John Simkin

Here is a list of investigative journalists who “committed suicide” while looking into the activities of the CIA: Leo Damore http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdamore.htm Steve Kangas http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkangas.htm Dorothy Kilgallen http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkilgallen.htm Gary Webb http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwebbG.htm The following died while investigating the assassination (Bill Hunter & Jim Koethe were both murdered): Angus Mackenzie http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmackenzie.htm Bill Hunter http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhunterB.htm Jim Koethe http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkoethe.htm Andrew St George http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKstgeorge.htm Seth Kantor http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkantorS.htm Other journalists investigating the case disappeared from the scene and I have been unable to discover what happened to them. I have yet to find a journalist who supported the lone gunman theory who has had an early death.

Thanks for the tip. I have just purchased a copy. Why do so many investigative journalists kill themselves? Perhaps this deserves its own thread, with as many names as possible and we can all do some digging to try to see if we believe the "official" report of suicide. The odds do seem against such a thing. Now I do believe that Gary Webb did commit suicide as I have read about the letters he left to his former wife and children. But what about that invesitgative journalist who was found at RIchard M. Scaife's office? (the name escapes me at the moment)- but that one sounded more like "suicidED". Dawn

The book has been delayed. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...7029002-2864714 I will try to persuade Ayers to join the Forum and answer questions on the book.

Thanks for the tip. I have just purchased a copy. Why do so many investigative journalists kill themselves?

According to Edith Holleman and Andrew Love: “In addition to his opium trafficking operation, Vang Pao carried out an assassination program, on information and belief under the auspices of Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines. Partially funded by Vang Pao’s opium income, the program eliminated civilian functionaries and supporters of the Pathet Lao, as well as Vang Pao’s rival opium warlords.” Holleman and Love go onto argue that Shackley brought “Rafael ‘Chi Chi’ Quintero and Rafael Villaverde, along with Felix Rodriguez, to Laos, to train members of Vang Pao’s Hmong tribe to perform assassinations against Pathet Lao leaders and sympathizers.” (1) This group of assassins were not only at work in Laos. In 1967 David Morales recruited Félix Rodríguez to train and head a team that would attempt to catch Che Guevara in Bolivia. Guevara was attempting to persuade the tin-miners living in poverty to join his revolutionary army. When Guevara was captured, it was Rodriguez who interrogated him before he ordered his execution. (2) (1) Edith Holleman and Andrew Love, Inside the Shadow Government, 1988 (pages 14-15) (2) Felix I. Rodriguez and John Weisman, Shadow Warrior: The CIA Hero of a Hundred Unknown Battles, 1989 (pages 9-10)

The Kurtz I mention is the one you suspected. But from his ms that I reviewed for the Kansas Press he is now of the view that JFK was a victim of CIA or rogue US elements. However, while he does not believe Oswald shot JFK, he does deem it probable that Oswald shot Tippit. Go figure.

