Information is beautiful

Information is beautiful…if you don’t believe it, take a peek at this wonderfully clean graphic illustrating the timeline and scale of global scare stories:  http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/mountains-out-of-molehills/

On a different note, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia – CIA complicity in the global drug trade (1972) is a difficult-to-find but frequently referenced non-fiction book by Alfred W. McCoy, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The book exposes the systematic exploitation of the opium & heroin trades as a matter of policy by world powers.

Propaganda

What’s the difference line between spin/PR & propaganda? Drop us a postcard if you know (or post a comment).

Yesterday, The Guardian ran a surprisingly high profile story yesterday about the activities of the Research, Information and Communication Unit (RICU): Revealed: Britain’s secret propaganda war against al-Qaida – BBC and website forums targeted by Home Office unit

Freedom of the press & authority don’t always mix. A media insider recently mentioned that all news items in the UK are routinely cleared by “spooks”. In the US, a common perception is that the end of the Vietnam War was accelerated due to extensive media exposure covering the Peace Movement. In November 1969, journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai Massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers in March 1968. The report prompted widespread condemnation around the world and reduced public support for the Vietnam War in the United States.

This type of ’subversive’ reporting has resulted in a determination in US right-wing thinking to muzzle the press, at least in wartime (this is, of course, only my opinion). The trouble comes when we consider ourselves to be in a state of perpetual war which, some might say, is a pretty accurate description of the Cold War.

It was Howard Hunt who broke the story that the CIA funded Animal Farm, the animated film version of George Orwell’s political allegory.

However, this was only one example of a worldwide policy unearthed by the Frank Church investigations (Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) in 1975. Details of Operation Mockingbird were revealed as a result of  According to the Congress report published in 1976:

“The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.” Frank Church argued that misinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265 million a year.

Mockingbird’s “principal operative” was the enigmatic Cord Meyer. In February, 2001, the writer, C. David Heymann, asked Cord Meyer about the death of his wife, Mary Pinchot Meyer: “My father died of a heart attack the same year Mary was killed , ” he whispered. “It was a bad time.” And what could he say about Mary Meyer? Who had committed such a heinous crime? “The same sons of bitches,” he hissed, “that killed John F. Kennedy.”

Sans haine, sans violence et sans arme

Nice in Nice
In 1982, one-time MI6 employee & friend to Kim Philby, Graham Greene, wrote a non-fiction book called  ‘J’Accuse — The Dark Side of Nice’ declaring that police & judicial corruption was flourishing in Nice. As a result, he lost a libel lawsuit & Greene was effectively gagged in France. However, in 1994, after Greene’s death, he was finally vindicated when the “colourful” former mayor of Nice, Jacques Médecin, was imprisoned for corruption and other crimes.

“Big crime in Nice is practically nonexistent” once said Nice Mayor Jacques Médecin, conveniently overlooking the career of Albert Spaggiari who, as well as occasionlly acting as photographer for the mayor, had a starring role in the “Bank Heist of the Century” & other things.

“Without Weapons, Neither Hatred Nor Violence” is the phrase that Albert Spaggiari wrote on the walls of a Nice bank vault after he’d tunnelled into it via the sewers & the inspiration for the title of a new film about the high-profile criminal.

Tower 7
9/11 Truthers seem to be focusing on the fate of Tower 7, the “first and only tall skyscraper in the world to have collapsed because of fire”. BBC article: The evolution of a conspiracy theory

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a group consisting of hundreds of building professionals, want Congress to open up a new investigation of 9/11. Founder, Richard Gage, believes that the Twin Towers and Building 7 collapsed as a result of explosives.  A letter from Gage to Congressman Robert Wexler has been posted on the group’s website, asking the congressman to investigate a number of inconsistencies. 

The Good Shepherd: CIA Secrets or Hollywood Sizzle?
Cloak-and-dagger movie, The Good Shepherd, tells the story of the CIA’s early days through the eyes of Edward Wilson, the movie’s main character. Wilson is patterned after the legendary spy-catcher, James Jesus Angleton but how much of the movie is true and how much is Hollywood sizzle?

From Dallas to Watergate…

From Dallas to Watergate, it’s all here…

• Dallas Police Interviews
  Various interviews of Chief Jesse Curry of the Dallas Police and Dallas DA Henry Wade. Included is the midnight interview of Lee Harvey Oswald and his shooting by Jack Ruby.
  
