The Three Little Horses of the Apocalypse (Part 1)

If it’s forgotten, it doesn’t need to stay hidden. That’s the institutional philosophy of every secret society and police state. Leaders come and go, spooks appear and disappear, but the gears keep grinding.

While bloggers pursue the latest cloak-and-dagger whodunit--the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko--the vetted, researched, signed-sealed-and-delivered poisoning of American citizens by their government is shrugged off like the tissue-thin memory of a childhood bedtime story.

Speaking of bedtime stories, did your mother read you the one about race war? How about the one about accepting your place in bread line—even if it’s all the way in the back?

The CIA’s recent data dump of details from its operations in the 1950s and 1960s contained the startling (to me, anyway—but then again, I’m sensitive) revelation that the agency was involved in contracting and producing children’s literature during that era. According to one memo, the effort was started to “provide a counterbalance to the individuistic school of children’s publishing, including Dr. Seuss et al, now in fashion.” Individuistic [sic] in this case meaning something close to “free-thinking.”

Presumably, we’re not to be bothered by this because it happened 40 or 50 years ago, and there’s been some turnover at the Company.

Two of the books cited in the CIA release are “The Story of Zachary Zween” by Mabel Watts and “Three Little Horses” by Piet Worm. Naturally, you can find them on eBay if you’re interested in digging a little deeper.

The CIA’s penchant for black comedy is readily apparent in “Zachary Zween,” the tale of the unfortunately named schoolboy who is “angry at the alphabet” because he always comes last. Who comes first in this tale? Why, it’s Albert Ames. Ring a bell?

If so, it’s probably because you recall the name Aldrich Ames, the so-called “most damaging mole in CIA history,” who began working for the CIA in 1962 in a low-level job involving “education outreach.” (His status as a traitor, of course, is a whole other story.)

The CIA’s record release doesn’t confirm it, but there’s ample reason to believe Aldrich Ames dropped his name into one of his first projects as an Easter egg, or little inside joke.

Regardless, I leave you to consider the implicit message of a children’s book whose moral is “good things come last” (with Masonic flags flying in the background) and whose hero promises “no longer will I get upset, or angry at the alphabet.”

There's more bedtime reading to come in Part 2, where you'll meet the three little horses: Blackie, Brownie, and Whitey. Guess who gets the best lines.

Recipe for a Conspiracy

1) Measure out one recycled provocation--"Sonny Bono Was Murdered"--by "former FBI agent."

2) Mix with supermarket tabloid whose offices were targeted in 2001 anthrax attacks.

3) Trim details that former agent is chronic (and contract) conspiracist who's pushing 80 and retired from FBI nearly 30 years ago.

4) Sprinkle story in non-tabloid, non-U.S. press.

5) Bake for one news cycle until giant game of telephone called the Internet cooks up a better headline: "Hitmen 'clubbed' Sonny Bono to death, FBI claims."

6) Dig up Sonny's body. Test for anthrax.

7) Serves millions.

I'm Hungry

The Colonel is a mack daddy. The Colonel pimps white women and black women. He got started -- you didn't notice him 'til he brought out those big-chested white women with their tight t-shirts and their short pants. That's what a pimp does.