Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall University of California Press, Cambridge (UK) 1991, £8.95. The basic rule of politics, domestic and international is that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. That rule ensured that the CIA adopted as allies the opium growers of the Golden Triangle in the 1960s and 70s, and the heroin producing […]
In an article in the Journal of Popular Culture, (1) one of the editors of the Jonestown Report considers the role that conspiracy theories have played in the unfolding narrative of ‘Jonestown’. It is a worthwhile endeavour to which few scholars could bring better credentials. Rebecca Moore is a professor of religious studies at the […]
[…] fired some 400 Soviet experts, on the spurious ground that they were no longer needed. The relevant CIA department, known as Covert Action, ceased to operate.’ Never mind Crozier forgetting – and The Times subs missing – that it was Gerald Ford who succeeded Nixon, not Jimmy Carter, it was Crozier’s use of the […]
The Trial of Saddam Hussein Abdul Haq Al-Ani, Clarity Press, Atlanta, GA., 2008 Abdul-Haq Al-Ani’s troubling manifesto on behalf of the murdered Iraqi leader exposes bloody doings of empire from a lucid political-juridical perspective. ‘Imperialism is a universal historical phenomenon, but it remains, nevertheless, evil’, he writes (p. 23). ‘I use the term European [imperialism] … Read more
[…] to Mozambique. Perhaps the Foreign Office really does know that by these means Mozambique will be won for the West. But is that truly the aim in mind? If we stand back and look at southern Africa as a whole, and we consider British policy in the wider region, doubt rushes in.” She then […]
For almost two generations, researchers in the UFO field have suspected that there is a cover-up by US government agencies which prevents any meaningful progress in discovering the facts behind the UFO myth. The single most important factor supporting this view has been the alleged crash of a UFO at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. […]
[…] that he was ‘…convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that could not be suicide,’ Baker claimed that ‘…medical evidence does not support it and David Kelly’s state of mind and personality suggests otherwise.’ He questioned the cause of death (a haemorrhage caused by cuts to the ulnar artery in the wrist), pointing out that ‘….…such […]
A guided democracy The following appeared in the Daily Telegraph 23 June 2003. ‘Edward Heath created a secret government propaganda unit to persuade the British people to accept the Common Market. Civil servants were engaged in a dirty tricks department of the Foreign Office to cover up the threat to sovereignty and provide rapid rebuttal … Read more
[…] remains questionable – and here the CIA dimension takes on a greater importance. But neither was the end of ideology simply a CIA plot. With this in mind, what is perhaps more relevant is how this anti-ideological standpoint enabled the Congress to hold together a broad crosssection of the intellectual community who saw it […]
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie Giles Scott-Smith,(1) who wrote about the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Lobster 36 and 38, has written a very interesting study of Margaret Thatcher’s first visit to America in 1967.(2) Scott-Smith shows that Thatcher, then a junior shadow spokesperson in the Tory Party, was talent-spotted by the State Department’s man in the … Read more
