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See - http://www.spyculture.com/cia-state-dept-documents-jack-valenti/
Recently released documents on former White House
consultant and MPAA capo Jack Valenti strongly suggest that his appointment as
president of the MPAA in some way involved the CIA. The new documents on
Valenti come from the CIA and the State Department. Though they are tiny
fragments in themselves the details they do contain are eye-opening.
Valenti was a State Department consultant with a Top Secret clearance in the
early months of taking over at the MPAA. At the same the CIA were
interested in Valenti ‘in connection with certain sensitive matters’.
The State Department
Document on Valenti
Released to The Black Vault under
FOIA, the only State Department record on Valenti that they were willing to
provide is a 2-page FBI airtel relating to investigations into Valenti done by
the State Department’s Office of Security. This airtel does not appear in
the FBI release on
Valenti. It says:
The files of the Office of
Security (SY) Department of State, reviewed by Special Agent (redacted) on
October 11, 1974, disclose that on 5/5/66 the appointee was under consideration
for appointment as a Consultant to the Secretary of State; SY in May 1966
reviewed his personnel and security files at the White House and utilized a
previous full field investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
SY granted him Final Clearance for
Top Secret on 5/25/66 as a Consultant, valid for 180 days only, unless
appointed in the meantime: SY again granted him Final Clearance for Top Secret
on 5/31/67 as a Member of the Board of Foreign Scholarships.
It was announced in April 1966 that Valenti would
be leaving his White House position to take up the vacant job as head of the
MPAA, so why was he simultaneously being granted a Top Secret security
clearance? Valenti began his new job in June so he was a consultant to
the State Department in the early months of his new job at the MPAA.
The CIA Document on
Valenti
While this was going on the CIA’s Office of
Personnel Security sent a memo to Marvin Watson, a special assistant to
President Johnson. They requested a copy of the FBI’s investigation of
Valenti (complete with rumours that he was secretly homosexual and a pervert)
on the grounds that:
Subject is of interest to this
Division. He is not being considered for staff employment but rather is
of interest in connection with certain sensitive matters in which the Agency is
involved.
Naturally, this could mean anything. But
the date is significant – after Valenti’s new job at the MPAA had been
announced but before he took up the role. This cannot be related to his
role at the State Department because they had reviewed the FBI’s investigation
for themselves. Given that Valenti’s predecessor Eric Johnston was
some kind of CIA asset, was this CIA request made because Valenti was being
considered for recruitment by the Agency? Was this because CIA director
Richard Helms planned to approach Valenti, as he subsequently did? Did
they want dirt on Valenti for possible blackmail purposes?
While not conclusive, these new documents add yet
more weight to the contention that Valenti was not just friendly to the
government but was an active CIA asset in Hollywood.
Documents
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