other material to be used for propaganda purposes abroad . . . These academics are located in over 100 American colleges, universities and related institutions. At the majority of institutions, no one other than the individual concerned is aware of the CIA link. At the others, at least one university official is aware of the operational use of academics on his campus . . . The CIA considers these operational relationships within the U.S. academic community as perhaps its most sensitive domestic area and has strict controls governing these operations . . . 

   In 1961 the chief of the CIA's Covert Action Staff wrote that books were "the most important weapon of strategic propaganda." The Church Committee found that more than a thousand books were produced, subsidized, or sponsored by the CIA before the end of 1967. 

   When Kissinger testified before the Church Committee about the bombing of Laos, orchestrated by the CIA as a secret activity, he said : "I do not believe in retrospect that it was a good national policy to have the CIA conduct the war in Laos. I think we should have found some other way of doing it." There was no indication that anyone on the Committee challenged this idea ---that what was done should have been done----that what was done should have been done, but by another method. 

   Thus, in 1974--1975, the system was acting to purge the country of its rascals and restore it to a healthy, or at least to an acceptable, state. The resignation of Nixon, the succession of Ford, the exposure of bad deeds by the FBI and CIA ---- all aimed to regain the badly damaged confidence of the American people. However, even with these strenuous efforts, there were still signs in the American public of suspicion, even hostility, to the leaders of GOVERNMENT, MILITARY, BIG BUSINESS. 

   In July of 1975 the Lou Harris poll, looking at the public's confidence in the government from 1966 to 1975, reported that confidence in the military during that period had dropped from 62 percent to 29 percent, in business from 55 percent to 18 percent, in both President and Congress from 42 percent to 13 percent. Shortly after that, another Harris poll reported "65% of Americans oppose military aid abroad because they feel it allows dictatorships to maintain control over their population." 

   Perhaps much of the dissatisfaction was due to the economic state of most Americans. Inflation and unemployment had been rising steadily since 1973 , which was the year when, according to a Harris poll, the number of Americans feeling "alienated" and "disaffected" with the general state of the country climbed [ from 29 percent in 1966] to over 50 percent. After Ford succeeded Nixon, the percentage of "alienated" was 55 percent. The survey showed that people were troubled most of all by inflation.