“WHAT’S UNFOLDING before our eyes is a very specific type of coup called the `Color Revolution’.”
So said former Trump aide Darren Beattie, speaking on the Tucker Carlson show, September 15, 2020.
Most people felt something was fishy about the upcoming election. But it was hard to say what.
Beattie gave a name to the problem. He called it “color revolution.”
He defined color revolution as “a regime change model favored by many in our national security apparatus.” It uses “an engineered, contested-elections scenario” to disrupt and override legitimate elections, Beattie explained.
America had been using this technique for decades to overthrow regimes overseas.
Now a similar operation was being planned against President Trump, Beattie charged.
His warning proved prophetic.
Americans may disagree on whether we experienced a Biden “coup” or a Trump “insurrection,” but most would agree that the events of November 3, 2020 to January 6, 2021 don’t seem to qualify as a normal “election.”
Beattie Accuses “Atlanticists”
When Beattie warned of “color revolution,” he broke a fearsome taboo.
The last person who tried to expose color revolutions on national TV was Glenn Beck in 2010. Fox News cancelled Beck’s show soon after.
Now Beattie had taken up the torch. But he went farther.
While Beck blamed George Soros for funding color revolutions, Beattie accused the U.S. government itself, specifically our “national security apparatus.”
Beattie pointed, in particular, to a cabal of foreign policy operatives known as “Atlanticists.”
Atlanticist is diplomatic jargon for a person who puts British interests over American ones.
British Front Groups
In my last article, “How the British Sold Globalism to America,” I explained how British influence networks exert “soft power” in Washington, operating through front groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
The primary mission of these British fronts is to push Atlanticism — the notion that America must always come to Britain’s rescue when she embroils herself in wars.
Prior to going on Tucker Carlson’s show, Beattie had written a series of articles on the Revolver News site, which he edits.
Beattie’s series had exposed a snakepit of U.S. NGOs established and funded by the U.S. government, whose mission is to subvert elections and topple governments around the world, under the guise of “promoting democracy.”
Their weapon of choice is color revolution.
Beattie referred to these groups as “Atlanticist NGOs.”
Frankenstein’s Monster
According to Beattie, these “Atlanticist networks” (again, Beattie’s words) include such groups as the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group, The German Marshall Fund, The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its two daughter groups, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
Beattie revealed that the same “color revolution professionals” who run these “Atlanticist-aligned” NGOs (as Beattie called them) can also be found playing leading roles in the anti-Trump “Resistance.”
In effect, Beattie was claiming that America had created its own Frankenstein’s monster.
The very weapons we had deployed to subvert other countries’s elections were now being turned against us, to undermine our 2020 election.
Who had done this? Who had the power to commandeer America’s “democracy-promotion” NGOs and turn them against their own master, the U.S. government?
Who were these “Atlanticists” whom Beattie accused?
The Great Game
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Atlanticism” as “A policy or principle of close military, economic, and political cooperation between Europe and North America, or a European and North American country; spec. support for or advocacy of NATO.”
That definition may be true, but it is also misleading. It misses the point that the true purpose of Atlanticism is to consolidate the military alliance between the US and UK.
The 1941 Atlantic Charter, which sets forth the guiding principles of Atlanticism, is an agreement between two countries, Great Britain and the United States.
All other countries are simply pawns in the great game.
NATO (sometimes called the “Atlantic Alliance”) is the enforcement mechanism of the Atlanticist order.
NATO’s first secretary general Lord Hastings Ismay famously explained that NATO’s purpose is, “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down.”
In 1944, when Charles de Gaulle objected to U.S. meddling in French affairs, Winston Churchill slapped him down with these words:
“If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea. Every time I have to decide between you and Roosevelt, I will always choose Roosevelt.”
With those words, Churchill reminded de Gaulle that France’s place in the so-called “Atlantic Community” was a minor one at best.
British Propaganda
The expression “Atlantic Community” was coined by American journalist Walter Lippmann in 1917. Like so many U.S. journalists at the time, Lippmann worked under the shadow of British handlers, especially one Norman Angell, a British Fabian who had somehow become an “unofficial member” of the editorial board of Lippmann’s magazine, The New Republic.
Angell had come over in 1915 on a grant from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Founded in 1910 by Scottish-born steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, the Endowment pushed an Anglophile agenda. Carnegie was an outspoken advocate of “British-American union,” i.e. merging the US and UK into a single superstate. His Endowment called for an end to U.S. “isolation” and propagandized for U.S. intervention in World War I.
In keeping with the Carnegie Endowment’s goals, Angell moved The New Republic from a neutral stance toward open support for Great Britain in the war.
