The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Book Notes #38

Originally published in 2004 and republished in 2015 with more chapters as the “New Confessions”, we are near twenty and ten years past those dates, and it should be interesting to once again revisit the story told in this book. John Perkins describes himself as an “Economic Hit Man,” something he assures us they actually called themselves, usually in acronym form (EHM). He also describes how the next in line to deal with problems, should the EHMs fail, were CIA “jackals,” who would actually overthrow leaders or assassinate them. Failing that, the military was the last resort. These forces tricked other countries into serving the interests of “American” global finance through debt slavery to institutions such as the World Bank. One of the reasons given for the publications of the New Confessions edition is that the United States itself has been “hit” by these forces, implying they are no longer really of want country, but perhaps supranational.

The “EHM system” is described as not a grand conspiracy but “hundreds of conspiracies” based on the belief that “any means … are justified to promote economic growth.” Essentially, the line will go up, are there is nothing off limits in ensuring this.

The author is kind of melodramatic, but this is not surprising for a liberal. He describes his recruitment as an EHM and how his goal was convince countries to invest in something other than the Soviet Union, something that would make their GNP go up. He describes how GNP was deceptive, because line go up even only a single person benefitted from the transactions. He would project the results of billions of dollars of investment ten, twenty years into the future and present this to the leaders of countries. His optimistic forecasts for these investments would allow international banks to justify loans to these countries for these projects, securing the corporate empire’s hold on them.

His mentor, Claudine Martin, described to him how their business got started.

P. 30:

“[T]hroughout most of history, empires were built largely through military force or the threat of it. But with the end of World War II, the emergence of the Soviet Union, and the specter of nuclear holocaust, the military solution became just too risky.

The decisive moment occurred in 1951, when Iran rebelled against a British oil company that was exploiting Iran’s natural resources and its people. The company was the forerunner of Brit ish Petroleum, today's BP. In response, the highly popular, democratically elected Iranian prime minister (and Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1951), Mohammad Mossadegh, nationalized all Iranian petroleum assets. An outraged England sought the help of her World War II ally, the United States. However, both countries feared that military retaliation would provoke the Soviet Union into taking action on behalf of Iran.

Instead of sending in the Marines, therefore, Washington dispatched CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (Theodore’s grandson). He performed brilliantly, winning people over through payoffs and threats. He then enlisted them to organize a series of street riots and violent demonstrations, which created the impression that Mossadegh was both unpopular and inept. In the end, Mossadegh went down, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The pro-American Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi became the unchallenged dictator. Kermit Roosevelt had set the stage for a new profession, the ranks of which I was joining.

Roosevelt’s gambit reshaped Middle Eastern history even as it rendered obsolete all the old strategies for empire building. It also coincided with the beginning of experiments in “limited nonnuclear military actions,” which ultimately resulted in US humiliations in Korea and Vietnam. By 1968, the year I interviewed with the NSA, it had become clear that if the United States wanted to realize its dream of global empire (as envisioned by men like presidents Johnson and Nixon), it would have to employ strategies modeled on Roosevelt’s Iranian example. This was the only way to beat the Soviets without the threat of nuclear war.

There was one problem, however. Kermit Roosevelt was a CIA employee. Had he been caught, the consequences would have been dire. He had orchestrated the first US operation to overthrow a foreign government, and it was likely that many more would follow, but it was important to find an approach that would not directly implicate Washington.

Fortunately for the strategists, the 1960s also witnessed another type of revolution: the empowerment of international corporations and of multinational organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF. The latter were financed primarily by the United States and our sister empire builders in Europe. A symbiotic relationship developed between governments, corporations, and multi- national organizations.

By the time I enrolled in Boston University's business school, a solution to the Roosevelt-as-CIA-agent problem had already been worked out. US intelligence agencies—including the NSA—would identify prospective EHMs, who could then be hired by international corporations. These EHMs would never be paid by the government; instead, they would draw their salaries from the private sector. As a result, their dirty work, if exposed, would be chalked up to corporate greed rather than to government policy. In addition, the corporations that hired them, although paid by government agencies and their multinational banking counterparts (with taxpayer money), would be insulated from congressional oversight and public scrutiny, shielded by a growing body of legal initiatives, including trademark, international trade, and Freedom of Information laws.”

The author described how his economic projections were a scam. His mentor said:

“Who can see twenty-five years into the future? Your guess is as good as theirs. Confidence is everything.”