American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us by Jesse Ventura, Dick Russell Page B

focused on how we campaigned, how we achieved what we did, and did I think we truly could win when we went into the campaign? Basically, how had the independent wrestler candidate pulled this off? Sometimes I answered and other times I didn’t, just to mess with them a little. They remained very cordial and proper. Nobody raised their voice or made me feel I was being interrogated. But I’ve got to say, it was one of the strangest experiences of my life. I was baffled by the whole experience.
    When I got home that day, I called my friend Dick Marcinko. He wrote all the Rogue Warrior books, created the anti-terrorist SEAL Team Six, and I figured he’d probably know more about how the CIA operates than anybody else I knew. Dick started laughing as I told him the scenario of what had happened. I asked why he thought this was so funny.
    â€œWell, I’m not privy to exactly why they were there,” he said, “but I could give you my educated guess.” He went on, “They didn’t see you coming. You were not on the radar screen. And all of a sudden, you won a major election in the United States of America. The election caught them with their pants down, and their job is to gather intelligence and make predictions. Now, next to Bill Clinton, you’re probably the most famous politician in America.”
    Then Dick added this: “I think they’re trying to see if there are any more of you on the horizon.”
    So were they trying to gather information to insure this would never happen again? I wondered: Was I that much of a threat?
    Not too long after that meeting, I found out something else and it stunned me. I revealed this for the first time in my memoir, Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me! , and it raised a lot of eyebrows. It just so happens there is a CIA operative inside every state government. They are not in executive positions—in other words, not appointed by the governor—but permanent state employees. While governors come and go, they keep working, holding down legitimate jobs but with a dual identity. In Minnesota, this person was fairly high up, serving at the deputy commissioner level.
    I wasn’t sworn to secrecy about this, but only my chief of staff and I were allowed to know his identity. I had to go meet with the person and later, when somebody else took the cover post for the CIA, I had to know who the new agent was. I still have no idea what they’re doing there. Are they spying? Checking out what direction the state government is going in and reporting back to someone at headquarters in Langley? But who and for what purpose? I mean, are they trying to ferret out traitors in the various states? (Or maybe just dissidents—like me!)
    Anyhow, I wasn’t told the reason and was simply left to ponder how come our Constitution is being violated. Let’s say it gave me pause. I’ve seen it firsthand. And that’s another reason why I am writing this book, because I believe it’s vital to our democracy to see the hidden pattern that’s been undermining this country for most of my lifetime. The Bush Administration, which made lying into an “art form” that took us into the Iraq War, was in a way the logical extension of all the cover-ups, crimes, and conspiracies that preceded it.
    Researching this book has been fascinating, but I wouldn’t call it fun. When you look back on how the power brokers have deceived us over the years, it gets pretty damned depressing. Maybe that’s why so many people prefer to remain in denial. The way I look at it, though, is that old truism from the Bible: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Until we come clean about our recent history, there’s no way to move forward and return to the representative democracy that our forefathers intended America to be.
    We’ll start by looking back at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. If you’re