Russo, Trento and Kurtz all use the same evidence to suggest that Castro was in some way responsible for the assassination of JFK. It is wrong to put Kurtz in the same camp as Russo and Trento. I rate his book, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historian's Perspective (1982), very highly. In fact, it is one of the few books on the assassination that has been written by a historian. Kurtz does not of course claim that Castro did order the assassination. Like anybody who knows anything about politics in 1963, Castro's motivation makes no sense at all. After all, JFK was in secret negotiations with Castro in 1963. JFK's attitude towards Castro had changed dramatically since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is what concerned those who were really behind the assassination. Anyway, as Castro pointed out afterwards, why would he want JFK replaced by Lyndon Johnson. Also, any link between Castro and the assassination would have triggered a full-scale invasion of Cuba. It makes more sense that those violently opposed to Castro should want to set-up Castro in order to get the invasion that JFK refused to give them. This is the evidence presented by Kurtz in his book: The CIA knew that the Cuban government employed assassins and that it had actually carried out an assassination in Mexico. On 19 March 1964, the intelligence agency learned that a "Cuban-American" who was somehow "involved in the assassination" crossed the border from Texas to Mexico on 23 November, stayed in Mexico for four days, and flew to Cuba on 27 November. The CIA also received information that on 22 November, a Cubana Airlines flight from Mexico City to Havana was delayed for five hours until a passenger arrived in a private aircraft. The individual boarded the Cubana flight, and it left for Havana shortly before 11:00 p.m. These occurrences clearly arouse suspicions of an assassination plot engineered by the Cuban government under Fidel Castro. Various items of information gleaned from the recently declassified FBI and CIA assassination files reinforce those suspicions. On 24 November 1963, for example, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent an urgent telegram to the FBI legation in Madrid: "Spanish Intelligence possesses a report that attributes president's assassination to Castro and claims that Oswald was acting as Cuban agent." The CIA also received similar information from several sources. One claimed that the Chinese Communists and Castro had masterminded the assassination. Another source claimed that a "Miss T" heard Cubans talking about having the president killed. Yet another source in Spain told the CIA that local Cuban officials asserted that Oswald "had nothing to do with Kennedy's murder." Russo and Trento have gone further than Kurtz and have actually named the people who were probably involved in the assassination. Both these men got their information from sources within the CIA. In "The Secret History of the CIA" Trento writes: "In Angleton's theory, agents Policarpo and Casas, plus a third man whom Angleton would not name, separately worked their way to Dallas, where they met up and carried out the assassination." (page 266) For some reason Russo and Trento trust the CIA on this issue. What could be their motivation for lying? They do not entertain the possibility that the CIA was involved in the assassination and this was part of a disinformation campaign. Gerry McKnight tells me that Michael Kurtz has written a new book on the assassination. It will be interesting if he still believes that it is possible that Castro was behind the assassination.

Russo, Trento and Kurtz all use the same evidence to suggest that Castro was in some way responsible for the assassination of JFK. It is wrong to put Kurtz in the same camp as Russo and Trento. I rate his book, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historian's Perspective (1982), very highly. In fact, it is one of the few books on the assassination that has been written by a historian. Kurtz does not of course claim that Castro did order the assassination. Like anybody who knows anything about politics in 1963, Castro's motivation makes no sense at all. After all, JFK was in secret negotiations with Castro in 1963. JFK's attitude towards Castro had changed dramatically since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is what concerned those who were really behind the assassination. Anyway, as Castro pointed out afterwards, why would he want JFK replaced by Lyndon Johnson. Also, any link between Castro and the assassination would have triggered a full-scale invasion of Cuba. It makes more sense that those violently opposed to Castro should want to set-up Castro in order to get the invasion that JFK refused to give them. This is the evidence presented by Kurtz in his book: The CIA knew that the Cuban government employed assassins and that it had actually carried out an assassination in Mexico. On 19 March 1964, the intelligence agency learned that a "Cuban-American" who was somehow "involved in the assassination" crossed the border from Texas to Mexico on 23 November, stayed in Mexico for four days, and flew to Cuba on 27 November. The CIA also received information that on 22 November, a Cubana Airlines flight from Mexico City to Havana was delayed for five hours until a passenger arrived in a private aircraft. The individual boarded the Cubana flight, and it left for Havana shortly before 11:00 p.m. These occurrences clearly arouse suspicions of an assassination plot engineered by the Cuban government under Fidel Castro. Various items of information gleaned from the recently declassified FBI and CIA assassination files reinforce those suspicions. On 24 November 1963, for example, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent an urgent telegram to the FBI legation in Madrid: "Spanish Intelligence possesses a report that attributes president's assassination to Castro and claims that Oswald was acting as Cuban agent." The CIA also received similar information from several sources. One claimed that the Chinese Communists and Castro had masterminded the assassination. Another source claimed that a "Miss T" heard Cubans talking about having the president killed. Yet another source in Spain told the CIA that local Cuban officials asserted that Oswald "had nothing to do with Kennedy's murder." Russo and Trento have gone further than Kurtz and have actually named the people who were probably involved in the assassination. Both these men got their information from sources within the CIA. In "The Secret History of the CIA" Trento writes: "In Angleton's theory, agents Policarpo and Casas, plus a third man whom Angleton would not name, separately worked their way to Dallas, where they met up and carried out the assassination." (page 266) For some reason Russo and Trento trust the CIA on this issue. What could be their motivation for lying? They do not entertain the possibility that the CIA was involved in the assassination and this was part of a disinformation campaign. Gerry McKnight tells me that Michael Kurtz has written a new book on the assassination. It will be interesting if he still believes that it is possible that Castro was behind the assassination.

Members might find this article interesting: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0604/S00323.htm Is Suzan Mazur right when she says Dillon was in "charge of the Secret Service assigned to Kennedy in Dallas".

For obvious reasons. I see no connection between Jews and the assassination of JFK. Some Jews might have been involved in the assassination and the cover-up, James Angleton for example, but it has nothing to do with their religious beliefs. It is true that a fairly high percentage of people in the American Communist Party were Jewish. This is true of the Communist Party in every country. There is a good reason for this: Anti-Semitism. Jews have always being persecuted and they were understandable attracted to a movement that claimed it was in favour of equality and against the persecution of racial minorities. It is also true that a high percentage of white people involved in the civil rights movement in America in the 1950s and 1960s were Jewish. The same is true of the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Unlike some other persecuted people, the Jews have often taken the side of the underdog. It is something that I admire in the Jews. Don't you? I am afraid that you have been reading too much McCarthyite propaganda. It is true that McCarthy, using material provided by J. Edgar Hoover, accused some CIA officials of being sympathetic to communism. This resulted in Cord Meyer being suspended from duty. This was because Meyer’s wife had been a member of the American Labor Party in her youth. Other leading CIA officials had been Roosevelt New Dealers before the war. Of course McCarthy considered liberals to be the same as communists. McCarthy was being used by Hoover who feared that the CIA that had been established in 1947 had taken away some of his power. These claims were part of a power struggle. It was a fight that Hoover lost. It is complete nonsense to portray the CIA as being sympathetic to communism. In fact they were all fanatically opposed to it. Most of them developed these opinions while serving in the OSS during the Second World War.

Russo, Trento and Kurtz all use the same evidence to suggest that Castro was in some way responsible for the assassination of JFK. It is wrong to put Kurtz in the same camp as Russo and Trento. I rate his book, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historian's Perspective (1982), very highly. In fact, it is one of the few books on the assassination that has been written by a historian. Kurtz does not of course claim that Castro did order the assassination. Like anybody who knows anything about politics in 1963, Castro's motivation makes no sense at all. After all, JFK was in secret negotiations with Castro in 1963. JFK's attitude towards Castro had changed dramatically since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is what concerned those who were really behind the assassination. Anyway, as Castro pointed out afterwards, why would he want JFK replaced by Lyndon Johnson. Also, any link between Castro and the assassination would have triggered a full-scale invasion of Cuba. It makes more sense that those violently opposed to Castro should want to set-up Castro in order to get the invasion that JFK refused to give them. This is the evidence presented by Kurtz in his book: The CIA knew that the Cuban government employed assassins and that it had actually carried out an assassination in Mexico. On 19 March 1964, the intelligence agency learned that a "Cuban-American" who was somehow "involved in the assassination" crossed the border from Texas to Mexico on 23 November, stayed in Mexico for four days, and flew to Cuba on 27 November. The CIA also received information that on 22 November, a Cubana Airlines flight from Mexico City to Havana was delayed for five hours until a passenger arrived in a private aircraft. The individual boarded the Cubana flight, and it left for Havana shortly before 11:00 p.m. These occurrences clearly arouse suspicions of an assassination plot engineered by the Cuban government under Fidel Castro. Various items of information gleaned from the recently declassified FBI and CIA assassination files reinforce those suspicions. On 24 November 1963, for example, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent an urgent telegram to the FBI legation in Madrid: "Spanish Intelligence possesses a report that attributes president's assassination to Castro and claims that Oswald was acting as Cuban agent." The CIA also received similar information from several sources. One claimed that the Chinese Communists and Castro had masterminded the assassination. Another source claimed that a "Miss T" heard Cubans talking about having the president killed. Yet another source in Spain told the CIA that local Cuban officials asserted that Oswald "had nothing to do with Kennedy's murder." Russo and Trento have gone further than Kurtz and have actually named the people who were probably involved in the assassination. Both these men got their information from sources within the CIA. In "The Secret History of the CIA" Trento writes: "In Angleton's theory, agents Policarpo and Casas, plus a third man whom Angleton would not name, separately worked their way to Dallas, where they met up and carried out the assassination." (page 266) For some reason Russo and Trento trust the CIA on this issue. What could be their motivation for lying? They do not entertain the possibility that the CIA was involved in the assassination and this was part of a disinformation campaign. Gerry McKnight tells me that Michael Kurtz has written a new book on the assassination. It will be interesting if he still believes that it is possible that Castro was behind the assassination.

Russo, Trento and Kurtz all use the same evidence to suggest that Castro was in some way responsible for the assassination of JFK. It is wrong to put Kurtz in the same camp as Russo and Trento. I rate his book, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historian's Perspective (1982), very highly. In fact, it is one of the few books on the assassination that has been written by a historian. Kurtz does not of course claim that Castro did order the assassination. Like anybody who knows anything about politics in 1963, Castro's motivation makes no sense at all. After all, JFK was in secret negotiations with Castro in 1963. JFK's attitude towards Castro had changed dramatically since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is what concerned those who were really behind the assassination. Anyway, as Castro pointed out afterwards, why would he want JFK replaced by Lyndon Johnson. Also, any link between Castro and the assassination would have triggered a full-scale invasion of Cuba. It makes more sense that those violently opposed to Castro should want to set-up Castro in order to get the invasion that JFK refused to give them. This is the evidence presented by Kurtz in his book: The CIA knew that the Cuban government employed assassins and that it had actually carried out an assassination in Mexico. On 19 March 1964, the intelligence agency learned that a "Cuban-American" who was somehow "involved in the assassination" crossed the border from Texas to Mexico on 23 November, stayed in Mexico for four days, and flew to Cuba on 27 November. The CIA also received information that on 22 November, a Cubana Airlines flight from Mexico City to Havana was delayed for five hours until a passenger arrived in a private aircraft. The individual boarded the Cubana flight, and it left for Havana shortly before 11:00 p.m. These occurrences clearly arouse suspicions of an assassination plot engineered by the Cuban government under Fidel Castro. Various items of information gleaned from the recently declassified FBI and CIA assassination files reinforce those suspicions. On 24 November 1963, for example, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent an urgent telegram to the FBI legation in Madrid: "Spanish Intelligence possesses a report that attributes president's assassination to Castro and claims that Oswald was acting as Cuban agent." The CIA also received similar information from several sources. One claimed that the Chinese Communists and Castro had masterminded the assassination. Another source claimed that a "Miss T" heard Cubans talking about having the president killed. Yet another source in Spain told the CIA that local Cuban officials asserted that Oswald "had nothing to do with Kennedy's murder." Russo and Trento have gone further than Kurtz and have actually named the people who were probably involved in the assassination. Both these men got their information from sources within the CIA. In "The Secret History of the CIA" Trento writes: "In Angleton's theory, agents Policarpo and Casas, plus a third man whom Angleton would not name, separately worked their way to Dallas, where they met up and carried out the assassination." (page 266) For some reason Russo and Trento trust the CIA on this issue. What could be their motivation for lying? They do not entertain the possibility that the CIA was involved in the assassination and this was part of a disinformation campaign. Gerry McKnight tells me that Michael Kurtz has written a new book on the assassination. It will be interesting if he still believes that it is possible that Castro was behind the assassination.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Gerald D. McKnight for his great book, Breach of Trust. I am fully aware that it takes a historian a lot of courage to write about the Kennedy assassination. It is true that historians are very concerned about being called “conspiratorialists”. Yet, anyone who knows anything about history at all, will be aware that the past is full of examples of how those in power use whatever means they have to keep their secrets from the public. The longest running conspiracy concerns the way democracy has been undermined over the last 300 years. There is no doubt that historians and journalists have let us down in this struggle for the truth. By the way, I assume that this is the same Michael Kurtz who wrote "The Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian's Perspective"? If so, does he still think it is possible that the Soviets were involved in the assassination?

