Introduction The mid 1970s was not a good time to be a social democratic ally of the United States. In Britain we had “the Wilson plots’; in Australia Gough Whitlam, Jim Cairns and the Australian Labour Party got Governor Kerr and the CIA; in Germany Willi Brandt resigned after a “security scandal’; in New Zealand … Read more
How often does the conspiracy buff/ parapolitics connoisseur stumble upon a new, all-colour, glossy parapolitics magazine at W. H. Smith’s at Euston Station? Not that often. When I called Private Eye to mail order a copy of Paul Foot’s fascinating report on the Lockerbie trial, I was assured that I could buy a copy at … Read more
Political activist Daniel Ellsberg and Professor Alfred McCoy have something special in common. Based on their actions and accomplishments of nearly thirty years ago, they have achieved the status of icons within the subculture of what passes for the New Left. Icon Ellsberg became a celebrity in 1971 after he leaked The Pentagon Papers, an … Read more
[…] ‘lone, crazed assassin’ line is their omission of the crucial, wider issue of motive. The logical first question that should be asked, when seeking motive in a murder, is Who benefits? In JFK’s case, the answers to that question have sometimes led researchers down blind alleys. While Douglas may not ‘solve’ the assassination, his […]
[…] America but for readers of this journal it won’t be of much interest. Sort of Greg Palast lite; Gore Vidal without the style. The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder and the Vatican Paul L. Williams Prometheus Books, New York, 2003 h/b, $27.00 www.prometheusbooks.com A short (200 pages, large print) and sharp history of the Catholic […]
Miscellaneous Publications Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’, The CIA and American Democracy, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1989, price not stated) is, with Blum’s The CIA: a Forgotten History, the best single volume on the CIA. Of particular interest is the author’s account of the political system’s response to the revelations of CIA archives in the … Read more
[…] 23 by Christina Lamb, ‘Diplomatic Correspondent’ – a title once held by Coughlin – which claimed that Saddam Hussein had sent belly dancing assassins to London to murder his opponents there. Lamb sourced this to ‘a Foreign Office official’.(4) Where are they now? Skimming through the e-newsletter NewsmakingNews of 18 September I had […]
[…] those perceptions seem very odd indeed. Carr quotes a letter from one of the AB defendants: ‘Killing Mr Heath, Mr Maudling and Mr Powell would not be murder, the removal of tyrants such as these can only further the cause of humanity.’ Or take this from AB’s Communiqué No 7: ‘The Angry Brigade became […]
The rise and fall of the Bulgarian Connection Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead (Sheridan Square Publications, New York, 1986) When the Turkish Grey Wolves hold rallies they howl collectively. So, at times, do journalists of the ‘free press’. In 1979 Edward Herman wrote After the Cataclysm with Noam Chomsky in which they shredded Western … Read more
[…] 5 On things Italian, there was a very interesting ‘Diary’ by Tobias Jones in the London Review of Books, 8 March 2001, which discussed, inter alia, the murder of left-wing journalist Mauro de Mauro in 1970. Jones tells us that the study of the covert operations in Italy in the 1970s is now described […]