• Kennedy Assassination Thwarted Weeks Before His Death
  A former Secret Service agent says there was a plot to kill president John F. Kennedy in Chicago three weeks before he was assassinated in Dallas.
  
• David Atlee Philips AKA Maurice Bishop
  CIA operative Antonio Veciana testified regarding his case officer Maurice Bishop. The sketch of Bishop was based on Veciana’s recollections of the appearance of the man meeting with Oswald. He was shot in the head after testifying, but survived. Phillips was The Chief of Western Hemisphere Operations. He denied knewing Oswald, but the HSCA wanted him charged for perjury. He died of cancer in 1988.
  
• House Select Committee on Assassinations – 1976
  Established in 1976 to investigate the John F. Kennedy assassination and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination. The Committee investigated until 1978, and in 1979 issued its final report, concluding that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, probably as a result of a conspiracy.
  
• 1977 CBS report on Oltmans & De Mohrenschildt
  1977 CBS report on Williem Oltmans’ HSCA testimony concerning his interviews with Georege De Mohrenschildt.
  
• Bill Hicks on JFK
  Bill Hicks talking about JFK from Revelations.
  
• 40 years after RFK’s death, questions linger
  ‘Three major assassinations rocked America in the 1960s. Two of the assassins – Lee Harvey Oswald, the killer of John F. Kennedy, and James Earl Ray, who shot Martin Luther King Jr. – are dead. But Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of killing Robert F. Kennedy 40 years ago in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, is living out his days in the California state prison at Corcoran. He is 64 and has never fully explained what happened that night other than to say he can’t remember it….’
• Mad Money in High Places Citizen Hughes
  ‘Citizen Hughes is mostly about big money in high places, of cash siphoned from Hughes’ Nevada gambling casinos and piped to politicians. Wielding the only power he knew, the deranged industrialist reveals a crude cynicism. On Lyndon Johnson: “I have done this kind of business with him before. So, he wears no awe-inspiring robe of virtue with me.” On Hubert Humphrey: “A candidate who needs us and wants our help . . . somebody we control sufficiently.” On Richard Nixon: “My man. He I know for sure knows the facts of life.”‘
• Remarks By President Gerald Ford On Taking the Oath Of Office As President
  “The oath that I have taken is the same oath that was taken by George Washington and by every President under the Constitution. But I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.”

 

The assassination trail

This blog is back on the assassination trail with a look RFK, Martin Luther King & Malcolm X.

Feel free to comment / send in your fave links.

• Robert Kennedy speaks in Indianapolis
  announcing to the crowd that Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been assassinated. April 4, 1968.
• The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
  As Ever, a Conspiracy.
• Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy?
  In 1968, Robert Kennedy seemed likely to follow his brother, John, into the White House. Then, on June 6, he was assassinated – apparently.
• Martin Luther King Jr.
  “Secret Files That Would Have Proven James Earl Ray Not Guilty”
• Malcolm X
  Plots, Theories and Facts

Secret history

Thanks to the internet, a flood of information has become publicly available that threatens to expose the subtext of modern history. Below is a handful of articles that challenge the conventional viewpoint & make for interesting/disturbing reading.

As usual, feel free to send in your fave links.

Big in Japan

• Yamashita’s Gold
  Chalmers Johnson discusses Japanese war-booty that disappeared in the Philippines during WW2.
• Kamikaze Over Tokyo, Time 1976
  “No one was particularly suspicious when Movie Actor Mitsuyasu Maeno appeared at Tokyo’s Chofu Airport last week in a World War II kamikaze pilot’s uniform…”
• Yoshio Kodama
  Who was Yoshio Kodama?

Operation Gladio

• Operation Gladio
  Wikipedia article on Operation Gladio & the “stay behind armies”.
• Timewatch: Operation Gladio – Part 1, part 2, part 3
  Video programme about False Flag Terrorism & 9/11.
• Strategy of Tension
  The Case of Italy by Claudio Celani.

American empire

• Family Jewels
  A significant collection of previously classified historical documents are now available in the CIA’s FOIA Electronic Reading Room. The collection widely known as the “Family Jewels” consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking them to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency’s charter.
• Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
  Interview with ex-CIA analyst Chalmers Johnson.