People like Rupert Murdoch argued that the main reason for the Iraq War was that it would result in lower oil prices. This in turn would improve the state of the stock-market and revitalize the American economy. In fact, the occupation of Iraq has not lowered oil prices. The average price at the pump - $1.46 a gallon when George Bush came to office is now well above $3 in many parts of America. It is therefore not surprising that the latest CNN poll shows George Bush with a record low rating of 32%. However, did Bush and his cronies really believe that the invasion of Iraq would lead to lower oil prices? Did they ever really think they could get complete control over Iraq’s oil? Pipelines are easy targets for terrorists. This is a story that rarely appears in the media. What we do know is that oil companies have been making record profits since the invasion. Bush has also rejected calls by Democrats for a windfall tax on oil company profits from the higher prices. Bush was of course heavily backed by the oil industry in the two presidential elections. Maybe he will even bring back the oil depletion allowance.

People like Rupert Murdoch argued that the main reason for the Iraq War was that it would result in lower oil prices. This in turn would improve the state of the stock-market and revitalize the American economy. In fact, the occupation of Iraq has not lowered oil prices. The average price at the pump - $1.46 a gallon when George Bush came to office is now well above $3 in many parts of America. It is therefore not surprising that the latest CNN poll shows George Bush with a record low rating of 32%. However, did Bush and his cronies really believe that the invasion of Iraq would lead to lower oil prices? Did they ever really think they could get complete control over Iraq’s oil? Pipelines are easy targets for terrorists. This is a story that rarely appears in the media. What we do know is that oil companies have been making record profits since the invasion. Bush has also rejected calls by Democrats for a windfall tax on oil company profits from the higher prices. Bush was of course heavily backed by the oil industry in the two presidential elections. Maybe he will even bring back the oil depletion allowance.

Interesting article by Susan Greenfield, professor of pharmacology, about the use of new technologies in the classroom. http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/s...1760103,00.html When you read a book, the author usually takes you by the hand and you travel from the beginning to the middle to the end in a continuous narrative of interconnected steps. It may not be a journey with which you agree, or one that you enjoy, but none the less, as you turn the pages, one train of thought succeeds the last in a logical fashion. We can then compare one narrative with another and, in so doing, start to build up a conceptual framework that enables us to evaluate further journeys, which, in turn, will influence our individualised framework. We can place an isolated fact in a context that gives it a significance. So traditional education has enabled us to turn information into knowledge. Now imagine there is no robust conceptual framework. You are sitting in front of a multimedia presentation where you are unable, because you have not had the experience of many different intellectual journeys, to evaluate what is flashing up on the screen. The most immediate reaction would be to place a premium on the most obvious feature, the immediate sensory content, the "yuk" and "wow" factor. You would be having an experience rather than learning. The sounds and sights of a fast-moving multimedia presentation displace any time for reflection, or any idiosyncratic or imaginative connections we might make as we turn the pages, and then stare at a wall to reflect upon them. Navigation on the internet is wonderful - if you have a conceptual framework in which to embed the responses that flash up. But we should not assume that all children will be so well equipped. The UK Children Go Online investigation by Sonia Livingstone at the London School of Economics found that 92% of nine- to 19-year-olds have accessed the internet from a computer at home or school, but 30% have received no lessons at all on using the internet and only 33% of regular users have been taught how to judge the reliability of online information. We have access to unlimited and up-to-date information at the touch of a button, but in this new, answer-rich world, surely we must ensure that we are able to pose appropriate, meaningful questions? In response to a question I asked in the Lords some weeks ago, the education minister Lord Adonis said:"The ICT curriculum specifically requires pupils at key stages 3 and 4 to be taught to question the plausibility of information and to be discriminating in their use of information sources." That is as may be, but until ICT is fully integrated throughout education (using more than just interactive whiteboards), it will difficult for any child to learn the crucial skills needed to turn information into knowledge. Does this mean young people are acquiring or will need different skills? Memory, for example, may no longer be as essential as it was for those of us who had to learn reams of Latin grammar, but with everything just a click away, perhaps we are at risk of losing our imagination, that mysterious and special cognitive gift that until now has always made the book so much better than the film. I am not proposing that we become IT Luddites, but rather that we could be stumbling into a powerful technology, the impact of which we understand poorly at the moment. Initiatives such as the Economic and Social Research Council-funded seminar series Collaborative Frameworks in Neuroscience and Education have been a catalyst for bringing together neuroscientists and educators to help us start to understand learning and to create an evidence base upon which 21st-century education can be built. But now is the time to ensure public engagement in the process. We need to consider how 21st-century technology can help deliver a 21st-century education system, by coordinating on a nationwide scale, within both the public and private sectors, the best of science and technology initiatives. Many admirable projects are in train, but the public needs to know about them, and they need to know about one another. One such, our own Institute for the Future of the Mind in Oxford (part of the James Martin School for the 21st Century), is asking four questions: What are the influences on children today? Where is the actual evidence of a new type of impact? What do we actually want children to learn? And, most important, how do we deliver these aims using the new technologies? No one independent institution or organisation, no one single project, can take on such a challenge. I believe that drugs, technology and learning are some of the key areas in which science will have a profound impact upon society in the coming years. We are in a crucial period during which science, education and civil society need to come together to ensure that the citizens of 21st-century Britain have the most fulfilling lives possible, in the most successful society possible.

