The more I study the CIA, the less they strike me as a monolithic group of black hats and the more they strike me as America's spitballers-in-chief.
I try to imagine the conference rooms where these things happened. Nine white men in suits with thin black ties, discussing ... well, utter lunacy, with serious faces. "Right, Gene. An exploding cigar. I like it. Talk more about that." ...or... "Goats, you say? So we will need a farm. Bob? Do we have a farm?" Bob: "Uh, let me check. Yes. Yes, sir. Pennsylvania." And then these guys would go home and watch George Burns and Gracie Allen on TV, while the wife wore a poodle-skirt, and their son played with Lincoln Logs. Just... bizarre.
In an alternate universe, where I became a successful screenwriter in 2007, I've already produced a movie about the CIA guys who decided the way to provide cover for the CIA/USAF high-altitude reconnaissance missions was "little green men." And I've done a period biopic about Gary Powers, son of Kentucky coal miners, an air force pilot who got invited to drop out so he could take a taxi to a red velvet hotel cafe on Hollywood and Vine to hop a puddlejumper to bumblefuck nevada to fly black gliders to the edge of space over the Soviet Union. Who then spent two years in Soviet Prisons, got called a liar by his own government, divorced his wife and married a CIA secretary, became a test pilot and then flew news copters for Channel 4. It fucking disgusts me that we can all collectively lose our shit over a mediocre show about ad agencies during the '60s but the closest we can come to talking about the very interesting things that were going on is Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff.