Portland Free Press
Portland Free Press, edited by Ace R. Hayes, with the legend ‘Tell the Truth and Run’ on its masthead, contains to produce important parapolitical material. The January/February issue had an extract from the 1991 deposition of Richard Brenneke, a pilot who claims to have flown missions for the Contras (which has not been seriously challenged) and to have been involved in the so-called ‘October Surprise’ events (which has). The part of the deposition reproduced by PFP alleges, as the subhead has it, ‘Richard Brenneke puts mob boss John Gotti and CIA boss Donald Gregg in the middle of contra drug operations at Mena Airport.’
The March/April issue contains another important piece by Daniel Brandt, whose essay on the CIA-drugs story is reproduced above, documenting the American feminist Gloria Steinhem’s early (1958) activities on behalf of the CIA in the great youth/student politics wars between the Soviet and NATO blocs in the fifties. Brandt notes that the Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations funded a series of feminist organisations in the 1970s and asserts that the ‘the intelligence community needed to balkanize the 1960s student movement, because students were starting to do research into the American power structure and connect the dots.’ The evidence does not yet exist of this being the intention of said funding, but given the documented role of such foundations in the Cold War, this is not implausible. PFP is available at $3.00 per issue (US) $4.00 (elsewhere) from PO Box 1327, Tualatin, Oregon 97062, USA.
Counterpunch
Counterpunch is a roughly fortnightly newsletter produced by Ken Silverstein and Alexander Cockburn, which, according to its masthead, ‘Tells the Facts and Names the Names’. Issues vary in size from 6 to 8 pages. Volume 4 issue 1, for example, contains pieces on the boom in private prisons; a report on the Environmental Protection Agency’s report on air quality, ‘the fix is in on EPA’s new rules’; a piece on the influence of the Israeli lobby in Congress; and a piece on an influence meddler named Tommy Boggs. The other issues I have seen, as you would expect from Cockburn, contain the same mixture of politics, environmental issues and critical reporting on corporate activities – a mixture not dissimilar to that of Covert Action Quarterly. It looks like good, solid, well-informed stuff to me; but its focus is exclusively on the USA. 22 issues a year, subs are $40.00 (in the USA) and $50 outside. Checks payable to Counterpunch, PO Box 18675, Washington DC 20036, USA. Outside the US I would send cash or money orders.
Resonance
Resonance, the Newsletter of the Bio-electromagentics Special Interest Group of American MENSA has reappeared after a break. This issue, no. 31, contains ‘The Influencing Machine’ (Mike Coyle); ‘Explaining Paranormal Phenomena’ (Paul Bartch); ‘Electroperception by Humans?’ (Dr Richard Offutt); ‘Ground Penetrating Radar’ (Charles Young) and one of Thomas Bearden’s quantum physics theory-laden and, to me, entirely unintelligible pieces called ‘The Final Secret of Free Energy.’ A sample copy is available for $4.00 from the editor, Judy Wall, 684 C.R. 535, Sumterville, FL 33585, USA. Anyone trying to make sense of the whole mindcontrol phenomenon needs this if only for the all the leads to further reading it contains.
Counterpoise
Counterpoise is a new review of radical literature, produced by the Alternatives in Print Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association. Its masthead proclaims it to be ‘for social responsibilities, liberty and dissent.’ The first issue, which appeared in January 1997, contains 56 pages of text plus indexes. It covers raical/alternative – left alternative, not right alternative – print, non-print resources (CD-Roms, videos etc) and ‘bibliographic tools’. For example it has short essays on the publications of the Economic Affairs Bureau Collective, Michael Parenti and the Alternative Press, and the Indigenous Press of Australia; and it reviews magazines from the obvious – Covert Action Quarterly – to Transgressions: a journal of urban exploration from the University of Newcastle. Essentially produced by and for librarians – hence the care and attention to detail, indexes etc – this will interest anyone who is sympathetic to, say, the current orientation of Covert Action Quarterly.
Quarterly, Counterpoise is $25.00 (individuals) per annum in the US, $30 outside. Cheques or international money orders, payable to Counterpoise at 1716 SW Williston Road, Gainesville, Florida 32608-4049, USA.