Interesting article by Susan Greenfield, professor of pharmacology, about the use of new technologies in the classroom. http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/s...1760103,00.html All at once, science is delivering a diverse range of biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology with a speed and convergence we could not have predicted even a decade ago. And, as always with new technologies, surrounding the opportunities are numerous pitfalls. Already there are reports of an alarming increase in the use of prescribed and black market drugs medicating the classroom, whether it be Ritalin for enhancing concentration, Prozac for enhancing mood or Pro-vigil for extending alert wakefulness. The problem with these drugs is that they do not target a single trait, such as mood, or concentration, or wakefulness - partly because we do not yet understand how these functions are generated as a cohesive operation in the brain. Rather, drugs manipulate, in a very broad way, the chemicals in the brain. And that, in turn, could have widespread and long-lasting effects. We must consider the cost of enhancing certain ways of thinking and behaving. Drugs and other technologies used to increase concentration and reduce disruptive behaviour may suppress creativity, spontaneity and calculated risk-taking. If these drugs are widely used, we are in danger of squeezing children into a particular mould, turning our schools into factories that produce a single, standard product. The much discussed abuse of proscribed drugs - in particular, cannabis - is highly controversial. A central issue in this particular debate is not whether cannabis, compared with other drugs, is less lethal, or even that it could trigger a predisposition to schizophrenia and depression, but rather that it might well change attention spans and cognitive abilities without that ever becoming apparent as a medical problem. The human brain is exquisitely sensitive to any and every event: we cannot complacently take it as an article of faith that it will remain inviolate and that ways of learning and thinking will remain constant. A new idea is that there is room for improvement. So-called transhumanism, described as "the world's most dangerous idea", promotes the ability of science and technology to go beyond the "norm" (whatever that is) for physical and mental human enhancement. The idea of "enhancement" has some sinister connotations. In the unlikely event that everyone could be improved to the same extent, we would end up in a monotonously homogenous world, predicated on the assumption that each of us was naturally inadequate. Worse still - and more likely - would be the scenario where only a minority were so favoured: a sector of techno-haves increasingly divergent from the have-nots. We must choose to adopt appropriate technologies that will ensure the classroom will fit the child, and buck the growing trend for technologies - including drugs - to be used to make the 21st-century child fit the classroom. The educational needs of the individual are changing, and the very nature of the classroom needs to change, too.

