CIA agent E. Howard Hunt says CIA gets orders from Cardinal Spellman and praises the Jesuits (1998)

Video Transcript:

The American strongest ally inside Guatemala is the Catholic Church. The CIA contacts Cardinal Spellman in New York to take part in their psychological war against our bends. The Cardinal uses his authority to enlist the full cooperation of the head of the Guatemalan Church, Archbishop Ariano. Cardinal Spellman convinced his counterpart in Guatemala to issue a pastoral letter several months before the coup in which the Cardinal basically spelled out his message to the flock that they should rise up against the Communist in Guatemala and overthrow them. And then the CIA took that pastoral letter and airlifted it around Guatemala. I didn't author the letter myself, but I think propaganda shop turned it out. We had gotten the okay from Cardinal Spellman to go ahead with this. And I wouldn't presume to trace the lines of the authority within the Catholic Church how they get their information what they do. And I always said, you know, in an admiring way that the Jesuits formed the greatest intelligence service in the world as long as they have.