Saul Landau Counterpunch (US) and AK Press (UK), 2007, p/b, $15.00 (US) and £10 (UK) Saul Landau is one of those names on the American Left that I recognise but whose work, apart from his Assassination on Embassy Row, about the murder of Letelier 25 years ago, I don’t think I have ever read … Read more
Abstract The Tribunal established to investigate complaints about phone-tapping and the activities of the intelligence agencies has, at its first ever public hearing, quashed rules made by the Home Secretary forcing the tribunal to hold all its hearings in secret. However, the Tribunal procedure remains too secret, and its decisions cannot be appealed. Malcolm Kennedy’s … Read more
Mark Curtis Pluto Press, London and Sterling, VA, USA, 1996, £45 hb, £14.99, pb One of the most intellectually interesting areas I have read through is the debate on the origins of the Cold War between the orthodox establishment apologists for ‘containment of communism’ and the so-called Cold War revisionists like Williams and Kolko, who … Read more
On April 22, 1993 both BBC1 and BBC2 showed on their main evening news bulletins a rather lengthy piece concerning America’s latest development in weaponry — the non-lethal weapons concept. David Shukman, BBC Defence Correspondent, interviewed (Retired) U.S. Army Colonel John B. Alexander and Janet Morris, two of the main proponents of the concept. (1) … Read more
Kevin Danaher (ed.) Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, U.S., 2001, $15.95 www.commoncouragepress.com This volume contains 27 short essays by everyone from Fidel Castro (rather impressive, if he wrote it himself) through Chomsky, and Naomi Klein to Margot Smith, whose essay is titled ‘Granny Goes to Washington and Goes to Jail’. So: this runs from … Read more
Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust Ed. David Bankier New York: Enigma Books, 2006. p/b, $23 US Intelligence and the Nazis Richard Breitman et al New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p/b, £16.99 On 11 January 1943, the British intercepted ‘one of the most extraordinary messages’ of the war at Bletchley Park: it referred ‘to … Read more
Mobile phones cause cancer, and other modern horror stories It appears that the facts about the medical hazards of electromagnetic fields and mobile phones and their masts are breaking into the mainstream consciousness in this country. Who now wants to live near a mobile phone mast? There are major protests all over the world about … Read more
Weird Web Professor Peter Dale Scott reported the following in March. ‘Four times today I have tried to go to www.counterpunch.org. And four times Netscape was unable to find it. This happens frequently on my computer to websites which share my opinions, or to which I am hotlinked. And when I searched for ‘Alex Cockburn’ … Read more
Since 1988 a goodly slice of the Great and the Good of British civil, political and media society, from the current Prime Minister downwards, have been getting letters and press releases from Mr Harold Smith. Smith’s letters have served as a kind of substitute for the non-publication of his memoir Sons of Oxford. Commissioned in … Read more
JFK and joint US-Soviet space exploration In Lobster 47, p.35, I noted a comment by Stephen Birmingham on the secrecy surrounding Kennedy’s desire to run a joint space programme with the Soviets. Alex Cox sent the following outline of US-USSR space negotiations during JFK’s term. ‘….. In fact, The New York Times reported that JFK … Read more
