Who was the most powerful Hispanic American?

In the post below, I asserted that many self-satisfied "progressives" were (and are) quick to ascribe racism to non-fans of Obama -- yet these same progs would never buy meat from a Spanish-speaking butcher or patronize a market which caters to Hispanics. In response, commenter b (who is British) asked:

Hispanics are the largest non-white ethnic group in the US.

The vast majority of them are proletarian, as is true of white people, African Americans, and indeed any ethnic group I'm aware of in America apart from Jewish people.

But I can think of Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama. Obviously these individuals are ruling-class filth just like their white counterparts, and their appointment or election in no way helps the black poor. But it's curious that I can't think of any similar figures who are Hispanic, despite there being more Hispanic people than black people in the US (the difference in numbers presumably being even greater once one takes account of those without residence permits). Why is that?

Good question. (Although I would counter that most Jews in America are, in fact, proles. I would never call Powell "filth." Let's not talk about Condi.)

Who was/is the most powerful United States citizen of Hispanic heritage?

On August 6 -- not many days ago -- the answer became obvious: Sonia Sotomayor, the new Supreme Court Justice. She is of Puerto Rican descent. But before then...?

I can't think of anyone who wielded more power -- at least behind than scenes -- than did CIA counter-intelligence director James Jesus Angleton.

Much of that power was covert. In actual practice, he ran a CIA within the CIA, heading up a faction of zealots who operated under the bizarre theory that the China-USSR split was fictional. Angleton also ran Operation CHAOS, which spied within US borders, contravening the CIA's charter. In a sense, Angleton might be considered the father of neo-conservatism.

The "Angleton faction" within the intelligence community was not confined to the Agency. He closely associated with like-minded military leaders and with William Sullivan, the number three man at the FBI (after Hoover and Tolson). The Angletonians met regularly at a private club in scenic Harper's Ferry. The building was destroyed in a mysterious fire in the early 1970s, around the time Angleton was forced from the Agency. It is said that Angleton and Sullivan had confiscated Hoover's fabled blackmail files after Hoover's death, and that the files had been stored at the club.

(If you visit Harper's Ferry, you may run into an older resident who knows the story. I did.)

Former Army intelligence officer John Newman argues, in the updated version of Oswald and the CIA, that Angleton was the prime mover behind the JFK assassination. I find Newman's argument -- which is far too complex to detail here -- persuasive.

During his tenure at the Agency, Angleton took pains to hide his Mexican ancestry. His father, Hugh Angleton, had accompanied Pershing during his raids in search of Pancho Villa; somewhere along the way, Hugh met a gorgeous senorita, whom he married and brought to America.

I don't think that their son James felt ashamed of his mother, but he understood that he could not rise within the system unless he was considered a full-fledged member of the east coast aristocracy. Thus, he hid who he was. Angleton joined the OSS, the CIA's wartime predecessor; according to an old joke, the initials stood for "Oh, So Social." The eventual head of the CIA was Allen Dulles, the quintessential east coast elitist -- and it was pretty obvious that Angleton hoped one day to have Dulles' job.

For decades, Angleton downplayed his middle name, which is properly pronounced "Hey-Zeus." He fully embraced his heritage, and his full name, only after the CIA canned him in 1975. His paranoia and fanaticism had proven ruinous -- so ruinous that some within the Agency thought that he was a Soviet mole! A psychologist might posit that Angleton's zeal stemmed from a desire to prove that he was more American than were the east coast "old boys" with whom he worked and competed.

Can you think of any other Hispanic American who held greater power? I can't.

The question remains: Why has there been no Hispanic Colin Powell? No Hispanic Condi Rice? The answer may have something to do with slavery, the foundational sin of this nation, a sin which scars our collective psyche like no other. Of course, the other "original sin" was the slaughter of the land's original inhabitants -- and yet no Native Americans have ever held positions of substantial power in our government.

(Incidentally, Alfred Hitchcock's worst movie, Topaz, features a character based on Angleton. He is played by John Forsythe. If you look at Angleton's ears, you may agree that they should have cast Mickey Mouse.)