American Strategic Deception Bureau

　The rest of the people who gathered in the Wave Intelligence Station to drink alone were basically marginalized people who had been marginalized. Even if they wanted to hate someone, they should not hate President Kennedy. Instead, they would only resent Frank Sturget for not giving them a hand and taking them to make a fortune in drug trafficking, right?

　Alas, the assassination took place over a year later, so even if Firi wanted to intervene he had no way to do so and could only wait and see.

　A while later, New York Times reporter David Halberstam finished interviewing Major Torres Cardona, the lone brigade commander of the 2506th Brigade, and strolled in with a notebook, saying that he wanted to interview the CIA agents here.

　Fili thought about it, but didn't stop him. After all, these agents were definitely more familiar with the Bureau's confidentiality regulations than he was. How much they were willing to ask depended on the reporter's ability.

　They only confiscated David Halberstam's camera and prohibited him from taking any photos.

　However, before David Halberstam could start chatting with anyone, a loud clamor in Spanish and the bodyguard's scolding and cursing could be heard outside the door. This immediately piqued the reporter's interest, and he asked Fieri who he was and how dare he cause trouble at the CIA station?

　"Ah, they are just some Cuban exiled politicians who used to receive subsidies from the bureau. Now that the war in Cuba is over, these people are no longer needed. The bureau is in financial difficulty and has no money to support so many people who eat for free, so they cut off their subsidies and sent them to fend for themselves. Who would have thought that they would come here every few days to cause trouble? They are really ungrateful and shameless people." Fili answered lightly.

　Because the Cuban invasion had become such a disaster, the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front, a political platform previously nurtured by the CIA, fell apart. The exiled politicians had their stipends cut off, their housing revoked, and were kicked out to fend for themselves.

　However, these politicians have been eating, drinking and taking advantage of the CIA for free for more than a year. How could they be willing to be kicked out just like that?

　So, they come to the "Bolang" brothel from time to time to cause trouble, hoping to get more money. Today, when they saw that money was being distributed here, they naturally came to cause trouble again.

　"They are all cowardly, evil, and lying scoundrels. I have already instructed the guards not to let them in..."

　Fili said this to the reporter, and then saw the reporter pointing, "Eh? How did that person get in?"

　The feeling of being slapped in the face at the speed of light was really embarrassing. Firi turned around with a little embarrassment, and was immediately stunned.

　"Hey, Chief Estelline? What brings you here? And why are you dressed like this?"

　At this time, the entire cafe fell silent, and all the agents stared in amazement at Jacob Estline, the former director of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Bureau, the former head of the Cuban Special Task Force, and the initiator of the invasion of Cuba, who limped in with a cane.

　Unlike the shrewd, powerful, and fierce-looking hero he once was, Jacob Estelion's face was now dark and thin, and he looked extremely haggard. He wore a dirty, ragged suit that hadn't been washed in ages, and his cloudy eyes no longer had the sharpness they once had.

　Noticing his former subordinates gathered around to watch, a trace of shame appeared on Estelion's face, but he still said in a hoarse voice, "Well, it's nothing. I just lost my job and went bankrupt again. Everyone has bad luck sometimes..."

　Seeing that he seemed very thirsty, Ferry quickly poured him a glass of champagne. Estelian thanked him and drank the champagne in one gulp. Then he found a sofa to sit down and started talking about the suffering he had endured recently.

　It turned out that since being captured in the Battle of Trinidad, Jacob Estelan had been highly respected in the Cuban prisoner-of-war camp because of his status as a senior CIA officer. He was personally tortured by Che Guevara and suffered a lot of torture, even having his leg broken by the beating.

　After finally being released, he was fired by the CIA again, deprived of all benefits, and not even received a penny of compensation.

　——In the subsequent blame-shifting contest, he, the former commander who was imprisoned, was considered the culprit who messed up the matter.

　According to Director Dulles, it was already very merciful not to throw him into the biochemical research institute to be used as experimental material!

　Well, Estelian, who has been a spy for half his life, is unemployed in middle age!

　However, when Estelian wanted to go home dejectedly, he found that he was homeless!

　——Like most middle-class Americans, Estelline invested all his savings in financial products on Wall Street. Unfortunately, he encountered the super stock market crash caused by the Cuban nuclear crisis, and all the financial products under his name were liquidated.

　In this way, the little fortune that Estelline had accumulated over the past few decades of murder and arson all over the world was easily swallowed up by the Wall Street stock market wave during the Cuban nuclear crisis.

　As a result, not only did he lose all his savings over the years, but he also owed the bank a huge debt.

　Before Estelline even returned from Cuba, the bank had repossessed his house and car, and his wife had divorced him.