An English-Speaking “Nucleus of Authority”
Lippmann is widely hailed as the inventor of Atlanticism.
On February 17, 1917, he wrote an article for The New Republic, titled “In Defense of the Atlantic World.” It was an open call for war.
Lippmann argued that America must stand with the “Western world” against the barbarous hordes of the East. He wrote:
“[Germany’s] war against Britain, France, and Belgium is a war against the civilization of which we are a part. … Because on the two shores of the Atlantic Ocean there has grown up a profound web of interest which joins together the Western world. … We cannot betray the Atlantic community…”
Lippmann’s article supposedly kicked off the Atlanticist movement.
In reality, Lippmann was merely repeating shopworn British propaganda lines, which had long portrayed the British Empire as the West’s final bulwark against Eastern barbarism.
Sir Norman Angell later clarified the true meaning of Atlanticism when he wrote that any world government must be led by a “nucleus of authority” — specifically by “the West” — which in turn must be led by “the English-speaking world.”
The Round Table Agenda
As explained in my earlier articles, “How the British Invented Globalism,” and “How the British Sold Globalism to America,” British leaders at the turn of the 20th century recognized that England could no longer afford to police its global empire.
They formed a plan to transfer the cost of empire to the United States. The plan was for the Americans to police the world, at their own expense, while Britain would call the shots, retaining control of imperial policy.
That is Atlanticism, in a nutshell.
A secretive group called the Round Table was formed, partly with funds from the Rhodes Trust, to put this plan into action.
From roughly 1909 to 1945, the Round Table gradually drew the United States into a web of interdependency with Britain. This was done, first, by establishing The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in 1921, to exercise backchannel control over U.S. foreign policy. Secondly, transnational entities were established, such as the UN, NATO and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which further bound the U.S. to Britain’s fate.
By these means, the British ensured U.S. support for any future military operations they might wish to undertake.
Having secured U.S. cooperation, the next step was decolonization — granting self-rule to Britain’s colonies, so England would no longer bear the burden of policing and defending them herself.
The Switch to “Informal Empire”
One of the great myths of our time is the supposed “fall” or disintegration of the British Empire. No such thing ever happened.
Decolonization was already planned well before World War I.
The only thing holding up the plan was the need to neutralize Germany as an imperial competitor and secure permanent U.S. military support for the new global order. These goals were achieved in 1945, with the partition of Germany and America’s entry into the UN.
Between 1946 and 1980, Britain granted self-rule to most of its colonies, but only slowly, one by one, and under certain conditions.
Before granting independence to any colony, the British would install local rulers willing to honor past business arrangements. Those who played ball were rewarded. Those who made trouble were removed.
Britain thus switched from “direct” to “indirect” rule, from “formal” to “informal” empire.
To put it in Marxist terms, Britain switched from a colonial empire to a “neocolonial” one.
“Passive Resistance”
To maintain the new system, Britain needed quieter, more discreet, methods for removing rebellious vassals. One such method turned out to be color revolution.
British studies of “passive resistance” and “non-obedience” began as early as World War I, when philosopher Bertrand Russell proposed that invading armies could be defeated without firing a shot, if civilians refused to comply with enemy occupation forces.
Russell’s ideas influenced British military planners such as Basil Liddell Hart and Stephen King-Hall, who incorporated nonviolent resistance into Britain’s growing arsenal of psychological weapons.
Decolonizing Africa
On February 3, 1960, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan spoke before the South African Parliament. “The wind of change is blowing,” he said, and Britain must blow with it, by liberating its African colonies.
The British insisted that other European powers follow their example. Britain did not want its newly liberated colonies to be swallowed up by rival Europeans.
Portugal refused to cooperate. The Portuguese declared they would fight to the death to hold onto Angola, Mozambique, and their other African possessions.
The Carnation Revolution
Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar died in 1970, but his Estado Novo regime lived on, continuing its long-running colonial wars against African insurgents.
On April 25, 1974, Portuguese Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano was suddenly overthrown in a “soft” military coup. It became known as the “Carnation Revolution,” because demonstrators put carnations in the muzzles of soldier’s guns.
The Carnation Revolution is the first example I know of a full-fledged “color revolution.”
Britain denies taking part in the coup, but the signs of British psywar are evident.
Prior to the coup, only days before Caetano was supposed to visit London, The Times reported a massacre of 400 people by Portuguese special forces in Mozambique. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson demanded that Caetano cancel his visit, accusing him of “genocide” and calling for Portugal’s expulsion from NATO.