Here are some of the responses to Max Hastings' article: (1) It seems to me that Max Hastings is really asking the question "Are we French or Palestinians?' The answer rather depends on whether he sees us more like the French in basically acquiescing to occupation or like the Palestinians in resisting the occupation and fighting in whatever way we could against the occupier. (2) What Max Hastings means is "I would have done the same under Nazi occupation". Did he offer any reistance to Thatcherism? (3) Mr Hastings you are absolutely correct, I dare say that many of the opposing remarks are from people who were not alive before the last war. There was an enormous amount of anti Semitism amongst the working people before the war because of money lending, landlordism, etc - much the same as in Germany and it would have been easily erupted here if we had been subjected to Nazi rule, plus the fact most of our ruling classes would have welcomed the invaders as at that time we the working people were ripe for political change and they knew it. The war and the new greed of profit from it saved the ruling classes and they know it. I was there at the time and witnessed it all except for the period when I somewhat foolishly volunteered as an infantry soldier and physically defended my country (that is to say the working people of my country). Now we are subject to the occupation of this our precious land by the foreign forces of American fascism, from whence they indiscriminately bomb innocent women and children and our government is corrupted by them. We the true English and our dead comrades view you all with disgust, shame on you. (4) Hastings, a better military historian than contemporary humane human, overlooks one important point. It was the French POLICE who led away Jews to the Nazi death chambers. It was the same with the Dutch Police. A change of leadership command and suddenly 50,000 citizens are on their way to death-camps. It was citizens in both of those countries who took to hiding Jews. I don't consider it a "us" or a "we" or an "I" would have collaborated with the Nazis. The British Police would have, because the British Police, like all Police, are inherently fascist - they are inadequate little people unable to perform use or function without a the power-structure they grow heady on. (5) Anyone interested in the history of the resistance should read something about Le Groupe Manouchian (the Manouchian Group) and L'Affaire de l'affiche rouge (the Red Poster Affair), about an important resistance group in the Paris region. For the most part made up of immigrants and Jews, they carried out some spectacular attacks (including blowing up the Nazi bookshop in Boulevard Saint-Michel by placing a bomb in a hollowed-out copy of Das Kapital and leaving it on a shelf.....). They were eventually betrayed and captured. The French authorities mounted a show trial which was radio-broadcast for propaganda purposes--- to demonstrate to the French population that much of the REsistance was in fact the work of immigrants, Jews and Communists. To this end, they published an inflammatory poster describing the accused as "Juif hongrois, communist espagnol" and so on. At the end of the trial, they were all found guilty and shot. The propaganda efforts actually backfired, and Resistance activity increased after the show trial. But the episode does demonstrate that the French authorities in collaboration with the occupiers did believe they could strike a chord with many amongst the populace by propagating the idea that the Resistance was not something run by ordinary, patriotic Frenchmen, rather by Communists, Jews, immigrants, etc. Arthur Koestler's book, The Scum of the Earth, also sheds interesting light on these issues. (6) Different countries under German occupation behaved very differently in regard to saving Jews or helping Germans to deport them to their death: the entire spectrum from Denmark and Norway (sheltering their Jewish population), Belgium (extensive network to save them) all the way to France and the Channel Islands (active collaboration of local police in rounding up Jews). Ditto for German allies: Italy did its utmost to save Jews in "its" parts of Yugoslavia and France (sticking its neck much more that the Western allies), Bulgaria saved "its" Jews, as did Hungary under Horthy. Finland offered them shelter. Slovakia handed them over promptly to the Germans, as did Hungary after the Szilasi coup. And Croatia exterminated them in situ. And the allies also behaved differently. The Soviet Union accepted fleeing Jews, the Western allies did not and Britain did its level best to prevent them from fleeing to Palestine: reading some comments above one can understand where this was coming from. All this is a matter of historical record. Of course, these are valid questions: what made different societies behave differently. It has indeed been investigated by historians and philosophers, but perhaps should be asked by general public, not in order to conduct a vendetta against that generation but to prevent another Rwanda or Darfur. Anyway, I join Max Hastings in recommending Irene Nemirovski's book. (7) Max, a very thoughtful and sensitive piece. Shame some of the comments seem to come from migrant Sun readers. I live in France, whose WWII history is indeed complex. The Gaullist refrain was certainly that everyone was a resistant. But in the '70s, a shoal of books and films - like Louis Malle's excellent 'Lacombe Lucien' - implied that everyone was a collabo. Since then, fact and fiction have produced a far more tangled tale. For example. The Perigord Noir, where I live, took in many urban Jews, particularly those from Alsace (despite having very few resident Jews); a leading Sarlat personality was decorated by Israel for his role in sheltering them. But, at the end of the war, a German regiment stuffed with Alsatiens stormed through the region committing atrocities, including the razing of Oradour a little further north. Even now, there is much anti-Alsatien resentment. Sarlat, the capital of the region, has a war memorial on which - unlike those of most other French provincial towns -the number of WWII resistants and murdered civilians far outnumbers that from WWI. Andre Malraux was the head of the very active local resistance movement; in the '60s, he became de Gaulle's culture minister and financed the restoration of the old town in Sarlat, using it as a model for other successful restorations.

