The Reagan Method
 The Reagan Method    | |
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| Type | film |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Author(s) | Dirk Pohlmann |
| Subjects | Psychological Warfare, Industrial Espionage, False Flag, Olof Palme |
| Interest of | • James Lyons • National Underwater Reconnaissance Office • The Bombers Affair (Luxembourg) |
| A groundbreaking documentary which puts a huge amount of Cold War psychological warfare in context | |
Structure
The documentary has 3 parts.
Part 1 deals with industrial sabotage in the USSR, including the explosion in the main Soviet gas pipeline to Europe.
Then it goes on to describe several high risk military operations to convince the Soviets of US superiority, almost convincing the Soviets a WW3 was starting.
Part 2 describes the use of submarines under false flag to topple the neutral Swedish government. After a Soviet submarine grounded in Swedish waters in 1982, US President Ronald Reagan's Deception Committee used the chance to start an extensive false flag operation against the Social Democrat Swedish Government. Over several years, and with collaboration from high ranking people in the Swedish Navy, there were reported several hundred sightings of periscopes and other parts of mystery submarines. The default assumption in media was Soviet submarines, and the Swedish Admiralty did everything to keep up that perception.
Only later,after the end of the Cold War, did US and British senior officials casually admit that this was a psychological warfare operation under false flag. These officials are interviewed again for the documentary.
Part 3 puts this on context with the 1986 assassination of Olof Palme.
Media Reception
Apart from its first broadcasts on the French/German TV-channel ARTE in 2014, the documentary was little commented on i MSM. Despite having made a dozen documentaries for mainstream TV before, per 2019 director Dirk Pohlmann has not received any more offers to make documentaries for mainstream TV.
The Swedish government channel SVT bought the film, but hesitated to broadcast it. Originally the channel envisaged it to be followed by a long rebuttal by the Swedish government, but eventually decided not to air the documentary at all.
Interview Objects
John F. Lehman Jr. US Secretary of the Navy; Admiral James Lyons; Keith Speed UK Navy Minister; Ola Frithiofson; Ulf Svensson; Ola Tunandrer; Mikhail Gorbachev; US National Securtiy Councilor Thomas C. Reed; US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger
