Kissinger Commission
Letter in International Herald Tribune 22nd January 1984 from one Eugene L. Stockwell who testified before the Kissinger Commission on Central America. He writes:
“During my hour and a half testimony most of the commissioners repeatedly indicated that they believed today’s Nicaragua to be as bad or worse than Nicaragua under Somoza; Mr Kissinger made it clear that he believes Nicaragua is as bad as or worse than Nazi Germany.”
Assassination of Robert Kennedy
Just published in the UK is Thomas Noguchi’s Coroner To the Stars (Coronet 1984)
Noguchi was Los Angeles coroner and had a lot of famous corpses to examine. One of them was RFK’s. In this book he repeats his original conclusions that Kennedy was shot at point blank range from the rear – i.e. not by Sirhan, who was in front. The assassin was almost certainly a man called Eugene Thane Cesar, dressed as a security guard, standing just behind Kennedy.
Committee For A Community of Democracy
New group mentioned in passing in Guardian 17th January 1984. Anyone seen other references, details of membership, aims, funding etc?
Smersh
Ian Fleming always claimed Smersh was a real organisation but references to it are scarce. One such is in the report of the death of a Soviet defector, Boris Hatton, in London. Hatton is said to have been in Smersh just after the war. Guardian 1st March 1983
The SDP in Dallas
Lord Vaizey, once plain old John Vaizey, a good socialist and significant influence on education policy in the 1960s, has now turned his gaze on world history now that he is (a) a Lord and (b) a member of the SDP. In his recent The Squandered Peace (London 1983) he tackles Kennedy’s assassination. In one half page (p. 294) he tells us (a) that Oswald had been arrested for distributing pro-Castro leaflets in Florida (actually it was in New Orleans); (b) that Oswald was ‘mentally unbalanced’ (said who?); and (c) that he was in “active contact with low-level FBI agents.” (which almost the whole JFK buff world believes but can’t prove).
What is it about Kennedy’s death that encourages people to go into print without doing any of the reading?
Longer Articles
The Myth of the Lone Wolf
Robin Ramsay, Undercurrents No 62. Jan./Feb. 1984
Written nearly three years ago, and essentially an immediate response to the Hinkley attempt on Reagan, pointing out the obvious inconsistencies in the press reports.
Much has happened since. Hinkley has spoken of the group he was part of (reported on NBC’s Nightly News 14th November 1983), and two journalists at the scene, Judy Woodrufe and Jessica Savitch, have spoken of seeing a second gunman. Savitch has since died in an accident (or ‘accident’), in October 1983.
As far as we are aware there is as yet no detailed study of the event, nor any plausible explanation of it. U.S. conspiracy buffs, accustomed to scenarios in which liberals/leftists – Kennedys, King, Panthers – are assassinated by the right-wing, seem to be both confused by, and disinterested in, this particular shooting.
Banking On the City
Counter Information Services No 33
Disappointing and rather superficial look at the City of London. As always with CIS reports, beautifully produced and illustrated, but such useful information as it contains is lost amidst the (relative) trivia. It would have been of interest 5 years ago: today it doesn’t make it.
‘Britain’s Cold War Security Purges: the Origins of Positive Vetting’,
Peter Hennessy and Gail Brownfield, Historical Journal 25(4) 1982.
Title explains the content. Covers 1948-52. Nothing startling in it but it includes an extremely useful diagram of the security and vetting structures of the British state.
‘Capital: the Neglected Face of Power?’
D. Marsh and G. Locksley in Pressure Politics ed. D Marsh (Junction Books 1983)
Very interesting, both for its content – statistics on concentrations of financial power, examinations of lobbying organisations such as CBI and the City – its discussions of the various theoretical questions involved, and for its rarity. For, as the authors note in their opening sentence,
“It is surprising that relatively little work has been done on the role of capital in British politics”.
‘Pressure Groups: Right Thinking People’
Labour Research Feb. 1984
Profiles of, personnel involved in, financial contributions to: Adam Smith Institute, Aims of Industry, Centre for Policy Studies, Coalition for Peace Through Security, Common Cause, Economic League, The Freedom Association, Institute of Economic Affairs, Social Affairs Unit.
‘Ernest Bevin’s Black Propaganda Unit’
and
‘Here Is The News – Courtesy of MI6’
Richard Fletcher, Tribune 2nd September and 9th September 1983
Two large pieces. The first is on the work of the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office: the second describes the formation of a world-wide network of news agencies and publishing companies created by MI6 to put out material created by IRD.
These are essentially expansions of previous work by Fletcher – see, e.g. his piece in the Guardian 18th December 1981 – and are based on a large study commissioned by UNESCO. This latter fact may give some hint of UNESCO’s current unpopularity with the UK and US governments.
‘BOSS in Britain’
James Barber, African Affairs, July 1983
A valuable compilation of the various reports and incidents involving BOSS (South Africa’s Bureau of State Research) going as far back as 1967. Drawn from existing sources, and written as a by-product of the author’s study of the UK-South African relationship.