Surveillant
A free issue of Surveillant: Acquisitions and Commentary for Intelligence and Security Professionals has arrived. Vol. 4 numbers 4 and 5, is 96 indexed pages of book reviews in the fields of intelligence history and technology, crime, drug enforcement and military history; and not just in English-speaking countries, either. A number of the people involved in the production of Surveillant will be familiar to those with a little knowledge of the CIA but this doesn’t stop Surveillant covering radical and critical literature. This issue, for example, contains passing references to publications by both Mike Hughes and Alexander Baron! Surveillant is a wonderful source of information, by the far the best in these fields, but it is expensive. Six issues a year costs $110 (US) $120 (Canada) $140 (elsewhere), but they invite inquiries for single issues.
At Suite 165, 2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20006;
e-mail
Web: http://www.surveillant.com/reviews
Unclassified
At the radical end of the spook-watching community is Unclassified, the quarterly publication of the Association of National Security Alumni, which is doing what Covert Action used to do. No. 40 appeared recently with the usual mixture of articles on US intelligence and foreign policy, including David Carmichael on the latest nomination for DCIA, Anthony Lake, and Ralph McGehee on current CIA covert ops. McGehee provides evidence of CIA use of the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide cover for its operations. The evidence isn’t quite conclusive but it is suggestive. Is there anything the CIA wouldn’t corrupt in the pursuit of its own ends?
Unclassified is at 1909 M.L.King Jnr Parkway, Des Moines, Iowa 50314.
Try their home page at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/verne_lyon.
Bulletin from the Cold War International History Project
Another enormous Bulletin from the Cold War International History Project is out. Issues 8-9 is 400 plus A4 pages with archive material on a wide range of subjects including: the Cuban missile crisis; the 1956 Polish and Hungarian crises; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Cuans in Southern Africa, and the collapse of detente in the late 1970s. Absolutely fascinating stuff. The long encounter between Alexander Haig and a Cuban minister, with Haig lecturing him on Cuba having no right to intervene in the affairs of other countries, is an absolutely priceless illustration of the mind-boggling hypocrisy of so much US foreign policy.
Copies are free on request from The Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 100 Jefferson Drive SW, Washington DC 20560. They are also on the project’s Website:
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/cwihp
Flatland
Flatland 14 contains 63 pages of articles and book catalogue. It’s the mixture as before, albeit with a greater emphasis on Wilhelm Reich: pieces on Reich, Alan Cantrell on cancer; a curious piece about Tom Slick with the wonderful title of ‘Slick’s Gold, Hot Monks and Rockefellers’ Wet-nurses’ and an interview with Jacques Vallée. $16.00 for four issues to PO Box 2420, Fort Bragg CA 95437-2420, USA. E-mail at . Try the Flatland Web site at www.flatlandbooks.com.
Catalogues
AK now have a new catalogue out, 100 plus pages of books, mags and videos. This is a wonderful resource and it is available free on request from PO Box 12766, Edinburgh EH8 9YE; e-mail at . It is of particular note that AK have – or had, when I bumped into a couple of the co-op members some months ago – 15 or so copies for sale of the essential 1980 collection on the CFR, Bilderbergers and Trilateral Commission, Trilateralism (ed. Holly Sklar), which I had assumed was long out of print. Price is £15.95 plus 10% for postage. With Bilderberg guest Tony Blair in office, it is hard to imagine a more important single volume.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Weird, is Newspeak, ‘a guide to alternative information’. Like Flatland, a mixture of magazine and book catalogue, Newspeak is well into the area where New Age guff crosses over with UFOs and New World Order fantasies. Newspeak is an annual publication, $4.00 in the US, $6 in Europe; $8 elsewhere to PO Box 675 Providence, RI 02901, USA. Credit card orders to (USA country code) plus 401 331 3540.
Right off the weirdness scale is the Adventures Unlimited catalogue. Lost cities, cryptozoology, crop circles, anti-gravity, free energy, UFOs, extra-terrestrial archaeology etc etc. Without any apparent difficulty, Adventures Unlimited offers books arguing for five different locations for Atlantis, including one which claims it was where the US state of Wisconsin now is!
Payment in any currency, the price is French francs 4.95, to PO Box 372, 8250 AJ Dronten, The Netherlands.
INK is a project to bring together and boost British independent radical (left radical) and alternative publications. Its list includes The Ecologist, Peace News, Undercurrents, Red Pepper, Green World, Squall, and Resurgence., all of which, and a complete list, can be obstained from INK at 87 Kirkstall Road, London SW2 4HE. INK has a Web site at www.ink.co.uk.