[…] in this country a good deal of newsprint was rightly devoted to his brutal treatment of political opponents. Rather less was said about the role of the Nixon administration in facilitating the downfall of democracy in Chile via the destabilisation of Allende’s administration. This was strange because the Pinochet affair erupted here in the […]
[…] to help the Americans. He was head of the mission until 1965, subsequently visiting Saigon a number of times before being appointed a special consultant by President Nixon. Less publicity has been given to the involvement of other British military personnel in the Vietnam war. “More sensitive operations, such as those in Vietnam, have […]
[…] the book, Loftus’ interview is dotted with fascinating bits and pieces. For example: ‘After Nixon’s narrow loss to Kennedy and the narrow loss of Dewey to Truman, Nixon was determined to mobilize his own political bloc. He was convinced that the American Jews had dollars, voted Democrat, and were his enemies. So he felt […]
[PDF file]: Dirty Tricks Nixon, Watergate, and the CIA Shane O’Sullivan1 New York: Skyhorse Books, 2018; £20.00 h/b; 536 pages, notes, index Robin Ramsay So what can a major reappraisal of Watergate tell us in 2018 that we didn’t know before? Surprisingly little about the major events. But this isn’t the fault of the author, who […]
[…] an anti-Nixon conspiracy by the CIA, in my view this is a good candidate for the reason behind it; it was aimed at undermining Kissinger by undermining Nixon. One of the Watergate ‘plumbers’, former senior CIA officer James McCord, told the Senate Watergate Committee how in 1972: ‘It appeared to me that the White […]
[…] determined clique to seize control of vital aspects of US national policy, particularly in affairs concerning the Middle East. But the neo-cons rising to prominence under Nixon and the bane of Kissinger have a perhaps neglected provenance in the administration of Lyndon Johnson. The crippling of the 455-foot USS Liberty, a SIGINT […]
Conspiracy, Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Research Robin Ramsay ‘The unexpected and dramatic death of the famous, whether statesmen like John F Kennedy, or media stars like Marilyn Monroe, invariably give rise to conspiracy theories.’ Thus Cambridge historian, Christopher Andrew, during his disgraceful hatchet job on Hugh Thomas’ books about Rudolph Hess for BBC2 ‘s Timewatch […]
Critique, mentioned in these columns before (Lobster 8), is a California-based “Journal of Conspiracies and Metaphysics”. It’s editor, Bob Banner, has had the good taste to reprint pieces from Lobster. Critique’s slogan – now available on T-shirts! – is; Question consensus reality. Well, amen to that. However, the bit of “consensus reality” – and Banner […]
Policing (a) and the miners 3 page overview in Labour Research (September) Officers being sent straight from training school (Guardian 20 November) Police installing alarms in homes of (some) working miners. (Guardian 27 November) Police officers being charged a ‘fee’ of a bottle of whisky to get on lucrative picket duty. (Daily Telegraph 25 October) […]
Ex-British intelligence officer Richard Winch said KGB defectors regularly named 7 ‘MPs, trade union leaders and 1 former Conservative Cabinet Minister’ as KGB agents. (Daily Telegraph 24 and 27 September 1984) What, only 7? According to Frederick Forsyth’s ‘sources’ in the British labour movement there are 20. (See Times 31 August 1984). And doesn’t Chapman […]
