Personally, I never made it into a CIA front group, though I tried hard enough. I was “unwitting,” in spook-speak. “Witting” was what the agency called people in the know. They first tested and recruited them into high positions in the student world, then administered a surprise security oath before telling them they were part of the CIA.

Those who "know" the secret meanings were called "Witting".

The author talks how they CIA front group used one called NSA to do its dirty work. Although the author doesn't say it directly, it's very obvious that the CIA likes to use the name of its enemies and rivals to do its dirty works.

For example, if Fred hates Todd then Fred opens up a "punch a puppy" foundation under the name of Todd's Puppy Beaters so that Todd gets all the blame. This is a common tactic with clowns.

So be careful with why they named an organization the way they did. It's often their way to make you blame the wrong person and the wrong group.

Another figure I met at the turn of the 1960s was Allard Lowenstein, who had attended every NSA conference since the group’s inception and had obscure but real connections to State Department and CIA powers behind the scenes.

This is not the NSA, but they made damn sure to muddle the waters and make it easy to confuse the two.

She was “one of the few women in the NSA-CIA club,” Paget writes, noting that “Steinem, who knowingly cooperated with the CIA, is sensitive today about her work with the Agency.”

Not the NSA.

telling the inside story of how the Central Intelligence Agency corrupted the natural and democratic growth of students’ rights movement by infiltrating the National Student Association (NSA) and directing it to its Cold War ends.

But they sure make it easy to confuse the two. The (not) NSA was a CIA front that did a lot of dirty work.

A graduate of Smith College, her name was Gloria Steinem. This was one year before she worked at the Playboy Club in New York City and six years before she wrote “A Bunny’s Tale” in Show magazine and described herself as an “active feminist” in 1969.

She was a CIA asset.