but checking his Wikipedia reveals he's been determined to influence for the hard right for a very long time. He was super busy during George W.'s unfortunate time at the wheel, and I heard his name frequently during that time.

A good refresher overview is convenient at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen

It doesn't come close to illuminating how much virulent hatred this man has poured into contemporary conservative policy, however.

Regarding LeDeen and Latin America, I saw in one article he has always been a major proponent and supporter of Nixon/Kissinger's Pinochet Government in Chile. It goes without saying he would whole-heartedly support the mind-blowing atrocities and carnage it took to get and keep this monstrous fascist in office, too.

An observation they lay at LeDeen's feet concerns the diabolical and cynical swing from naming people working for the salvation of the desperately poor huge majority of Latin Americans as "communists" in order to make them loathesome to W.A.S.P.-types in the US voter class to "terrorists!" I noticed it had happened the moment they picked that up as soon as "Reagan destroyed communism."

Badda bing, suddenly Latin American leftists were still, at the very least, terrorists!

Terror's Latin American Profile

JoAnn Kawell
September 25, 2007

. . .

It was not until the Reagan era, when the Cold War was drawing to a close and “the international Communist conspiracy” was growing threadbare as a means of winning U.S. public support for intervention abroad, that right-wing theorists like Michael Ledeen and Claire Sterling began to win official support for their view that “international terrorism” constituted a threat analogous to “international Communism”—that is that “terrorists” of different political stripes and religious creeds were working intimately together toward the downfall of the United States. During the Reagan years, the simple term “terrorism”—without other identifying national or ideological markers—became short-hand for any perceived threat of violence directed against U.S. interests.

But if public concern about Communism was waning, concern about the U.S. “drug problem” was at a peak, and so in the same era drug trafficking was rhetorically linked to this “terrorist” conspiracy as one of the key means by which “terrorists” were striving to destroy the United States and its international allies. And because the main drug of concern was cocaine, and cocaine is made exclusively in Latin America, Latin America was soon being described as a hotbed of “terrorism.”

In 1984, in a speech to the Organization of American States, Secretary of State George Shultz warned newly resurgent Latin American democracies that they would have to vigilantly “struggle” against “terrorism and drugs.” The same year Washington’s Ambassador to Colombia Lewis Tambs used the term “narcoguerrilla”—soon to mutate to “narcoterrorist”—to refer to an alleged alliance between Colombian insurgents and the Colombian groups that run the world cocaine trade. Though both groups earn income from various aspects of the drug trade, the two groups were (and are) actually sworn enemies.

From the point of view of members of Congress and drug control officials trying to win adminstration attention—and resources—for international drug control programs, “narcoterrorism” was a boon: It elevated drug control to the level of a key foreign policy issue. In 1986, President Reagan signed a secret directive which designated the international drug trade as a national security concern. This opened the way for U.S. military involvement in the drug war, and provided a ready-made mission for the Pentagon a few years later when the end of the Cold War effectively put an end to its old one.

More:
https://nacla.org/article/terror%27s-latin-american-profile

Learned in the Wikipedia that his wife, Barbara is another hard right fiend, as well.

Thanks for the post which reminds us of the kind of maniacs we have always had actually steering the ship of state most of the time. It's no small wonder a country as large and powerful as this has made such horrible choices, when it should be much more evolved and intelligent than it has been.

Especially in South America.

Otto Reich ran the Office of Public Diplomacy for Reagan during Iran-Contra, too. I recall seeing LeDeens name looking for information after seeing your post, saying he was involved in Iran/Contra, too.

Otto Reich had to move out of Reagan's place for him after the US Senate discovered Reich was using illegal propaganda, paid for with US taxpayers' own taxes, to lie to them, and Latin America was/is his obsession.

Planted news stories, OMG. There's no telling how much serious confusion LeDeen created, then. What a traitor to humanity.

Undoubtedly you're well aware of Edward Louis Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who became the actual "father of propaganda" in the US, and started his evil career with helping the CIA pull off overthrowing both Iran and Guatemala in 1953 and 1954.

It's so good to get a clearer picture of Michael LeDeen. I'll be far more concerned with remembering his name, after this. Hope his kind of deviant patriots are going to drop out of sight in our lifetimes. Can always hope, anyway.