Where this was said
The CIA's Public Entertainment Liaison Office
At 22:38 · chapter starts 21:50
By the 1990s, the CIA's informal Hollywood relationship had evolved into an official division: the Public Entertainment Liaison Office [1] — Carter Roy "In the 1990s, the CIA formalized what had been an informal relationship with Hollywood by creating the Public Entertainment Liaison Office.…" 21:43 . Its star consultant, former CIA operative Chase Brandon, worked on high-profile productions including the Jack Ryan film franchise — featuring Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck as a CIA analyst who battles global threats in cinematic style. Brandon later told The Guardian that the CIA had 'always been portrayed erroneously as evil and Machiavellian' and that it took the agency a long time to find projects that showed it in the light it wanted. The hosts note dryly that this is A+ propaganda — a relatable, heroic American figure who happens to work for the CIA, making the agency look indispensable and cool. The existence of this office means government-Hollywood collaboration isn't speculation; it's institutional policy.
Fox's 24 aired two months after 9/11 and glorified torture as a necessary counterterrorism tool. Zero Dark Thirty — with unprecedented CIA access including floor plans of Langley — depicted torture as central to capturing Bin Laden, even though it officially wasn't. If the CIA wanted torture normalized, both productions did that job.
