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
The rise and fall of the Bulgarian Connection Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead (Sheridan Square Publications, New York, 1986) When the Turkish Grey Wolves hold rallies they howl collectively. So, at times, do journalists of the ‘free press’. In 1979 Edward Herman wrote After the Cataclysm with Noam Chomsky in which they shredded Western … Read more
Stephen Dorril London: Viking, 2006, £30 In his 1975 biography of Oswald Mosley, Robert (now Lord) Skidelsky very much celebrated the old fascist on his own terms, contributing, wittingly or not, to his attempted rehabilitation. Mosley, we were told in all seriousness, was always driven by his concern for ordinary people and a desire … 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
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 … Read more
Secrets and Lies: A history of CIA mind control and germ warfare Gordon Thomas JR Books (www.jrbooks.com) 2007, h/b, £20 Gordon Thomas has written a number of books on the intelligence services and this has a glossy cover, voluminous appendices and some admiring quotes. But it adds little to what we already know about … Read more
1. Getting even more ugly I confess: I have given up buying Searchlight. There just isn’t anything that can be believed in it. In any case, other people send me the good bits – if ‘good’ is the right word. In June’s Searchlight this paragraph appeared; ‘Seasoned political observers in Northern Ireland say that the … Read more
Clint Eastwood Movies Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood and to be released in Britain in December 2006, is an example of post-9-11 PR. It tells the story of the 1945 battle for Iwo Jima and has been described as the first film in which the balance of combat and public relations has … Read more
BAP The Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines a bap as a ‘large soft bread roll’. How soft or hard the British American Project for the Successor Generation is — only time will tell. But it is certainly proving rather indigestible to the British media. By any standards a major story, Tom Easton’s piece on BAP (in … 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
