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Comment by kjellsbells | Hacker News Reader

The tweet in the post is not quite correct. The manual is CIA (strictly, OSS) and intended as a sourcebook for operatives to share ideas with people under (Axis) occupation. To frame it as "CIA vs activist groups" isnt really right and adds baggage where there need be done.

Original link:

https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...

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> Haggle over precise wording of communications, minutes, resolutions

Touché! But words matter, and, especially as the original tweeter is a History professor specializing in the Cold War (which, surely means he has a pretty good understanding of what the CIA did, and does, and what the OSS did in WW2 that led to the production of the manual from which the screencap was taken), yes, I expect the words to be accurate and reflect the reality of the situation.

I doubt people are even reading the document posted in the tweet. Take number 7:

7. Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reason-able" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

I'm just imagining a would-be saboteur convincing civil rights activists to be cautious about a bus boycott, and those activists doing just that and waiting until Rosa Parks got arrested to organize the boycott. I bet that poor operative got a real talking-to back at Langley!

But yeah, in the context of Cold War escalation of tensions number 7 makes a whole lot of sense.

It was so successful that it pervades German culture to this day.

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