By this means, Britain undermined support for Caetano, at a time when the future coup leaders were already issuing threats and demands.
After the coup, Britain quickly recognized the new leftwing junta and offered guidance on how to dismantle Portugal’s African empire.
Gene Sharp, Psywar Operative
Today’s activists revere Gene Sharp, an American pacifist, as the father of “strategic non-violence.” Sharp wrote the standard “playbook” for color revolution, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973).
What the activists don’t realize is that Sharp was a psywar operative, with strong ties to both U.S. and British intelligence.
Sharp spent 30 years at the Center for International Affairs, nicknamed the “CIA at Harvard.”
More importantly, Sharp spent 10 years in England (1955 to 1965), working with the British peace movement and earning a Ph.D. from Oxford. Sharp’s iconic work, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, was, in fact, his Oxford doctoral thesis.
“Swarming Adolescents”
In 1967, Australian psychologist Fred Emery, then director of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR) in London, predicted that “swarming adolescents” would soon be harnessed as a political weapon, capable of toppling governments by the 1990s.
He was right.
In 1989, a wave of non-violent uprisings swept the Soviet Bloc, toppling Communist regimes. The Czech uprising was nicknamed the “Velvet Revolution,” a term that came to be used interchangeably with “color revolution.”
The “velvet revolutions” of 1989 were largely orchestrated by Western governments, working through front groups.
“Democracy Promotion”
The Western front groups that helped bring down the Soviet Empire are, in many cases, the same “Atlanticist NGOs” whom Darren Beattie accused.
In the NGO world, they are known as “pro-democracy,” “democracy-building” or “democracy-promotion” groups.
Promoting “democracy” has been a core agenda of the Atlanticists since Woodrow Wilson declared that America must fight to “make the world safe for democracy.”
Obviously, there are times when fighting for “democracy” is commendable.
The fall of the Soviet Union undoubtedly helped the captured nations of Eastern Europe.
Yet, all too often, cries of “democracy” and “freedom” have been used to enlist naïve young people into unsavory endeavors, such as the destabilization of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The Freedom House Model
Most historians agree that the first “democracy-promotion” NGO was Freedom House, founded on October 31, 1941, in Washington DC.
From its inception, Freedom House was a British intelligence front.
Its original purpose was to fight “isolationism” and push for America’s entry into World War II.
In April, 1940, Winston Churchill created a special intelligence unit called British Security Coordination (BSC), to carry out covert operations against the U.S. antiwar movement.
With the full cooperation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, BSC set up offices in Rockefeller Center, under the command of Canadian intelligence operative William Stephenson, code-named Intrepid.
Freedom House was formed by the merger of two pro-war organizations, Fight for Freedom (FFF) and The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (CDAAA).
Both were British fronts run by Churchill’s BSC, according to Thomas E. Mahl’s Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-1944.
The National Endowment for Democracy
On November 17, 1983, the U.S. Congress authorized funding for a new entity called the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a public-private entity which would receive U.S. government funding.
NED’s purpose was to serve as an umbrella group for a network of democracy-promotion NGOs, including two daughter groups which would eventually become known as the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI).
That same year, Gene Sharp, the British-trained psywar operative who had ostensibly invented color revolutions, formed a group of his own, the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston.
All the above groups had two things in common.
First, they all followed Gene Sharp’s “playbook” for color revolution.
Second, they all helped the U.S. government fund and organize color revolutions in other countries, for the ostensible purpose of promoting democracy.
According to Darren Beattie, all of these groups took part in the destabilization and dubious termination of Trump’s presidency.
Cui Bono?
It remains to be seen whether Beattie’s accusations will stand the test of time.
One thing is certain, though.
The British government is extremely pleased by Trump’s ouster.
And they don’t want him coming back.
On February 4, 2020, while Trump’s second impeachment trial was pending, the Royal Institute of International Affairs — also known as Chatham House — declared on its website that, “The Trial of Trump is Not Enough to Repair Democracy.”
Warning that election “disinformation” spread by Trump supporters poses a threat to democracy, Chatham House called for a “9/11”-style commission to further probe the January 6 “insurrection.”
London Calling
Chatham House is not just any think tank.
It operates under Royal Charter, under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth II.
Moreover, it is the sister organization of the Council on Foreign Relations. Together, the two groups formulate and coordinate foreign policy for the US and UK.
After all these years, it is starting to become clear what Norman Angell meant when he spoke of a “nucleus of authority” at the core of the Atlantic Community.
It appears the nucleus may be in London.
This is the world the Atlanticists made.
Welcome to the Atlantic Community.