I am not convinced that American journalists did fully expose the Watergate Scandal. The real story has never been told. Felt was not Deep Throat (although he did supply some information). Sirica also played his role in directing attention away from Operation Sandwedge (Operation Gemstone was not really the big story). It was the CIA that got rid of Nixon. He could not fight back because the CIA knew about his really serious crimes.

People interested in this topic might want to look at this thread: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6386 I found Sherry's views on the position of the gunman who fired the shot that hit JFK in the head very stimulating. I would be interested in what some of our gun experts think of this theory.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Gerald D. McKnight for his great book, Breach of Trust. I am fully aware that it takes a historian a lot of courage to write about the Kennedy assassination. It is true that historians are very concerned about being called “conspiratorialists”. Yet, anyone who knows anything about history at all, will be aware that the past is full of examples of how those in power use whatever means they have to keep their secrets from the public. The longest running conspiracy concerns the way democracy has been undermined over the last 300 years. There is no doubt that historians and journalists have let us down in this struggle for the truth. By the way, I assume that this is the same Michael Kurtz who wrote "The Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian's Perspective"? If so, does he still think it is possible that the Soviets were involved in the assassination?

Henry Heckscher is indeed someone who needs to be looked at (he was also involved in the setting up of Operation 40). I believe Larry Hancock is going to take a look at Heckscher in the second edition of Someone Would Have Talked. I hope you don't mean he has died. Gerry left after refusing to answer direct questions about his knowledge of the assassination. If he is still lurking I would like to ask him why he did not sue Mark Lane for publishing Marita Lorenz's testimony in Plausible Denial.

The photograph shows a reenactment of an 1895 battle in the Cuban war of independence. It was commissioned by Castro to show the links between the revolution and imperialism. The caption claimed that the revolutionaries were taking over a plantation owned by the US-owned United Fruit Company in 1959. In fact, it was taken several months after Castro gained power and had nothing to do with the revolution. Although meant as a work of propaganda, the photograph illustrates a basic truth about the revolution. It posed a serious threat to the interests of American capitalists who had invested in the region. Their main concern was that events in Cuba would spread to other Third World countries where huge profits were being obtained. It therefore became important to companies like United Fruit to get rid of Castro very quickly. To obtain this objective they were willing to fund agents from Operation 40 to kill Castro. As David Phillips points out in his autobiography, this was a pointless activity as the Castro regime was firmly established by 1961 and only an invasion by the American military would have the required outcome. After the Bay of Pigs it became clear that this would not happen. Therefore, a much more sensible option would be to kill Kennedy rather than Castro. It was a natural reaction to employ the same people who had been trying to kill Castro, to kill Kennedy (Operation 40).

As you know, I have volunteered to do a section on the E-HELP website on resistance. There was a very stimulating article by Max Hastings on the Nazi Occupation of France. You can read it here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6655