Podcast Review: “Wind of Change”
Acclaimed New Yorker journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, hosts a podcast on Spotify that explores a potential connection between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Scorpions, a famous German heavy metal band. Keefe theorizes, receiving info from sources who’ve worked at the CIA, that the Agency wrote one of their most famous songs, Wind of Change, in an attempt to help topple the Soviet Union. Throughout the podcast episodes, he brings on several journalists, historians, spies, band members, and others familiar with the band, as well as similar efforts conducted by the CIA in the past to advance the soft power interests of the United States.
Each episode introduces a crucial facet of the supposed relationship between the CIA and the Scorpions, starting with the history of soft power efforts by the CIA. This relationship began with Marlene Dietrich during WWII, a prominent German actress who fled Nazi Germany under the CIA’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The practice transitioned to the CIA and utilized famed American jazz musician Louis Armstrong during the Cold War in America’s efforts in decolonizing Africa to advance U.S. “soft power” interests through music as a counter to Soviet influence in the region. It concludes with the Scorpions and how the frontman of the Scorpions, Klaus Meine, was inspired to write the lyrics of Wind of Change after attending a music peace festival in Moscow in the summer of 1989. This history is presented as a way to highlight the previous effort by the CIA. It indicates the likelihood that the CIA could have conducted another such operation towards the end of the Cold War. A noteworthy feature of CIA-speak came up during Keefe’s initial Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request on any potential connection between the Scorpions and the CIA. They had responded to the inquiry, “we can neither confirm nor deny”. This phrasing is a typical agency response when it comes to requests about any CIA-related activities, or a “Glomar Response”, named after a ship that was designed to secretly capture a sunken Russian submarine in the 1970s.
Keefe eventually tracks Meine in Hannover, Germany, for the final episode and finally asks him if the connection between his band and the CIA is accurate. Meine denies the allegation, stating that he wrote the lyrics entirely. One key aspect worthy of attention is that the CIA had previously supported efforts in soft power without the target even knowing that the CIA was facilitating them. One prominent example highlighted in the podcast is the American Society of African Culture, which had received funding from the CIA for a music and art festival in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1961, without the prior knowledge of Nina Simone, a significant actor in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s who was a pivotal leader in this organization.
This development by the CIA comes in contrast to the Soviet Union’s efforts (and subsequently the Russian Federation’s) during the Cold War, dubbed “active measures”, or political warfare that is still being used to this day. Active measures draw a throughline from the supposed development of AIDS by the CIA, an effort of disinformation conducted by the Kremlin to more contemporary efforts of political subversion from involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to the current war in Ukraine.
Podcasts have exploded in their popularity since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, one lost aspect in these interviews is body language, which is prominent in other mediums, such as movies and television. The interaction between Keefe and Meine loses some of the hype leading up to this interview, given that Keefe spent ten years researching this topic and collecting all the sources from the major players involved in this potential soft power play. Thus, when Meine flatly denies any connection, it is impossible to read his body language since you only hear him speaking versus seeing any facial reactions to the inquiry.
Two important aspects of this research summarize the podcast. One is the immense value that the song Wind of Change played for the minds of citizens behind the Iron Curtain, yearning to be free from Soviet domination, which still resonates with people around the world who are under the guise of authoritarianism. But the more contemplative aspect that was the focal point of this podcast and its research is the massive value that such a song can be for intelligence in service of soft power, such as the CIA, replaced with whether those making the song were aware of the service’s involvement or not. Regardless, the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain soon collapsed after the song was released, and the agency could neither confirm nor deny any involvement with the Scorpions.
Author: Patrick Kornegay, Jr.
Managing Editor: Sebastian Reyes
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