　Now, Jacob Esterline, who is homeless and has become a vagrant, can only temporarily live in a shabby hotel in the slums of Miami. His pockets are cleaner than his face, and he can't even afford the medical expenses to go to the hospital to see a doctor and change the dressing on his leg injury.

　So, when he heard that the "Wave" Intelligence Station was paying out severance pay today, he immediately came over shamelessly to ask for the money.

　"Aren't the severance pays for the 2506th Brigade being distributed today? I'm also a member of the 2506th Brigade, so I should get my share, right?"

　After recounting the bitter past, Estelion raised his head and looked at Firi with pleading eyes, a dejected expression on his face. "Please be kind, Major Jin. For the sake of our friendship, I really have no other choice..."

　Ferry stared at him silently for a while, sighed, took out two hundred dollars from his wallet and stuffed it into his hand.

　The other spies looked at each other, and a few of them stood up and stuffed money into the hands of their former boss, Estelion. But most people just remained indifferent or pointed at him from a distance.

　Nodding and laughing softly.

　Estelion knew it was awkward for him to stay there, so he just said "thank you" and turned away with the money in his pocket.

　Watching Estelion's thin back as he slowly walked out of the Wave Intelligence Station, leaning on a cane, Firi couldn't help but feel a surge of emotion:

　A reactionary class executioner with blood on his hands, who had turned himself into a bankrupt vagrant, a true reserve army of the proletarian revolution;

　A wealthy revolutionary who betrayed his class background turned himself into a drug lord who produced and sold drugs. The dragon-slaying boy turned into a dragon!

　Why is this cruel reality always more magical than the plots in novels?

　After a moment of silent contemplation, Fieri turned to David Halberstam and said, "Mr. Reporter, you asked me to give you a summary of Tropic Thunder. I didn't have an answer then, but now I have some idea."

　"Really?" David Halberstam immediately took out his notebook and ballpoint pen. "I'm all ears."

　"As far as I know, there's a line in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: 'This violent pleasure will end violently.' I think, if it's slightly modified, it can be used to describe the current Cuban war."

　Having said this, he paused, then continued in a chanting tone, "This brutal joy finally ushered in an absurd ending!"

　(End of Volume 1)

　Author's words: PS: Because winter has arrived, the traffic on the road has decreased, and the number of people feeding the wolf has also decreased, and the internet-famous wolf in Hoh Xil has gradually become thinner due to hunger.

　Everyone is betting whether the weight the old wolf has gained in the past six months will be enough for it to survive the winter.

　Do you think we'll still see this wolf in three months? Or will it starve to death around the Spring Festival?

　Volume 2: The Brain-Opening 1960s

　Chapter 143: The Brain-Opening 1960s (Part 1)

　October 21, 1962, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles

　It was a clear morning, the sun blazing brightly across the sparse shrubs on the dry hillsides, bringing the parched heat of the western desert.

　It also wakes up those office workers who are soundly sleeping, urging them to get up, wash, leave home, and embark on their daily commute.

　Major Ferry King, who had recently resigned from the CIA's Cuban Special Tasks Group, drove a popular Ford sedan with a rocket tail decoration, with his secretary and girlfriend Marita in the passenger seat, and slowly drove out of the residence and workplace assigned to him by the CIA.

　Well, not the temporary home we moved to during the nuclear crisis in January. We moved back to the San Fernando Valley shelter villa we had been in before.

　Since the Cuban nuclear crisis did not eventually develop into a global nuclear war, but disappeared in an absurd form, the powerful boss who used his connections to rob Firi's underground shelter lived in the San Fernando Valley underground shelter for less than two months and left in early March.

　After the failed Tropic Thunder invasion of Cuba, the CIA not only changed its director but also fell into financial ruin. Although it had opened up a revenue channel through drug trafficking in partnership with Castro, it would take several months to grow and sell the drugs in Cuba.

　However, the CIA's funding chain could not last that long and was on the verge of breaking.

　The extra money couldn't be earned for a while, and the guys on Capitol Hill were all furious with the CIA, so it was difficult to get national funding.

　You can't just borrow money from a loan shark, right? What lender would dare lend money to the CIA? Aren't they afraid the lender might suddenly die, leaving them with nothing?

　In order to fill the imminent financial hole, the new CIA director, John McCone, not only raised funds everywhere, but also sold off various assets on a large scale, selling many properties and safe houses in Los Angeles and other places for money to fill the sinkhole dug by the previous director in the Cuba operation.

　Among them, the Los Angeles safe house where the Fieri family temporarily stayed in January is on the list for sale.

　So, after disbanding the Cuban Special Task Force, Firi and his women moved back to the villa with the underground shelter.

　By the way, I hung signs at the door of the villa that read "San Fernando Valley Special Tool Research Institute" and "CIA Surplus Material Promotion Office."

