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 1970s and 80’s. The author is Reader in History at Edinburgh University – another welcome sign of academic historians taking the parapolitical world seriously. With 251 pages of text supported by 63 pages of documentation and notes, this is a model of its kind.
A model of how not to do things is Andrew Murray Scott and Iain Macleay’s Britain’s Secret War: Tartan Terrorism and the Anglo American State (Mainstream, Edinburgh, 1990. With only the slightest acquaintance with the ‘Anglo-American state’ (calling MI5 ‘DI5’, for example, and confusing its role with that of ‘DI6’), the authors blunder about in what is potentially a very interesting and under-reported area. Its one redeeming feature is a chapter on the death of anti-nuclear Scots lawyer, Willie Macrae, which appears to take the story some way beyond the other version I have seen in CARN, Spring 1988. Macrae appears to have been murdered in peculiar circumstances, and may have been another Hilda Murrel. (CARN, 33 Bothar, Bancroft, Tamhlact, Dublin 24, Republic of Ireland.)
I do not usually like ‘factoid’ books. However, Frank Kippax’s The Butcher’s Bill (Harper Collins, London, 1991) is a very superior example of the genre. In fiction form, this is what the Hugh Thomas network actually believe to be true (but cannot yet prove) concerning Rudolph Hess and the doppelganger imprisoned in Spandau. In other words, this is the most complete version yet of the ‘peace plots’ circa 1940/1. Kippax interweaves the 1940/1 period with the events surrounding the death of ‘Hess’ in Spandau, alleging that the doppelganger was assassinated by the British state. Anyone who has read Fred Holroyd’s memoir, War Without Honour will also notice that the central narrative character is based on Holroyd’s experience. 
At a distance of 12,000 miles Owen Wilkes appears to be New Zealand’s leading radical journalist, of great output and high accuracy. Wilkes was the author of the piece on the CIA in Fiji which appeared in Lobster 14, one stop on its subsequent journey round the world. The American government attributed its global circulation to Soviet machinations in the media; but that was only partly true and mostly sour grapes. In issue 88 (December 1990) of Peacelink, the magazine of the New Zealand Peace Movement, is an account by Wilkes of the known CIA operations and activities in New Zealand during the campaign against the ‘no nukes’ policy of the 80s. At the end of the piece Wilkes makes less than he might of the apparent withdrawal of the CIA from NZ. Wilkes reports no evidence of them since and yet is unable to completely quiet the idea that not being able to see the CIA does not mean that they have gone home. On the other hand it might be – the evidence suggests it – that the CIA were exposed, had their operations blown, and were simply defeated by a handful of people, led by Wilkes, and a mass media willing to report their findings. New Zealand may have only 3.3 million people, but it seems to have an intellectual infrastructure similar to that of dear old declining Britain. That the newspaper-clipping fraternity of a small democratic country can fend off the covert operators of a super-power is a cheering conclusion.
Peacelink, PO Box 837, Hamilton, New Zealand: subs, $NZ35 per 10 issues.
Also from New Zealand is the magazine of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (the pre colonial name for New Zealand), Watchdog. Like Peacelink, this is predominantly of local interest only. However, in issue 65, October 1990, there is a 15 page summary of approximately 1000 pages of declassifed material on U.S. (predominantly State Department sponsored) surveillance of the New Zealand left and unions between 1945 to 1960. As far as I am aware, this is the most complete picture yet of such U.S. operations in the period.
Watchdog appears to have no price but an inquiry to it at PO Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand, accompanied by a couple of pounds sterling or $U.S. 3 dollars, should suffice.
The best domestic news for some time is the appearance of Statewatch, the successor, after almost a decade, to the wonderful State Research. State Research never quite died: its library was maintained at 9 Poland St, and this has become the core of the new set-up. For most people the research facilities will be less important than the bulletin, the first issue of which appeared in March this year. Essential. PO Box 1516, London N16 OEW.
Covert Action Information Bulletin has a newish address: P. O. Box 34583, Washington DC, 20043. Issue 36, Spring 1991, includes a double-page spread of psywar material- posters, leaflets and cartoons, some accusing various individuals of being police/FBI informers – produced for the FBl’s Cointelpro operations against the Black Panthers in the late 1960s. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that such FBI material has been published.
Still by far the best parapolitical mail-order service is Tom Davis’ Aries Research, PO box 1107, Aptos, Ca 95001-1107, USA. Send a couple of dollars bills for a copy. (Airmail postage on the catalogue from the U. S. to UK, for example, is 95 cents.)
Z magazine had been praised before in these columns. It is the best general magazine to have merged from the American radical/left since Ramparts. The January 1991 issue contained a 13 page interview with Alfred McKoy on the politics of drugs. McKoy wrote The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (Harper Row, 1972), the ground-breaking book which showed the CIA running opium for the Meo tribes they were using in the secret war in Laos. McKoy’s interview is not only a pretty decent summary of his 1972 work, but also an update of the position and his current views on the continuing drugs/parapolitics connection.
Z is $US3.50 per issue from 150 West Canton St, Boston, MA 02118, USA.
Proof of Conspiracy in the JFK Assassination Now on Video… “Fake”!
For more than 25 years photoanalyst Jack White has studied the famous “backyard” photographs of Lee Harvey Osward and has proved without a doubt they are clever forgeries used to incriminate Oswald by planners of President Kennedy’s execution. White served as consultant to the House Select Committee on Assassinations because of his expertise in photography and photoanalysis, and as such testified regarding his research on these mysterious photos. World-famous photography experts have called his photoanalysis “brilliant!” Now you can judge for yourself whether these photos are real evidence… or fake.
50 minutes. VHS only.
Produced by Jack White from his original research. Directed by Jim Marrs.
Send $26.00 (which includes shipping, handling and tax). Make cheques or money orders payable to VJS. Mail to JFK Video, VJS Companies, 301 West Vickery, Fort Worth, Texas 76104. Allow 2 weeks for delivery.