Sunday, November 10, 2019

"The CIA arranged an affair for a king that produced a dwarf, and then things got weird"

Sometimes I think the CIA isn't as good at what they do as their PR would have us believe.

From 2009 to 2013 foreign intelligence services somehow figured-out the Agency's worldwide communication system.
Put simply, there was a hack or a leak at a very, very high level in the U.S. government.
Agents began disappearing.
And then turning up dead.
In Iran and elsewhere.
Then China somehow got into the U.S. intelligence communications systems....

On the other hand there are stories like this.
From the New York Post, January 9, 2018
You just can’t make this stuff up.

The CIA introduced King Hussein of Jordan to a Jewish B-list Hollywood actress in 1959 — touching off an affair that produced a dwarf love child who later killed her, reports say.
Sensational new details of the king’s relationship with actress Susan Cabot were revealed in a recently declassified government memo, according to USA Today.

The CIA was bucking to curry favor with the randy young Mideast leader when it agreed to procure women for him during his visit to Los Angeles in April 1959, the three-page document shows.
Hussein was 24 and had divorced his first wife about two years earlier.

The young king “was especially desirous of female companionship during his Los Angeles visit, and it was requested that appropriate arrangements be made through a controlled source of the [CIA’s] Office [of Security] in order to assure a satisfied visit,” according to the anonymously written memo.

The CIA turned to a private eye in Los Angeles to ensure discreetness, which then led to a seasoned “fixer’’ for eccentric pilot billionaire Howard Hughes getting involved.

Cabot — known for her roles in such low-budget sci-fi flicks as “The Wasp Woman” — was among those invited to a party for Hussein at the home of Hughes’ pal, oilman Edwin Pauley.
Before she went to the gig, Cabot, 32, was told, “We want you to go to bed with him,’’ according to the memo.

“The actress said that she rejected the proposal but finally went to [the] party. She became quite taken with [Hussein] and found him to be most charming,” according to the document.
A few days later, the king asked the CIA to arrange for him and his new girlfriend to get together while he was in New York City.

The agency rented a house for them in Long Beach, LI, and also got her a room at the Hotel Barclay in Manhattan “under an assumed name,’’ the memo says.
Still, their relationship was not without a politically worrisome issue.

Cabot, whose real name was Harriet Shapiro, was of Jewish heritage, a thorny issue given Hussein was Muslim, according to reports.

As hard as the pair tried to keep their affair under wraps, details of it began to seep out, the memo shows.

“During the stay at the Long Beach site, [Cabot] discussed the publicity in the case at some length with the Security representatives,” according to the CIA memo. “She speculated about the possible sources of certain personal information that she felt had been leaked to the press.”
It’s unclear how long the king and Cabot continued their relationship.
But Cabot gave birth to her only child, Timothy — long been rumored to be Hussein’s son — in 1964....
....MUCH MORE

The Los Angeles party and the rental of the Long Beach Long Island site:
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/157-10004-10270.pdf