　——After the grand Cuban War with the flying of nuclear bombs, the rules should be followed to reward the meritorious service.

　No matter how horrible the result was, or how disastrous the process was, Major Ferry King, who took over the mess in February, finally managed to make this terrible Cuban War have a somewhat convincing ending, and by the way, found a way for the CIA to make money from drug trafficking.

　But the problem is that as an "outsider" seconded to the CIA from the Pentagon, Fieri has no roots in the CIA department.

　Chief John McCone was not familiar with him and was reluctant to use him, and there were no good lucrative positions available in the bureau at the moment.

　In the end, the new director simply promised to promote him to lieutenant colonel next year and sent him back to the doomsday shelter in the San Fernando Valley to "wait."

　——After all, military ranks these days still have some value. It’s not like the 21st century where you can become a four-star general just by changing your personality!

　Of course, it would not be possible to not give Firi any promotion at all. Especially since Major King has a direct line to the White House and was once President Kennedy's "supervisor" of the CIA. Director John McCone did not have the courage to follow him.

　Just like the previous director, he just talked to himself and treated the president like a fool.

　Therefore, the new director of the CIA has somewhat increased Firi's power, or in other words, "added a burden" to him.

　Specifically, in addition to playing with women and making special props in the name of scientific research, he was also allowed to sell the CIA's surplus supplies.

　——This has been Firi’s job since he took office at the Pentagon until now.

　What? It's one thing for the Pentagon to have surplus military supplies, but how could the CIA also have surplus spy supplies?

　Well, actually there is.

　The reason is simple: with the advancement of technology and the development of the times, spy props are constantly being innovated. Especially in the context of the Cold War, the global espionage war was one of the main forms of the game between the United States and the Soviet Union, which forced the rapid development and advancement of related technologies during the Cold War.

　As a result, many old-fashioned spy props, such as early-model miniature cameras and camouflage cameras that could only take black and white photos, as well as overly bulky old radio trackers, radio transmitters as big as suitcases, etc., had become obsolete by the 1960s. They could only be piled up in warehouses to collect dust. No spy was willing to use them on business trips. Naturally, it was necessary to clear out the inventory as soon as possible to recover funds.

　According to the new director's idea, if these now outdated spy war props were converted from espionage to civilian use, they might still have some market potential - various spy cameras could be sold to private detectives or cuckolded husbands who caught their wives cheating; signal trackers could be tied to pet dogs or children to prevent them from getting lost; and old-fashioned spy radios in the shape of suitcases could also be sold to hams who like to play with private radios.

　Remember, there were no wireless phones back then, not even brick-sized cell phones. Only bulky Motorola walkie-talkies with limited range were available. If a ham wanted to "group chat" while out and about, this portable radio was the only option.

　Of course, there are also motorcycles, sports cars, luxury cars, yachts, etc. that have been specially modified by the CIA, and even drones of this era!

　——Except for being a bit more expensive and not having the ability to transmit images in real time, its other functions are almost the same as those of drones used in later generations.

　Next, on the CIA's list of drugs for sale, there are all kinds of bizarre drugs, from poisons to stimulants, whose efficacy is touted as miraculous, but whose reliability and side effects are very worrying, just like the herbs that medieval European witches boiled in cauldrons in their forest cabins.

　In addition, CIA spies have collected many strange and bizarre things from all over the world over the years, from Egyptian mummies to Japanese officers' samurai swords, medals of Nazi officers, statues and sacrificial instruments of indigenous South American people, Nepalese human skin scriptures, and so on.

　If you send all these random things directly to the pawnshop, they will definitely not sell for much money.

　But theoretically speaking, if you can make it through the collecting world, many things can be sold for ten or even a hundred times the price.

　Of course, it is impossible to expect to sell so many small items in Washington - the market in the capital is limited and there is not much purchasing power.

　The new director of the CIA has become very determined in the face of the shocking deficit in the account books. This month, he has set up surplus material promotion offices in major cities such as New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, with the goal of converting everything that can be sold in the agency into cash.

　But the problem is, it's not easy to sell the old goods stored in the bureau.

　As a result, Phili, who was burdened with an additional burden, could no longer stay at home almost every day like he did in the second half of last year, concentrating on training female slaves and playing group sex games. Instead, he had to rent a store in downtown Los Angeles and set up a small shop selling second-hand goods.

　Fortunately, as the boss, he doesn't have to punch in every morning for fear of being late, but he still has to at least visit the store from time to time.

　In addition, Firi also has to find opportunities to attend various parties, try to get on the upper level, and try to find ways to sell the junk accumulated in the CIA warehouse at the highest possible price: it really is like going back to the time when he was selling "Doomsday Survival Kits" at the Pentagon.

