[…] Astor. In one of those intriguing coincidences, Astor played a role in Ivanov’s attempts to intervene in the Cuban Missile Crisis. On the Thursday evening of the Cuba week, Astor suggested Ivanov should meet ‘Boofy’ Gore, the Earl of Arran. At the time it seemed to be an eccentric choice for behind-the-scenes diplomacy. But […]
[…] C. Wright Mills, Allen Ginsberg, and most guaranteed to upset the American establishment Alger Hiss. Tynan was also a signatory to the ‘Fair Play For Cuba’ advertisement placed in the New York Times in April 1960. An appearance before the SISS therefore came as no surprise. In the event, chief counsel J. […]
[…] crises than appeared at the time. In the Cuban missile crisis, for example, it now appears that the Soviet Union already had some tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba before the crisis erupted, so an attempted US invasion could have resulted in nuclear use. Furthermore, during the crisis, US fighters were airborne from bases in […]
[…] nationalists and the South Vietnamese establishment were producing much of America’s heroin. The other main heroin producer, Iran, was also an American ally. 8 In later years Cuba and then Nicaragua were both described as prime movers in the Caribbean cocaine trade when it is obvious now, and was fairly clear then, that Cuban […]
[…] mistakes made by the United States and CIA in the past. The usual CIA mode of undermining foreign governments it does not like — from Russia to Cuba to Iran — has been to organize and train their opponents in criminal activities, including sabotage and smuggling. But time and again this strategy backfires. The […]
[…] countries for research. Although it is unclear to what use they were put, AEC documents show isotopes were sent to Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey, South Africa, the UK and Uraguay. In response to my inquiry, […]
[…] decision to withdraw from Vietnam was….. also part of a larger strategy, of a sequence that included the Laos and Berlin settlements in 1961, the non-invasion of Cuba in 1962, the Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Kennedy subordinated the timing of these events to politics: he was quite prepared to leave soldiers in harm’s […]
[…] offering them a terrorist organisation to join. (Lee Harvey Oswald was probably doing something similar for the FBI in New Orleans with his one-man Fair Play for Cuba Committee.) Or informants, paid by results, elaborate, expand and exaggerate their activities. (Bits of all of this seems to have been happening in Wales over the […]
[…] or the testing of such weapons, and the use of powerful herbicides, all causing terrible effects to the people and environments of China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Panama, Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia and elsewhere. Encouragement of drug trafficking in various parts of the world when it served the CIA’s purposes. Supporting death squads, especially in […]
[…] themselves. Someone gave them the wink. As I’ve said elsewhere, Davis, Scheim and Blakey have mistaken the monkey for the organ grinder. DiEugenio, James. Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case. New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1992. xxii and 423 pp. Illustrated, bibliography, index. A major reassessment of the Garrison case. DiEugenio makes […]
