In Secrecy's Shadow : The OSS and CIA in Hollywood Cinema 1941-1979 The OSS and CIA in Hollywood Cinema 1941-1979

Abstract

Don DeLillo once described the CIA as “America’s myth”, an agency that “takes on shapes and appearences embodying whatever we need to know ourselves or unburden ourselves.” This book is the story of the emergence of that myth, of the CIA as an American cultural icon in the most iconic of mediums: Hollywood cinema. It is also the story of how, at times, the CIA have worked with Hollywood to try to shape that myth. The story begins with a band of intrepid Hollywood filmmakers led by the legendary director John Ford who were willing to die to make films for the CIA’s wartime predecessor, the OSS. It ends with a deeply suspicious film industry, and society, that was left profoundly altered by decades of government deceit. Based on years of archival research from libraries across the United States and beyond, this acclaimed study demonstrates how the massive expansion of US government secrecy and the national security state in the aftermath of the Second World War profoundly altered American culture in the post-war years.