　However, this time there was no artificial satellite launched by the Soviets to create a "Sputnik moment" to boost his sales pitch.

　So, he could only curse the new director's wild imagination while trying to recall all the marketing tricks that were popular in later generations...

　-

　The car was driving on a slightly bumpy country road. The urban area of ​​Los Angeles at this time was much smaller than it was in the 21st century. The San Fernando Valley was already considered a rural agricultural area. Not only was it sparsely populated, but the quality of most roads was also poor. Ferry didn't dare drive too fast.

　Marita, feeling bored, turned on the radio and heard a discussion about the moon landing project on the morning news program.

　Perhaps because they felt the Cuban War was too humiliating, and in an effort to divert public attention, the Kennedy administration had been hinting since April that it was planning a massive moon landing project, competing with the Soviet Union to reach "new heights of human civilization" and restoring the free world's confidence in winning the Cold War.

　According to President Kennedy, "Being second in the space race is inconsistent with the requirements of national security and the 'new frontier'."

　"Other countries saw Soviet probes first orbit the moon and then the sun. They concluded that the Soviet Union was thriving while we were declining. I believe it's up to us to reverse this trend."

　In short, the United States must seize the "manifest destiny" of the new era and "dare to explore the unknown." Just like the cowboys who braved mountains and rivers, ate sand and fought bears to launch the westward movement, the United States must continue to bravely move toward the moon and "climb new heights"!

　But the problem is that there is still a lot of controversy in the United States about whether to carry out the "Apollo moon landing", and there is a lot of opposition.

　After all, the massive investment, estimated at at least $40 billion, and the fact that each Saturn V rocket cost as much as an aircraft carrier, made people nervous. Opponents, from Congress to academia, the media, and the general public, argued that the United States wasn't wealthy enough to spend money recklessly. Every penny of the national treasury was the blood and sweat of the people. Rather than using such money to launch a moon landing spacecraft of uncertain use, it would be better to use it for welfare benefits for the poor or to invest in more profitable projects.

　——It can be roughly summed up in one sentence: "President! Spectacles are ruining the country!"

　The black leaders of the civil rights movement were completely unimpressed by this and kept shouting, "Spaceships are in space, but the suffering on earth is great."

　Supporters of the Apollo moon landings argued that money was meant to be spent, not hidden away. Furthermore, the US wasn't short of cash. The money lost on Wall Street during the recent Cuban nuclear crisis alone was more than enough to fund the Apollo moon landings, and more.

　Instead of letting the rich squander this wealth on all sorts of villas, yachts, golf courses and fancy clothes and jewelry for female stars, it would be better to spend it on something more meaningful and exciting for human civilization, such as moon exploration.

　In other words, while spectacles can harm the nation, even without them, the money in the treasury will still be squandered, leaving the people with little benefit. It's better to just create a spectacle, so all citizens can enjoy it and feel the dignity of standing at the beacon of human civilization!

　Finally, some skeptics believe that the current technological level of human civilization may not be able to support a long voyage to the moon.

　Although both the Soviet Union and the United States have successfully launched manned spacecraft in recent years, the difference in difficulty between getting a manned spacecraft off the ground and into Earth orbit and sending it to the moon is enormous, even more so than the difference between Caesar's crossing of the English Channel and Columbus's crossing of the Atlantic. "Is going 300 kilometers from the Earth the same as going 380,000 kilometers from the Earth?"

　(Gagarin's manned spacecraft reached a maximum altitude of 300 kilometers above the Earth. The average distance between the Moon and Earth is 380,000 kilometers.)

　According to many experts and scholars, the difficulty of launching a moon landing project now is like "crossing the Atlantic in a washing machine"!

　Such a wildly imaginative thing, once analyzed carefully, seems unreliable!

　Given this, they believe that any hype and discussion about a moon landing is nothing but self-deception, and that President Kennedy's solemn declaration of an "Apollo moon landing" is nothing more than a modern-day "South Sea Stock Market Incident" (around 1720, Britain experienced financial turmoil due to the South Sea Stock Bubble, which wiped out Sir Isaac Newton's entire fortune), ultimately ending in a notorious, disastrous farce and disgrace.

　Anyway, after listening to the various arguments on the radio, Marita, who only had a junior high school education, felt confused. She couldn't help but ask Firi, who was driving, "Hey, honey, tell me, can the United States send a man to the moon in the next few years?"

　In response to this, Fili's face suddenly showed a tangled expression...

　Because, even he, a time traveler, doesn’t know the answer to this question!

　With less than a decade of experience in manned spaceflight, and knowledge of the universe that was then full of fallacies?

　On the eve of the Apollo moon landing, the American people believed that the difficulty of landing on the moon in the 1960s was no different from crossing the Atlantic in a washing machine.